A very hard night, but a fun day!

Let's begin with last night. I have had a cold since Saturday, and last night, made the bad choice to stay up and watch a movie (the movie was good, I just should have gone to bed). Dan and I got into bed around 10:30pm, and my coughing started up. It was very difficult for me to fall asleep, and of course I kept Dan up as well. Thankfully, I had fallen asleep. Around 3am last night, I heard the loudest sound I have ever heard. Of course, it woke me up, but then a rush of fear ran through my body, and I asked Dan if he had heard it as well. We were both so deep in sleep, that we really couldn't figure out what would have made the sound. I thought of three possibilities: An elephant fell on our roof; it was a gun shot right outside my window; someone was using an ax to break into our back door which has bars on it. It was such a loud thump, and yet sounded metallic and heavy.

BOOM!!! There it was again, and this time, Dan and I both heard it clearly and there was something very wrong happening outside of our house. (Actually, it was soooo incredibly loud, that the people living in the two neighboring houses thought it was happening to their house). Dan decided to get up and check things out. Both of us, being very scared, got out of bed, but as we were walking into our living room, the sound came again and again. I thought for sure we were getting robbed! So, Dan pushed the emergency button which is on our living room wall. It immediately contacts Team Security who then comes very quickly to check things out. They all wears these masks that make them look like Darth Vader, so we call them the "Truck Load of Darth Vaders". When the emergency button is pushed, it lets out this very loud and annoying siren that is very similar to the car alarms in the U.S. (you know the one that changes every 5 seconds, giving off a new alarm sound? that's the one.) Even though the siren was loud, we could still hear the thunking, which now seemed to be coming from all around the house. As well, we could hear men screaming from the other side of the security wall behind our house.

Eventually, the alarm went off, but with no sign of the Darth Vaders. Dan and I thought this was very strange, because they are usually quick to respond. After hearing another loud thunk, we pushed the button again. Then Jay Stoms called us to see what we thought was going on, and of course we didn't know. We were too scared to be near any windows or to go outside!!!

Still, the Darth Vaders didn't come, so Jay hit the alarm again. Eventually, we were told that people from the other side of the wall were throwing bricks at our house, most of them landing on the roof, but a few hitting the side of the house (thankfully no windows were broken), and one landed on the Stom's car. The story began to unfold, and yet even now, Dan has just given me new details of what really happened last night.

Apparently, there were 3 thieves being chased by some security guards further up the hill from us, on the other side of the wall. One or two were caught, but the guards from the top of the hill began chasing the other guy down the hill, while different guards chased up the hill to get the same guy. The guards didn't think they would manage to get this guy, so they decided to throw bricks over the wall, to get our attention. That way, we would freak out (as we did) and push our emergency button, and the Darth Vaders would come and help them to catch these thieves. Sounds like a good plan, except that it was very careless of them, as we have guards sitting out back, and could have been hit by one of those bricks. Not to mention the damage they did to our "sturdy" tin roof, our windows, and our cars!!!

The story continues. While this is all happening, we still do not know what is going on; whether or not we are being robbed or what! The Darth Vaders aren't coming to the rescue, and the banging/booming/thunking continues. I was just informed that as the guards we chasing the same guy towards each other, and they met in the middle, each group of guards mistook the other group to be the bad guys. The guards ended up in a brawl with one of the guards getting injured. That must have been the yelling and screaming that we heard.

Ahh, it was quite an ordeal. Around 4am, Dan and I finally got settled down to get back to bed, but my heart was still racing and my cough came back. Needless to say, it was a hard night.


BUT....today, although it has also been tiring and hard, has been fun. Dan and I went to our first prenatal appointment at the clinic during our breaks at school. They did blood work and everything turned out just fine:) As well, we did get to hear the heart beat!!! It was so exciting to hear my own heart beat, which was kind of slow and relaxed, and then to hear the baby's which was so fast, but normal. Dan and I both got teary eyed, just so thankful that littlest is doing well, growing in my womb. We still cannot believe that there is a growing being inside me, with a beating heart. God's perfect design is so amazing and overwhelmingly creative!

Thank you again, for praying for littlest, our health, our safety, our marriage, our jobs, the outreaches,