Katelyn Hope Biggs

Anyone who has followed this blog, been a supporter or friend for a good length of time would know that April and May every year are exceptionally busy. Every year we hold the Catalyst Youth Leadership Academy, Conquest Camps and host foreign guests and students for six weeks. It is also ordinarily one of our favorite times of the year too. This year was no less busy and definitely no less our favorite but for an additional and different reason.

 

April saw the arrival of our beautiful daughter, Katelyn Hope Biggs. I really wanted a home water birth and although we believed it possible there were some impressive obstacles to overcome. Not the least of which was the lack of bath tub, jacuzzi or pool. However, my amazing husband came to my rescue and turned our shower into a bath tub. This proved absolutely amazing in the last few weeks and was perfect for Katelyn's birth.

 

Katelyn arrived safe and sound 30 minutes after our incredible midwife arrived at our house, she has been such a blessing to our family and has gone above and beyond what I expected from a midwife. We will always be grateful for Heather Boswell, her gentle touch, knowledge, patience and wisdom.  

 

 

Ethan and Jasmine love having a baby sister and as part of his home schooling I asked Ethan to write some thoughts for this blog.

 

From Ethan

I love my baby sister. She is so cute and cuddly. God has blessed us with our new baby sister. She understands more then I thought she would. She smiles lots but also has a loud cry. Her neck is not strong yet.

 

For those of you who don't know, our Katelyn is a miracle and we have been on a journey of hope being restored through the process of her coming into our family. Below is a video sharing about that journey from a sermon I preached at Impact Life Church in Kentucky.

 

 

Thought for the month: Spend time with people who make you laugh. Pastor Kelly Floyd we miss you and your ability to make us cry we are laughing so hard.

Baganga Typhoon Relief

This month's blog features one very handsome and talented man, someone who I have been privileged to be married to for 14 years. Glen has been helping out in the typhoon devastated area and made some short videos while he was up there last time.

So this blog is to show you some of the hands on practical work we are privileged to do in this disaster zone. Bear in mind that these videos are taken months after the typhoon but the areas is still a mess. The local schools still have no electricity, no running water and missing part of their fence and roof.

This video focuses on the work at a local church where we can say we have friends now.

Enjoy!!!

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Cornerstone LIFE Academy



There is something so powerful about friendship and strong Godly relationships. Over the years we have been blessed to have experienced several close ties to people we love, respect and honor. It is particularly wonderful to find a family of like faith and passion who we connect with and truly believe in.

 

Pastor Jun and Teresa Suarez are one such couple, an amazing family, a passionate vision and hearts of gold. They started a school in Davao last year and I have been privileged to teach there one day a week, helping in a number of different areas and delivering rice once a month from a church in Australia.

 

This video is a quick look into my teaching at Cornerstone L.I.F.E Academy.

 

 

 

 

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Post Flood Thank You!

It is astounding to us how many people rallied to our support through these last few weeks. We have been overwhelmed by messages of encouragement, by words of hope and also received many donations to help us with what we have lost and also just to set up our new house and prepare for our baby.

During this blog I would like to answer a few frequently asked questions and although our words seem hardly sufficient we would like to express our appreciation for your love, generosity and kindness.

Questions:
1. How did Sarah evacuate but your car still got flooded?
We were super blessed at the time to driving a borrowed 4wd, so we had both cars in our driveway. By the time Sarah was evacuating the only car that could handle the current of the river was the 4wd and she evacuated in that car leaving our little Kia to get a car wash that won't quit.

2. Is your baby ok and the pregnancy going well?

Sarah and the baby are both doing great. We were very blessed to have two wonderful families who provided somewhere for our family to stay during this crisis. The Cracknells and the Boswells were both amazing hosts. Sarah experienced quite a scare on the day of the flood with several hours of contractions in the midst of it but Amber's prayers and a place to relax and calm down helped stop that from turning into something far worse.

Heather Boswell is Sarah's midwife and staying with their family for one night was very reassuring and calming for her. Heather has such a gentle and kind way about her she could calm anyone's concerns.

3. What happened to your beagle puppy?
Asoka our 10 month old puppy evacuated with Sarah and the kids, she was quite traumatized by whole situation but is well settled into our new house now and is relaxed and enjoying the new water free house. She moved to the new house at 6pm on Saturday and had to swim with Sarah's help to the car to evacuate the following morning. She stayed with the Cracknell family and their two dogs the first night and then with the Boswell family and their many dogs, cats, birds and even a turtle for the second night. When we did return home the mud in the yard meant she had to do some mud runs and was filthy for about three days as we worked through getting all the mud out.
However, right now Glen and Ethan are preparing plans to build her a dog house outside and she is happily barking at the goats across the road who were rude enough to think they could even get close to our property.

4. Is there still water in your village now?
The village is different levels and so some areas we drive through look like they are almost back to normal, while in some parts there are houses which still have water in them even now. We are very blessed to be in one of the higher points so when the water receded it left our house quite quickly but forgot to take its mud along for the journey back to the river.

5. How did Ethan and Jasmine handle the event?
Apart from the initial evacuation which was a little scary they actually enjoyed staying with friends and the no school for a week. Ethan experienced first hand what a strong current can do to a small body, Sarah was particularly greatful the gate was closed at the time and Jasmine was astounded at how cold the river water was as it flowed through our yard and house.

All in all this will definitely be an event we won't forget in a hurry but some of the best memories in this are our friends, families and partners standing along side us.

Thank you!!

 

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Flash Flood

Sometimes a video says it better than I can possibly type, however I will add a few thoughts. Today it is two weeks since my son's infamous statement, as we were evacuating, "well Mum we will never forget the first night in our new home." How right he is. Although I must admit while the flood will obviously be in my memory I can honestly say that the predominant memory will be the overwhelming love, support, prayers and offers for help.

If you don't know what happened, here is the short version. Last month we posted about moving house and we were able to accomplish that on January 19th. We sat down for dinner in our new house at 6.30pm on the 19th and our new house  found itself in the path of a flash flood early Sunday morning of the 20th.

We have not been very specific in exactly what we need until now because it has taken us this long to clean up, sort through the mess and actually determine what was lost. While we could list everything we lost we want to instead right now focus on how incredible God has been to our family, we have been abundantly blessed and were able to  save some of the more important irreplaceable items like photos, scrapbooks,  certificates and kids drawings. God's hand was distinctly on our family through this event and  we want to  acknowledge His love, His protection and look forward to watching even more of His provision.

We have added a short video with some footage Glen took during the flood and some of the aftermath and clean up.

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2013 Winds of Change

2013 is starting out to be a year filled with change on so many levels. Personally I am someone who embraces change, I see it as necessary for growth and development of me as an individual and also for any organization. No change means stagnation. Well, we are definitely not at risk of stagnating this year.

I hope you enjoy the short video welcoming 2013, thanks for hanging with us and walking this journey called life as a friend and someone we can call on for help. We love to hear from you and look forward to those of you who have expressed a desire to visit us this year.

 

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