Answer to prayer

It's so encouraging to see God at work in a practical and visible way. We know that so many enjoy keeping up to date with what we're doing here and that's great. What's even more encouraging for us is that we know many are also using the news we share in order to pray more intelligently for the ministry. It does take time to keep the blog up to date but it is a great joy to see how God is answering specific prayer as a result. We want to be able to keep you updated on the answers as well as the requests.

Last week I mentioned our dilemma over where we should have our second baby. On Monday Margaret, one of our fellow missionaries, went with a close Mexican friend of hers to check out a clinic. She was impressed with the facility and the doctor and came to tell us about it. I got the number the next day and though it was nearly 6.30pm when I phoned I was able to get an appointment for Wednesday. We also liked the doctor and found the clinic to be very clean and busy. It's at least half the price of anywhere else we have looked at and the doctor's appointments are also considerably cheaper. We checked out the rooms as well and everything seems great.

Basically our doctor's appointments will cost £10 ($20) each and the delivery (without complications) will cost £550 ($1100). That's a total price including doctors and paediatricians (who must be there and do all the post-birth 'stuff' with the baby. It's a one-night stay and though Tabitha will not be allowed to visit (Mexico regulation!) Andrew will have a bed in the ward (private) to be able to stay over. Of course we have our wonderful missionary family who are already volunteering to look after Tabitha.

So praise God. An answer to prayer and we feel confident that He had this place planned for us. We have had such difficulty until now finding a doctor or making appointments...perhaps now we know why. So all being well it looks like we will be planning to return to the UK around April 2008 and will look forward to seeing some of you then.

We also had an ultrasound done which determined that we are at about 18 weeks and we have been given the 21st February as a tentative date (Tabitha's birthday is the 20th!). We were told the sex of the baby but as yet we have not decided whether to publicly announce. If you really want to know just drop us a note and we'll be happy to tell! Praise God everything looks to be fine so far.