Aubrey's back. What else is news?

I guess for starters, she's pregnant. That's news. I regret that I don't usually break big news on the blog at its earliest timing, but that's due to a lot of factors. You should be glad I tell you ANYthing!!!!!

Well, that was uncalled for. But yeah, she's pregnant and definitely experiencing her fair share of morning sickness over the course of morning, noon, and night. All the typical symptoms are present and accounted for. We appreciate them.

Going to Kagoshima and Miyakonojo (which is about 90 minutes away by train) on Thurs night to Tues morning in order to fellowship w/ our missionary friends and also visit an English-speaking Dr there for a baby-type checkup. It's 1st come 1st served at this place, and I don't expect that, though we plan to be among the 1st there, even before opening time, we'll get in among the 1st, given that we're gaijin and all. But I could be surprised. Since it opens around 8:30 am and we have to be on a train around 1 pm, it might get tight. But at least we get to go to church! Church rocks our pants off.

We haven't been on the Net recently b/c there was a lightning storm on Saturday night, and it apparently knocked out our DSL modem. It was a nice storm, actually - reminded us of home. Some pretty impressive thunderstrikes, I must say. So we had to wait until Monday to get the Internet guy to come out, which he did, w/ a new modem. But our ISP had never sent us our ISP password or UserID so we couldn't log in. And the liberry's Internet filter is so strong that it blocks gmail, blogger, hotmail, and yahoo. Mmmm, OK. And two friends who have Internet are out of town. So we were stuck until finally this afternoon Aubrey received the UserID and pass in the mail. Finally! It's a pain to be stuck w/o. But we appreciate it all the more, I assure you.

Recently I'd say we're on a downer - we kind of feel like our work here on Kikai is done. Thankfully, the Lord still provides opportunities to tell people the Good News; we had another conversation just Friday night. Nobody is exactly falling on their knees and asking us how to be saved at this time, which is unfortunate, but it's not like we expect that necessarily. I guess we just kind of feel like the Word of Life has been shared here a fair amount and now it might be best to move on. And we're tired of being so far from everything else. That's just how we feel; I'm not saying it's right. It resembles culture shock in a lot of ways. I can remember feeling kind of similar depressed feelings while studying in France, only then they came w/in about 4-5 months, whereas here they've waited until around the 9 month mark. Don't know what to make of that. Emotions are usually reliable to prove emotions only. And the fact that it's the rainy season doesn't help all that much, I would guess.

Tonight it was --gasp!-- rainy, and surprisingly kind of chilly, so we watched Luther on DVD. Man, that really is a good movie. There are a few lines that seem kind of out of place from Luther, but mostly it's quite enjoyable, gripping, depressing, and thought-provoking all at once. Glad we bought it (used for about $6.50 after shipping). I'm also just beginning to read Huizinga's The Autumn of the Middle Ages and so I'm feeling all cathedral-y. Like I want to listen to some chanting and light a few candles. And visit Europe. Yeah, definitely visit Europe...