Jason and Angie Bechtel Bringing Hope to Unreached People Groups
Where were we earlier tonight? At Christmas in the Country, of course!
This was our second time going. We had a blast!
The girls (and Jason) all got to ride in a little atv-drawn train. And we all went on a horse drawn wagon. We saw geese, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens. Even alpacas.
And we got to hold baby rabbits.
But the best part was likely getting our photos with… nope, not Santa Claus (that line up was too long) … but with Vixon.
Last night we were able to attend the staff open house up at Jungle Camp. There are 5 houses this year and one of them is my brother’s. His was the most unique, being triangular in shape! I’m pretty sure that’s the first time that’s ever been done in all the years in Jungle Camp!
It was fun to visit him ‘in the forest’ as the girls were telling anyone and everyone! He served us a fine supper of chicken and rice with pickled carrots (compliments of some friends of his and ours). The pickled carrots were a first for us, but very tasty!
The girls had fun playing on his dirt floor with his wood for burning in his clay oven, but the evening ended a bit abruptly when daughter #1 accidently threw a piece of wood THROUGH his wall! Whoops! Thankfully it should be patched up fairly easily with man’s best tool: duct tape!
Here are some photos of some of the houses:
An insulated hot water tank and its proud owners
Steps just her height!
Testing out someone's hammock
At the Uncle's
Ok, so I guess we need to go back to the beginning of March for our family news. Delena turned 5 as I mentioned before. I also promised some pictures with the birthday party that was still to come. One month later, here they are! 
Also since then, our baby turned one! Myelle had her first birthday on March 30. That same week, only a few days earlier, she decided that she was done with the whole crawling stage. She still will crawl every once in a while, but our little one-year-old walks all over the place. She really likes crawling up and down our stairs too and tries, desperately, to keep up with her older sisters.
She was the typical child as far as cake-eating goes and had it all over her face as the pictures show. What the pictures don’t show is all the neon-pink icing that is smeared into her nice white church stockings! You’d think I’d remember by the third child that I should remove all clothing for the cake event! Thankfully it all came out in the wash!
The next thing on the calendar was Easter. This past weekend we had a four day weekend. Something unusual happened…we didn’t have ANYTHING planned for Friday OR Saturday! We had two days in a row with just our family. Okay, so there was ONE little thing planned –an Easter Egg hunt over at Delena’s school. We took the neighbour girl with us so I stuck with her and Delena while Jason had the two younger girls in a different section. They all came home with a basket of goodies, and, of course, they got to see the ‘Easter Bunny’.
The two days were cold, but sunny days, so we went for a family walk the one afternoon and played in the park and the next afternoon we drove up to Walter’s Falls and walked the trails there. We need that relaxing time as the next two days were filled with people. On Sunday we drove down to Jason’s mom’s place after church. We re-celebrated Delena and Myelle’s birthdays, as well as, a few other family members birthdays. There was LOTS of cake to be had, plus an Easter egg hunt which provided us with plenty of chocolate.
Monday was my family Easter which was turned into a surprise 40th birthday brunch for one of my cousins. We ended up having close to 30 people and my cousin was completely surprised. What a great way to end the weekend!
One month down in the year 2012! Wow! I think it’s true that time goes by faster the older you get and I should know since I’ve just hit the milestone of turning 30! Jason likes to remind me quite frequently that he’s younger than me, but I like to remind him to respect his elders!
Jason is still up in the air with his health. He has a Dr.’s appointment on February 17, so please pray that we would get some direction from the doctor. In the meantime, we suspect that Jason has Crohn’s on top of the Celiac Disease, so we’re trying to limit his fibre and his stress. He’s been doing very well at not opening his laptop at home to do office work and is taking time to read for enjoyment and I think it is helping some.
Delena recently brought home a certificate saying that she knows all her letters – upper and lower case. The teacher has also started sending home little readers. It’s so fun to see her recognize words!
Lorelei is at the age of potty-training. She’s very consistent at telling me when she has to go, but she doesn’t like to tell anyone else if I’m not around, so we’re working on that!
Myelle is SO close to walking! Just yesterday, she took her first steps!
Here she is on her way down – if you didn’t know better, you might think she knew how to dance already!
Let’s see…we’re now in 2012…what has happened in the last little while?? I guess I’ll start back at Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas break. It was fun having Delena home every day. It seemed a little strange though, I’m not sure why since it was only a couple months ago that she was home every day! We actually spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents, with my sister and her family and my brother. We haven’t all been together on Christmas morning in three years probably, just because of work schedules mostly.
We spent Boxing Day with Jason’s Mom and all his siblings.
Then the 27th we were back at home in order to have Jason’s Dad over to our place. Each day came with a turkey dinner and, of course, there were lots of leftovers to follow! It was also nice that Jason could have a few days off between Christmas and New Years where we didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything!
New Year’s Eve we were home with a few family members and we managed to make it until midnight! It was a short night though with church in the morning!
The next week we had a nice surprise and my cousin was able to come for a visit with her two boys. We’ve stayed at their place a number of times, so it was nice to have them to our place for a change. I got to take them all for the winter version of the ‘Jungle Camp’ tour. I think the kids just liked building the snowman at the end of the tour. They didn’t really care too much for trudging through the snow, but at least they all slept well after that!
Yep, the bridge can hold their weight!
Julie and her boys had never been to Jungle Camp
That week there was also free skating each afternoon at the Durham Arena, so we decided we should attempt to take all the kids skating. Ever been skating with a 1, 2, 3, and 4 year old? That doesn’t even include Myelle! Jason and my brother both came with us to help and it still took us a half hour to get everyone’s skates on! That left us with a half hour to skate, but that was enough. Thankfully some friends were at the arena and one of them graciously watched Myelle on the sidelines and another one helped Lorelei out quite a bit. By the end of the time, the kids were just starting to get the hang of things and we forgot our camera, so we decided to try again the next day.
Lorelei showing us how it is done. Not bad for being the first time on skates.
eventually Delena did catch onto how to use the pilon
Our second round of skating, Jason stayed home with Myelle and just two adults took the four kids. Again, a half hour of lacing, but the allotted skating time was longer, so we could actually be on the ice for a full hour. This time we took lots pictures and the kids did a lot better!
Myelle is now almost 6 months old. She’s growing up way too fast. She loves to roll around on the living room floor, spin in her exersaucer and jump in the jolly-jumper. Here’s a little video of her:
For about a month now, she’s been getting up on all 4′s and rocking back and forth as though she’ll crawl away at any moment. She doesn’t even sit up yet! Last week she improved on that movement by sticking her little bum up in the air. She was so proud of herself. I took a few pictures, but I’m not sure they do it justice.
The other night she took things another step and rolled her bum to the side and put herself into a sitting position! Look out big sisters, I’m gonna be trouble soon!
Summer has been flying by with lots of fun activities. A few of the highlights have been the Martin Family Reunion and our vacation to Odosagih in New York State.
For the Martin Reunion, 7 out of the 8 siblings were able to gather at my Grandma’s cottage in Bayfield. It was a beautiful sunny day with lots of visiting and catching up as we had family from as far as Switzerland and New Brunswick!
Back in July we had the privilege of taking our first family vacation in New York State to Odosagih Bible Conference. My parents and my sister and her family were also able to join us. Jason and I enjoyed the twice-a-day teaching done by Dr. Terry Anger, a fellow Canadian. Delena was in the Sunday School program and came home with different crafts each day. Lorelei and Myelle joined their cousin in the nursery program. In the afternoon we took in various activities such as shopping, blueberry picking and, of course, lots of swimming!
One of Jason’s most favourite past times is gardening. This year he doubled the size of the garden compared to what it was last year. He has added several things, including a row of raspberry bushes and a few blueberry plants. We’ve already been enjoying those delicious fruits! My favourite vegetable though, is peas. It seems like a lot of work to pod all those peas, but I sure enjoy them. This was the first year that we’ve had enough that we can actually freeze some. The girls volunteered to help me with the podding and I was quite impressed that they stuck it out for an hour! I was quite amazed that Lorelei could even get the pods open, but she did and was quite diligent about her work. She hardly munched on them at all and I never said that she couldn’t.
These 41 fabulous family photos were taken by Kristina Marilyn: kristinamarilynphotos.blogspot.com
“Ms. Bechtel, you were going 85 in a 50.” Our 5-year wedding anniversary was off to an expensive start.
The police officer was kind enough to knock the offense down to 60 in a 50 km/h. It was on a fairly rural road, with homes only on one side of the road. The speed limit along there kept going from 80 km/h to 50 km/h and back, so I think he knew what he was doing, waiting for us at that particular spot.
Angie’s embarrassing moment was soon over-shadowed by one of Jason’s.
When we got to the hotel, we realized that when we had dropped Delena and Lorelei off at the sitter’s, that Jason had unpacked a little too much. Myelle’s bag was no longer with us. No clothes. No diapers. No snugli. Thankfully Angie had two outfits in Myelle’s diaper bag, which was still with us, and we were able to buy some diapers.
Embarrassing moments out of the way, we had a really relaxing two nights away in Wallaceburg, ON. Co-workers of ours, Wes and Brenda Dyck, were so kind to keep Delena and Lorelei for us.
While Angie’s favourite part about the hotel was the extremely large pool, Jason liked that our room came with supper one night, and breakfast both mornings!
On the way home to Durham, we were able to stop in and wish our mother’s a “Happy Mother’s Day” and do a little bit of shopping! Both Delena and Lorelei were thrilled to see us too! All said and done, it ended up being a very restful weekend, once we got beyond the shaky start.
We are thrilled to announce the birth of our third daughter, Myelle Sonya Bechtel.
Myelle came into this world at 1:12pm, Wednesday, March 30th. She weighed a whopping 9 lbs 1 oz, and measured in at 21 inches long. Everyone is doing great!
As with our first two, we wanted the gender to be a surprise. But there was so much that was different with this pregnancy, we were pretty sure it wasn’t going to be another girl. In the end, Delena got her wish, another girl!
