Emmylou Achinoam

Our second daughter arrived Monday night at 9:05 after a smooth and quick delivery. The grace of G-d was very evident during the whole process -- the baby was never in distress, I was only in labor for three hours and she arrived into my arms healthy, pink and ready for love. We are so thankful for your prayers and care throughout this pregnancy and especially during the labor. Being part of a body so big and loving has made her arrival extremely exciting.

Throughout the last few months we talked through a handful of names we thought appropriate for our daughter. There was never a long list, which made it easy and difficult at the same time. At Yom Kippur we received a prophecy about our baby being a strong warrior and as I prayed about what this meant the L-rd gave me Revelation 9-12. Surely this child will proclaim a powerful message. There are few names for girls that carry the weight of "strong warrior" but when Tom turned to our list of names we gathered while pregnant with Cassidy he found Emmylou. At one point it was our #1 choice for Cassidy, but obviously we ended up not using it. 

Now we can see the leading of the L-rd: Emmylou means famous warrior.

Since I was not 100% in love with the name I asked the L-rd, repeatedly, if Emmylou was supposed to be her name. I heard YES every time. I began to bless her spirit by calling her Emmylou and I started to feel the importance of her name. Now that she is here she is definitely our Emmylou.

The middle name was also a process for us. We did not hesitate with giving her an "American" and somewhat old-timey name, fitting in with our other children, but felt it would be helpful for her to have a more Hebrew/Israeli middle name. Depending on where her Father leads her, she might end up back in Israel and if that is the case we want her to have a name she can use here that will fit more with the culture plus she was born in Jerusalem!

We had several options we considered: Tikvah (Hope), Simcha (Joy), Halleli (Praise). I kept coming back to something completely different -- Achinoam. I first heard this name at our Hebrew congregation and immediately filed it away for later use.

So what does it mean?!

My brother is a delight.

How do you say it?!

Ach- ee-no-ahm. If it's too much to gather phlegm for the Ach, it's ok to say it with a hard 'k' sound. The point is to connect with the eternal perspective that though her brothers are not here they are part of her life and part of her message. 

In the weeks leading up to her birth the L-rd spoke about her middle name. I like the previous names mentioned but none of them resounded in my heart as much as Achinoam (for obvious reasons, right?). Then about a week and a half ago, as I blessed her spirit out of Arthur Burk's book, Blessing Your Spirit With the Blessings of Your Father and the Names of G-d, I felt the stirrings of His timing and His will. The title of the blessing was "Used by G-d to Turn the Enemy's Plans Upside Down" and the scripture was Esther 9:20-22:

Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces 

of King Xerxes, near and far, to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days 

of the month of Adar as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month 

when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. 

He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one 

another and gifts to the poor.

We just observed these events in Jerusalem on Sunday and Monday, the holiday called Purim, when young and old alike dress up in costumes, dance in the streets, feast like kings and give gifts of food to each other. It had not occurred to me that my due date was so close to Purim. The two seemed like such separate events. But in that moment of calling Emmylou's spirit to attention and blessing her to recognize that "the death of Jesus on the cross was not the end of something, but rather the beginning" I realized something. I asked Him about her middle name and He told me, no her name is not Hope or Joy or Esther. She is not your Hope, or your Joy. I AM. It is through her that I am giving you more hope and joy, but just like that blessing said, it is about Me. And in that moment I knew Achinoam, my brother is a delight, was the name. It connects her, and all of us, with the eternal perspective that we live this life for His glory, for His Kingdom, and whether we get to delight in our brothers now or when the King returns, it is all a delight because it's from Him.

And now that she is here, in our arms, we are delighting in His ways. Three and a half years after Zeke joined the Heavenly Army we now have another warrior for the Kingdom. And though Achinoam means a singular brother, it represents Zeke and Wyatt and every other loved one that has been called to prepare the way of the L-rd's return. 

A day in her life

Today is Cassidy's 6th birthday! This is just a typical walk to school, speaking Hebrew with Abba while the Orthodox family wonders who we are. In case it doesn't show up (I've been told it's not cooperating) here's a link. She's telling Tom how to ask, "How old is your daughter".

The L-rd Tests the Righteous

Psalm 11:5 - "The L-rd tests the righteous."

A Talmudic saying in response to this Psalm:

Why then should the sufferings be inflicted upon the righteous? The potter does not test the cracked vessel and the Holy One does not test the wicked, but the righteous.

Blessings Abound

Wednesday was a day of personal blessing; we want to tell you that the L-rd has moved in such a wonderful way to encourage us and keep us in Jerusalem! A recap:

-I visited the midwife and the baby is growing well, she is head down (which is the right position), my blood pressure is normal and I checked out pretty healthy. We're awaiting results about a possible infection, so we're asking for prayer that I am infection-free, meaning no UTI's or GBS.

Some friends gave us a nice car seat to use.
Cassidy's baby Lulu loves it.

-Tom negotiated a new lease for the apartment we're currently in. Our lease is up at the end of February (the same time the baby is supposed to arrive!) so it was crucial that we get something resolved. Now that we know we will be in this apartment for the arrival of the baby we can set up the baby's room and put our minds at ease that we don't have to go apartment hunting and furniture shopping.

-We also received news that the special gift for our housing was renewed, so we are able to stay here for a year. Since this was a special one-time gift last year which covered our rent expense we were not counting on this BUT are extremely thankful for it!

-We got our totals for the year-end and are blessed by the people who gave one-time gifts, renewed their monthly pledges and those who increased their monthly donations. We added some new monthly donors and are seeing the number we need to make our budget shrink almost on a daily basis.

Just today, Sunday, we had our appointment for our visa renewal and praise the L-rd, we got it! Even though it should be a given that we would get another visa, nothing is certain, especially in this country, and it can be a very uncomfortable and long process depending on who is in charge of your renewal. We are very thankful that the appointment only took 15 minutes and we now have the paperwork to stay in Israel for another year.

Thank you for your prayers and care! We look forward to sharing more stories with you throughout the year. Here we go!

Bo!

The name of this week's portion is Bo, בוא, meaning enter or go, which reflects what the L-rd says to Moshe in the first verse: Go to Pharaoh. As parents living in Israel we learned this important word early on, even though we used it incorrectly.

In modern Hebrew the word bo (pronounced like bow & arrow) means come, and you use it to call your son or a group of children or people. But when addressing your daughter you use the feminine form, boy, בואי (as if that's not confusing enough, the Hebrew word for she is he, היא). For the first month or so we yelled, "BO!" to Cassidy to get her to hurry up, only to discover that we were using the masculine form -- probably pretty confusing to Hebrew speakers as they looked at our long-haired, pink-skirted daughter. With the help of Cassidy's teacher we realized בואי was the appropriate term, and we now use it quite often, and correctly.

So, Bo, chaverim (friends) let's study the portion this week...

I will cause a hailstorm

Never One to disappoint, this week the L-rd lined up the weather in Jerusalem to reflect His power as told of in the weekly portion. Exodus 9:18-19 says: tomorrow, about this time, I will cause a hailstorm so heavy that Egypt has had nothing like it from the day it was founded until now. Therefore, send and hurry to bring indoors all your livestock and everything else you have in the field. For hail will fall on every human being and animal left in the field that hasn't be brought home, and they will die.

You think I'm kidding...

Curious about the portion? Here's a post briefly explaining what it is. You can always check our left side-bar to find out what the reading is for each week. Hope it blesses you!

And You Thought Genealogy Was Boring

Here is good example of sod (סוד) Hebraic Biblical interpretation. This understanding is the hidden, secret, or mystical meaning of a text. Genesis 5 reveals that G-d’s plan of redemption was written on the very names of men. If Adam and his lineal descendants are lined up one right after the other, the Gospel message is revealed to us when their names are translated from Hebrew to English. All of these name meanings point to the One name, Yeshua, which means salvation.

Adam = Man

Seth = Appointed

Enosh = Mortal

Kenan = Sorrow

Mahalalel = The blessed God

Yared = Shall come down

Enoch = Teaching

Methusaleh = His death shall bring

Lamech = The despairing

Noah = Comfort

When you put this together you have a sentence that reads, ‘Man appointed mortal sorrow the blessed God shall come down teaching; His death shall bring the despairing comfort.’

[96, A Case for God by Jim Jacob]