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Can’t believe how fast the last 2 years have gone. Mia is going to be 2 on Friday!!!!! She has grown so much and changed so much even in the last few months. She’s such a great big sister and continues to want to be helpful with everything. She’s so funny to watch sometimes. The other night she got out of bed and we heard her in the hall way, when Dave went and opened the door, she was standing there in front of the door with her wellies on!!!! Crazy girl!!!! She’s a little daddy’s girl and absolutely adores him, it’s so sweet to see them together.

She’s learning so much everyday and it’s awesome to see her vocabulary expand and just see the different things that she’s grasping each day. She’s such a blessing to us and she brings so much joy to us. I’m loving being a Mom, it definitely has it’s challenges, but I’m learning so much!

Pictures are up!!!! So please go check out our photo album for pictures of our newest addition!

Ok, so it’s been a really long time since we last put anything on here and so much has happened! We are now the proud parents of 2 kids!!! Samuel Aqarao Couper was born on Friday 4th January 2008. He is such a great baby and Mia loves being a big sister and loves trying to be a big helper. Sam is 12 weeks today and Mia will be 2 next month. I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I was looking at baby pictures of Mia the other day and I still can’t get over how big she is now! She’s loves to talk, dance and sing. She’s such a little people person and is a very loving little girl. She’s learning so much too and each day we’re discovering new things that she’s learning or new words that she has. It’s so great! Sam is such a laid back baby and is so good too. He’s sleeping well and feeding well and is generally peaceful and content.

Dave and I are keeping busy. Dave with work and me with the kids and housework. We will be leading an outreach of 10 students from five different nations to Arusha in northern Tanzania. These students have been studying in Youth With A Mission’s (YWAM’s) Discipleship Training School (DTS), which is a 6 month school focusing on learning to hear the voice of God and how to apply that to life and missions. The first 3 months are lectures with different speakers coming in to share on different topics such as the father heart of God, Evangelism, hearing God’s voice, prayer  and lots more…
The second half of the course is putting into practise what was learnt in lectures. In Matthew 28  Jesus says ‘Go ye into all the world’, and the outreach phase of the DTS focus’ on this, especially looking at what we call Mercy ministries and also evangelism. So the idea is to share God’s love with the people in Tanzania. We will be involved in a wide variety of work, from training church leaders to working with the Maasai in basic education and health care, as well as working with orphans and practical work such as building clinics and schools.
We would appreciate your  prayers for protection for all the team and especially Mia and Samuel as malaria can still be a problem there, not to mention other health concerns (stomach problems and wildlife to name but two!)

 I will be updating pictures soon. Thanks again for your prayers!

Well we are pleased to announce that we are expecting our 2nd little one in January! So very exciting!!!!! Looking forward to seeing how Mia is with the new baby. We’re trying to teach her how to be gentle with other kids - and us. She’s small but she’s a strong little thing too! She’s so much fun to watch, especially as she gets so excited about everything, pointing and going ‘ooooooo’.

So pregnancy so far has been different to when I was pregnant with Mia. I haven’t been as sick this time around, just really exhausted. So I’m hoping that the rest of the pregnancy continues to go well and that I stay healthy and well.  

Mia turned 1 last week. Cant believe how fast this last year has gone! How time flies. She has been such a blessing to us and continues to bring joy and laughter to us. She is now crawling around everywhere and getting into everything! She’s also taking steps and loves walking around furniture. She’s very expressive and it’s so much fun to see her when she gets really excited. She loves to clap her hands, or just wave them about in the air. She loves her baths and does not appreciate it at all when she is taken out. She definately knows what she wants and will let you know too! She’s still very dainty though and is smaller than a lot of her little friends who are younger then her.

We are so blessed to have her and we love watching her grow and change everyday. There’s always something new and exciting when she’s around.  

I just got an email from my parents this morning which was encouraging. Thank you to all of you who were praying for them and us. We really appreciate it alot! Here’s a bit of the email my Dad sent me.
Many of you  were hopefully and prayerfully (Thanks) wondering about us when you heard the news that on Monday, 2^nd April about 7.40 am an earthquake of 8.1 hit the Western Solomons.  Our village was 27 km SE of the Epicenter and a Tsunami missed us by about 2 km.  Via various web sites you can access more information than we know.  Our village suffered only minor damage but we did spend a week of nights in a bush camp some 600 m inland for fear of another wave.

For those of you that have been keeping up to date with the news - there was a tsunami follwing a couple of big earthquakes in the Solomon islands on monday. This took place about 14 miles of the west coast of the Island that Ulani’s family live on. we spent a lot of monday waiting to hear news from the Happy isles. We eventually got through and the news we got was that most of the villagers in Ulani’s village went up to higher ground and are safe.

The wave seems to have hit Rendova (to see a map of it click here - Ulani’s village is on the western most point), but stopped advancing at a river about 5-10 minutes walk north of the village.

We have yet to hear from Ulani’s parents - but it may be a while as there have been more earthquakes and so they are probably still at higher ground, but also there is not communication except a radio so we would have to wait for Ulani’s dad to go to another island to email, although reports suggest these communications centres at Munda and Ghizo are damaged.

 to read more about the tsunami click here

We will do our best to keep you updated as we get more news….. 

First off I’d like to say congratulations to Dave’s brother Alex and his girlfriend Hanna who just got engaged on Friday. We’re so excited for you!!!!! 

Well Christmas and New Year were busy. Dave’s whole family and my brother came together for Christmas, which was really nice. Mia got dedicated on Christmas eve, which was really special. There was a stomach bug going around which pretty much the whole entire family except Dave’s parents. Great way to spend the holiday! It was great having my brother here, especially as it’d been almost 2 years since I’d last seen him and he’d never met Mia.

We’re now getting back to normality, or as close as we can get. Dave is busy with his work and I’m just about to start staffing the next Discipleship Training School that is starting in a week. It’ll be a challenge with Mia, but I’m really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to being involved with schools again and seeing how God can use me. I’m excited for what God has in store for me and Dave over these next few months. Please keep Dave in your prayers as he’ll have Mia some mornings while I’m in with the students at lectures. Please pray for strength and guidance for both Dave and I over these next few months. 

Mia is growing and changing more and more each day. She was sick for awhile, but she’s definately getting better now. She’s a very active and vocal little girl. She now has 2 bottom teeth and the 2 top teeth are coming through. She’s 8 1/2 months old and is still not crawling, enjoys sitting and standing though. She is a very amusing little girl to watch and continues to make us laugh. We are so blessed by her!

I am absolutely loving being a mother! Mia is the sweetest little girl and I love her to bits!!!! I can’t believe that she’s already 5 months old, time has flown by. Dave and I are so thankful that she is such a good baby. She did so well with all the travelling that we did over the summer and now is just settling back in at home. She smiles a lot, talks alot - in her own language- she loves bath time and loves spending time with Mommy and Daddy. I’ve put up some new pictures of her in our photo album, so check them out. I love my baby girl and we thank God everyday for the gift that she is to us!