December Happenings

Christmas 2013

We hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas in reflection and renewed awe of the greatest gift--Jesus!  We enjoyed Ann Voskamp's Advent devotional, The Greatest Gift, as we once again hung our Jesse Tree ornaments.  It was a month of high anticipation for us, especially the kids.  Celebrating with them just gets more fun every year. 

Like many of you, our December was full of activities, special events and family holiday traditions.  Upon our return from Madeira on December 1st our feet hit the ground running all the way up until Christmas.  Here is our month at a glance...   

Thanks to IKEA we made a gingerbread house.  Dad and Mamma constructed the house and the kids (mostly Emma) decorated.

On December 16, yours truly celebrated a birthday.  I still like to consider myself in the mid-thirties, but according to my insistent children I am now in my late-thirties, because anything over 5 you round up!  Someone please tell me 36 is still in the mid-range! ;)  It was a fun weekend of special treatment as my precious family both near and far showered their love upon me.  Jonathan made a fabulous cheesecake topped with pomegranate seeds, scoring big on taste and presentation!  Another year full of great blessings from my gracious Father--thank you!

A huge highlight was also our graduation party for our first Percorso Speranza (Journey to Hope) students.  This fall we spent over 50+ hours in the classroom with B&I working through the Jobs for Life material and Bible studies on reconciliation.  It was a great first run and we all received mutual blessing and encouragement through the experience.  We will continue to walk alongside this brother and sister pair as they continue on their journey to seeking employment and pursuing further education. For their graduation we invited several from the local charity we work with along with someone from social services and of course their family.  My colleague and I put together a fun and festive table spread for the event.

We also spent some time delivering food boxes to families in our community that are in need.  And then we made some treats for our neighbors.  There are six other houses in our complex and so we took a weekend to deliver the special packages to them.  We delivered 3 packages in 3 hours last Saturday.  Each house invited us in for a chat and offered us a snack and coffee.  Our gesture was unexpected but warmly received by all, and we were thankful for the time to get to know our neighbors better.

The city had another Christmas street fair and we attended with the purpose of being an encouragement and support to Ivana who was offering face painting.  Even though the boys were not thrilled about the idea of getting their faces painted, they came to understand that their willingness was a great encouragement to Ivana who is new to the whole venture of face painting.  She did a fantastic job and we hope our kids were good publicity for her that day.

Holiday feasting requires several days of preparation and so the kitchen was non-stop busy with sugar cookies, cakes, yeast rolls, egg nog, cider, cinnamon rolls and more...

Christmas morning in our new home...

And then the presents...

That pretty much covers our month of special events.  Throw into the mix a few doctor appointments, a 5th grade Christmas party lasting past 1AM and the usual rhythms of life and one can see how the month flew by as it did.  Now we are enjoying the final days of 2013 with some much needed relaxation!