December Joys!

I knew it had been a while since I had written on the blog, but I didn't realize I had totally skipped November! Well, I confess that I have to get used to using a blog -- I am more of a letter writer (my journal is mostly personal), and so I have to get used to this...

November held some significant experiences -- our return to Ecuador, getting in touch again with our people here, celebrating another year of life for Clayton (I won't tell you how many that makes... :) and the whole nine yards of getting settled again.

And now we're in December and it started off with a huge bang when Clayton's mother decided to have serious heart problems and within fifteen hours of knowing anything was wrong, she was in surgery to replace the aorta which had a huge aneurysm. Six hours of surgery later brought her out into recovery and she decided to do that as quickly and efficiently as possible. A week later she was back home -- all of this happened during a "quick trip" with her three daughters to visit another daughter/sister in Illinois. So the whole drama took place six hours away from "home" in Indiana!

So December has brought us moments for which to pray earnestly and moments for which to give God many, many thanks -- muchas gracias!!

Here on the southern home front we are rapidly moving into Christmas week and a variety of special events we hope to help make happen. Not all the plans are even made yet -- you've heard how laid back people in the south are, haven't you?! -- and so Christmas should be lots of fun with spontaneous experiences to give us good memories.

We'll been sending out Christmas newsletter this week. If you are on that mailing list, you'll hear more then. If you are not and would like to receive a monthly up-date of happenings here, let us know and we'll add you on.

Hope your Christmas week brings many reasons to smile and remember the JOY that JESUS brought to the whole world when He came.

Christmas blessings to you!