December happenings

It's been a wild and crazy December, and there's still several more weeks to go! We said a sad farewell to the Van Eck family, who flew back to South Africa on December 3. Brent drove them to the airport and with tears in his eyes said goodbye. The Van Ecks became good friends over the past five years and we will sorely miss them.

We got our Christmas tree that next weekend and the kids had fun decorating it. Of course mommy and daddy had to fine-tune the placement of them, but it's a nice little tree.

A few days later we hosted a Christmas Club at our house. The local CEF® worker, Trudy Heininger, came to give the gospel story. Unfortunately, no children from our village of Holderbank came, but we did have two children from our church. We discussed it, and even though the results were disappointing, we're going to try again next year. It was certainly a learning experience for us. God isn't interested in our performance. He's interested in our obedience. All we can do is to keep on trying and praying.

Brent chaired his first meeting ever the next day at the Kilchzimmer workers' meeting. It was certainly harder than he thought and wasn't sure how well he did until he was unanimously chosen to lead the next one. (He still thinks it was because no one else wanted the job!)

Jen's been very busy too, baking Christmas cookies, sending out cards, wrapping presents and preparing for our Christmas open house, which is on the 22nd. Please pray for us as we have a chance to share the true meaning of Christmas with those who come. Merry Christmas!