What a gift!

We arrived safely and even a little early at the Zurich airport on Wednesday. Because we were early, there were only two other people in front of us at the check-in line – something that's certainly never happened to us before! We checked in without problems but couldn't make our way to the gate because we didn't know which one we needed to go to. We had to wait a little bit, eating a snack and finding a quiet location until our gate was announced. Finally, E53 flashed on the announcement board and we headed toward our destination. Amy guided us to terminal E and we took the small train, which was fun. We were ushered to the front of the security line – one bonus of having children, and then headed for our gate. That's when we saw the sign for the children's play area. We thought we were dreaming. We made our way to the playroom and entered a wonderful world. This wasn't just a small room with a few toys, this was an indoor playground with changing stations, microwaves for heating snacks and friendly staff. It had just been installed in September, and has been a major success. I wrote a quick thank you in the guest book, saying it was a "gift from God." Our hour and a half wait seemed more like 15 minutes, and both Amy and Christopher were able to get a respite from mommy or daddy saying "no!".

Almost ready

The bags are nearly packed. The house is almost clean. Most of the Hautles are asleep. In a few hours, we start our long journey to the States. Amy was really laughing tonight when I told her we need to practice flying by jumping up and down and flapping our wings. Christopher just wanted to be tossed in the air. We're so excited at getting a chance to see family, friends and ministry partners again.

It's a surreal feeling. I still have a list of things to do, but I don't feel like everything is really frantic at this time. I feel like I can still get them done before Midnight. As the the psalmist says, "The Lord is my strength and my shield." I can feel Him even now, strengthening me for the journey.

Bis später,

-Brent

Talking about God

For Amy's birthday, we got her a Wonder Devotional Book – Early Reader Edition. Unfortunately, it's been a bit of a fight reading it to her. That doesn't mean we don't have chances to share with her, in fact last night was pretty funny.

Jen was explaining to Amy all she can tell God when she prays. Amy answered, "Sometimes God dies for me when I'm bad."

Jen responded, "but Jesus only had to die once."

Amy quickly interjected "and then He was alive again!"

Jen continued, "and God would like you to live in Heaven with Him."

"I don't like coffee. I only like tea" was Amy's reply.

"That's okay. God has tea."

Happy birthday Amy!

Amy turns 4 today! We celebrated with a small party on Sunday with her grown-up friends and had ice cream cake, games and prizes. We're thankful for our beautiful little girl and ask for your prayers that we would be Godly examples in her life.

Dumped!

We got dumped on with the snow this past weekend. At home we got about 18 inches and Kilchzimmer got two feet! A foot had been cleared, and then it snowed all night long – making the parking lot a quagmire.

While we enjoy winter, it's been a long one with the first snow coming in early November. We're ready for spring!

The joy of family photos

We had an exciting day getting our new family photos taken. Out of nearly 60 photos taken, you'll soon see the one that won out on our prayer card. In the meantime, here's three funny ones to show you what kind of day we had!

Kudos to Tim for his patience and ideas in getting a good picture of all of us.

FEG Balsthal online

It's done! I was able to upload the new church Web site this past week and make some minor corrections today. (Still some minor problems on the Frauentreff page though). Check it out at www.feg-balsthal.ch, and have fun reading German! For those of you who see something like this and think "I could never do a site like that…" think again! It was all done with iWeb. You just need a Mac! ;)

A three-day shadow

It's always exciting to pass on some of what we've learned. Laura, the daughter of Philippe and Joanne Mayhew, leaders of the work in France (and former Kilchzimmer co-workers) spent several days sitting with me and learning what a graphic designer does for a school project. She was supposed to just observe, but I let her take the reins a bit and she had a blast working in Photoshop and Illustrator. She's a quick learner and very productive, and she would like to use her talents for the Lord. Laura and Philippe came for lunch one day and we enjoyed our time together. We certainly miss the Mayhews at Kilchzimmer, but praise God for how he is working in their lives.

What's kept me from blogging…

Wow, December 22 was the last time we wrote here. I sincerely apologize. We have been extremely busy with church and ministry related projects, and I wanted to give you just a glimpse of what we've been doing.

CEF has a 30-hour course called Teaching Children Effectively and I've been tasked to recreate the PowerPoint templates for the course. With this project came the realization to do a complete reworking of the entire TCE design. After working with several members of the CEF Europe Education department and several workers on the field, we came up with a new series of logos for the three levels of the course. I finished designing the PowerPoint templates and two sample (but fully usable) lessons.

We've also been busy doing a complete redesign of our church's Web site. It's not up and running yet, but we hope to have it completed by the first week in February. Look for it in a future post!