As many of you know, I am just returning from our mission trip to Guatemala in the last week and yes, this blog has been a bit silent for the last few weeks as we were busy prepping our team to leave and preparing for our time of ministry there. Our church is starting a ministry project in Guatemala called The Village Project, where we will help identify a local church planter and begin transforming a village both physically and spiritually.
Through our church, we are working with a stateside ministry, World Help and with Hope of Life in Guatemala, to adopt a village in a rural part of this country where famine and malnutrition continue to take the lives of many. Through this long-term Village Transformation Project, we will support a local church planter, provide clean water, rebuild the school, provide discipleship materials and training, build a church, provide food and medical assistance, and send teams down throughout the year to accomplish these goals and more over the course of the next several years.
This was the first time a team had gone in to serve the village we are adopting and there's nothing like serving in a village of over 700 people and knowing that almost everyone in this village had never even heard the name of Jesus before. We had the privilege of being the first team and also of visiting other villages nearby as well; however, God clearly confirmed that Curva del Pino was where He wanted our church to invest long term and I'm sure as time goes on, He will direct us to other villages there where we can minister.
Generally, I am ready to dive in and talk about all of the details immediately upon returning from most of the trips, but this time it was different and took me a good week to begin processing all that we experienced and all that God did during our time there. From serving in the village, feeding families in a dump, worshipping with other villages, to holding toddlers that were less than 10 pounds- these moments will be forever grafted in our hearts and minds.
Though I've served and led mission teams in many developing or third world countries over the past 13 years, there were elements of this trip that again were a harsh reminder of the reality of how the rest of the world lives and how spiritually dark many places around the world really are. Yet, in this darkness, it was wonderful to know that there is still a light that can shine brightly in this dark world through the lives of believers reminding us that Jesus is still the Light of the world.
Little girl from Kelly's House- a special needs center
I plan to share a number of stories in the days to come and certainly a lot of photos as well; but in the meantime, I'll let our Guatemala Documentary Video from our trip show you some of the things that we experienced and some of the thoughts I've been processing since our trip. I hope that you enjoy this special video. You will need to click the Vimeo Icon in order to view it and we hope it impacts you just as much as it did our lives.
I don't know about you, but can someone tell me how we are we are already in January 2013? Does anyone else feel the same way? We were reflecting the last two days that the last few weeks of December were a blur, full of many events- some planned and some not planned-- and though we had wonderful intentions of posting a number of things during December, it just didn't happen for many reasons. (and that's ok) So, in light of that- let me give you a fun pictorial overview of how our year ended and highlight some of our fun, funny, and not-so-funny moments from December and Christmas.
"Our Top Ten 2012 December Highlights".... (in no particular order)
1. Our First Christmas Together in our New Home
Definitely not our first Christmas together, but the first one together as homeowners in our new home that we moved into in October. I LOVE that we had a little snow the day before Christmas.
2. Our Last Christmas with Just the Two of us Before "Little Miss" Comes Along
[We will likely be matched with our daughter and travel before the end of 2013--based on the stage we are in with our adoption process.] It was a surreal thought this Christmas knowing it was our last one with just the two of us and that our daughter is already born and living somewhere in China. While most children everywhere were unwrapping presents and spending time with family, she likely spent her Christmas in a much different way. I think that this song best captures her story this past Christmas and our family's prayer for her. [as it was written by a father who adopted from China] It's an awesome song and certainly worth a few minutes of your time if you haven't heard it before. Click HERE for the lyrics.
3. The Local Christmas Market (with lots of fun local made goods and foods)
Varieties of Fresh Christmas Wreaths
4. Christmas Cookie Exchange
(This was hosted by a friend, but I am excited to say that somehow I managed to win a prize... which was completely unexpected since I am not sure you can categorize "haystacks" as a Christmas cookie, but it was in our family- as my grandma always had them at her house every Christmas)
(Didn't I tell you she did a great job hosting this party?) So much fun.
5. Decking the Halls
(or shall I say- decorating our house for Christmas)
Since I'm slightly in denial that Christmas is over-- I'll stretch it out just a bit more and share just a few fun tips you can use next year...
(and the first tip of all- NEVER spend a ton of money on your Christmas decorations...there are always sales before and after where you can get things for hardly anything, so it's always worth waiting to get those bargains- or at least that's my viewpoint anyway...but be sure to buy what you know you like and items that will be somewhat timeless- then you can use them for years)
Each Christmas I love to gather random ornaments (bought years ago for about $3 total) and put them in glass containers for our shelves for that added "Pop" of color.
I also pick some of our various colored ones we use with our tree and put them in a bowl for a centerpiece for our coffee table...
Almost every item of our Christmas decor was bought on sale, much of it after our first Christmas together when we hit up those 'after Christmas sales' [TIP: we saved a few of our wedding gift cards and used them after the holidays that year-- just a little note for those of you who might be getting ready to get married :) ]
They are a mix & match of ornaments from all over. (some of which are wonderful Target/Walmart finds or picked up from some places that had significant meaning to us and we also have a bunch we made ourselves)
These large ornaments below are plastic and cost us $1/ea. (though you can't really tell that until you pick them up) I use them to decorate our table with some other items I purchased at an after-Christmas sale long before we were even married-- (I started collecting things well before I knew Nate and tried choosing things that would pretty much always be Christmas classics )
We jazzed up this wreath that we made about 5 years ago, and added some extra berries and a bunch of silver ornaments to the bottom since the bow I made for it had seen it's best days and had to be retired this year. (I do not have good bow-making skills might I add) Total cost to make this wreath-- $5. (the additions to it this year were free since we had some random ornaments to pull from and Nate knows how much I love a bargain!)
(and please excuse the bare/white walls that we have not yet gotten around to painting yet downstairs-- maybe in 2013?)
6. Decorating the Tree
This is where the real fun begins during the season and of course this picture isn't complete without fun Christmas music playing loudly during the tree decorating process...
Below are some of the items that we stuff our tree with....berry branches we cut up into smaller pieces and other florals we picked up in past years from Michael's during those fun after-Christmas sales... (stuffing a tree was a tip I learned from a mentor of mine who had numerous trees in her home.) The options-as you can imagine-are endless!
The random hook on the berries was not supposed to be pictured...haha
I've also learned over the years that with white lights on a tree, anything clear or transparent (whether it is glass or plastic) will reflect beautifully as will anything that has a little "glam" or "glitter"- silver being one of the best (even though I actually don't like glitter- there's something about it that works during Christmas and adds a little sparkle) Though most people are surprised by this, we have a lot of ornaments on our tree that are are not glass, but made of different types of clear plastic, but you can't always tell the few that are glass from the ones that are plastic.
All of the ones below are plastic or made of materials that won't break...
(a.k.a.- kid-friendly)
There are only a few ornaments that are made of glass, most of which Nate and I made together our first Christmas (and trust me, I'm pretty sure that was a one time event for him-- but he was patient enough to sit through it with me and assist me in my crazy little "our first Christmas together project" -- which was tons of fun for me, but I'm pretty sure bored him to tears... gotta' love him for that!) It's always a fun Christmas memory for us to laugh about when we decorate our tree.
And below is one of my all-time favorite ornaments we made that year- it always glistens with the white lights... (notice that after doing one side of it we got tired of working on it and decided to leave the back empty and just hide it in the tree each year...shhhh- don't tell anyone)
And to finish off the tree.....you have to have a partridge in a pear tree, right? (well, in our case we just have the pears-- little silver ones that again, are child-friendly which will come in handy in the future)
and the end result.....
7. Family Time
Unfortunately, this year was a little different and quite a few of our family members were unable to be with us on Christmas day or during Christmas week... we missed seeing them this year and trust that they had a wonderful Christmas even though we weren't together. It was also different this year as both of my grandmothers are experiencing more memory loss so it definitely added a different element. They were still as cute as ever though! (well- most of the time anyway)
My Grandmothers and siblings
Despite all, we were able to spend some time with Nate's mom and then with some of my family, including my sister who was able to fly in on Christmas day (although we missed having her husband around)...
A certain someone was missing during the picture taking frenzy- but I'm not going to mention any names...I think he was in the house hiding somewhere during this time...though we did manage to get one photo out of him before the night was over.
9. Celebrating our Savior's birth & Reflecting
on the Past Year
As always, an end to a year is a wonderful time to reflect on all that the Lord has done throughout the year and how much we are truly blessed. Some highlights from this past year for us:
Completed our Dossier(paperwork for our adoption-waiting now to be matched)
Celebrated my grandma's 80th birthday in July
Celebrated my mom's 60th birthday in February
Rejoiced with friends who recently got engaged, married, had babies or adopted
Purchased our first home together this past summer
Spent hours and hours painting the new home (haha- I don't recommend this)
Moved into our new home in October
Had ladybugs and stinkbugs take over our home (I'll let you decide if you think this was a funny or not-so-funny memory of ours)
Celebrated with our church on its 3rd anniversary in October
Spent time with each other and with family and friends
(this could be an endless list of course...)
9. Prepping for our Guatemala Trip
A portion of the final weeks of December were spent finalizing details and working alongside our team to finish prepping for our upcoming Guatemala trip with our church; making sure everything was in order for our team to leave to serve. It's hard to believe it's less than two weeks away! Everyone on the team has contributed their time and effort in different ways over the last five months and our church and children's ministry also stepped up in a huge way this Christmas in preparing boxes for the children in Guatemala.
We are excited about what God is going to do through this long term partnership our church has with World Help. I know that He is going to do big things through this trip and through other future trips in the New Year. As you think of it, please pray for our team in the upcoming weeks as we head out and serve.
10. Our New Year's Eve Celebration
...so how did Nate and I close out 2012 and celebrate on New Year's Eve? Let's just say we had made plans to get away from "the craziness we call life" for a few days together and enjoy some of our vacation time off; however, God had another plan-- instead, one of us spent most of our Christmas vacation and our New Year's Eve with some new friends that we quickly became acquainted with... they are pictured below:
It certainly could have been worse from what I hear that's been going around, so we're definitely thankful for that. One of us was sick and one of us got to give out pills and vitamins. Ahh....'tis the season.
(and the last time I can say 'tis since Christmas is now over)
So there you have it-- our snapshot of the month of December, our ringing in the New Year, and what the next few weeks ahead holds in store; but for today, it was back to work for us.
We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and though it's a day late-- Happy New Year!
