A few pics of our favorite things in China on this trip. We really enjoyed seeing the rice terraces, and of course the Great Wall is an amazing place.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
China
A few pics of our favorite things in China on this trip. We really enjoyed seeing the rice terraces, and of course the Great Wall is an amazing place.
November 17th--God is Good, All the Time
Amazing how fast the year flies by! Only one week until Thanksgiving, and here in Bernal people are beginning to decorate for Christmas already. Since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, they don't have that here, so Christmas is coming and the decorations go up early.
We are thankful to say that we finally have all of the windows in the house as of last week, and six out of eight in the church. It was very cold here about three weeks ago, and people really suffered on Sunday morning with no windows. Giving was up as a result, and the man who does the windows went ahead and put them in although we still owe him another $200 or so. Of course, we have had 75 degree weather most days since then.....
Attendance is up on Sunday morning, which means that it is time to buy more chairs. We have 50 chairs now, and have had people standing for the last couple of weeks. Sunday school is still held in our house, as we don't have the classrooms built yet. We hope that that will be a possibility for next Spring.
Thursday night Bible study attendance is really up, and we have a great time of study and prayer. We are thankful to see more people attending, as it means that they are setting aside other things to be able to be there....making study and prayer a priority. Friday nights there is a teaching/preaching class, and quite a few are attending.
It has been a really busy year with the building program. We personally, as well as Gadiel and Martha, put in a lot of hours and effort in building. I think that we are all thankful to be able to be done for right now. Gadiel and Martha stayed in our home while we were in China in October, and have now moved into their own home. They still lack many finishing touches, but their house turned out really nice. We, too, are thankful to be moved into our new home. Before leaving for China we moved in, but pretty much just put things away as we could and stuffed things into closets. The last couple of weeks we have been trying to get things put away properly and get settled in.
As a family, we are all doing fine. Amanda is in Prague this week, and will be in Vienna next week. She is traveling with the handbell choir from her college, playing bells and her violin as well. I'm sure that she is having a great time. Caleb and Rose and family were able to visit with us for two days when we got home from China. Caleb was in Oklahoma for his work, so they all came, and drove on over to Missouri. Matthew and Crystal are in Branson, working. We are all excited that Lancy will be arriving in Mexico from Argentina on December 5th. She will be spending the month with us before heading up to the States. She hopes to be able to raise about $1200 a month support to be able to go to Thailand early in the year.
Here in Mexico the three youngest are doing fine, as well. Taylor and LiAnne keep each other busy when not doing school work. Taylor is in kindergarten this year, learning all of his letters, and beginning to do blends. He is pretty quick to pick it up. He also attends speech therapy on Fridays. MinMin is doing quite well. She usually has a smile on her face, and is a great help around the house. She seems to really enjoy doing dishes! She is learning many new things every day. We are quite pleased on how well she is fitting into the family. We also are sure that there will be many hard days to come. She is doing school as well, working on English classes, math, geography, cursive, and whatever else Mom can come up with that a person can learn without knowing much English.
We are thankful to say that we finally have all of the windows in the house as of last week, and six out of eight in the church. It was very cold here about three weeks ago, and people really suffered on Sunday morning with no windows. Giving was up as a result, and the man who does the windows went ahead and put them in although we still owe him another $200 or so. Of course, we have had 75 degree weather most days since then.....
Attendance is up on Sunday morning, which means that it is time to buy more chairs. We have 50 chairs now, and have had people standing for the last couple of weeks. Sunday school is still held in our house, as we don't have the classrooms built yet. We hope that that will be a possibility for next Spring.
Thursday night Bible study attendance is really up, and we have a great time of study and prayer. We are thankful to see more people attending, as it means that they are setting aside other things to be able to be there....making study and prayer a priority. Friday nights there is a teaching/preaching class, and quite a few are attending.
It has been a really busy year with the building program. We personally, as well as Gadiel and Martha, put in a lot of hours and effort in building. I think that we are all thankful to be able to be done for right now. Gadiel and Martha stayed in our home while we were in China in October, and have now moved into their own home. They still lack many finishing touches, but their house turned out really nice. We, too, are thankful to be moved into our new home. Before leaving for China we moved in, but pretty much just put things away as we could and stuffed things into closets. The last couple of weeks we have been trying to get things put away properly and get settled in.
As a family, we are all doing fine. Amanda is in Prague this week, and will be in Vienna next week. She is traveling with the handbell choir from her college, playing bells and her violin as well. I'm sure that she is having a great time. Caleb and Rose and family were able to visit with us for two days when we got home from China. Caleb was in Oklahoma for his work, so they all came, and drove on over to Missouri. Matthew and Crystal are in Branson, working. We are all excited that Lancy will be arriving in Mexico from Argentina on December 5th. She will be spending the month with us before heading up to the States. She hopes to be able to raise about $1200 a month support to be able to go to Thailand early in the year.
Here in Mexico the three youngest are doing fine, as well. Taylor and LiAnne keep each other busy when not doing school work. Taylor is in kindergarten this year, learning all of his letters, and beginning to do blends. He is pretty quick to pick it up. He also attends speech therapy on Fridays. MinMin is doing quite well. She usually has a smile on her face, and is a great help around the house. She seems to really enjoy doing dishes! She is learning many new things every day. We are quite pleased on how well she is fitting into the family. We also are sure that there will be many hard days to come. She is doing school as well, working on English classes, math, geography, cursive, and whatever else Mom can come up with that a person can learn without knowing much English.
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