What A Nice Christmas We Had

Well, it was very hard anticipating Christmas without our family, but -as usual- He is very faithful to help us when we need it. I know that we were lifted up a lot because there was joy and fun and no huge emotional outbursts all day! (not that it still might come, but so far so good! ha)

What really helped is that we found out a local hotel was having a 'Christmas Buffet.' So after we went to our fellowship Christmas morning ...

(side note: YES they ALWAYS have fellowship on Christmas morning here ... no matter what day it falls on! It was so awesome to be there and see lives transformed Christmas morning ... that's what it is about! I think that helped the whole day go so well. We started off with the right focus, instead of focusing on missing our family we were singing praises. There were so many people there that we sat on the stairs! yeah!)

we went to the hotel and had the best time eating and talking and eating and talking and eating and talking. We had a friend with us and we sat and talked for about 3 hours! They had Indian food (awesome dal mahkni!) but also turkey and gravy and even CRANBERRY sauce! I couldn't believe it. YUM! They also played Christmas music! I haven't heard that ANYWHERE yet.

Then we came home and the kids opened their presents ... they were so shocked about the fellowships in the States that had sent them stuff. They realize (the older one more than the younger of course) how huge that is and they were excited to get some things from 'home'!!! What a blessing.

We are still waiting on a couple Christmas boxes from our family to get here. I have decided that we won't take our tree down until the boxes come!!! I am operating a 'search and rescue' task at the post office tomorrow. Hopefully it is successful.

Christmas Eve we had a dinner at our house and 2 girls that we just met recently came along with 7 other friends of ours. We had a house full and it was so great to get to know some new friends and eat their wonderful oatmeal cookies! We had a good meal and even birthday cake for Jesus!


THANK YOU to everyone that lifted us up, that sent things, that emailed us, called us, etc... etc... It really means a lot to us!!!! We hope this Christmas was full of His peace and joy for you ... and a whole lot of good food and fun!