Merry Christmas from Us!

Ellie loved that you could stand "inside" the Tree

As I write this it is Christmas Adam! Our family is very excited about Christmas. We're looking forward to reading the Christmas story (not watching it...I've never seen "A Christmas Story"...judge me if you must). It's been a whirlwind of a week for us. Ellie is finally out of school for Christmas break and we're excited about spending more time with her. As best we can remember, for the first time in our lives, we won't see either set of parents for Christmas, so we're pretty bummed about that, but we thank God for Facetime and Duo so we can video chat with family! But has been gracious and kind to give us each other to spend time with! I've spent more time with the kids and the kids have been forced to enjoy spending more time together too! Jodi has a decent schedule going for the boys through the morning each day, so she's having a few moments of potential sanity.

The kiddos enjoying a tree!

This week we went to Longwood Gardens with some new friends. We enjoyed seeing all of the trees lit up and the kids enjoyed the children's area. In the coming week we're going to Herr's Potato Chip Factory to tour it. A family from Tennessee with be around visiting some of their family so we're going to take a morning and do that tour with them. We're looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.

It has been sweet in the last couple of days as we've prayed together. Will has been volunteering to pray. That's new for him. He usually says no when asked, but over the course of the last week or so he has prayed some pretty cool things. He has thanked God for his parents, which really blesses our hearts. He has also thanked God for his siblings, without be pressed to do so. Finally this week, he prayed and thanked God for moving us to Oxford! I know he's only 4, but I pray he knows and understands that we're aiming to follow the God he is praying to and that this God is leading and guiding his life, not just his parent's lives.

Ellie mostly had a good week, but we ended poorly. Thursday night she asked me to talk to Jodi again about homeschooling her. She has asked about that several times in the last month. She says she works hard on her school work when she's supposed to be doing that and she enjoys that part of school, but during free time she doesn't like school. She says people don't really care if she's there or not and no one pays attention to her. She told me she tried to talk to one person and he just told her to stop over and over again. She says at New Union everyone was my friend, here no one is her friend. She tells me people ask her every day if she's the new girl. She says she knows the answer to that question because she is the new girl. However, they ask her other questions that she doesn't know the answer to. I'm not sure what these questions are though, she hasn't ever told me. Jodi and I are trying to decide if we should schedule a meeting with her teacher after the break and get her teachers opinion on how things are going. I trust there must be some good things happening and she's probably doing fine in school, but it's no fun seeing her demeanor down so much when talking about school.

On a positive note though, she's home with us for a bit so we're looking forward to that. Together, we've got a birthday cake to make for Jesus, a Christmas Eve church service to go to, and Christmas morning, which includes gathering to worship with our friends at Wrightsdale! We're looking forward to catching up with friends and family over the holiday as we try to video chat with as many people as possible! If you want to connect, let us know and we'll schedule a time to talk with you too!

Here are a few ways to pray this week:

1. Pray for our family to spend time celebrating Jesus this weekend!
2. Pray that God would help us make friends as we know many people are lonely in these coming days and weeks. Perhaps God would allow us to care for some folks who are tired and weary.
3. Pray for Ellie.
4. Pray that Jodi and I would know how to encourage Ellie. Ask God to give us wisdom about the best way to ensure she's properly educated.

Thanks again for you all do to encourage and care for us! Many of you have sent Christmas cards...thanks for doing that. Some of you have sent gifts...thanks for doing that. We love you and we're grateful to be on this journey!

Merry Christmas!