We made it and Christmas in Oxford!

Well, we made it! We arrived last Wednesday after a day-long drive in the rain. We tried not to complain about that because we knew our friend James was driving our moving truck in the rain too. We kept checking the radar to see if we could guess where he (and Adam and Whitney who were driving with him) might be along the interstate to see if they might be out of the rain, but we supposed they were always getting rained on. James reported upon arrival that it didn't rain for about 30 minutes of his 16 hour drive. Words cannot describe how grateful we are for our friends who came to help us get all of our stuff here. We're also grateful for new friends from Philly who came to help us unload the truck too! The easy part is done! Though it seemed hard at the time.

Now it's time to unpack all of our things! There's so much left to do! We've got the living room, kitchen and the boy's rooms set up. We've still got plenty to do in Ellie's room, our room and some in the dining room. We took a break from unpacking on Saturday to put up the Christmas Tree. We're doing all we can to try to make it feel like home. It's really weird being 800 miles from nearly everything know, but we're doing well. The kids loved decorating the tree, even though it meant they had to stay up beyond their normal bedtime.

Oxford, PA Christmas Tree

We are working hard to get settled in here, so we're trying to be social as best we can in the chaos of our lives right now. On Friday night, we went to, "A County Christmas" in downtown Oxford. It's was the lighting of the tree and other fun things vendors provided. We really enjoyed it. We ate some Pizza Hut stuffed crust pepperoni pizza and walked through the downtown area. The lighting of the tree kind of made us think we were in a magical little town from a movie. There was hot chocolate, facepainting, bird feeder makers and a variety of stores and street vendors. We all got a little cold, even though it was probably 40 degrees because the wind was colder than we were used to.


Here are some ways you can pray for us this week:

1. Pray for Ellie as she starts school today (Monday). She's nervous, but we think she'll do OK once she settles in.
2. Pray for Jodi and I as we try to finish getting unpacked. Once we get unpacked our schedules should start working themselves into a rhythm, which will be good for all of us.
3. Pray that we might make a friend before Christmas. 
4. We still need to raise about $9,000 for the coming year. Please pray that God would provide the resources needed. We're praying for 8 people that might feel led to give $100/month over the next 12 months toward the work of planting the new church. If you'd like to do that (or if you might want to give $25 or $50/month) feel free to reach out to us or choose one of these 2 options to give a) www.encounterlifechurch.org/give and put PA Plant in the Notes/Memo section or you can mail a check to Encounter Life Church PO Box 375 Manchester, TN 37349. Include PA Plant in the memo of the check.
5. Pray for opportunities to have gospel conversations.
6. Finally, pray that God would help us find some people of peace who can help us learn more about Oxford so we can better figure out how God might call us to serve here.

Thanks for everything! We're grateful to be on this journey and we thank God he's allowed you to be a part of our lives!

Billy and Jodi