Merry Christmas from Kenya! It's another warm and sunny holiday season here in Kenya. It's sort of funny reading Christmas stories to the kids, as most of them involve snow or little small reindeer pulling a snow sleigh, or a huge talking snowman. The only places around here with snow are Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro!
So much has happened since Christmas 2009! We returned back to Nairobi the middle of January after spending the holidays in North Carolina and really all over the Southeast US visiting friends and family. As always, traveling the journey was stressful, but we made it safely back and eventually, so did all of our luggage! It was nice to be back to our house here and get settled back in with our “normal” routine.
Things here at home have been all sorts of interesting this year! Perhaps the most exciting has been the whole adoption process that we are involved in. As many of you know, we turned in our paperwork to the Ethiopian government early in March, and have been waiting ever since for our referral. We did move into a different house, so we had to redo part of the paperwork, but we are getting closer and closer to the referral! We are expecting to get that long-awaited phone call sometime in early January with information regarding our new son! We are so excited!
Otherwise, the kids have been growing and playing and learning all sorts of new things. Candace has been working with all of them with counting and letters and writing and doing all sorts of crafts. They all three love to to sit at the table and cut and glue papers. Dinah is able to write all of our names as well as some other words and loves to sit and read. Many times we have heard her “reading” to John and Ruth and telling them parts of Bible stories. John is all boy...he loves his tractors and animals, and loves going to work with daddy. Anything that makes noise or gets dirty certainly has his attention, while sitting still to hear a story is often hard to do! Ruth is getting more and more expressive in her speech. You should see some of the faces she makes! She is also getting more independent, wanting to do everything herself. What happened to our little baby?! The latest thing is that she has finally learned how to ride her tricycle!
On the parental front, Candace has certainly been staying busy, as you can imagine. Aside from taking care of the children, she has been doing lots of cooking, using many “from scratch” recipes to broaden our food horizon. She has also enjoyed corresponding with family and friends from back home on a regular basis, as well as following other families who are also adopting from Ethiopia. We've found some other families that we've been able to purchase items to help with their adoptions, so that's been fun to realize that there are many other people on the same journey as we are. Nathan has remained busy in the AIM Air hangar, in his position as Piston Fleet Supervisor. It has been an up and down year, with some frustrations, but also with some satisfactory accomplishments. He was able to travel to Uganda as well as D.R. Congo to do some work on airplanes and also to see a little of what goes on at the other end of AIM Air other than here in Nairobi.
We have certainly kept ourselves busy it seems and we are glad to be able to take a few days off here at Christmas and relax and enjoy the time together with family. As we think about God sending His Son to earth to be born and raised as a human being, we think of our own lives and how we stand before God. He gave His own Son to be a sacrifice so that we can be adopted into God's family. We are in the process to adopt a baby into our family. By doing this, we are teaching our family how God loves us and cares for us, because we are part of His family. Jesus was born and lived a perfect life so that He could die and live again as our Savior. Men are born and live a sinful life, and yet are given life so that when we die, we might live again with Him.
We pray that during this Christmas season and the remainder of the year heading into 2011, that you will remember that as believers, you are adopted sons and daughters in the family of God. We are just one family, adopting one baby (for now anyway), but trying to make a difference in the lives of many people. How can we all make a difference, but by sharing the love of Christ with others, whether in word or in deed. Please remember that and pray how you can serve the Lord in the next year by utilizing the talents which the Lord has given you. Happy Christmas to you!
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