Merry Christmas and More (A post for family but the rest of you may come along for the ride.)

 

Here are few more pictures from our time at the beach. We came home and decorated for Christmas that same evening.

Here is some Christmas at the mall. More of that later.

 

Story time. Jube always rides on his dad’s back for story time. And yes, Dad is almost always on his stomach for story time.

 

More mall snapshots. We went in with Glenda for to get a family picture taken. But I don’t have any of those on the camera. Just the fun stuff.

 

 

Glenda told them the Christmas story. (Glenda is the schoolteacher here for some of the staff families.)

 

Fatherhood does something for you apparently. Aren’t they darling?

 

 

 

 

I wanted pictures of the children opening Christmas presents this year. So now we have pictures of everyone but Dru. Duh.

 

  

  

Now the next two pictures from our failed attempt at going up the mountain for a picnic yesterday. It ended up with a broken down car and hours of song tow travel and a bunch of walking. We were gone for 5 hours and came home hungry at eight o’clock in the evening. So we consoled ourselves with a picnic on the bed under the AC with a movie.

 

While on the red song tow, Havilah played on my computer, while Jube opted for a nap. The lady next to her fell in love with her.

 

Jube took the picture below this morning. He is very happy with his brother and giggles with glee when ever he catches Rennie grinning.

 

 

Dru bought me a sketch book for Christmas. A lot of what is in it so far reflects what’s going in on in our lives. I am not, however, an artist. I am a doodler.  On Christmas Eve, just before we opened presents, Hannah spotted the suspected rat in the drawer of the oven. We set out traps and have not seen or heard anything of it since. I finally pitched the (gross, old, black, sticky) traps.

Who knows what we watched last night? I wish I could draw this delightful creature better.

 

Havilah at play this morning.

 

Jube and his artwork. Love this guy and am so proud of him.

Last Sunday Mr. Merle Florry preached a very good message on hope. And I needed it. I realized that life was overwhelming to me basically because I had lost my hope. I was ready to throw my hands up about several things in my life but was soundly and wonderfully reminded that in Jesus and because of his death on the cross, there is hope for every situation and person on this earth. That was so freeing!

This paper star is from our neighbor man at our old Mooban. He gave us four of them last year. His name is Tawil, but you would actually pronouce the L with an N. When we moved in such a hurry we didn’t manage to say goodbye to him appropriately. He was very upset. We worried about him a lot. Then this last Sunday we went over to that side of town to show the old neighbors our new baby, do some caroling, and give cookies.                  Tawil was delighted to see us. I was so relieved. We spent a lovely short amount of time with this old and lonely man. We’d actually never been into his home before because he lives over the fence in the next Mooban from where we were. He sent us home with two more plants, a bunch of bananas, and his phone number. Since we didn’t get to know him as well as we should have (shame on us) we didn’t realize just how lonely he was. Apparently, he spends a lot of his time alone in his big brand new home, with no one to talk to.

Do you think that, with Dru being very near his house on a daily basis, at least until the end of this semester, that we can be better neighbors to him now than we were before? I can send him baked things and Dru can visit, in the very least. There is HOPE for Tawil!

There is HOPE! For everyone! Joy to the world!