Christmas 2024

Candlelight service - Isaac is "home!"

A blessed day-after-Christmas to you all! 

Our home has been FULL to bursting with Isaac back from college, Grandpadad stopping by with donuts or dropping off groceries, the small multitude of neighborhood friends running in to play, and a few chaotically lovely family Christmas gatherings. We are rich in noise and activity and food and fun! The goodness of God moves me to tears.

I just found these photos again: Back when Grandpadad stopping in with donuts involved much more physical engagement! David is rubbing his tummy to say "please" in sign language. 😄

Observe which child was the most aggressively proactive in inserting herself to greatest advantage. She ended up sitting on his lap, front and center to the donut box. She is still the one who gets to the pigs-in-blankets fastest! (Marcie)

The dreaded "shoot your eye out" BB gun was Seth's dearest desire for Christmas!

Marmi got the kids monogrammed beanies, which they LOVE!

Will's treasure from someone's give-away pile. His books are ever-present companions.

 (His dad's sunglasses are optional.)

The kids are all doing great, enjoying their gifts and the plenty of the First World. I felt a flash of guilt on Christmas Eve when I nonchalantly opened two packages of cream cheese for our customary homemade "Danish." Cream cheese is GOLD back in Ukarumpa! I miss the camaraderie of weathering shortages with dear friends and family there. It's a place and group to which I no longer belong. Photos and objects will suddenly move Gavin and me to tears. Songs can be debilitating, and we just stand in each other's arms and cry. 

However, we're excited about and grateful for the feedback we've received regarding Gavin's ongoing role here in the USA. JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Relay Service) has been super encouraging about him flying out there to serve as needed. He brought the helicopter from PA to NC a couple of weeks ago and had a great time with his colleagues. Once a pilot, always a pilot. 😃

The "new" (used) helicopter donated by Samaritan's Purse!:

He also built an awesome sound booth for the International Linguistics Center! I am SO impressed! He loves using his hands and tools, and is steadily increasing the inventory of tools at his disposal as budgets allow.

I am finally sitting down to process through some of my thoughts from the past couple of months since learning PNG is no longer a viable option for our family. It's been too much to grasp, too difficult to express, too emotional to nail down, too changeable to write about. So much has been swirling in my mind, including a "movie" of myself standing, arms raised and eyes alight, in a colorful whirling leaf pile of God's grace, The leaves are continuously being blown about me by a steady wind of truth, and each distinct leaf as it twirls past is a specific, intimate, tangible provision or promise. I grasp and hold it briefly, but am so quickly overwhelmed by the beauty of the next leaf I see, I must open my fingers and pluck that one out of the air instead. Yet they all pile up again; they're still there; the wind doesn't blow them away. His Truth remains, ever invigorating even when terribly difficult. Ever new, unlike the leaves. Although some of the memories and thoughts blowing around and through me cause God-given grief for people, places and experiences we're leaving behind in PNG, there is still joy and wonder and abandonment. At the center of it all there is complete peace because I am in Christ and He is in me. 

My birthday dinner in November - candlelit Ramen from Marcie!

Gavin would share his feelings, thoughts, and griefs very differently, but I know he, too, stands in awe of what God has done in him as he grieves his the loss of his home, life, friends, and ministry overseas. He is a stronger, more beautiful man than he would have been if this hadn't been our painful journey. He is a better father and husband for it, a closer disciple through it. God is good. And God is giving him new beautiful gifts in the place of what we are relinquishing. Our church family is among the greatest of those blessings! I love that we are never meant to be alone on this earth. We were designed for family. Those who are in Christ have been adopted as sons and daughters of the King, born anew into Christs's Body, and destined to be His Bride through the power and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Emmanuel is truly God WITH, FOR us, IN us!

LOVING my niece's babyhood! My sister's and brother's other kids were toddlers by the time I met them. There are delightful advantages to being Stateside!