Wow! This post may end up looking crazy, but I've had a terrible time trying to get all of my photos in this post and in timeline order. I can't have a post full of randomly ordered pictures. They must be grouped together according to events so that you can get an overview of our December. I do believe that December 2013 was our busiest December yet. It was crazy, but it was full of divine appointments and some fun along the way.
We finally had some cooler temperatures. It was cool enough at times for me to walk around in a sweatshirt so that was probably really cold for most of you. We had fog in the mornings and everything seemed to move along faster to match the briskness in the air.
Thanksgiving was so late this year, and we didn't get to celebrate until Saturday since the Thursday is just another regular workday. I felt really rushed trying to get the tree up on that first weekend. We finally found enough lights to get it together and let my evening class decorate it. They had a lot of fun!
Our decorating party was actually a party this year since we let all of the students help. Sii and Gam haven't been spending time with us on the weekends so we thought we would give some of the other kids the opportunity to do what Sii and Gam have done in the past.
Tim from our sending church also arrived in December. He's always a big help in the schools and at home when he comes. This was his second time to come.
Antioch church in the city rented a hotel meeting room for their Christmas party/outreach. Sii and Gam did go with us as well as P'Nung, her two boys, and M and her grandmother. Rusty preached the Christmas message, and Tim had the opportunity to talk with P'Nung on the way back to our house. We all had a good time, and I'm thankful for the friends who went with us.
After the Christmas party we had a house full which was absolutely fine with me since I finally got to meet Ruth, M and Chi's baby. She's adorable!
After all of the guests left, we went to the post office and were so blessed to receive this pile of homemade Christmas cards from our "kids" in Isaan along with a few Christmas presents. I hear some missionaries complain that they feel forgotten at Christmastime because maybe people don't really take care of them as they should. I realize it takes time, planning, and diligence if you're going to get something to us in time for Christmas. I'm thankful for all of the ones in the States who put forth that effort to send something along our way, but I'm also thankful for the relationships that we have here. Christmas isn't even a holiday here, but every year people go out of their way to make our day special rather than waiting for their own traditional New Year's celebrations. We have teachers who pop by on Christmas Eve to share some goodies with us and to help make our evenings special. We may miss the time with our families, but I choose to have an attitude of gratitude and look at all that God has blessed us with.
Part 2 of our December which got even crazier is coming up soon!
December was so busy I barely had time to keep up with all that we had to do. I don't think there was a single night that we went to bed before midnight just because of all of the craziness. So you're getting two posts that summarizes the month through pictures and captions.
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