THANK YOU!!!

Thank you so much to those of you who have given to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering this past month. We are ever so grateful for your financial support. You have allowed more than 5200 missionaries and their families to remain on the field and you have sent more into the world! Many lives will be changed eternally because of your gifts! WOW!! God is doing amazing things through you, your willingness to give and your willingness to pray! Thank You!!

Successful

So the party went off without a hitch except the fact that by the end of the night I felt like I had just worked a 12 hour shift at Applebees. I was the greeter, the cook and the waitress. In this culture, the woman does it all, which is ok except when there are 30 people roaming in and out of your house. All the same, it went great, and almost everyone came. We gave everyone a gift bag full of cookies and offered them a book entitled "Jesus our Destiny." Only a few of them took the book, but we were able to have a few conversations regarding spiritual things throughout the evening. Thanks so much for your prayers!!! Continue to pray for those who took a copy of the book. Pray that they will actually read it and seek to know more. Here are some pictures of the night. Oh yeah, Dedo Mraz (Santa Claus) stopped by for a few minutes bearing gifts of food and drink. He then decided he was too hot in his outfit to remain, so he returned to the hallway and came back as our friend Alexander (from the photo shop).

Ohrid Decked in Christmas Lights

Ohrid has begun to twinkle in the past few days. Lights are going up all over the place. You may be thinking, it is a little late to start putting up lights, but don't forget, Macedonians celebrate Christmas on January 7th. They have a couple more weeks to prepare for their holiday. Our favorite new sight are the skinny Santas that sit outside the photo shop in the center of town. We just want to stuff a pillow in that suit with them... or feed them some cookies or something. Santa is just not supposed to be skinny, I don't care what Dr. Atkins says.




Christmas is, however, not the biggest deal around here... not yet at least. Right now everyone is gearing up for New Year's. Evidently they know how to ring in the New Year with style. And most of the signs we have seen that would probably say Merry Christmas in America, say Crekna Nova Godina (Happy New Year) instead. We have heard the Christmas tree called the New Year's tree by several people and have realized that we don't have anything to wear out for the evening of New Year's because "you must dress like you are going to the prom." Personally I would rather ring in the New Year in my pj's, but for the Macedonians...





And for anything you may ever need for decorating your home for the holiday season visit the outdoor market. This has been a really fun place to visit to learn some new Christmas words and practice our language. And you can find anything from Christmas cards to sparklers, Santa hats to scary masks (not real sure what that's about yet).

Take a look at that temperature!!!!


And look at how I have to dress!!! I love it!!!


Pray that we will be able to share with the people what this time is so special!

Our New Home

Despite the lack of pictures on our walls, we have finally gotten settled into our new apartment. We are really happy here and have already seen our new place become a meeting place for our neighbors and friends. I have gotten settled into our kitchen even if it is Carolina Blue. Brian intends to make no comment regarding this. :0) I suggested painting the walls NC State red to make up for the little bit of blue, but he refused. "Wolfpack Red never ever mixes with that shade of blue" he says. So we will just leave that with a "Go Pack!!!!"

We have gotten our Christmas tree put up and I am enjoying spending my down moments enjoying the lights of the tree. Have a look around our apartment!!!
This is our entrance way. Put your coat on the right.


Don't forget to leave your shoes at the door.


Here is our living room. Do you like the tree? It is fake, but does the job just fine. We had to buy fake because it is illegal to have a real tree in our town. Amanda, you wouldn't break out in hives. :0)


Our dining room....


And yet another view of our living room.


Here is our bedroom. A day trip down to Greece was great assistance in furnishing our house.


And our kitchen.


Feel free to drop by anytime.

Cloud

Since we last wrote we have become parents. We have a new little puppy who has brought a little more excitement and laughter into our lives. His name is Cloud (named after Brian's favorite video game character from Final Fantasy 7 "best-game ever"). Brian named him. Some of our top choices were Chip after "chocolate chip cookie dough" or Spoto after that great Italian family up in New Jersey. Brian decided that neither of those "flowed" so Cloud it is. He is a happy little puppy who is coming out of shell more and more everyday. We got him from a farm on the outskirts of the town. He was malnurished and parasite infested, but after a scary trip to the vet, he is well on his way to growing into a strong healthy dog. He has some Dalmation and, we think, some Spaniel in him. Enjoy the pictures of our bundle of joy. :0)

Tale of Woe .... our internet saga

There have been many things happening in our town in the last month and we have not put up a single thing about them. TOMORROW, we will spend the time in the computer lab and write a myriad of updates. This tale is about our Internet. We did finally move on Dec. 1 to our new address (more later). We also got a dog(more later). However we still had the same old Internet which got worse, so bad that we haven’t been able to send an email in almost a month, much less post and upload pictures. The only reason we have not gone to the lab to do our posts is because of the constant lingering promise of working internet that never came. We are sorry about the problems.
For anyone who is interested in the specifics, we have a unit that goes outside the apartment that picks up the wireless signal being broadcast from one of many towers around the town. The place to where we moved is a void of signal because we have a cliff on one side and a super tall house on the other. From time to time we will pick up reflections off the cliff, but it is never long enough to stay connected to gmail to send an email. We have about 13 drafts that we want to send out. Tomorrow everyone will get updates!!!

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

WOW! It is a gorgeous sunny day in our town! The temperature has hit 50 degrees and the people of the city are out in droves. As I walked out of our apartment this morning, I watched some kids playing up in a tree. I walked past several other children playing in the streets enjoying the warm sunshine. As I rounded the corner, I spotted an elderly woman who was out in the street in her bedroom shoes speaking to anything that would speak back. As I got closer, I greeted her with a Dobar Den. Her whole face lit up. She was anxious to get out of me anything she could. So, we talked for a few minutes and then a man on a bike rode by and ended my conversation with her as he started talking to her. As I continued walking, I was greeted by three other elderly men on their bikes. I watched people feeding the birds in the lake. I giggled at the site of 4 slightly overweight men crammed onto one park bench for their afternoon conversation. And their wives chatting on the park bench next to them. And by the time I got where I was going I was stripping off my coat because the sun had warmed me on my journey. What a privilege to be able to enjoy God’s creation in all things!!! Praise Him for He is good!!! Praise Him for He created the children up in the tree, the children in the streets. He created the men and women of this town. They are fearfully and wonderfully made. Praise Him!!!! Pray that they will soon come to know Him as Savior and give Him the praise He is due.
Thank you for always praying with us and for us!

UUGA!!!

So I have joined an aerobics class with my language tutor here. I thought it would be a good place to make some new friends and workout during the cold gray days. It is a blast! The last three nights our instructor has thrown a little Macedonian style kickboxing in the routine. I giggle through the whole thing, because every time we kick, we say UUGAA!!! I just love the sound effects we make for things around here. So uuga is my new word. Say it with me. It’s fun!!! And every time you say it think of the women in my aerobics class. Pray that I will be able to build relationships with them that will bear fruit for the Gospel of Christ. Thanks for praying!!! UUGA!!!!