I gave up the strike!

Well, I am back from my writers strike or I guess you could call it a rebellion against our internet.  After many, many, MANY attempts throughout the last few months to send out emails and losing them to our internet, or trying to open Gmail, but the internet is so slow I couldn’t even get it open…I gave up writing for awhile out of frustration.  Yet I have found out that I need to write, whether I  ever actually send them or post them to my blog, I need to write.  It helps me get through.  It helps me process.  Besides, I think about you guys and stuff I want to tell you all the time.  So when I can’t write it is like a one way conversation.

So, here I am.  The end of our Christmas break.  The dorm kids come back tomorrow.  I am not sure if I am ready, but I sure feel blessed.  I was in such desperate need for a break, and for some quality family time.  That is what this break has been all about.  It has been wonderful.  It was so tough coming late and jumping right in.  I honestly felt like we were playing catch up the whole semester.  Now, we have a fresh start!  Yeah!

We had a few trips to beaches, 2 boat rides, movies nights, (We even got to see Frozen twice, imagine that!) lots of games, some GREAT talks, numerous rainstorms pounding our roof so hard we couldn’t hear each other, good discussions as we read together through Luke, soccer games, Knockout, baking, and inventing new concoctions,  a couple trips to Jayapura, fun with friends, a few motorcycle rides with Wyatt driving…(He does great!), Track Mania, lots of book reading and gobs of laughing.  Doesn’t it sound like fun?  It was fantastic!

This Christmas was so different from Christmas last year-we truly missed our family, the snow, the smell of a fresh pine tree in the house, our big church family, all of our friends…and yet, looking back now on the Christmas we had here, we feel so blessed.  It was so simple.  We had a donated fake tree with only a few ornaments, incredible heat, no family, and only a few gifts for the kids to open, but none of us feel like we missed out.  The kids have commented over and over how this was such a fun Christmas.  It is an answer to prayer.  God met us right where we were.  We felt God’s presence here with us in such a profound way.  We were by ourselves but we never felt alone.  We only had a little but we never felt deprived.  We are so far away from those we love, yet we felt such love all around us here.  It is such a testimony to how God can do so much more than we could ever ask or even imagine.

Thank you for your prayers.  I feel much more equipped to start anew.  Keep praying.  We have so many young kids and I know it will be hard for them to say good-bye to their families tomorrow.  Also, we will be getting a new 7^th grade girl named Hannah.  We want that transition to go smoothly as well as the transition for our family to go from 3 weeks of having Mom and Dad to themselves to having to share us again with 12 other kids.

Love you all-

Rachel