our first tropical Christmas!

Thank you for your prayers for our family during this Christmas season!

We are doing well.  Of course, we miss our family and friends back home, but God has been so good to us here in PNG.  We are coming out of the holidays now, and we aren't feeling sad...just thankful!  (and a bit overwhelmed, but that has to do with our near future which I will be telling you about sometime soon!)

Anyway.  Our Christmas was filled with friends, the beach (that was a first for us! We can't do that in an Indiana winter!), Christmas cookies and other good food, games, gifts...and most importantly, talking to our kids about the REAL reason we celebrate Christmas.  And the fact that Jesus came to earth for ALL peoples--this theme is all throughout the Bible!  So cool and so humbling.

Now for some pictures...

The kids at the church we attend just LOVE to shower our kids with attention...and gifts.  Lol.  I think especially since it's Christmas time.  I love this mask that Daisy's friend gave her!

Our kids got the opportunity to be in a Christmas program here on base!  What a blessing.  We are so thankful they could be a part of this!

The whole cast, along with the amazing Miss Stephanie who directed it!

A couple of weeks ago, we built a "snowman" at the beach!  Or at least, the closest thing we can get to an snowman ;) 

Our Christmas weekend started out with our first Team Christmas.  Have I mentioned before how incredibly thankful we are for David and Emily?  We hit the jackpot with these teammates...we just love them.  Dave and Em, we loved our team Christmas and we can't wait for many more!  Chad and Martha, next year hopefully we can all celebrate together!

After dinner, we headed outside to play a really funny reindeer game...haha!  We laughed so much :) 

On Christmas Eve night, we started doing some family Christmas stuff with our kids.  Nathan created lots of games with prizes, just like my dad does at home...sniff:(   Our kids had a blast, and so did we!

On Christmas Eve we all slept in the living room...even though I so desperately wanted to go up to our bed!  Lol.  I did it for the kids, even though I KNOW that rats come in our downstairs at night.  Thankfully I didn't hear any--that was God's kindness to me!

Daisy broke out our new blowup boat...haha!  She slept great, even though to me it just looks HOT! 

On Christmas morning, we read the Christmas story and had a little church service.  Then we opened gifts.  Both my parents and Nathan's parents spoiled our kids by sending over packages...the shipping on those is NOT cheap!  Thank you to our dads and moms...you made our Christmas very special :)

That afternoon we hit the beach with the Rimestads and some other friends. Again, that was our first time ever going to the beach at Christmas!

Daisy and Lou--the cutest little mermaid ever!

 We took Daisy's "bed" to the beach...the first time we used it in the water!  Of course, it ripped, which isn't a surprise because we got it in town pretty cheap, which is a recipe for disaster here in PNG.  But it's all good... the kids still had such a good time!

Thanks for your prayers!  We really appreciate all of your prayers...and we NEED them!  We have a lot happening in these next few months.  A lot of really good things, but really BIG things.  So keep on praying!  We'll update again soon!