Christmas

We are at the closing of a new year and I am excited to share with you my new Blog that a dear friend helped me create. Thank you, Jolene! It's hard to imagine myself with a Blog considering a few months ago, I didn't even know what a blog was.:) I pray that this blog will be a blessing to all who read it and will forever glorify my Savior Jesus Christ.

This is my wonderful family:
Marc, Dawn, Tony
Caleb, Anna, Joshua

A lot has been happening around here considering it is the Christmas Season. Tony has worked very hard at our very first Cantata at Simferopol Baptist Church. We were able to do the 10,000 Hallelujahs by Ron Hamilton in Russian. Our Cantata was on Dec. 20th and we were all excited to see Galya come forward to be saved. So just like the story in the Cantata, our night ended with the Angels rejoicing! Thank you to the choir members and the people in the play for putting forth your best for the Lord and making this Christmas very special!

As many of you know already, about this time last year we visited the nursing home here singing Christmas carols. We continued to visit one of the rooms in which six ladies live. My heart has been blessed beyond measure by these wonderful ladies. Lena and I were able to lead Nadya to the Lord this year. She has been such an encouragement to me. I can't express in words the love that I feel for these ladies that I have known but a short time. They are like family. We visit them every Saturday and share a part of God's Word with them through songs and teaching. The Monday after our Cantata Lena and I went to visit the head of the nursing home and asked if we could bring the cantata to them the following Saturday, which to our delight, they said yes! So this past Saturday the choir met at the nursing home. We didn't have a large group attend but the Lord did bless with one open door. There was a lady that wanted us to come visit her in her room. We stopped and spoke with her afterwards and she was excited about us coming to see her. Please pray as we visit her again on Saturday.

Nadya and Marc

Frosya

Olya

Zoya

We had a wonderful Christmas. We had the missionaries over our house this year and to our great surprise, we were actually able to get Pastor Bob to play games! It was great! We had so much fun, at one point Pastor Bob literally climbed over the kitchen table and down head first to the ground to tackle Joshua (my middle son) on the floor. Everyone was in laughter. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even find my camera. :) What a picture that would have been! We ended our wonderful time together with singing about our Savior's birth around the piano.

The Hess' and the Sloans Singing. Jolene is taking the picture :)

Hess', Sloans and the VanSants after eating Christmas dinner.

Sunday night after the service our Sunday school class had our Christmas banquet which turned out great. We had such a fun time. We all dressed up in characters from the Christmas story. We had quite the arrangement of costumes. We had Mary (Me) and Joseph (Tony), and then we had 2 sheep, 2 angles, a shepherd, a dog, one came as the hay or as we all joked, as a porcupine :), the inn keeper, 2 stars, and one guy wore a hat with the city of Bethlehem on it, therefore he represented Bethlehem.

Even though we had a great Christmas here in the Ukraine, my heart was with my mom and siblings this year. A year that I'm sure all were feeling a void in their hearts. Missing the 2 wonderful men in our lives. As many of you know shortly before Thanksgiving my dad passed away and two weeks later to our surprise my step-dad Ray went home to be with the Lord. It's been a sad time for our families but the Lord is good as He is our Comforter. "For the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted." Isaiah 49:13 I ask you to please keep my mom in your prayers as this has been very hard on her losing Ray, her husband and very best friend. As hard as it was losing both my dad's this year, I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose Tony. My prayers are always with you Mamachka with a HUGE hug!