Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a great New Year. Our last week has been pretty good but Christmas day itself wasn’t very enjoyable. Maggie came down sick Christmas Eve and spent most of Christmas day in bed. She got up long enough in the morning for the kids to open all their presents and then went back to bed. The kids had a great day playing with their new toys. Their favorites are the water guns, marble chaser, and two swings up on our porch. Now Maisie is constantly badgering us to push her on her new swing.
The day before Christmas we went to a local hotel that also has a restaurant and a pool and enjoyed pizza and swimming. The pictures below are from that outing.
The last week and a half there’s been a volleyball tournament happening at a house-line about a 45 minute hike from here and so I’ve spent a few of my afternoons there supporting the teams from our area and playing on one of those teams. Today started the “knockout” round of the tournament where teams start to get eliminated as they work up to the Championship to be played on Saturday. I couldn’t make it out there today so I’m hoping my team will still be alive when I go out there tomorrow afternoon. Either way its been a good place to practice language and build more friendships. We play outdoors in the sun and rain. Yesterday, it started sprinkling just before our second game and our court soon became as slippery as ice. It made for some good fun.
In January we’ll be heading out on Bush Orientation. We will be spending 6 weeks in a tribe to “experience bush living and have hands-on experience in dealing with tribal people.” We’ll continue to work on our pidgin study while there and hopefully be fluent by the time we get back. Pray for us as we go into this. It will be us and one other missionary family in the tribe and we’ll be isolated from medical clinics and groceries stores and the other things we’re used to and take for granted. This is the kind of ministry we’ll be eventually heading into full-time so this will be a good trial run for us and for our kids.
Alrighty, I’m done talking. Have a great day!