December 31, 2011 by Jevon and Danica Rich To anyone who misses the kiddos’ bright eyed faces…and to anyone who misses the Studtmann faces too. 🙂 Enjoy. Isaac "the abominable snowboy" watching the christmas tree procedings with Grandpa Studtmann Long Creek Mountaineers Isaac Number 24 Karina watching with new friend Cali watching with Uncle Amos. Future Aunt Cymbre has the festive headgear. Sam hurray! our people won! "Uncle Isaac has silly hair" -Karina (don't worry; it was just for the game) Christmas cookies! Uncle Amos helping them Amos made a Cali cookie and a Kiki cookie Christmas Eve studying the manger scene while Jevon reads to them one present Christmas Eve pajamas! Christmas Eve goodies while we watch Dr. Seus's Grinch (the old one and the best!) his first Christmas morning good morning and Merry Christmas from the Riches Cali and Dakota looking out the window Karina and Danica Grandpa Studtmann reading the Christmas story some of us listen some of us try but its so hard when you are excited 🙂 new puppy new socks new food new zebra Amos and his fiance Cymbre Isaiah's awesome socks from Uncle Isaac which both Wisconsinites and Long Creek people will appreciate Christmas dinner: Navajo tacos (tacos on fry bread) Frederik (student from Denmark) helped too and mom was flipping the fry bread between taking pictures do you want to pet my puppy Sam? oh sure why not? and finally...the feast. 🙂 Thank you God for another Christmas. 2011 Christmas Thoughts (from Danica’s journal) When Karina was born, it was only barely more than a month before Christmas. She was born at home in our living room. I remember Jevon lighting the candles in that room. I remember them flickering in their spiral “staircase” of votive holders and casting a quite mood of rest, celebration, and reflection around that room after her birth. It was something like the peaceful scenes we create at Christmas for reflecting on our Lord’s birth. And I thought, that Christmas, how very human an entrance God chose when He stepped into our world – His world. I knew something about labor pains and the crazy, messy, beautiful and miraculous event that birth is. He came the same way we all did. HE CHOSE TO COME THE SAME WAY WE ALL DO. But I also thought, that Christmas: Jesus wasn’t born at home. And Mary didn’t have the comfortable place I did in which to do her work of labor and birth – that work God gave her. I thought about that. But I wasn’t sure what God was teaching me or to what conclusions He was leading me in those thoughts. Well, this Christmas, Isaiah’s birth is the freshest one in my memory. And here I am again, reflecting on God’s human entrance into this world. How He chose to come. Jesus wasn’t born in a cozy bedroom or a birth suite. And who knows how much time Mary had to “nest” or prepare a makeshift place in the barn before the labor contractions overtook her. Jesus was born on a journey, and there wasn’t even room in the inn for them. In some ways, the cinder-block walls and cement floor of the dorm room where Isaiah was born probably bore a slightly closer resemblance to the scene on which the newborn God-man entered when He was born. It was a makeshift barrier of a mattress blocking off our end of the hallway that provided privacy. Most of the people accommodating us and rejoicing with us that night were not our extended family. But we were prepared. We were provided for. Everything happened exactly as planned, exactly as it was supposed to happen. We had everything we needed. And this Christmas I have a vague picture in my mind which is slowly coming into clearer focus: a picture of human, humble, imperfect circumstance, messiness, a bit of chaos, and makeshift creativity – all being directed purposefully by a God of perfect order, Sovereign intention, and faithful provision. Here meets humility and deity. Here comes our Savior! Do not be afraid. Watch. Worship. Trust. Celebrate with lights and candles and feasting and gift-giving; it is right to do so, because Christ is our light to reveal God to us, our provision from God, and the greatest gift from the Greatest Giver of all. But when the short season is gone and the mess of everyday not-quite-so-perfect moments is back, remember that the God we can’t see is right there in the thick of it with us, silently working it all according to His perfect plan. A God of sovereign intention. A God of faithful provision. A Savior in Whom meets humble humanity and glorious Deity. OUR SAVIOR. JESUS CHRIST. Do not be afraid. Watch. Worship. Trust.
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