Happy New Year FROM THE BURNS FAMILY!
We hope this Christmas season hasn’t been one frustration after another for you but, instead, a time for you and your family to reflect on the love of God in sending His Son, Jesus as the Perfect Christmas Gift! If you are like us, you have had one party after another: school parties, school staff parties, 2 office parties, Sunday School parties, Awana party, and New Tribes Mission staff party. I think we are about partied out! Definitely too much food and too many parties! Because of the economic situation we have tried to scale back on the gift buying so the shopping part has been much less stressful this year. Also, hope you don’t mind but instead of sending Christmas Cards we decided to send as many greetings as possible by email to save a little more!
Our church tried a new Christmas program this year called “A Night To Remember”. It was a Christmas Drive-Through Nativity which was open to the public for one night three weekends during December. The presentation involved many of our church members either in acting (Phil was a Wiseman), makeup and wardrobe, construction, greeting, traffic control, counseling (Jackie spoke with the folks as they left) and various other jobs. It was a lot of work but I think folks in the area appreciated the reminder of the ‘reason for the season’. We pray that some may have come to know Jesus during this Christmas season. We’ll probably do it again next year and hopefully it will be even better.
Haley’s soccer season is almost over, though they do have a few tournament games after Christmas. She was excited to have made her first two goals in the last two games she played.
We enjoyed spending Thanksgiving this year with family. Actually, we celebrated (and stuffed ourselves) twice: once with our Aunt, Uncle and Cousins and the second time at our home with my sister, my brother and his family and some nieces and nephews.
We wanted to thank those of you who gave sacrificially, especially at this time of year with all the expenses involved at Christmas. We know that individual families, churches, missionaries and others are struggling now with the economy the way it is and we are humbled but also count it a privilege to be able to partner with you in reaching the tribes with the Gospel. We didn’t do much to celebrate the New Year coming in but we are excited about the new tribes around the world w the who heard the Gospel for the first time this past year. A new year is beginning and we trust that many more will hear this “Good News” during the coming year.
Your Missionaries to the Tribes,
Phil and Jackie
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