{"id":447,"date":"2016-12-07T19:28:21","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T23:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/?p=447"},"modified":"2017-11-10T19:33:23","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T23:33:23","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/2016\/12\/07\/merry-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Merry Christmas!<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n

We thank God\u00a0for His loving and never-ending gifts to us, the most significant One being Jesus!<\/p>\n

As you know, the last half of this year has been one of major upheaval as we relocated from El Paso to Leander (just north of Austin).<\/p>\n

This move has had its share of joys and sorrows, but in this season of celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth, we want to testify to the many blessings for which we are thankful to our Lord, starting with you all, our support team. You were so encouraging, sending uplifting notes during the transition and even special gifts to help with the costs. We really felt surrounded by your love.\u00a0Thank you<\/strong>\u00a0and may\u00a0God bless you<\/strong>\u00a0and meet all your needs in a similarly abundant way.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re thankful\u00a0that\u00a0our house in El Paso sold<\/strong>\u00a0for a better price and more quickly than we expected with the help of a godly realtor.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re thankful\u00a0that in just one visit to Austin,\u00a0we found an affordable place<\/strong>\u00a0just a ten-minute drive from Art & Lenn\u2019s home. They were a huge help throughout the whole process, including encouraging us to shop for a better mortgage rate and referring us to their excellent realtor.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re thankful\u00a0for God\u2019s provision of\u00a0interim housing<\/strong>\u00a0in September. Our missions pastor in El Paso recommended that we contact church offices in this area and Art also posted a notice online. This led us to a Christian family who hosted us for a few days and put us in touch with a missionary couple serving in Asia who lend out their condo to other missionaries — it was available to us for the exact time we needed!<\/p>\n

We\u2019re thankful\u00a0for\u00a0people who helped us fix up the house<\/strong>. God helped us find some good flooring people who installed some very nice yet economical tile. Then He sent us a handyman\/pastor and Steve\u2019s sister\u2019s stepdaughter, Cami, who likes to paint. They both said they\u2019d let God tell us what we should pay them. You\u2019ve got to admire that kind of faith!<\/p>\n

When it turned out that the pastor\u2019s other commitments kept him too busy, the Lord brought us Mark, a semiretired builder who we met as a helpful fellow customer at the hardware store. This brother in Christ dived right in and worked for two weeks, patching and texturing drywall, upgrading our kitchen and bathrooms and installing light fixtures, and much more. He told us that he wanted to bless us because of our \u201cbeautiful feet,\u201d and charged us just a fraction of what his work was worth. As he said several times, \u201cI\u2019ve learned that you can\u2019t outgive God.\u201d \u00a0What a blessing Mark was!<\/p>\n

We\u2019re thankful\u00a0that\u00a0we found a good church<\/strong>\u00a0right away through the family that hosted us. Hill Country Bible Church has a congregation only a mile and a half from our new home in Leander. We felt at home there right away! The pastor\u2019s teaching each Sunday has spoken exactly to our needs. Eida has already attended a women\u2019s retreat and Steve has sung once with the worship team.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re thankful\u00a0that God has provided so that\u00a0we can travel to California for Christmas<\/strong>\u00a0to visit our parents. Wouldn\u2019t it be fun if we had the chance to wish you a Merry Christmas in person during our time there?<\/p>\n

And\u00a0we\u2019re thankful\u00a0for\u00a0each of you<\/strong>\u00a0this Christmas. May we always be mindful of God\u2019s love and blessings in the coming year and give Him thanks.<\/p>\n

Joyfully,<\/p>\n

Steve & Eida Irwin<\/em><\/strong>
\nNew Tribes Mission<\/a>
\nSpanish Language Resources
\nsteve_irwin@ntm.org<\/a>
\nMobile: 408-515-1721
\nMail: 1009 Lantana Ct., Leander TX 78641<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merry Christmas! We thank God\u00a0for His loving and never-ending gifts to us, the most significant One being Jesus! As you know, the last half of this year has been one of major upheaval as we relocated from El Paso to Leander (just north of Austin). This move has had its share of joys and sorrows, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[448],"class_list":{"0":"post-447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-ethnos360","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/steve-irwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}