Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful time of celebrating Christ's birth and are looking forward to a new year full of God's graces. We enjoyed spending Christmas with Nathan's family here at our home, and we also got to celebrate Levi's 2nd birthday on Christmas day.

We learned at the beginning of December that Spain was indeed processing our visas as they requested another document from us, which we furnished, and everything is now back in the hands of those in Madrid. It is quite possible that we'll get Nathan's visa in the next few weeks. If so, Julie's and the kids' visas should arrive about a month later. We are hopeful that we could leave at the end of February (at the earliest) or in March.

We have been grateful to have a few more people choose to join us in financial support, so now we are just short of our monthly goal by $700. We are confident that God will provide all that we need in His own timing, and we ask you to continue to pray that God will lay it on people's hearts to support us as we have the potential of moving in the next 2 months. If you would like to support us, please reply to this e-mail.

People have been asking us a lot lately how we feel about our upcoming move. It's been hard to verbalize, but last week an illustration came to mind. We feel like we're in a box car of a fast-moving train. On a daily basis, we move about our box car (home, church, work, kids) doing the daily tasks- so things seem "normal." But in reality, the train is moving forward at a rapid pace. Every once in awhile, we stick our heads out the window and get so excited (and yes, nervous) for what lies ahead. We are very anxious to join the Belches and Albrechts in what God is doing in Tenerife.

Below, you'll find pictured two very good reasons to send us to Tenerife :-) as well as a picture of our kids before our church's Christmas service.

Snow and Christmas Concert

Tenerife Update

Two weeks ago we were able to go to the Spanish Consulate in Chicago and apply for our visas! They said that we "appeared" to have all of our documents in order. They also said to expect at least a 3 month wait. The reality is, (and always has been) that our times in in God's hands. The Albrechts (soon-to-be-coworkers in Tenerife) received both of their Visas within 6 weeks using this same consulate. Lois Belch (another coworker) was told this summer to expect at least 3 months, and hers arrived after 6 weeks as well. So, it's possible we could have them in a month or so. It's also possible it'll be 3 months from now. Either way, our time here is short. Our hearts are growing with excitement to be working alongside of the Albrechts and Belches with the people of Tenerife.

Here's a huge prayer request. Whenever we get word that our Visas are ready, we have to go pick them up within 30 days, WITH OUR PLANE TICKETS IN HAND. They stamp the visa directly onto the tickets. This means we have to be financially ready to move when we go pick up our visas. We are still short about $800 a month at this point. We are confident that God will provide in His way and His timing, and we ask you to pray to that end as well. We praise God that He's already provided the bulk of our monthly support, and we basically have all we need for one time support.

We will keep you posted as our Visas arrive, and as we get prepared to actually "launch." Continue to pray for our family during this time. Elijah seems to really understand we are moving to some place called Tenerife that is a volcano and is surrounded by deep water (which he is convinced shelters the infamous "big fish" that swallowed Jonah). He was quite sad this week when we explained it would mean leaving behind our "blue" house here in MI and getting a new place to live. I asked him what he could take to make the new place feel like home, and he said, "my jacks." They are from the dollar store. I wish I were so easily contented!

If anyone reading this would like to receive our updates via email, please leave a comment with your email address, or email me directly.

(p.s.... just to clarify some confusion... the visas we have applied for are NOT credit cards we'll use to charge our way to Tenerife. :-) They are documents from Spain granting us legal permision to do religious work in Tenerife)

Seattle Trip

Spokane

We have had an absolutely delightful week in Spokane catching up with family and old friends. The kids are LOVING being in the woods at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The boys are becoming great buddies (but also can fight like you can't believe!) Eliana is very mobile now, which makes like more interesting :0)

God is graciously providing for the funds needed for us to get to Tenerife. We are now for sure at or over the 80% mark, and we've applied for Eliana's passport and ssn. So, once all the documents are in hand, we can start the visa process. Once Spain gives us approval to come and we raise the remaining amount, we'll be able to join the church planting efforts in Tenerife!

Here are some pictures of the kids from the past week.

Eliana is Crawling... Kind of

Maybe I'll add Captions Tomorrow

Some Videos

A sundry of Things

A week ago, Nathan treated us all to a minor league baseball game here in Grand Rapids. We live a mile from the stadium, and we'd never been there! It happened to be Star Wars night, and it also happened to RAIN... er... DOWN pour most of the evening. Let's just say it was an adventure, but our beloved White Caps won the game, and the boys had a BLAST playing with their nifty light sabers.





Also last week, Eliana's adoption was finalized in the courts. She now has a new birth certificate with her name and us listed as her parents! YAHOO! She has been "ours" this whole time, but now we have the paperwork to prove it! She's such a sweet little girl. She is so content to roll about the floor, and she ADORES her brothers, as seen in the video below...

A Nicaraguan Sunset...

Nathan got so spend a week with his dad in Nicaragua last week working with a church there that is committed to training young Nicaraguan men for ministry. They went on retreat on the ocean for a few days, and Nathan snapped these pictures of an amazing sunset...

Me and My Girl

Today Eliana and I had our picture taken out in Nana and Dupda (Nathan's parents) yard. It's fun having a daughter to be girly with!





Today Eliana and I had our picture taken out in Nana and Dupda (Nathan's parents) yard. It's fun having a daughter to be girly with!