Full of Surprises!

On the 23rd of this month we had a surprise breakfast at the café for Dayle’s 40th birthday. I decorated with white balloons instead of black because I wanted to symbolically represent life instead of death. This "over-the hill" business is a lie- Moses didn’t even begin his ministry until he was about 80! Abraham was 100 and Sarah was about 90 when they had Isaac, right? Also this holiday season our Pastor’s family had a surprise- their daughter Amber flew here from the states without telling her parents. Someone else we know also had a surprise visit from her sister a few days ago. On Christmas morning Dayle and I were surprised by the 3 alarms that our kids set in our room- all of which went off at 6AM.! They were up and ready to open presents. One of the cool things about kids is that they help us adults to see things from a fresh child-like perspective again. And speaking of kids and surprises, on Christmas night my twin brother Matt told me that he’s now a dad too! What kinds of surprises are in store for 2009? Whatever they are, they’ll obviously be what we least expect. But it keeps life interesting, doesn’t it? And even if some of the surprises are bad, we’ll be surprised by the comfort of God’s presence in the middle of it all, and someday we’ll be surprised by how God worked it for our good. So brace yourself...

I've been Busy!!!

It's been a busy few weeks! I cooked Thanksgiving for a LOT of people at the cafe, cooked Thanksgiving for our family (we like the leftovers and there isn't any with the cafe meal!), started school back up with the kids again, had a party for our lit class where we studied Pride and Prejudice, did a party for the Kid's Club at the base, made and decorated a wedding cake for a customer at the cafe, and still found time to decorate, shop, and start our Christmas baking. Whew! I feel like super mom!!!!! (not quite)

Here's some pictures of our recent happenings:

The first is the party for the Kid's Club. The second is the group of girls we had for our "Pride and Prejudice" class we did. This was the party we had. They had to dress up if they could and bring a food made from a recipe of the Regency Period in England (about 1810-1830).

And the third picture is of our kids and the neighbor kids posing in front of the gingerbread house we made. How long do you think that actually lasted? I can tell you that it was less than a week!

You Never Know

When we were still living in Minnesota I gave a guy a penny with the 10 Commandments stamped on it. It’s a little witnessing tool that I used a lot back then. I saw him later on another day and he showed me that he had made it into a necklace!

A couple of years ago I was witnessing to a Jewish guy, but he didn’t give his heart to the Lord, and I just forgot about the talk and went on with life... until I got an email from him months later telling me he wanted to know more about Christianity!

Then this week in Mexico I got into a cab and the driver remembered me from another time I had been in Mexico. He brought up the fact that I had given him a gospel tract!

You just never know what will happen when you share the gospel with people. I know a story of a man who witnessed to people for 40 years and never heard of one person getting saved through his ministry until right before he died when he heard testimony after testimony of people who he had helped to bring to Jesus. Sometimes we get to see results, but sometimes we don’t. But if we continue to share the gospel no matter what, we may be storing up a lot of surprises for ourselves in heaven!