Our Christmas....

We had a wonderful Christmas Sunday!  We decided to delay opening our gifts until the afternoon because we had to get everything ready for our Bible study in our home that morning.  (For our family, opening gifts is a special time and normally we take quite a while to open gifts one-by-one.  We love to see what each other received and to spend time thanking each other.)  So after we woke up, we got dressed, cleaned the house up and Kami put the finishing touches on our Sunday meal! 

This was our attendance on Christmas day!

Beth is holding up her plate to show us our great Sunday meal of ham, potatoes, and green beans.

Then it was present-opening time!  Of course the kids told us we had to all get in our pajamas to make it official!

At other people's homes, we got to try some of the traditional foods and treats people make for Christmas.   The picture above is a Christmas pudding made of white sweet potatoes, raisins and I am not sure what else.  It takes a long time to make and it is good.

This is another form of pudding made in a Seagrape leaf.  We also got to eat smoked salmon sushi and duck liver paste.  We enjoyed the liver paste which tasted like liverworst (if that's how you spell it!) 

We enjoyed our Christmas here on St. Barths and I was able to present a clear presentation of the Gospel on Christmas morning.  We continue to pray and hope that the Lord will reward our Christmas caroling efforts and that people will attend our Sunday morning Bible studies.  Yesterday, I went to the Fed Ex office to pick up an envelope with the girl's French birth certificates! (I'll post that in another post!)  On the way home, I picked up a hitch-hiker.  He is a Math teacher for the "college" and I was able to give him the plan of salvation and answer his many questions about the Bible.

Yesterday, we went in the late-afternoon to Grand Fond (our treasure beach!) and Joshua got to fly his stunt kite.  We enjoyed the time out and afterwards we surprised the kids by ordering Pizza!  There really was a two-fold purpose in the Pizza.  As you may recall, I have been able to witness to the owner of the pizza shop and gave her the whole plan of salvation.  We went there not only to order pizza, but to give her our brochure/invitation to our Sunday Bible study!  Please be in prayer for her, her name is Katrine.

Until next time.....

From our home to yours...

Joyeux Noël à tout le monde !

(Merry Christmas to everyone!)

The Temperatures are falling for Christmas!

It really is beginning to feel like Christmas...I know we have no chance of snow but the temperatures here are great!  This morning we started out at 76 degrees and as of right now at 12:30, it is only 82 degrees!  The wind is blowing and we have a great breeze through the house!  The kids have officially started their Christmas vacation and we have accomplished quite a bit in our Christmas Caroling campaign!

We have been super busy and we are finally able to stop and take a breath.  As many of you know, we went Christmas caroling around the island and passed out gift bags that contained home-made goodies and the Gospel. 

These are some of the home-made, personalized shopping bags that Kami made for certain folks that we know really well.  She did a great job and she is ready to take a break!

All of the kids and Kami made home-made cookies and fudge that we passed out as well.

Every one loved the Christmas Caroling here, it is definitely something Americans do.  As one lady told us with a smile, "We only see this done in American movies!"  It was a treat and we have even been invited to sing at one of the local schools in the future!  We trust that folks will get saved as they read the Gospel and will start coming to our Sunday morning Bible Studies.

Well, this picture shows what a busy, hectic couple of weeks that we have had.....ok, the real story is that Josh and I were left alone watching Callie.  We decided to "fix-up" Callies' hair to surprise mommy when she came back home......Surprise!!!

Christmas Caroling and Millions of dollars worth of yachts!

Our Christmas Caroling has been going great!  We have had so much fun and everyone we have sang for really seemed to love hearing our family sing Christmas songs for them!

Right before we left for Christmas Caroling last night, Kami took a quick picture of the kids.  She told Silas, "Go stand over there like Josh."  I think Silas took his job very seriously....He stood exactly like Josh!

Last night, we continued our Christmas caroling and passed out our gift bags that included the homemade gift, the invitation brochure to our Sunday Bible study, a Gospel Tract, and a copy of the books of John and Romans.  As we left one house, one man who has really ridiculed Christianity in the past told us, "One day soon, I am going to come to your church service."  Wow, what a great encouragement to us!

We are going to post some more pictures of these amazing yachts on the left at a later time.  They are huge and worth many millions of dollars each!  When we finished our Christmas caroling last Thursday, we went downtown to Gustavia to look at all of lights, festivities and yachts.  There was such a festive atmosphere and we really enjoyed strolling around.  Many celebrities and famous people come here each year to vacation and spend Christmas.  It's kind of a joke with Kami's sister who tells us, "You guys would probably walk right past a famous celebrity, invite them to church and not have a clue as to who they are!"  As we drove around last night after caroling, Kami and I pointed to different people and said, "Do they look famous....I wonder if that person is famous!"  We both agreed, we are glad we cannot recognize any of these "celebrities" !

Our Christmas Campaign is just about ready!

I had mentioned in an earlier post that we have been working on a Christmas outreach program here on St. Barthelemy.  We ask that everyone please be in prayer that we will see some great results as we begin our Christmas Campaign on Wednesday!

A couple of weeks ago, we started working on two projects: The book on the left is a "new" songbook for our services.  We began using the songbook this past Sunday and they really add a nice touch to our services having a nice looking songbook in French.  In the future, we will eventually invest in an actual French hymnal, but for now, our homemade book will work great!  The brochure on the right is a French brochure that we put together and is an invitation to our Sunday morning Bible study.  It is titled, "Do you have any questions?"

This is the inside of the brochure that includes highlights of why someone should come to our Bible Study, our contact information, a picture of our family, what to expect if you were to come to our Bible study, and our home church's slogan of, "Where the Bible comes alive!"

This is the back section of the brochure where we placed the statement, "Yes, there are answers to your questions."  We will begin this Wednesday on our Christmas Campaign.  We are going to go Christmas Carolling around the island.  We will be singing two Christmas songs in French and then we will be giving out a "gift" from our family.  The gift will be a packet that includes a brochure (the one above), a French Gospel-tract (God's Simple Plan of Salvation), a homemade Christmas potholder (showed below), and a french copy of the Gospel of John and Romans.

These are the homemade Christmas potholders that Kami and the girls have made.  There are three different kinds and they turned out very nice.

On the potholder, we included the Bible verse Isaiah 9:5.

Also, for families that we know really well, Kami has made a special "Shopping Bag".  Here, at the stores, there are no plastic/paper bags available for shoppers.  You must bring your own re-usable shopping bags of which you can purchase from the grocery stores.  We bought several and Kami cut them apart.  Using the pieces from the plastic shopping bag, Kami made personalized, quilted shopping bags that have the plastic bag as a liner inside.  She put the initial of the first name of the lady of the home on the bags.

So far she has made two and has at least 8 more to go.  I was told that I am going to help her finish some of them today, so I guess I'd better go check in with her and get my "orders of the day!"

Getting our blog/website updated...slowly but surely!

Since we have finally received internet/phone service here at our home after 7 1/2 months, we are trying to update our family blog/website.  If you look to the right side of our blog, you will notice new pictures of our family, a slideshow of the girls' "Cake Ministry", and an updated "Praises and Requests" section.  We will now be able to post our updates on a regular basis!

Hope you enjoy!  Thank you for praying for our family!

Thank you to the 5th & 6th Grade class of Gospel Baptist Christian School!

I would like to personally thank each and every member of the 5th and 6th grade class of Gospel Baptist Christian School in Bonita Springs, Florida and their teacher Ms. Kristen Booher!

Thank you so much for the packet of personal letters from each of you that we just received! (Yes, it takes over a month for us to get mail, but we did receive them!)  We have enjoyed reading each letter and we are honored and grateful for your prayers for our family every single day you start your class.  I know that God will do great things here on St. Barthelemy because we serve a Great God who answers prayer and I know He has answered many of our needs through your constant prayers for us and the people here on this tiny, French island.

I just want you to know that we will be responding back to you by mail as well, but please be patient, it will take over a month for you to get our letters from here in the West Indies.  When we send a letter, it goes to the island of Guadeloupe and then is sent to Paris, France.  From there it is sent to the U.S. and will eventually reach you. 

We praise the Lord for each and every one of you!  Keep up the good work!

Is it Christmas yet?......

When Kami was in Florida to take care of getting her French VISA, we decided it best to go ahead and have her purchase our Christmas presents.  (Too expensive here!)  Both of our parents also filled a suitcase full of Christmas presents of which Kami brought back with her on her trip.  Needless to say, we have many wrapped presents under our Christmas tree, ready to be torn open and Christmas seems so far away!!!

It the spirit of the season, I thought I would share with you one of our traditions.  We learned this tradition from some dear friends in New York.  We have a Christmas stocking for Jesus in which are our Christmas gifts to Him from last year.  Last Christmas, we each privately wrote down on a piece of paper our Christmas gift we wanted to give to Christ.   (It could be to read your Bible through, or give Him your besetting sin or bad habit.  It could be to praise Him each and every day of the year, basically whatever you want to give Him.)  Needless to say, we each gave him a gift and no one knows what it is except for Christ.  This Christmas, we will take out our "gift" from last year and we will read them and share them as a family.  Then we will put in our new "gifts" for this coming year. 

This past Sunday, we are really trying to emphasize the Christ in the Christmas Season!  Joshua prepared a lesson in French on the Candy Cane story. 

The ladies loved the story and Joshua handed out candy canes to everyone.  It was fun to watch as each lady quickly opened them up and immediately started eating them!  It`s great to the ladies growing and they are even starting to answer questions as we review previous Bible studies from the weeks before!

We have quite a bit planned for a Christmas outreach, but we will post on that in the next update!