Blacksburg Christmas

Jeff writes:

We got to celebrate our first Christmas in six years with our children and grandchildren, and it was great!

Everything was in abundance: food, kids, presents, joy and thanksgiving. I thought the pictures could speak for themselves.

 

We were blessed with a white Christmas.

Happy grandchildren!

Delighted grandparents.

God is SO good. May your Christmas be a blessed one as well.

Welcomed by Wintry Weather

Jeff writes:

This post is dedicated to our friends in Melanesia and Polynesia to help them to understand one critical difference between their countries and ours ... the WEATHER.

Since arriving here in Blacksburg the low temperature has been a -12 degrees Celsius and with that cold we have had winds that gusted to 80 kph!

How do we stay warm? First of all by not going outside. Secondly, when we do go outside we layer up with shirts (one light and one heavy), coat, gloves and hat.

The picture we posted above was taken from a movie we made at our son's home. When we see all of you in January, we can show you the entire thing. In the meantime enjoy your fine summer weather.

Blessings to all of you.

Bad News and Good News

Jeff says:

We have been in Blacksburg for nearly one week. After leaving CLTC on Sunday 28 November we arrived here last Wednesday. So why did it take us so long to post this item? Well the answer is there was some good news and some bad news.

First, the bad stuff ...

Sue took home a cold with her from PNG which turned for the worse as she spiked a fever while we stayed overnight in Charlotte, North Carolina. All of our emails were wiped out on the CLTC mail system. (So please accept our apologies if we did not respond to yours.) After moving from the sunny tropics to face an arctic storm, I caught Sue's cold. As a consequence of five airplane flights I came down with phlebitis in my right leg. (The doctor cleared me today of deep vein thrombosis, which means my leg still hurts, but I won't need to go to the hospital.) My computer crashed, but my son, the computer engineer, got it going again.

Now for the good news ...

We were happily reunited with our children and grandchildren over a great spaghetti dinner with all of the trimmings. Last Saturday night we celebrated Virginia Tech's ACC Championship victory over humungous ice cream sundaes.

The wonderful people at Blacksburg Christian Fellowship (BCF) welcomed us warmly last Sunday where I got to preach on the 23rd Psalm. A couple from our BCF home group loaned us their car, and tonight we visit with the BCF mission's committee for a ministry debriefing and a welcome home from them.

These experiences remind me of what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 where he says that Christians may be perplexed but not despairing. Why? We do not lose heart because we preach and believe that Jesus is still Lord.

Thanks to all of you for praying us through.