Merry Christmas!

As we celebrate the Christmas season, we remember our Savior’s birth and the joy we have in our faith through Him.  Christmas obviously looks a bit different here than Chicago with sunny days and temps in the mid 70’s!  As we celebrated thanksgiving and moved into the Christmas season, we reflected on all we have to be thankful for in our life here.  We have enjoyed seeing all that God has done and is doing through Naomi’s Village and Cornerstone. We wanted to make sure you knew how grateful we were for your prayers and financial support that allows us to minister here in Kenya.  The pictures below detail some of the happenings over the last couple of months.

For those of you who have been following Joseph’s medical progress, he was able to receive prosthetic legs a few weeks ago.  He is so thankful and is making great progress in learning how to walk again.

Thanksgiving was celebrated with pizza and rootbeer floats…we are trying to embrace new family traditions as we seek to celebrate American holidays in Kenya.

Last month we joined the Naomi’s Village kids on their annual beach trip.  For 5 days the kids learn to swim, eat lots of new and fun foods, and experience the bigness of Gods creation on the Indian Ocean.  Our family had a great time strengthening friendships with the kids and staff and enjoying the beauty all around us.

Each morning I taught the older kids during our devotional time.  My series this year was titled “The Cross”.  We dealt with how God has created all things and we have chosen his stuff over God himself.  From there we talked about how God has responded to our sin in 2 ways.  We ended our time with focusing on what Christ accomplished on the cross.

Jaden and Josiah enjoyed interacting with the Naomi’s Village kids at the pool and during the day.

We were cheering on the Cubs all the way from Kenya!!

Mark used the Cubs winning the World Series as an opportunity to introduce baseball to the Cornerstone kids as well as the characteristic for the month which was optimism!

We hope this season bring you joy as we celebrate the birth of our savior!