I sense that God is calling me to take a vacation from writing and maintaining this blog until early January to allow me to focus on Darwin and our kids during this Christmas vacation time. In these last few months I feel that I have been so busy running back and forth, planning, moving and organizing offices and storage rooms, having meetings, sending in paperwork, drafting budgets and then re-drafting them, going to schools and government offices, maintaining our checkbook, creating and managing work contracts, teaching classes and Bible studies, being everyone’s chauffeur, etc, that I almost haven’t had time to really be ‘mom’ to our kids, and that needs to change. We have planned several day trips in December to see Darwin’s family and to celebrate Christmas with our faith community and other friends, and we plan on slowing down and doing the daily work of cooking, cleaning, spending time together as a family without so many distractions, tutoring our kids academically, studying God’s Word, washing our clothes by hand, etc, before everything starts back up again in January.

This week we administered our final exams in homeschool (the Honduran school year goes from February-November, so this week all 7 of our kids entered into their annual school vacation time), graduated the students who passed their grade, and are still in the midst of wrapping up a lot of loose ends as we wind down with all the newness, all the changes and challenges that have come with this year. We have 5 upcoming Christmas music recitals in nursing homes, schools, and in our home/mission in these next two weeks along with finalizing and turning in a lot of paperwork, and then we’ve planned to take a general rest as a family (Darwin and I and our 7 kids) until early January when everything starts up again.

Please pray for us during this time, that the Lord would use these 3-4 weeks in December to knit us even closer together as His family, and that Darwin and I would not fall prey to ‘doing’ so much that we forget the simply ‘be’ with our kids, love them, and pour into their lives. Please pray also for my ongoing struggle with insomnia, as in these past 9 or 10 days I have only slept 4 nights and am unable to take naps during the day. I feel exhausted in every sense of the word and am pleading that the Lord would grant me rest in Him so that I may receive new strength to fulfill the plans He has laid before us.

Thank you to everyone who supports us – in encouraging emails and letters, in prayer, or financially. We earnestly give thanks to God for you and hope that your holiday season is restful yet fruitful for God’s glory.