one of our special cards...
Дякую, Сергей і Наташа
Христос Народився - Славімо Його!

Christmas lights...

strolling around a neighborhood

Someone's front yard

Having a jolly, jolly Christmas...!

one of our best Christmas presents...

Yeh - our friends from the Czech Rep, the Dagens are here!

Holiday fun...

Josh's school party - a little bit of cookie with the frosting

update...

It's so nice receiving everyone's Christmas cards. They are decorating our dining area. Many of you are asking how my health is so I'll give you a brief update. My doctor says that the cancer in me is "learning" right now - learning to get around the chemo treatment I had and the current RX I'm taking that helps keep cancer cells from growing. I would say I feel about 70%. I have some nerve damage in my fingers (numbness) from the chemo and body aches from the RX and get a little tired in the afternoons. Nutritional supplements seem to help. We are thankful that my tests keep coming back with the cancer marker count in the normal range. Thank you for praying! We pray that the cancer doesn't "learn" very well. It's always on Mark's and my mind, but my mind is also on verses such as, "You give me life and breath and everything else..." Acts 17:25 I love the "everything else" - like His peace. Thank you also for being part of His 'everything else' to our family! Emmanuel continues to be with us.

on a lighter note ...

We got our Christmas tree up as you see, but not only is Christmas upon us, but also the end of the semester. Last night was Talbot's baccalaureate dinner. Mark had to dress up in his peacock uniform he calls it (doctoral robe) for the ceremony. We ate dinner at a table with one of my Talbot student wives, her graduating husband and his family - they are all from Columbia! He is headed back to Columbia as one of the rare ones with higher religious education to help teach.

I had the joy of being a co-leader of one of the Talbot student wives' groups this semester. Besides Columbia, the wives in our group were from Jordon, England, S.Korea and America. I enjoyed each one of them - they were a blessing to me!

Today is graduation and then it's grading stacks of papers for Mark, parties for the boys and be-lated shopping for me.

Pray...

My heart is burdened this morning to pray... since we left Ukraine last March, there have been 5 of us families in Kiev with SEND Ukraine that have left for serious medical reasons - two others for cancer. Pray for the Friesens (the husband) and Barnharts (the wife) who are currently undergoing chemo treatment. Mark, Genna Friesen and Kevin Barnhart were part of the 5 man leadership team of SEND. Reading updates from these families, though, is a total blessing - watching them lean on God and God in action. Some of you have asked, "Is it Chernobyl?" There is just as much cancer in America and it doesn't matter. I love the verses: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?..." Matt. 16:25-26. Because we didn't shy away from Chernobyl - our whole family, yes, including Ben and Josh gained so much LIFE in Christ our 13 years in Ukraine. Especially now, looking back, we wouldn't have traded it. Pray for our SEND team - they need just as much of God's grace losing our 5 families - they are waiting on the Lord to see if the other 4 families will be able to return - we pray that they are already experiencing God in deeper ways. Pray also for our Ukrainian colleagues - we love and miss them.

We also received some great news that my brother-in-law's surgery to remove some cancer was successful and is cancer free now - Yeh Michael!!! Good News is always music to our ears!

...off shooting hoops!

Guess who's playing basketball this year?! Ben received his letter of congratulations today for making the JV team! He's pretty excited that he truly will play on a basketball team for the first time in his life. I guess all those days going to the park with Dad and Josh to shoot some hoops since we've been back to America has paid off. Practice begins on Monday already!

correction...

Today, Mr. Winger told Ben that Mr. Taran (Ben's PE teacher and the JV coach) will most likely choose Ben to be on the JV team, but if he doesn't, then he would like Ben to be one of the student managers for the Varsity. Ben is fine with that and pretty excited that he'll at least be on one of the teams. He'll find out which one this weekend.

school days ...

We went to Josh's school Christmas program. The story was quite touching about some simple kids giving their hearts to the "King". The whole school was in it, so it was held at the elegant Civic Theatre with over 1,000 in the audience. Josh was part of the big choir and a small group playing the recorder. It was also quite the cultural experience as well. Ben commented afterwards that if it was a Ukrainian school, the program would have been more professionally done - our observations too. We like the casualness of American culture, but we also miss the professionalism in the area of the Arts in Ukraine beginning at the preschool age. Also, whenever the curtains were raised, parents, grandparents, siblings would yell out their child's name cheering them on. OK, is that a So. Cal thing? Talk about casual! Pictures and video cameras were not allowed, we have to BUY the DVD of it. Like I said, the story line was very touching. Grandpa and Grandma (Mark's parents) thought it was the best children's Christmas program they ever saw!

Ben tried out for his school's Jr. High basketball team. The coach asked him to be 1 of 2 student managers for the Varsity team, explaining that they will probably play the least, but will help him with stats, etc. Ben decided to go for it. He said he'd rather be a student manager on the Varsity team than play on the JV team and besides he thought, "... I won't be the worst player, maybe the other student manager will be like me." We were so glad that on his own, Ben wanted to try out. He's never been on a basketball team before and was going up against these boys who have played all their lives. His coach - Mr. Winger - is his Bible teacher, whom Ben likes alot.

We are sooooo thankful for these two Christian schools the boys are in. I'm usually a public school person - thinking we need to be in the real world, but these schools have been such a nice nurturing environment for this year of transition for Ben and Josh. The schools are not small - 250 7th and 8th graders at Ben's Jr. High and 2 classes of each grade at Josh's school, but the teachers and administration are God-sent. We thank the Lord for leading us to these schools - He knew what they needed.