Happy Holidays

Hi all! We are very much enjoying our time here in the states. It is wonderful to see family and friends in the blessed Christmas season. This will likely be my last blog posting for a little while. We will return to Belize on Janurary 3, 2009, and will start back blogging then.

Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year to you all!
j/h/l/a

Home again!

Yes, the rumors are true, we are home. Sorry for being a bit secretive about it but we wanted to surprise some of our family and being that so many of us are very connected (which is a good thing), we had to keep most everyone in the dark to make the surprises possible. Well, it worked. We were able to show up at Church Alive and surprise Jeremy and Renee and their kids and we also shocked Sarah and her family last evening. It was really fun! We love being back home! The temperature is definitely a big adjustment though! The temps in Belize when we left were getting into the upper 80's to low 90's during the day and needless to say it is not quite that warm here! It is a nice change.

We are going to do our best to see as many of you as possible before we leave again (Jan 3). We has a great time at Church Alive this past Sunday an we are looking forward to worshipping with our friends and family at Restoration this Sunday. We will be traveling to Texas sometime next week to see some more of my family and to see Anna graduate from college!

We had intended on working a good bit to make some more money over the month but I am not sure how God is going ot work it all out. I was planning on working out of state but nothing worked out so God may be telling us to stay around family/friends this season and rest. God is a great provider and sometimes we need to beef up our spiritual and relational bank accounts as much or more than we need to our actual accounts with money.

Can't wait to see you all!

Thankful hearts

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! Needless so say this thanksgiving has been very different from any other we have experienced. Thanksgiving is not a Belizean thing, but because there are quite a few Americans who live here, they know some things about it. Because there are several American students and volunteers including us, and 3 British students, the Belizean staff here at Hillside wanted to share in a part of our culture by having a Thanksgiving dinner with all of the staff, students and volunteers. But because of our schedule, yesterday was better to get everyone there. We ate at a local resturant that overlooks the ocean. We ate some traditional turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, with some local flare consisting of beans and rice and potato salad. We then enjoyed a variety of American, British and Belizean deserts. Although we missed being with our family at home, it was a really nice, neat experience.

I cannot and don't want to stop being thankful for all the things God has blessed all of us with. I hope you all have taken the time to tell first and foremost God, and then all of those you love how thankful you are for them. I am and will continue to be thankful for all of your friendships.

Tree house

We moved into the tree house that is located on the clinic compound today. I can't believe that we moved here a little over 2 months ago with only 4 bags and 2 backpacks and it took us TWO, that was 2 van FULL trips to bring everything we have accumulated! Absolutely unbelievable!... Anyways, the place is quite a mess right now but we are (well really Hannah is) working on it so it will be like home again really soon. I'll try to post some pics of it soon!

New opportunities

Hi all. Thank you to all who have kept me updated on your life. The web has its many evils but it also has its many positive parts too, especially keeping us all in touch.

Recently Hillside has been going through some leadership restructuring and Hannah and I have been offered the position as Clinical Directors for Hillside Health Care Clinic. They are also very interested in us extending the length of our commitment. We accepted the position but we told the board that we are no position right now to make a decision on whether or not we could stay longer than we have already planned.

We will oversee all clinical/medical aspects of the operation and well as continuing to serve the sick and poor of Belize hands on. Although this will certainly give us more responsibilities, it will also give us new opportunities to serve and bless others. Please pray for us as we transition into this position. Please also pray that Giod will open doors for us to share Jesus in new effective ways.