Back in the work!

It always takes a while to settle back in after being gone on a trip. We are definitely settled in and back into the work. Nick has been preaching every Sunday and doing every Bible study, because Josh has been out of town. We have Sunday morning worship, Sunday night Bible Study, Tuesday night Bible Study and Wednesday night devotional. You can see how these services alone eat up a lot of our time, especially for Nick when he has to prepare them all.

There has been a lady coming to services who is very close to being homeless. She has three kids and they just moved here from Loiusianna. They are living in a camper trailer and using a generator for heat. They take showers at the church building because they don't have running water. We had them over for dinner a couple nights. More recently, they have been staying at the building because she admitted they weren't warm enough in their trailer. We tried to get them to stay with us but she didn't feel comfortable doing that. They did stay with Josh & Divine a couple nights. Anyway, there are a lot of holes in her story and something doesn't seem right, but we are trying to help them as best as we can. This has become very very wearing on us. Their truck recently broke down so now we are serving as the taxi service as well. The more time goes by, the less we see the mother making an effort to get her life in order. Therefore, the frustration and skepticism in us rises.

There are a ton of details that I left out of this story, but please pray for this situation. We want the best for these kids and it is turning into a legal obligation on our part to turn her in to social services.

This Friday we will travel to Fort Defiance to study the book of Matthew with a professor from Bear Vally Bible Institute.

December was a crazy month!

December was filled with drama, activities, visitors, events, and traveling.

As soon as we got back from Thanksgiving break, we organized a clothing drive. Members of the church organized a ton of clothes to be given away to the community. In addition to the tons of clothes, we had brand new socks, underwear, hats, gloves and scarves donated that we were able to give away to the community. We had great contributions that everyone was extremely thankful for. Clothing drives have traditionally been done once or twice a year and we had the privilege of organizing it this year. Members of the church really stepped up to make this a success. We spent at least 4 nights out of the week organizing these clothes to allow for ease of finding what people are looking for.

The following week we had visitors and more events! A friend and Deacon from our church in Columbus came to visit and get a better feel for what is going on here on the rez. He came at a great time when we had a lot going on. At the same time, we had Dave Goolsby from Healing Hands International visit. Dave is the mind behind the garden project. He was on a fact finding trip to learn more about the people, land and possibilities.

During the same weekend, we had a teen Christmas party. Yes, this was all in the same weekend, but it was a blast! We had 6 teenagers come and even though we have grown a little closer to most of them, we are always worried about how they will react and participate. We had several Christmas-like games planned with prizes for winners. They loved every single aspect! Some who we have never seen come out of their shell, really shined that night.

The last thing I would like to talk about is a family we have been helping for some time. It consists of a single mother with 8 kids ranging from 6 months to 23 years. They were evicted from their home. Nick helped them move an hour away to live with family who has little room to spare in their trailer. This family has a ton of social issues and we were very close to the teenagers in the family. I could go on and on about their issues, but I will spare you the details. The good news is that some of our supporters helped provide a Christmas for them! On our way to Phoenix for Christmas, we dropped off boxes of Christmas presents with this family. One of the teenagers had told us that she hadn't gotten any Christmas presents in years so we really wanted to find a way to help them out. Next year we might do an adopt a child type thing so be looking for that next Holiday season!