I'll be home for Christmas (part five)

My sister in law and her husband are traveling "home" today from Colorado to New Hampshire.

Our teammates' daughter and her husband are traveling to Uganda today from the USA to be "home" with the rest of the family - all together for Christmas.

Our friends here are traveling to their villages to be home for the holiday week. For a Ugandan, home is where the family is. Our baby is named "Otim," meaning "born away from home" because he was born away from our family home (the USA).

And our dear adopted grandma in the USA has just traveled home - for the last time - to her eternal home. She is celebrating Christmas with the origin of life this year. She is home, where Christ is celebrated every day.

Is that the home you're longing for this Christmas? Are you teaching your children to long to be home with Christ? Is that a higher priority in your family than wrapping the gifts and baking gingerbread?

I fail at that daily and rely on God's grace to fill in my adequacy.

I have posted on my wall in front of my computer Colossians 3:12-15. It's scribbled on by an anonymous two-year old, yet it says, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy, and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful."

Let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts as we long for our eternal home!

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Family of Three!

We are in Liberia - the electricity goes in and out because the generator is having trouble keeping up these days! So hopefully it will stay on long enough to post and the internet connection will allow me this luxury! We were united with precious Gracie on Thanksgiving day - I will write more about this later. But, oh! is Gracie a joy! She is so beautiful, so joyfilled, and a bit mischievious. Her physical limitations do not permit her to accomplish much mischief, but we can tell that she is trying to push some limits already. If we were not in love with her already, she is irresitable and such a treasure and blessing from God. In our two days together, she has not cried once. She spends most of her days smiling, she loves to snuggle (good match for us!), and has the most contagious laugh! Life takes more effort for her - her cerebral palsy is moderate and every activity is a challenge and is clearly tiring for her. Meal times (which she loves) take a long time and much patience and d...

Ana waiting for Gracie's bus

"Is Gracie's yellow school bus here yet, Mama? Gracie!! Gracie!! Where are you? Come home, Gracie! I'm waiting for you! Mom, where's my sister's yellow school bus? Can I have some toys?"

New Stage of Life

Gracie has entered a new developmental stage. She now is active and has been rolling all over the floor. We cleared out a little living room so that she would have room to roll around - she's rolling front to back, both directions. She also has been much easier to get up on all fours - it used to take 3-4 adults to cram her into the crawling position due to her resistance. She now even spontaneously gets into a semi-crawling position on her own. In the crawling position she's been weight bearing even on her right arm (but always in combination with her left arm). She also has been rocking a little in the crawling position as if she gets it that this is a way that you can move! It's been so exciting. But it also makes her much more eager to be down with other kids and moving around. She's in a very active active stage, always moving, and wanting to move. She's also taken, not just a huge interest in other kids, but also interest in toys a bit more. She's so fun!

Rattins living Coram Deo

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