Merry Christmas!

The last few weeks have been busy with packing, house hunting, wrapping up things at work, and saying goodbye to friends. We are still planning to move the first or second week of January, and have all-but-decided on a rental property. But the details will have to wait for another blog post!

I also want to write about some other things I've been thinking about recently: generosity, extravagance, and the "foolishness" of following Christ. But a post on that will have to wait too! For now, I'll just touch on the last one. Not only does it seem foolish in the eyes of the world to give everything to follow Jesus, but the very message of the cross of Christ is foolishness.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to us who are being saved. For it is written: 

      I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
      and I will set aside the understanding of the experts. 

Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn't God made the world’s wisdom foolish? For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached. For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
(1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

This time of year, we celebrate another story that seems ridiculous to those who do not believe: the story of God himself coming to earth in human form, born of a virgin as a baby boy. But for those who believe and who have been born again (John 3:3-7, 16-18), it is the perfect life of this God-man, along with His eventual death and resurrection, that brings us life and hope!

Whether you are spending the day with friends and family, or find yourself in a lonely or difficult situation, I pray that you will find hope in knowing Christ. May you know the joy and blessings of Jesus this Christmas!

House Hunting and More

Over the past several weeks we have been on the hunt for one of the elusive rental properties of Coshocton County. An influx of temporary workers has led to a decline in the number of properties on the market, and quality rentals are few and far between. We've had our sights set on a few possibilities, but have yet to pull the trigger.

Seriously, though, we are about three weeks away from our anticipated move date, and we still haven't located a place to live in Coshocton. We aren't being that choosy; there's just not much available! We haven't found a single rental property in our desired school district. In fact, we don't know of any viable options around Coshocton at all, that are currently available for rent. We went down to look at a few places, but so far haven't found anything suitable for our family. There are a few properties that may be available by January, but nothing seems certain.

It's obviously important that we have a place to move into, just for the sake of having a roof over our heads. We would like to avoid living in a van down by the Tuscarawas River! But we also need to enroll the kids in school, and we can't do that until we know where we will be living. Would you pray with us that God would provide a home to rent, and that we would have wisdom about which school to choose for our kids? Besides sending them to school in the district where we live, there is the possibility of open enrollment in another district, or sending our children to Coshocton Christian School (which would involve expenses we have not planned for).

We can hardly believe we are so close to moving. Tara has already worked her last day at the YMCA, and I only have eight working days left at Dana! We've started packing items we won't need for the next several weeks and purging those that we don't need at all. There's a lot more that needs to happen over the next few weeks, and we appreciate your prayers as this hardly seems humanly possible. Then again, if everything was humanly possible it would be too easy to rely on our own efforts! 

Although we are making all the preparations to move by the first week in January, we are still a little short of our financial support quota. We are trusting that the rest of the funds that have been verbally committed will come in soon, and that we will be able to start serving with MMS in January.

Thank you for your encouragement, prayer, and support as we prepare to serve with MMS Aviation. You are an incredible blessing to us, and we're privileged to be sent out by the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus to a world in need!