It is hard to believe that a New Year has begun! I hope that you all had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas wherever you are and with whoever you celebrated with. It was a little bit hard to be away from home and my family for Christmas, but at the same time I felt very blessed with an "adopted" family here in Portugal: my team, the missionaries here, and the churches that we have been working with. I was reminded in a special way that no matter where you are or how you celebrate, the reason for Christmas is always the same. It was amazing to be able to celebrate the birth of Christ in another country. We had many Christmas programs that we were able to help out with and it was a blessing to be apart of the cultural traditions of Christmas in Portugal. I was also very blessed by my team as we all tried to take our own family traditions and blend them into a Christmas of our own.
I'm excited to see how God is going to work in our lives in this New Year. We are going to be starting to really get into ministry now. Including starting English classes at two of the churches that we are working with here. Please pray that our ministries will begin to draw in outsiders to the churches here and that God might use us to share His love for the people in Portugal.
The New Year also brought us some furniture to our quite empty apartment. This was very good news to us girls, and we were very happy when we received a fridge. It came a month after we moved into our apartment so we have a much greater appreciation for it now! We also received some tables and couches which gives our living room a much more homey feel to it. We are very much looking forward to having people over and letting our apartment be a place of rest and community.
Thank you all for your prayers and I will try to continue to keep you updated, although once again I'm always amazed at how quickly time goes by. Blessings to you all!
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