Great Time and Timing

In the last few weeks at home in Michigan we continued to have a great time visiting family and friends. My oh my how fast time flies, our time here has come to an end. We have done so much in a little time and have been super busy, but it has been a blessing to be home.

We haven't had much snow at all which has been nice for driving. On our trip to Canada we did go through a beautiful winter wonderland where all the trees had a nice coating of snow.

We took a trip to Canada to see our Oma (grandma) who was 102 years old. We enjoyed visiting with her, but that night she fell and fractured her hip. Only a few days later she passed away and is now with her savior Jesus in Heaven. We were able to go to her funeral the following week and we marveled at the timing of it all, being home to see her one last time and then having time to go to her funeral, we can just see God's hand in it. We will miss Oma but we know that she lived a long and full life and is now in a better place.

We also got to see all of our Canadian relatives and we enjoyed visiting with them.

We went to a hockey game with some friends and enjoyed seeing our Grand Rapids Griffins win!

We continued to spend lots of time with family...

...And friends.

We have had lots of great food while we were here, many people cooked us delicious meals and we ate at some wonderful restaurants. At our friends Christmas party I (Mark) was inspired by this mango chutney to make some Naan bread. I grilled it over charcoal and it turned out great!

Our friends made orange chicken, Mongolian venison, and egg rolls, mmm.

Lexi's favorite gift was her "Christmas underwear," she kept going around and talking about it to everyone. She really wanted to come with us to Romania, she didn't want to let us leave. She told Rebecca that she is her kid, she is just too cute. We will miss everyone while we are in Romania, please keep in touch, we love talking over e-mail, Facebook, or Skype.

We are flying out Thursday and will have a long layover in Munich, Germany. We will try to see the city if we're awake enough. Please pray for safe travels. Thank you so much for your continued prayers for us and our ministry in Romania. We are looking forward to going back and seeing our kids again and we know they are excitedly waiting for us to return. We have had a really great time at home and are extremely thankful that we have such supportive family and friends. Thank you all for being a part of our lives and ministry.