Happy New Year!

We hope that this new years day finds you well and blessed.  We are grateful for the opportunities that New Year's Eve and Day bring for us to reflect back and to look ahead.  

As we reflect back on the past year, we see God's abundant goodness in a variety of venues.  In January last year, we began the  transitioned through the loss of my Dad.  We started to take steps back into "normal life" with the help of so many friends.   The following months saw our schedule busy with visiting so many wonderful friends and being blessed with new friendships as well.  God's goodness was seen in our safety in travel, reliable cars, wonderful housing, special memories and the blessings of family and friends.  After seeing God's people meet our support shortage, we were able to head back to Kenya after what seemed to be a short time back.   We said our tearful goodbyes to family but again, we've seen God provide friends to come along side of us and my mom.   We weren't to sad to say goodbye to all the attractions of American food and the weight that we were gaining. 

Life back at RVA has been pretty much normal daily life of working with Missionary Kids, (MK's) and being involved in our Kenyan community.  Balancing these two is sometimes a source of serious tension as we always want to do more but we are grateful for God's provision of resources and strength.  As we get older, I think I feel the need for more strength and energy while living and working with so many school age kids.   We saw another group of students head out into the "real world" as of  Last July and were encouraged by this class was seeking God's glory and to be His ambassadors.   God's provision saw one of my music student's unexpected acceptance into a music school in Korea.   That story is a long one but it was exciting to see this young lady see God's hand and answered prayers. This May 2014, we saw 3 other students receive good scholarships for music. 

New years is also a chance to look forward.  We are looking forward to new relationships, new opportunities and new adventures.  For the sake of time, I'll write more on these later.    May your new year be full of all these but may they be centered in the goodness of God.