The Holiday Season Part I: The 25 Days of Christmas and 25 Reasons Why I Love my In-laws

This is a statement of fact: I have the best in-laws ever! For Christmas they surprised us with the 25 days of Christmas. Let me explain. For the first 11 days, my in-laws took turns writing happy encouraging emails, including several that had pictures of our 2 year old niece. That's like instant happiness! On the 12th of December, we received a big box. Inside we found tons of gifts all wrapped up and each one had note with a day on it! So I lined up all the gifts in numerical order along the windowsill.

December was a difficult month. We were so busy, I was really sick for 2 weeks, and we had just moved and so everything was a mess, and then we were so far away from family. But having a little gift to open each morning was so exciting and beautiful! There was something to look forward to on a daily basis (and a reason to get up in the morning), and every day we had a reminder that we were loved!

Some of the gifts included:
Plastic snowflake confetti that we had lots of fun with!

Peanut butter cookie mix for Janna the baker!

Minty stuff. I think they're saying we have bad breath.

Medicine (from my mother-in-law who is a nurse of course)!

Twizzlers (a Ross family favorite)!

A puzzle (for Daniel who does a puzzle every Christmas)!
New Hats!

I wanna be a gangster!

Aww! Isn't he cute!

A new DVD!

The Night Before Christmas book with a built in recording of them reading it out loud, including a page where my niece "reads!"

Many of you asked me how Christmas was, if I was sad and homesick. I was to some extent, but really, how could I be sad when I have such amazing in-laws? I am so blessed. God provided exactly what I needed! Love you Don, Brenda, Eric, Shae, and Avory!

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The power of a hug

Three weeks ago at church, Masha sat next to me. Masha is ten, has Downs Syndrome and is a fantastic hugger. She just loves hugging. So I try to always stop and hug her back. During the service, she came in and sat between me and her dad, for a while she loved on her dad and then she leaned her head on my shoulder, so I leaned my head over onto hers, and she looked up at me with this big smile. She reached around and gave me a shoulder hug, and then patted my head, and then rubbed my back for a few minutes. I didn’t move the entire time because it just felt so good. It was just simple, innocent affection, and it sent tingles up my spine. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you need more hugs and back scratches. Human contact is so important. That’s why I try and hug the kids when we go up to the orphanage. These are just a few stories of some of the hugs I’ve given and gotten this past month, and why hugs are so important in our ministry. My friend Viktor and some o

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The Voices of Ukrainians

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