Merry Christmas!

 Hard to believe its already Christmas time, especially since this is what we do in our free time now.... sit in our teeny tiny baby pool and dream of snow. (notice the christmas tree in the background)

This past Sunday we were invited to attend Beiro's church. Beiro is a young man the mission is sponsoring to attend school. We are also hoping to assist him in recieving surgery to correct the horrible burn scars he recieved as a child. His home was set on fire during the war and he was very badly burned. We had a great time at the church. There was much dancing and singing, which is always the best part- although it was SOOO hot that we didnt do much of either. It was nice to watch though!

Tendai crawled over to Uncle Dwight to assist him with the sermon notes he was writing in the sand. :)

This little girl had a ton of fun dancing... even though she was just learning to stand and cant walk yet!

The whole church, us and Beiro- hes the guy by Dwight and Lynn in the red and black striped shirt.

I love this picture! Rick, Mateus and Carey (one of our short termers). Mateus is completly blind and it was really neat for Carey to be able to meet him. Carey's family helps sponsor Mateus for school so I made sure to get a pic of them together!

Also last week, Keren gave blood, to help an infant in need of a transfusion. Brave girl she is. I took pics but i was almost feeling woozy myself! The needle was HUGE and they took half a litre in less than four minutes!!!! (at home aparently it takes 15). Crazy. Tendai was not woozy at all- she found the process fascinating.

Big Needle. 

Really Big NEEDLE!! 

Tendai decided to add a few of her own thoughts to Keren's pages on the Health Manual.. and even after all that, Keren still was such a sweetie and drew the most amazing picture of Tendai for me.

How beautiful is that?? I cried.

And the last pic of the week, Magnum. Our poor dog is apparently very allergic to some insect.. bee perhaps? He swells up like crazy... this isnt even as bad as it got! We had Keren and Lynn rush over with meds- injectable benadryl, steroids, and an epi-pen just in case. Yes, our dog has an epi pen. How crazy is that. He looked so miserable, I felt so bad for him. Thankfully, the drugs did the trick and he is back to normal, but i dread the next time it happens- every time hes been bitten the reaction has been worse- im a little scared what will happen next time.

We hope each of you is having a wonderful Christmas season, filled with family, friends and lots of yummy food. We also hope you are able to take time to celebrate Jesus' birth and remember while opening your gifts that He IS the greatest gift!

Thank you for praying for us, as it is difficult at times like these to be so far from home, family and friends. We are thankful for the friends we do have here, and the plans we have over the next week to celebrate mozambiquan style with them!  Our major prayer request right now is that the request we have before the judge for Tendai's travel documents will be approved- and quickly! We know how effective prayer is, and are asking that you will pray for a speedy aproval, and that her travel documents can be proccessed quickly as well.

Merry Christmas & God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai