From Tendai's point of view.

Hi All.. recently for her 2nd Birthday, Tendai was given a kid friendly camera. Nothing fancy, it doesnt have a flash, nor special settings, and according to the box it has a whopping .3 megapixels. (yes.. POINT three). Its the cutest thing though, and takes decent enough pictures in good light.  Tendai loves it, and managed to take quite a few shots before she got fascinated with the beeping power button and completed ran the batteries down making it beep on and off ( i should have known something was up when it was quite in her bedroom!). Anyhew.. its a great little camera, and it got me thinking. Im gonna do a blog post every once and awhile from Tendai's point of view. With HER pictures. This could be fun i think!

So heres a smattering of the first batch of pictures I managed to get off the camera before she ran the batteries completly dead.

"daddy is hard at work on his computer... 

mommy is too. here is her keyboard that I smash every day at least once (even though i know im not supposed to.. its just so much fun!!!)

this is a christmas tree. its much bigger than the mozambiquan one we have back home. it has tons of pretty lights and I love it. do you think it will fit in my suitcase?

this is me. mommy took this one because when i tried myself it did not work at all. not even close.

this is one of my favorite dollys. my aunty gave her to me. she smells like strawberries. Here in Canada there are TONS of dollys. Everybody has at least one or two!

another fun toy that i got for my birthday. it makes all sort of noises. They say that animal is a sheep but they obviously have not seen "REAL" sheep before. the sheep back at our farm look nothing like that cotton ball!

Thats all the good pictures i have for now. I tried to take some of the snow but they all just turned out very blurry white. Its hard for me to sit still long enough! When mommy buys me new batteries i will take lots more pictures! I cant wait to take pictures of my friends back home in Africa and of my house and yard. I will even try to remember to take a picture of a real sheep so you all know what they look like. Mommy says it is almost Christmas time so I should also say Merry Christmas."

Now.. you all know Tendai cant talk, much less type, but i think the whole idea will be fun.. and since she really is taking the pictures it will be a bit of a challenge for me to come up with things to say that base around her pictures! 

We had our first Christmas Family Gathering today and enjoyed it so much. We are blessed to have such an amazing extended family who support us in so many ways. I hope your Christmas season will also be filled with friends and family, memories and laughter.

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld

....the most wonderful time of the year.....

One of the kids gets the drums warmed up at last years Christmas party!

Its that time of year.... Christmas.... I love Christmas time.. here in Canada and in Mozambique! (though i dont enjoy the HOT weather at this time of year at all! in mozambique that is) . This past week we were able to spend time with Chris and Corissa Mohan (you may remember they visited us in Moz in the spring for the month of march). We spoke at their church and had a wonderful time of fellowship with them. The church was amazing, and we were blessed by the community of believers. Its funny how I never tire of hearing Rick preach (and its the same message too!).

Chris and Corissa treated our family to a Brandon Wheat Kings hockey game... so much fun to be at a hockey game again!

Being Silly with Aunty Corissa!

In other news, back home at the farm everyone is gearing up for both the staff Christmas party, and of course, one of my favorite days of the year- The Amigo Orphan Program Christmas Party! This year the party will be held at the farm in the brand new Lapa (outdoor covered meeting area with a traditional thatched roof), complete with a decorated Christmas tree and presents! I am sad to be missing the party this year, especially since they will be seeing all those twinkling lights for the very first time!! (Lynn promises that she will take pictures for me!) Can you imagine what it will be like for them???

The orphan kids and grannys at last year's orphan party.

VERY excited kids!

Little Nailene ate a whole big plate all by himself!

Rick and I have the next few weeks "off" meaning we dont have any planned speaking engagements at churches or youth groups, but will instead be enjoying a few weeks of fellowship with our home church here in Grunthal. We look forward to worshipping with our church family and being refreshed.  Although we are not actually speaking anywhere, we are booked EVERY SINGLE evening for this entire week, and most of them for next week, as we visit with supporters, friends and family, sharing what God is doing in Mozambique, and our passion for ministry there. And then of course, it will be Christmas, which we look forward to spending with family.

One of our busy nights from the past week was hosting Tendai's 2nd Birthday party, complete with an awesome cake made by our friend Jen Klassen. Ive been dreaming of this safari cake for over a year (literally)!!!

Jen even made Tendai a lovely little smash cake just for her!

Our 500 PPD Campaign (Pray-ers Per Day) has been going well. At this point we have just over 200 signed up... if you are willing to join us in our challenge, by signing up to pray for us every day, please let us know. We are aiming to find 500 people by the end of our furlough. Once you sign up by giving us your name and email, you will recieve an email update once a month. That update will let you know praise reports and prayer requests, and give you a rundown of what we have been doing and are looking forward too. Please consider signing up to be one of our Pray-ers. You can contact us at the email address listed on the right hand side of the blog.

Thank you to those who have been and continue to pray for us. Your continued prayers for our health and safety, finances and ministry needs are so appreciated. We hope each of you has an amazing time visiting with family and friends and celebrating our saviors birth.

God Bless,

Rick, Heather & Tendai Neufeld