Happy New Year...three weeks late!

It's already January 23rd!  How can it be?  It has been a long time since our last blog entry.  Sorry about that!  We have been super busy, so here is the short version of what we've been up to...

We had a really good Christmas break.  We enjoyed having Courntey here.  Thank you all so much for your prayers for us during what was an emotionally draining week.  We are so thankful to Michael and Shawnee for volunteering their time to come and help walk us through a really difficult situation.  Even though we didn't end up with the exact results we wanted, we are so pleased with all that transpired throughout the week.  Please pray that God will continue to work in Courtney's life and for wisdom for Darryl and me.



The Tallmans with one of the families we fed

 On December 25th, we spent a wonderful afternoon in a local park with my parents and the Tallmans.  We decided last year to spend Christmas day sharing God's love in a practical way, so we took food to the park and fed several poor families.  It was such a great experience that we did it again this year.  One thing that I have found to be true...it truly is better to give than to receive!

We said good-bye to the Tallmans on the night of the 25th, and went right over to pick up by brother and sister-in-law.  It was great to have them here for the holidays.  We celebrated our family Christmas on the 26th, and left for the beach on the 27th.  I even got to celebrate my 44th birthday at my favorite restaurant on the beach!  It was great to have some time just to relax and enjoy family.



When January arrived, so did the guests!  We have been busy all month, and there is no end in sight.  We have a full guest house, and we are also making some trips to take care of the logistics for our upcoming teams. We just returned on Saturday from Ventanas, where we set up the final arrangements for a team coming in March.  It looks like everything is falling into place (Thank you, Lord!).  Please pray for the students from Asbury University as they prepare to come during their spring break to do some work projects and a couple of children's programs.  We will give more information on this team in the upcoming updates.

Well, I said I would give the short version so I guess I had better end this update for now.  Once again, I have made a goal of doing a weekly blog update, but we'll see how that goes!

Praise Reports:

• We praise him for a wonderful week of healing for our family during our time with the Tallmans.
• Praise the Lord for the gift of family time that we were blessed with over the holidays.
• Praise him for protection over us as we traveled this past month.
• Praise the Lord for the return of the Williamsons, Pazmiños, and Orellanas.  We thank him for providing the necessary funds for them to return to Ecuador.  We missed them!
• Praise the Lord for a great December for our support account, and thank you so much to all of you who gave during December.

Prayer Requests:

• We are going to be really busy in the next several months.  Please pray that the Lord will supply us with the energy and health for each upcoming activity.
• Please pray for Josh and Courtney.  Courtney has started her 4th semester of college and Josh is continuing to pursue his music career.
• Continue to pray for our support account.  We had a great December, and we are trusting God for more good months to come.

As always, we thank God for you.  We are so blessed to have you as part of our ministry team.  We pray that God will pour out his blessings on each of you this week!

Serving the King,
Kelly, for the Chambers