December 19, 2005

• The last couple of weeks have been moving quickly. Have had some wonderful times with all of our family ... our physical family and our families here in Estonia.

  
  

  The first of December brought lots of joy as I celebrated my birthday with so many of my sweet friends. Jared was here for my special day so that made it an even sweeter celebration. I received email cards from friends in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Canada, Russia and Estonia. We had our regularly scheduled Far Above Rubies class that night, so the girls came with gifts, hugs and well wishes, too. Got to spend an unexpected night at the Banks' house on the 2nd, when we had car trouble on our way home from taking Jared to the airport in Tallinn. Played another game of "Crazy Canasta" with the guys but still no satisfaction  ... even for my birthday! Had a great time anyway. You all made me feel so special. Thank You!!

  
  

  On December 9, we celebrated our one-year anniversary in Estonia. Hard to believe it's been a year since we moved here. A lot has happened in the last year but I won't tell you about it now. We'll save that recap for another time.

  
  

  We've had our last classes for the year of 2005. The girls in our Far Above Rubies class have finished the first stages of their Crazy Quilts. I know you'd love them as much as I do. They are having so much fun, which makes me happy too! Now we are taking a holiday break to re-group, set some future goals and enjoy the holiday with all those we love here in Estonia. When we begin classes again after the new year, they will begin embellishing their squares with embroidery, lace, and buttons. Then they get to make the squares into shopping bags (which they use quite a lot in Estonia).

  
  

  Saturday night was our church Christmas party. This year, we decided they needed a little touch of some American tradition so we shared with them the time-honored "white-elephant gift exchange game". Twenty-seven wrapped gifts awaited them when they arrived. After feeding them lots of traditional Christmas goodies, we shared with them the rules of the game. It took them a little while to get into the spirit of 'stealing' from one another but once Aksana lost her twirly/springy Santa hat and her juggling balls, it took off from there. We enjoyed watching some of our more sober members let down their hair a bit. Laughter was aplenty and fellowship was sweet.

  
  

  We also encouraged our little church to get into the spirit of 'giving', so we had each of them bring 25 little gifts to fill gift bag/stockings for each other. We encouraged them to be creative and try to seek thoughtful, low-cost gifts to give one another. They took our instructions to heart and placed items in the gift bag/stockings such as bundles of little sparklers, tiny books, candy bars wrapped in curly ribbon, scented tea-lite candles, handmade cards and bags of their favorite tea. Not everyone did this, but those who made an effort to share themselves in this way seemed to be the most joyously blessed of all. We know we were truly blessed as well.

  
  

  

  
  

  This week we finish up our last few language studies for this year, do our last minute Christmas shopping and begin making plans for 2006.

  
  

  We pray for you all, a stress-free week before Christmas. God Bless!

  • 3:55 pm
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