God is with us every step of the way. This is what He has affirmed in us over the past month. We’ve had an amazing experience in preparing our presentation to give to our home church. We will be giving the presentation for this first time at York Christian Church on January 29, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. Who would have thought that the past few years of creating and giving presentations in school would have such a great payoff? We are thankful that we had to suffer through it. As we daily prepare and practice our presentation, the anticipation builds. It’s exciting and scary at the same time. We know the “scary” side of things is God’s way of keeping us humble and making sure we continue to rely on Him for guidance and wisdom. Our support network that has risen behind us is breathtaking. The support we have received from family and friends has allowed us to focus on the work God is calling us to even more.

As we have entered the New Year, we have definitely hit the ground running. School started up again just last week and we are quite excited to be finishing soon! Usually during the first meeting of a class we have, we go around the room and introduce ourselves, including letting everyone know how far we are with our degrees. It was quite relieving to be in the “graduating at the end of this semester” group! We have listened to so many people say they are almost done and we can even remember starting our study in the criminal justice field feeling like graduation was forever away…now there’s just a few months to go! Missy will have the luxury this semester of only 2 classes while I will have to endure not only my senior project, but one term (the final term) with doubled up classes! It’s an even trade, however since I took my time getting started and was lazy while Missy spent her free time doing school work for 6 months. She even gets to go on a short term trip to Guatemala.

I know, I know, “big surprise”, Missy’s going back to Guatemala? Missy will be going along with the short term trip with our church in February while I get to stay at

Saying goodbye to Chiky during our trip in September

home and work on my senior research project. *Sigh* She deserves it though, as she’s put in a lot of time in school. It will also be a great opportunity to deepen relationships with the people in Guatemala that we love and desire to serve. She will be staying and working at the children’s home again and will get to see our sweet daughter, Chiky (pronounced Cheeky).  NO we didn’t adopt a child in Guatemala…not legally anyway…lol. We met Chiky in February when we went down and the relationship that God allowed to develop since then has been incredible. She now refers to us as her mamita (mommy) and papito (daddy) and we could not love her more if she was biological daughter. We keep in touch with her regularly through facebook. We also recently discovered a way to communicate between Guatemala and the U.S. over video chat on iPhones. Our friend, Trent, had Chiky call us while he was down there the other week to try out the app and now Missy and I will be able to talk while she is in Guatemala. Isn’t technology great?!?

In other news, I have volunteered to start teaching occasionally on Friday nights at our church. I want to get the experience of repeatedly preparing a lesson and standing in front of a crowd to teach it without a long time to prepare it. I certainly got that wish as the timetable was moved up a whole week sooner than I expected! As I was telling a friend of mine last night, “I might as well get all my mistakes and major screw ups out of the way.” I expect that at some point I will be required to or asked to speak in front of a crowd of people, En Espanol no less, so I might as well start getting used to it.

I’ve also recently “migrated” my daily devotional to a public blog so that being an active member of Facebook is no longer necessary. There is a link to it on the right side navigation column of the blog. You can sign up for email updates if you would like so that you receive any new posts via email.

We continue to be so grateful for all the love, prayers, encouragement, and support from all of you. Please don’t forget about our prayer page to let us know if there are any ways we can be praying for you.

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