Christmas is Coming!

We are still alive and I am working on getting pictures off the camera and onto the computer to prove it!  I figure you would rather see a picture worth a thousand words than read the thousand plus words it would take to write everything down that we have been up to in the past 2 months! So stay tuned... they are coming!


In the meantime would you please join us in prayer for this week and weekend. We are participating in the Candlelight Tour of Homes in Olde Town. Our home is one of eight homes in Historic Olde Town that is participating in the Candlelight Tour of Homes.  This year the tour is featuring the 300 block of Broad Street and three newly renovated organizations - Christ Community Health Services, Heritage Academy and the Vine Inn. The tour is open to the public this Friday, December 2nd 6:00-9:00pm and Saturday, December 3rd 6:00-9:00pm.  


This is very overwhelming to us.  As I write our house is a wreck, bags are scattered down the hall, waiting to be unpacked, there is a trail of toys throughout the house where two cute little girls have tossed them aside to help their frazzled momma unpack. We went this morning to get our Christmas tree - yay!  However, it's been a frustrating ordeal- the trunk is too short to fit down into our tree stand and we don't have a saw to trim more branches.  It will all work out but I can certainly see the spiritual battle we are in right now.  Moment by moment I am struggling to not just decorate and prepare our house for Christmas in a mad rush to just get it done but rather keep my eyes on Christ and the meaning of what we are looking forwards too - celebrating His birth. I try to remember "why we are participating in this?" when the overwhelming feelings begin to take control but I am failing miserably.  This is why I ask for prayer.

I would like to share what our next door neighbors, Steve and Diane Hubbard wrote recently in an email to our parish in regards to their participation in the Tour of Homes as well.  It echos our thoughts and feelings on participating in the tour:

·  "By participating in the Tour of Homes we have another opportunity to interact with folks in our neighborhood who are not part of our church family."

·" It gives us a tangible and visible way to say that we buy into rebuilding Olde Town and that we care about our community."

·  "It is one small way to say to those who do not live here, but might come on the tour, that we believe that God can redeem the city and that it is worth doing so."

· " It is a visible means of saying that Olde Town isn’t just a drug infested, dieing community.  It is a place of hope, and we want to invite others to join us in the rebuilding.  Maybe someone who comes on the tour might catch that vision."

·  "It just might take some fear out of “coming downtown” for some folks."

· "It just might be used as a point of dialogue for the gospel with our neighbors." 

Our prayer is that by participating in the Tour of Homes we would have the opportunity to hold up Christ and what He is doing in Olde Town. So will you please join us in prayer?  We will be sure to let you know how it goes and post a couple pictures!