12: the number of times I changed my mind about what to get people for Christmas (at least)

11: the number of times I have promised myself to write letters to our compassion kids this month…also the number of times I’ve not kept that promise and felt horrible.

10: the number of days since Drew started his first seminary class online

9: the number of things that should have been done last week that are still on my to do list.

8: the ever-shrinking number of days I have left to frantically finish a major project and set it up. Also the number of days I have left to finish tracing a giant map of Cape Town on a king sized bed sheet with silver sharpie. Let’s go ahead and put that one down under “ideas I wish I’d never had”

7: the number of nights I have felt lonely and left out because Drew has been holed up in the office working on his seminary class while juggling all our other commitments. Also the approximate number of back to back frustrated texts I sent my best friend about this issue. Good thing she is awesome.

6: the number of textbooks Drew had to buy for just that one class

5: the number of minutes I happily wasted today just sitting in my car in a shopping center parking lot, sipping coffee and waiting for Dominick the Donkey to come on the radio because the DJ promised he would play it…doesn’t feel like Christmas without Dominick.

4: the number of months I needlessly paid for a town bus pass until last week when I discovered that as a VT employee I could get a Hokie passport and ride it for free.

3: the number of minutes I stood at the wrong credit card machine in the dollar store while the person behind the counter rang up my items and stared at me, probably wondering why I was trying to swipe my card at the next register. Also the number of Nyquil shots I took last night.

2: the number of white sedans I approached this morning before figuring where I parked my camry. Two is also the number of white sedans I have actually managed to get all the way into over the years before realizing I had the wrong car. To all you other white sedan owners out there who only occasionally lock your doors, I raise my glass. You are my kind of people.

1: chalkboard Christmas tree.

0: the number of actual meals I managed to cook this month.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.

………………………………………………………………..

Over the past few weeks people have been graciously donating supplies or our South Africa trip. Tonight Drew bought in several plastic bags full of stuff that had been sitting in his car for a couple days. In one of the bags we discovered a 32 oz package of semi-sweet chocolate chips. For those of you who have never spent a summer in Blacksburg, all you need to know is that temperatures here regularly exceed the melting point of chocolate chips.

I wondered to myself what one does with a jumbo sized bag of melted chocolate chips. It seems there are limited options, so I decided to embrace their current form and threw them into a double boiler. Then I just started adding things. A little bit of butter, some vanilla, some salt…and this is what happened in my head:

“Wow this is going pretty well for having no plan at all. Maybe I could add some oil and flour and turn them into brownies. Oh I KNOW! I’ll add oats. Oats will be delicious! Holy cow this amazing! I totally just invented a new dessert! I must be some sort of undiscovered culinary genius!! Mikaela will be so proud of me!!! MARTHA STEWART WILL BE CALLING ANY…oh wait.

Waaaaaiiit…

These are preacher cookies aren’t they?

Yeeeaah. They are.

Huh.

Whelp. Guess I don’t have to bake them now.”

And with that, good night.

This morning I got the opportunity to have breakfast with a BCF missionary who works in a closed country. She told me that on days when people were praying for her she could feel it and it made a difference. Please pray for her and for all those who are being “sent” this summer.

In other news, the family is spread out all over the place right now. Here is a newsletter from my brother who is on summer project with Cru in San Diego:

Hello again,
For everybody who joked about paying for my vacation to San Diego this summer, I can assure you that it has been far from it. Job hunting is much harder that actually having a job itself. Then pile all of outreach and project meetings on top of that and that equals a completely packed week. I live 30 seconds from the beach and I have only been in the water twice. I am starting to understand why in so many of his Psalms, David asks God to restore him or renew him. This has been quite a draining experience. We are really blessed on this project to have some incredible men on staff. They don’t let us slack off (usually to my displeasure at the moment). We are constantly being challenged to grow and take steps of faith. Sometimes it kinda feels like boot camp for the men on the project. This has pretty obviously had an effect on us guys as there is no shortage of encouragement and there definitely hasn’t been a shortage of calling each other out.
Man, something that God has been pulling on my heart like crazy since I have been out here is being able to love the homeless. I had previously taught myself to ignore them and definitely not give them any money (I learned my lesson in South Africa when I got conned BIG time) because you never know if they are just going to turn right around and by booze or drugs with it. It is literally impossible to get on a bus or trolley here without running into a crazy person talking to themselves or trying to bum money off of me. When I first got here I did my usual thing and just ignored them. Slowly but surely God began to soften my heart toward them. That didn’t stop me from politely just passing by. I finally broke down when I passed a guy sitting outside of a 7-eleven. He was in his twenties and he was holding a sign that said “BROKE AND HORNY”. As soon as I saw him, Satan just started feeding me lies. “You don’t want to talk to him, he is going to try to assault you”, “He is a drug addict, you can’t associate with him”, “He screwed his life up, he doesn’t deserve God’s love”, “There is so many people just like him. It wouldn’t make a difference even if you did try to help him”. I was doing my best to just walk by him but he asked me if I could help him out. I brushed him off with the usual “sorry bro, I got nothing”, but when I made eye contact with him for just a brief second, I saw so much pain. But I was so caught up in the devil’s lies that I just kept walking. I immediately flashed back to the passage in Matthew 25 where it talks about caring for those in need.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Right then and there I promised God that I would not miss the next opportunity (dangerous thing to do). So that night when we went out sharing on the beach I was telling my friend David about what had happened. We started walking and praying that God would provide us opportunities with the “least of these”. We said amen and took about 20 steps when some homeless guy walked up to us and asked if we wanted to buy some drugs. The thoughts started to creep in. “Say no and get away from this dude as fast as you can”. But for some reason, before I could stop myself, I said “Na dude, but do you have a minute to talk?”. Sure enough we got to share the gospel with him and he had a bunch of questions on the characteristics of God that we got to explain to him. He wasn’t ready to accept Christ then but we gave him our contact info and we could tell he walked away from our conversation blessed by the Holy Spirit. So please keep him in your prayers, his name is RE.
Further on down the boardwalk we ran into a man begging for money. We stopped to do “perspective cards” with him (which is basically a way of getting into spiritual conversations with people). As we were talking with him, another homeless girl came up and started verbally attacking us and saying that we were full of bull… you know what. Anyways, we were able to calm her down and eventually they both shared their life stories with us. It turns out that they are both practicing wiccans (witchcraft). We ended up hanging out with them for about an hour and a half got to share the gospel with them many times during our conversation. They were actually very interesting people and a lot of fun to talk to. They were literally living off of one meal that was provided by a shelter every 3 or 4 days. They said that all of the druggies give them a bad rep because people assume that they are going to go by drugs so nobody helps them out. The girl was out begging the entire day and came back with less than a dollar in change (turns out, that is why she was so fired up when she first came up to us). So we each gave them a couple of bucks to go get something to eat. Now, I know that is kinda a gray area but we are still in contact with them and I choose to trust God and give them the benefit of the doubt that they weren’t going to go buy drugs.  Anyways, we also invited them to an event that we put on every Friday night called FNL, it is basically a like a Cru weekly meeting, and the girl actually showed up! And she said that she loved it! So please keep them in your prayers.
Ok, I am going to stop telling stories but I want to ask you guys to be praying for some things.

• I have a praise really quick. I have all of my support fully raised! Thank you so much for supporting me financially. But unfortunately I still don’t have a job and I am pretty sure that I won’t be able to get one this summer. So any money that I raise over the project fee goes to reimbursing me for food this summer. I am currently surviving of a dwindling checking account. If you still feel led to give, it will go to a great cause-me being able to buy groceries! You can write a check and send it to me at- 824 Santa Clara Place Unit 2, San Diego, CA 92109. Or you can give online at https://give.ccci.org/give/View/5610300?pp=Search+Results
• RE, the guy who tried to sell us drugs. That God would put someone in his life that would be able to water the seed that we planted.
• HQ (her real name is Niki but she goes by her street name), the wiccan girl. She is 18 and homeless. That a girl on project would step up and befriend her because there is only so much that me and David can do as guys. So please be praying hard for a girl to step up because it will probably be hard for them to befriend a homeless 18 year old girl.
• Ian, the wiccan guy. He looked like he was in his mid 30s. That he will come to know Christ. He seemed pretty set in his ways.
• Toma. A guy that I talk to for a long time on campus who is a Satanist but we had a great conversation. I think I am going to be able to meet with him again tomorrow.
• That we will find a good church to attend while being out here. We went to one today and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. The preacher glorified himself and his church instead of God and he twisted scripture. It has made me realize what a blessing BCF is. I am so thankful for a home church that is rooting the true Word of God.
• That I would keep a good attitude because we have A LOT of meetings and it is frustrating sometimes.

Thank you so much for the prayers! It is a blessing to know that I am covered in prayer back home.
Mark

snow falling on snickers

and a Catahoula

is interesting.

And developed Kennel Cough.

And moved into our home.

Awwww.

So far he’s finished up the headboard and this end table will probably be next.

Ignore the weird mismatched bedding. And the fact that our bed is about 4 ft high. And the disconcertingly warm overcast created by the walls and lights.

Wait why am I posting this?

Anyway, rumor has it there is also a dresser in the works.

He has also started on the office. We are trying to streamline it so we actually have room to work there. So he built us this nifty work station.

More on the office later.

Did I mention that he build this mantle…

Like half  year ago?

I’m a little behind.

Hey guess what?

All the walls in our house are orange.