Joy to the World!

Joy to the World
the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare Him room....

Wishing you a very blessed Christmas!

This Nativity scene is a special gift (it was made in Congo, Africa) given to us by dear friends of ours, before we left the USA.

Christmas eve day....

It's Christmas eve day.......and at 8 AM this morning we began baking our Christmas cookies, while listening to sermon's "on-line" and singing Christmas carols! Most all of these cookies you see here, are going to be given to the two families who have invited us to join in on their celebration of Christmas eve and Christmas day.....we'll keep a few for us to enjoy too!

It's Christmas time!

It's Christmas time.....and over the past few days we have been enjoying listening to our instrumental Christmas CD and listening to sermons "on-line" in the anticipation of the Christ Child's birth. We have a small amount of decorations out and our Nativity scene that we have on our shelf in our living room that we have out all year round. We been hanging up to display all the lovely and thoughtful Christmas cards we have received ~ THANK YOU to all for your Christmas wishes!!

God's goodness ~ God has provided for us and others who do not have family to be with this Christmas, two different families who's hearts so lovingly goes out to us and others! On Christmas eve, we are invited to share with a very dear family we are friends with to their home for a "Christmas walk through the snow" (if the snow stays around....it's been melting over the past couple of days). After wards we will share in a meal and then a time of Christmas carols and fellowship. On Christmas day we will attend La Rochette church, for their Christmas day service and then we are invited to share in a day of Christmas celebration with another family. We are so very grateful and give thanks to God for the hearts of these folks for us and others at this time of Christmas!

Good ole McDonald's!

Good ole McDonald's

Several weeks ago, Trace and I decided to treat ourselves to a good ole McDonald's meal since the first time we arrived in Switzerland! There is two McDonald's that exist in Neuchâtel, one is located in the train station and the other is in the center of town. Can we tell who just how happy Trace was to have this special McDonald's treat?! Here's a little interesting bit of information, if you would like to get packets of Ketchup (Heinz brand, by the way) to go with your french fries it costs 20 cents a packet!

~ Picture of the Week ~

~ Picture of the Week ~

Today, Trace went to the church we attend in Neuchâtel (I stayed home with a sore throat and a bit of a cold) and when he returned home, low and behold he brought this little bread man home with him. Each person as they were leaving the church service this morning received one of these little bread men. As you can see, I enjoyed savoring this with a nice cup of hot tea (to help with my sore throat of course!). At the moment we don't know if there is a story behind this little bread man as a tradition of Switzerland, but we will ask to find out, that's for sure.

Graduation Day!!

~ Graduation Day ~

Well, we are officially graduated from Inlingua School of Languages!! We did not receive a diploma and that's just fine with us ~ we know the achievements we have made through out this past year. So, whats next for our French language studies you ask? Our French language coordinator has recommended we do our own French language studies at home until we leave for Africa this February. We have plenty of study material and also a couple of good inter active French language sites we are going to be using as well. We are certainly motivated, dedicated and structured to do this work at home!

We are extremely grateful for all of our teachers at Inlingua, we thank them for; their patience, their gift of teaching, their humor at times that we needed it, their comforting words of encouragement and all the extra material they allowed us to borrow to further our language skills!

Picture of the Week

~ Picture of the Week ~

Château Gruyeres
in
Gruyeres, Switzerland

To enlarge the photo, left double click the mouse on the photo.

Giving thanks for Thanksgiving

~ Giving thanks for Thanksgiving ~

Trace, carving the Thanksgiving turkey.

What a delicious turkey!

Lots of vegetables to savor and cranberry sauce made with real cranberries.

Home made pumpkin pie too!

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful, we had the opportunity to enjoy a Thanksgiving celebration last (Nov. 28) Friday afternoon after school. Our dear friend from Switzerland, had invited a total of 5 missionaries (Trace and I included) who are in Neuchâtel for French language studies and our French language coordinator to join in the celebration of Thanksgiving. It was a lovely time shared together and we ate very well.

We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatos, cranberry sauce, vegetables, rolls and pumpkin pie with whip cream!! It was incredible ~ it was just like home! During our meal, we took turns sharing what we are thankful for and then after we enjoyed our pumpkin pie and coffee, we had a wonderful time of prayer.

A special treat!.....the guys did all the cleaning up of the dishes! One of the other ladies brought Tupperware containers, so we all were able to take home Thanksgiving leftovers. We are very grateful for our dear friends, who made all the preparations that went into this Thanksgiving dinner to make it so very special for us Americans, not being able to be home for Thanksgiving. We give thanks to God for special friends blessing us with a lovely Thanksgiving celebration.