Christmas Letter 2009
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
May we NEVER stop sharing the joy and hope of Christ’s birth!!!
2009 was such in interesting year.
May we NEVER stop sharing the joy and hope of Christ’s birth!!!
2009 was such in interesting year.
Tonight I had a question for Lou.
It went like this.
“Honey, do you think people step out in faith because they plan it that way or do they do it just when there’s no other option left?” Lou’s eyes twinkled at that point and I think I saw the corners of his mouth turn up just a wee bit as he asked, “Do you think that’s the way we do it?”
Well, that might be what we’ve done the last two or three times we had to plow forward but we didn’t start off that way. Five years ago we started off by carefully searching our hearts for weeks about what we thought God was leading us toward. We both had the same definite ideas so we knew that this was where God was directing us. I can clearly remember the Sunday morning in January 2005 at Robinson Baptist Church where every word of the sermon and every song sung that morning confirmed what I was already feeling in my heart to the point that by the last song I was a pile of sobs and tears in the pew. Some may have thought we were stepping out in faith to proceed with the auction of our home and stuff after Lou came out of the hospital but to us it was where the Lord was calling us to go.
But this year, I’d say that we “stepped out in faith” when all our plans didn’t go the way we expected and we had no choice but to put our faith in the Lord’s provision and mercy. Not a bad place to put our trust but it would have saved a lot of planning if we’d just have done that in the first place. How’s that for honesty?
Applegate Lake, our trip to see my sister in Florida and replacing our motor home’s 10 year old tires …were all carefully planned and thought through. Well, we thought they were, anyway. Each one ended up with us putting our trust in the Lord out of necessity when things didn’t go “as planned”.
Applegate Lake was a lesson learned. Don’t volunteer to work for someone making money off of the public. Just as we knew we needed to leave Applegate Lake, the Lord opened a door to volunteer for the BLM near Salem, Oregon, at Fishermen’s Bend campground. They needed a new maintenance couple. What perfect timing. We enjoyed it there.
Many prayed for my sister, Vina, when she was placed on hospice in June and given “two months”. She is still very much alive and enjoying life. She just called me and gave me the news that she has been taken off of hospice. The doctor’s obviously missed something or God is Good. (I don’t know if the doctor’s made a mistake or not but I KNOW that God has been Good.) We made plans in July to fly down to Florida the end of September to see her, not knowing for sure if she would still be alive. We picked that week because it was one of the few weeks that our cousins, Marilyn & Wes Renk, could fly down, too. We picked an airline that would allow us to change the tickets. We had a wonderful visit. We had a rented a house close to the Gulf of Mexico that included a pontoon boat. (A link to the album of that trip is on our blog.) The weather that week was perfect with temps in the 70’s & 80’s and much lower humidity than normal. The unexpected happened when Wes felt ill the morning we were getting ready to leave our rental house and then Lou’s heart went into A-fib. Six hours later, at 4pm we had to decide whether to get on the plane or not with Lou’s heart still in irregular rhythm. Wes used an airline wheel chair to get to the plane. We got on the plane with a leap of faith. Around 7pm, over Arkansas (we think) Lou’s heart kicked back into steady beats. PTL. The next morning, Wes was admitted to a Portland hospital. He had an old stint in his heart replaced and an additional one put in. God is Good.
We had put money aside to replace the tires on our motor home this year. The tires are 1999 Good Year’s. We ended up using that money for an emergency trip to Florida to see Vina. When we got back, the idea of driving on those 10 year old tires just made us feel uneasy so we dug deep and bought the new tires. When we drove the motor home with the new tires, the rig shook and bounced so badly, we thought the wheels were falling off. We turned around and went back to the tire shop. They replaced one defective tire and let 20 lbs of air out of each of the others. It was closing time. We drove back to the campground but it was no fun driving. We called the tire shop in the morning and they sent a truck to the camp ground and went on a test drive with us. When we reached 40 mph and the vibrations began to bounce the coach. The guy said that if he were us, he’d put the old tires back on. He said that he looked at our old tires when we came back to the shop last night and he thought they looked in good shape (no rot and hardly worn). Driving this motor home with the new tires was just going to shake the RV to bits. He blamed it on China manufactured tires and the low quality control overseas. We didn’t have time to order in more tires and see if they were any better than these. And these tires were a night mare so we had him bring our old tires (rebalanced) back to the campground and he put them back on our motor home at no charge. They gave us a full refund. We made it to California on those old tires, prayers and lots of faith. (We asked our prayer partners to pray for our traveling safety as we rolled our wheels south to California from Salem, Oregon.)
That brings us to where we are right now…our Hard Hats for Christ project at Hartstone Bible Camp, a few miles up and down a twisty curvy 7% to 12% grade road above Potter Valley, California. We are helping to renovate a log cabin river lodge that was built back in 1928 or so. The bottom three logs around the building were rotted and have been removed. At the moment the building has been lifted five feet above the ground and is supported by towers of posts and steel beams waiting for a stem wall (foundation) to be poured to support the building.
We volunteered to help with the electrical and the plumbing but the forms for the new foundation aren’t completed yet so it will be some time before we get to work on the part that we know anything about. Lou is being asked to get involved with building the forms…which brings us back to the beginning of this letter where I was asking Lou that question about stepping out in faith.
What we bring with us to each new project is the lessons learned from each completed Hard Hats for Christ project we’ve been a part of. All of those lessons are centered in KNOWING what an awesome God we serve from what we’ve already seen HIM do through those willing to trust HIM. We pray for all things to be done in HIS timing and for the patience needed so we don’t hinder HIS plans. We have seen the Lord bring those needed to the projects just at the right time. We’ve marveled at the timing more than once. Sometimes, at first, they wonder what they can do or why they are there but in a short time, it’s clear. They are a blessing to us and others. Some come in person with willing backs and hands. Others give encouragement or funds from afar to help the project in some way. We know that prayers are being offered for the needs and safety of the volunteers on the sites and it is those earnest prayers offered with the love of Christ in your hearts that are needed above everything else.
Which brings this letter back to where it really started… Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas!!
Because of Him, there is Hope,
there is Forgiveness,
there is Salvation,
because of One, our Messiah, Jesus.
May His Holy Spirit help you to Live, help you to Love, help you to Trust.
In His name…Merry Christmas!
Hugs,
His Utmost Gift is Salvation
Kathy and Lou
It went like this.
“Honey, do you think people step out in faith because they plan it that way or do they do it just when there’s no other option left?” Lou’s eyes twinkled at that point and I think I saw the corners of his mouth turn up just a wee bit as he asked, “Do you think that’s the way we do it?”
Well, that might be what we’ve done the last two or three times we had to plow forward but we didn’t start off that way. Five years ago we started off by carefully searching our hearts for weeks about what we thought God was leading us toward. We both had the same definite ideas so we knew that this was where God was directing us. I can clearly remember the Sunday morning in January 2005 at Robinson Baptist Church where every word of the sermon and every song sung that morning confirmed what I was already feeling in my heart to the point that by the last song I was a pile of sobs and tears in the pew. Some may have thought we were stepping out in faith to proceed with the auction of our home and stuff after Lou came out of the hospital but to us it was where the Lord was calling us to go.
But this year, I’d say that we “stepped out in faith” when all our plans didn’t go the way we expected and we had no choice but to put our faith in the Lord’s provision and mercy. Not a bad place to put our trust but it would have saved a lot of planning if we’d just have done that in the first place. How’s that for honesty?
Applegate Lake, our trip to see my sister in Florida and replacing our motor home’s 10 year old tires …were all carefully planned and thought through. Well, we thought they were, anyway. Each one ended up with us putting our trust in the Lord out of necessity when things didn’t go “as planned”.
Applegate Lake was a lesson learned. Don’t volunteer to work for someone making money off of the public. Just as we knew we needed to leave Applegate Lake, the Lord opened a door to volunteer for the BLM near Salem, Oregon, at Fishermen’s Bend campground. They needed a new maintenance couple. What perfect timing. We enjoyed it there.
Many prayed for my sister, Vina, when she was placed on hospice in June and given “two months”. She is still very much alive and enjoying life. She just called me and gave me the news that she has been taken off of hospice. The doctor’s obviously missed something or God is Good. (I don’t know if the doctor’s made a mistake or not but I KNOW that God has been Good.) We made plans in July to fly down to Florida the end of September to see her, not knowing for sure if she would still be alive. We picked that week because it was one of the few weeks that our cousins, Marilyn & Wes Renk, could fly down, too. We picked an airline that would allow us to change the tickets. We had a wonderful visit. We had a rented a house close to the Gulf of Mexico that included a pontoon boat. (A link to the album of that trip is on our blog.) The weather that week was perfect with temps in the 70’s & 80’s and much lower humidity than normal. The unexpected happened when Wes felt ill the morning we were getting ready to leave our rental house and then Lou’s heart went into A-fib. Six hours later, at 4pm we had to decide whether to get on the plane or not with Lou’s heart still in irregular rhythm. Wes used an airline wheel chair to get to the plane. We got on the plane with a leap of faith. Around 7pm, over Arkansas (we think) Lou’s heart kicked back into steady beats. PTL. The next morning, Wes was admitted to a Portland hospital. He had an old stint in his heart replaced and an additional one put in. God is Good.
We had put money aside to replace the tires on our motor home this year. The tires are 1999 Good Year’s. We ended up using that money for an emergency trip to Florida to see Vina. When we got back, the idea of driving on those 10 year old tires just made us feel uneasy so we dug deep and bought the new tires. When we drove the motor home with the new tires, the rig shook and bounced so badly, we thought the wheels were falling off. We turned around and went back to the tire shop. They replaced one defective tire and let 20 lbs of air out of each of the others. It was closing time. We drove back to the campground but it was no fun driving. We called the tire shop in the morning and they sent a truck to the camp ground and went on a test drive with us. When we reached 40 mph and the vibrations began to bounce the coach. The guy said that if he were us, he’d put the old tires back on. He said that he looked at our old tires when we came back to the shop last night and he thought they looked in good shape (no rot and hardly worn). Driving this motor home with the new tires was just going to shake the RV to bits. He blamed it on China manufactured tires and the low quality control overseas. We didn’t have time to order in more tires and see if they were any better than these. And these tires were a night mare so we had him bring our old tires (rebalanced) back to the campground and he put them back on our motor home at no charge. They gave us a full refund. We made it to California on those old tires, prayers and lots of faith. (We asked our prayer partners to pray for our traveling safety as we rolled our wheels south to California from Salem, Oregon.)
That brings us to where we are right now…our Hard Hats for Christ project at Hartstone Bible Camp, a few miles up and down a twisty curvy 7% to 12% grade road above Potter Valley, California. We are helping to renovate a log cabin river lodge that was built back in 1928 or so. The bottom three logs around the building were rotted and have been removed. At the moment the building has been lifted five feet above the ground and is supported by towers of posts and steel beams waiting for a stem wall (foundation) to be poured to support the building.
We volunteered to help with the electrical and the plumbing but the forms for the new foundation aren’t completed yet so it will be some time before we get to work on the part that we know anything about. Lou is being asked to get involved with building the forms…which brings us back to the beginning of this letter where I was asking Lou that question about stepping out in faith.
What we bring with us to each new project is the lessons learned from each completed Hard Hats for Christ project we’ve been a part of. All of those lessons are centered in KNOWING what an awesome God we serve from what we’ve already seen HIM do through those willing to trust HIM. We pray for all things to be done in HIS timing and for the patience needed so we don’t hinder HIS plans. We have seen the Lord bring those needed to the projects just at the right time. We’ve marveled at the timing more than once. Sometimes, at first, they wonder what they can do or why they are there but in a short time, it’s clear. They are a blessing to us and others. Some come in person with willing backs and hands. Others give encouragement or funds from afar to help the project in some way. We know that prayers are being offered for the needs and safety of the volunteers on the sites and it is those earnest prayers offered with the love of Christ in your hearts that are needed above everything else.
Which brings this letter back to where it really started… Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas!!
Because of Him, there is Hope,
there is Forgiveness,
there is Salvation,
because of One, our Messiah, Jesus.
May His Holy Spirit help you to Live, help you to Love, help you to Trust.
In His name…Merry Christmas!
Hugs,
His Utmost Gift is Salvation
Kathy and Lou
posted by Lou and Kathy at 9:30 PM
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