It’s obvious that God is still eager to see us mature in our trust in His provision to a greater degree – this month was almost as excruciating as the Channel crossing last month!
- The day after I sent the last newsletter, my dad was rushed to the hospital with chest pains. The bad news to go with this bad news was that they had just driven to their rental home for a couple of months where they have no land-line or Internet, so I was only able to talk to them once in the ICU during the whole 5-week episode.
- Black Forest Academy was closed down for 4 days with swine flu by the German government.
- I had spent a lot of money on fancy wall treatments for my long, dark, narrow hallway entrance (aka “the tunnel”) and the materials only covered 1/3 of the walls and I hated the result. Now what??
A couple of years ago, a woman rented a room from the church and created some shadowbox frames with verses and paintings of Biblical scenes surrounded by dried flowers in a dated 70’s style. She was asking $25 – $100 and guess what? They didn’t sell and the rent didn’t get paid. She left town and her wares behind. We boxed them up and they sat in a corner gathering dust for a year.
- During Thanksgiving week our missions coordinator let us know that with the restructuring of the church under a new pastor, they would not be able to continue handling our support income, and as we mentioned last month, deposits have been pretty haphazard ever since. Our bank accounts were hitting new lows!
- At the same time, we got 2 parking tickets within days of each other. Then I drove to BFA to sell at their flea market to try to make a little grocery money. I actually lost more money than I made because I was caught speeding on radar. When we received that ticket in the mail along with the bank’s overdraft charges, we had to pray ourselves out of utter despair!
- Then it was time to celebrate Thanksgiving with 17 other English people. My British neighbor initiated it and it sounded fun… 3 weeks ago. She made it sound simple – she would deal with the turkey and hosting stress. I would make the pies and cranberry salad. The other families would bring simple side dishes and drinks. Then her husband got a job promotion, so she was really excited about it! Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how to buy the ingredients I needed and get in a party mood as the hosting American.
And now the happy endings that prove that my Redeemer lives and He loves to redeem everything!
- Because my parents were in Phoenix instead of Las Cruces, they were close to my sister and a fine hospital. Dad was this close to a heart attack, and 4 stents later, he is a new man. Rachel will join my family for Christmas at their home this year. Wish I could be there to celebrate life with them!
Noah escaped the swine flu and any other flu, for that matter, while the majority of his dorm-mates suffered to some degree. (Not having a roommate probably helped.) David just drove over to celebrate his 16th birthday with him. The gift he wanted the most was… an 8GB USB key. I miss going to the toy store and buying brightly colored things that move! His classes are a good fit this year and he is aiming high in his choices for college.
- A handyman friend showed up out of nowhere with a sudden interest to help me redeem the situation, even though he is completely renovating his own house. He re-plastered the entire “tunnel” in one day! Now I’m really taking my time to decide how to finish it, so as not to waste anymore money.
I was going to offer to buy one of her frames from the church at half price in order to frame something of my own, and then I realized that I could recycle all of them. I have a dresser that is filled with nothing but artsy calendars, cards, and papers that I’ve collected over the years and done very little with. This was perfect – with no investment I could sell them for much less and split the profits with the church to redeem the situation. This has also provided some much needed balance in my life – doing something I love to do, rather than just what I should do. So I re-created 18 and sold 10 this weekend. Because our church here is aware of our tight transition, they graciously said that we could keep all the profits and buyers were complimentary and generous!
- For administering our support income, it looks like we may have found a new church connection, so for those of you who give regularly – please don’t send any further support to Denver after Dec. 15th. We’ll be sending new information as soon as possible.
- Thanksgiving was still tough going for me all the way around, but my salad was a big hit and our guests left happy! I even found “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” on DVD at the local grocery store a few weeks ago – nothing short of miraculous! By the way, we’ve just learned that our favorite grocery store is closing and this is hitting me harder than I thought it would. It’s the only place where I can always find foods that we really value: high quality (and some hard-to-find) fruit and veg, popcorn, natural peanut butter, and pecans. I’m not familiar with the store that will replace it, but I need some redemptive action here!
- And I’ve saved the best news for last: We are officially in the French healthcare system! Our expensive mandatory private healthcare only covered major medical, so now we have much lower premiums based on what David is earning, and we are enjoying regular reimbursements for my migraine meds and dr. visits. The timing couldn’t be better. Now we’re climbing the next administrative mountain. In France, families receive regular child benefits for school-aged children. Since the first hurdle took 5 yr. to accomplish, we just hope this one happens before Olivia moves out…
