A Curious Christmas – Dec 2016

Greetings from sunny and warm New Mexico, where I am celebrating Christmas alone with my parents – our first one together since Olivia was born back in Denver 21 years ago. I’ve always wanted a break from the exhausting pressure to make everyone happy and everything beautiful, and I’ve finally gotten my wish. I am downright giddy to have nothing more to do this week than to help my dad, shop with mom, eat at new restaurants and write this newsletter.

I’ve earned it this year, though you wouldn’t know it since I haven’t written since mid-Sept. That’s because I had a crush of people that needed my support: a friend who was having knee replacement surgery, a new missionary kid who started 5th grade at our school without basic French and needed my intervention, a hoarder who needed help throwing out before her move to a new apt., lessons that needed to be created for a new year of Sunday School, on top of weekly Sozos, church council meetings and House of Prayer sessions.

Florence and Angela LeighDavid and Jim LeighThen at the end of Oct, David’s dad, Jim, had a stroke, stealing his memory and making him less stable. Once he was back home, it was clear that they needed to make the anticipated move to a retirement village. But David’s mom, Florence, would need a lot of support to make that happen and everyone in the family was working full-time. So we volunteered to fly out mid-November and stayed 5 weeks. It was truly a grace-filled time: I cooked and de-cluttered and made sure Jim’s brain and body got exercised daily on the therapists’ off days. David led us in daily worship and prayer and did lots of administration for his mom, while keeping up with his own part-time work responsibilities. Florence dealt with Jim’s more personal needs and starting sorting thru 9 years of accumulation. The bonus was being with family for Thanksgiving for the first time in 14 years and celebrating 4 family birthdays in person!

Once David’s parents were settled in their new apt., the cold weather hit hard, so David was eager to fly eastward to be with Olivia for Christmas and I couldn’t wait to fly out west.
My parents are doing pretty well, but very isolated from family out in the desert. I’ve enjoyed this time so much that this needs to be an annual trip, as they are usually alone at holiday time and my kids aren’t nearly as sentimental about being together then.

However, our absence was harder on Olivia than anticipated because our church went through a tragedy while we were gone. A young family of 7 moved into our village/church/school community a few years ago (4 girls and a boy, ages 2-11, the youngest having serious heart defects.) Guillaume was a teacher at the school and was being groomed to take over as president of the school board. His wife Flavy was a beautiful stay-at-home, vegan mom that I had befriended as a neighbor. Her kids filled half of my SS class and she had just taken on the preschool program at church this fall. Then to everyone’s shock, she caught a flu and died of meningitis 5 days later. Of course we weren’t getting any emails to pray until she was in the hospital, so the news was very sudden and hit the day before Thanksgiving, making us very grateful to be near our family.

Our church contacted a respected French woman who had witnessed a resurrection in another country for her testimony. Eager to start living out Jesus’ promise that we would do greater things than He did (even in France!) they fasted, prayed and worshiped around the clock for a miracle until the moment she was lowered into the ground 3 days later. Apparently Guillaume has dropped everything to father his kids, as their extended families live on the other side of France. His mother stayed until she landed in the hospital as well with another problem. I haven’t heard what he will do for the long term, but I am relieved that we had flown out before this happened because it would have been very difficult to leave at such a time of need. People are needy everywhere, and so few have free time to help. I am so glad that I can be that person, as a supported missionary, whether at home or abroad! (And any resources on accompanying children through grief would be much appreciated!)

In happier news, Olivia now has her dual citizenship and showed me her French passport over Skype this week! David and I hope to ride on her coat tails, applying for citizenship next year before our ten year visa expires. This will reduce the time we spend on bureaucratic paperwork and allow us to vote – the candidates are looking promising!

A blessed 2017 to all of you, Angela

Posted in newsletter.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.