Our Christmas Hug

To Our Family & Friends,

We would very much love to hug you in person! But given the 5000 mile distance, our arms just don't reach that far.  This will have to do until we get home.  We are so grateful to everyone who has prayed for us, sent us encouragement, gone above and beyond at our house, dropped by things, and SO much more!  We have received so many timely messages of Scripture on the perfect day for the perfect situation. We feel a little bit like Paul writing letters from prison (though not quite the same) in the New Testament--we have heard stories of faiths that have been stretched and strengthened and are blessed and encouraged by everything everyone is doing for us!
Hebrews 3:13 tells us to encourage one another daily so that we won't be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  Many of you are the reasons that we are not hardened and that each day brings new joy and determination.  Although this faith journey has been tough at times, it has been so worth it.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  And God isn't just making 5 lives new because they get a family, he is making our lives new because of what He is doing in us and through you.  One of the many timely messages included an excerpt form a Christmas devotional written by Jennifer Kennedy Dean and it says this:

You come to call us to tasks so big we could never accomplish them and would never dare to undertake them on our own.  You come to assign us a place in Your plan.  And with Your command comes Your power.  You preface Your call on my life with the same statement "Do not be afraid." You are not sending me out on my own to muddle through the best I can.  You are inviting me to be the vessel through which You will work.  You are inviting me to let You impregnate me with Your desires, gestate your vision in me, and then bring it into the world through my life.  A big call, but Your words introduce it "Do not be afraid".

Zechariah 4:6 Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.

Scott always says that there is no better place than where we are being used by God.  To all of you who have been invited into this story with us, thank you for answering that call.  We love you very much and will see you very soon!

~Scott and Lauren