We were blessed by a visit from my, Erin's, parents for Christmas. My younger brother is also currently out of the country, serving with the US Air Force in Japan. Instead of spending Christmas alone, we convinced my parents to meet us on another island for a tropical holiday.
We stayed near the beach for the first few nights, then inland among rice fields. It was a wonderful break from Barat and a blessing for all of use to spend the time with my parents.
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| Whitman in a traditional hat, playing a traditional instrument. |
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| A few festive items I brought along to decorate the second place we stayed. |
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| Whitman and Caedmon working a couple models with Papa J. |
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| Enjoying tadpoles in a pond. |
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| Enjoying the pool. |
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| It currently is raining season, so between heavy rain storms, we were out as much as possible. |
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| Whitman and Caedmon with Grammie and Papa J |
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| We ventured to the Monkey Forest. This is an area of land set aside for the protection and conservation of Macau Monkeys. |
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| Evangeline and Caedmon |
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| The Monkey Forest has paths to wander along through the forest. Monkeys roam freely everywhere. They are not afraid of all the human visitors and very bold, taking any food or bottle of water from your hand. |
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| While standing close to a handrail full of monkeys, John became an escape for one of two quarreling monkeys. |
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| A minute or two later, the monkey departed from John's shoulder. |
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| Taking in the many statues and temples within the forest. |
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| Caedmon was brave enough to feed a monkey. |
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| Celebrating the BIRTHday! |
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| Our baby is getting a little big for sink bathing. |
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| The only snow we saw was the festive decoration in the airport. |
One of my favorite traditions John and I started, about 8 years ago, is retelling specific times we experienced the Father's provision or grace. I have made an ornament for each experience, which we pull out of stockings on the morning of and take turns reading the accompanying synopsis or retelling from memory. Our ornaments range from the birth of our three children, healthy and whole, finding my wedding ring in a small grass covered stream bed, paying off $80,000 of student loans, to the grace shown to John by a game warden when he shot a deer prior to the opening weekend of hunting season. These are just a few examples, we are blessed to have many more. We can easily remember so many of these events, but sad to say, we often forget the small details that left us in awe.
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Our season-changing tree curtain.
I hung our ornament us upon returning from our time with grandparents. They are such a great reminder of the many blessing, though often small, we have received out of His complete grace towards us.
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While we were away, John spent much of his time trying to manage our house building over the phone. This also included transferring money to enable the builders to buy additional supplies. We were again blessed, in an unforeseen way, when we were able to stop, on the way to the airport, to deposit money at a bank. This proved to be very beneficial the following day because when we tried to catch a night bus after arriving back in the big city we failed. Every night bus returning to Barat, or the next city, was full. We were forced to spend the night in the big city. This turned out to be a blessing as we were able to sleep in beds, instead of the night bus, and thankfully, found a car to ride home in instead of waiting for another night bus. On top of a more comfortable ride home, John had the money in the bank to transfer wages to the builders as they were expecting it on Wednesday, but our return had been delayed a day.
We hope this Holiday Season finds you remembers the many ways we all have been blessed beyond measure!
