OUR CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

Welcome to Christmas in our parlor! The stockings are all hung by the.....piano??? with care??? Well, no mantle or chimney at our house! The tree is right next to the piano.

Our "pencil" tree. We had to go to a skinny tree ever since we moved into the new house. No place for a real full tree. I'm surprised we didn't think about space for a tree when we built this place after living in the Victorian for 10 years and going all out with a huge round 9ft. tree and four other trees elsewhere in the house!

Looking at the tree from this view, you see my fringe curtains that adorn the archway separating the living room and formal parlor. The parlor is one of my favorite rooms in the whole house, though I use it very little. Many of my family heirlooms and antiques are kept in there.

I hope you got to see my paper beads on the last post. I have some amazing pictures of the finished projects coming up soon.

I hope you are all ready for this most wonderful season when we remember Christ's birth! Blessings, LORI

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A BIT MORE ON THE RUBY SLIPPER STORY!

We are busily readying for the holiday tomorrow! Today we celebrated Christmas at my mother-in-law's. We had a wonderful time! She always sets a beautiful table for us to enjoy!

I wanted to leave you with just a bit of the Ruby Slipper Story to think about over the holiday since this next "chapter" starts to show the amazing hand of God intervening in our lives. Isn't that what Christmas is all about? God reached down to correct the miserable condition that mankind was in by sending His son to earth with the mission of redeeming us through His death on the cross! All we have to do is accept Him, believe in Him, make Him our Lord. So much to be thankful for!

The Ruby Slipper Incident--Chapter 4

Last time I wrote I was telling you we had boarded the plane for Nairobi, Kenya. It was an 8-9 hour flight from Amsterdam. Some people were able to catch a few winks despite another crowded, noisy plane. Others were still wide awake! Thankfully I slept a bit.

When we began nearing Nairobi, the pilot informed us that we would not be able to land due to fog. We did not have enough fuel to circle the city waiting for the fog to lift either. This meant that we were going to Mombasa! This was certainly not in our plans! We had a group of people from the African church scheduled to meet us and haul us and all our equipment 70 miles to our destination from Nairobi.

Little did we know that during our flight, (middle of the night in America) our youth leader's wife, who did not make the trip with us, woke up with a very strong sense that we were in some kind of "situation" and she felt a great burden to pray. She prayed for about two hours starting around 2:30 am. She has testified that she did not feel the burden to pray lift for that long and then finally, she just felt peace and was able to go back to sleep! This occurred at the same time we were nearing Nairobi and/or being re-routed.

We did land in Mombasa and refuel. The plane got very stuffy and warm as we stared out at the tropical sights. Palm trees swayed in the distance. We were not allowed to get off the plane. We just had to wait. Very uncomfortable. We finally were in the air again and got clearance to land in Nairobi a short time later. My daughter recently checked the distance from our destination to Mombasa and it is a about an 8 hour drive by car! If we had been unable for any reason to land in Nairobi, our hosts would have had that long trip to make to retrieve us. As well as all that, we learned later that they were not even able to arrive at the airport in Nairobi because of the fog, they were delayed as well!

It was amazing how God woke someone up in America to pray for us and help our trip to turn out for the best. We take great comfort in knowing that our God intervenes and prompts on our behalf. Wait til you hear the rest of the story....Blessings, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!