Merry Christmas,

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. - Luke 2:11&12

Being a family with nine children, we have experienced a few births over the years. But nothing can ever compare to the birth of our Lord. 

He came so humbly, and yet He is the creator of everything. I doubt that we can ever fully understand what it was like for God to come to Earth in such a lowly form. 

But we are thankful. We are thankful that He did not stay a baby. But as Luke 2:52 says "...Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

Jesus would eventually die for all who would call upon His name. He would suffer a horrible death, the worst kind that was known to man, being crucified on a cross. But He did so willingly so that we could come to have a personal relationship with Him. 

He was born to die. I think that is sometimes easy to forget this time of year. 

"...Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:" - 1 Corinthians 15:3b&4

As we look back on the birth of a king, I trust we will not forget that it was His will to come to Earth. He came with the purpose of dying in our place, so that we could have the opportunity to be called a child of God if we would just believe.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. - Romans 10:9

From our family to yours,

Merry Christmas!

As we look back on an amazing year, we are thankful for measured progress. We may not have gained as much traction on deputation as we would have liked, but we definitely saw the Lord's hand in our journey so far.

We have been in 12 churches so far this year, and have one more scheduled the last weekend of December.

Bryan was able to step down from his secular job in October, and we broke the 10 percent mark on our support goal. 

Some of these numbers might not sound like a whole lot. But to us, they are precious.

Of course, we would like to have been in more churches, found more partners for our ministry, and raised additional support. But we also know that God's timing is perfect, and He will provide everything we need as He sees fit.

The start to deputation journey has not been overly spectacular. We are not the most flashy missionaries on the road, nor would most people say that we have the most exciting ministry in the world. 

But God has blessed us with a ministry of serving others, and we can see no higher calling. The folks that retire from full-time ministry and settle at Missionary Acres are true heroes of the faith. They may not like being called that, but it does not make it any less true. We consider it an honor to be called to serve them.

We are excited about the coming year, and the work the Lord has ahead for us. We already have three meetings scheduled and are hoping to book between 25 and 30 meetings for 2020 altogether. We will gladly take more if the Lord chooses to provide. But the main point is that the Lord will provide. And we will praise Him for it.

• Connecting with Pastors! We have scheduled four meetings since our last update, and we are thankful for each one.
  
• Being able to virtually join a prayer meeting with the BMM Home Office staff. That was such an encouragement!
  
• New family photos, which we will be using in updated prayer cards in 2020. 
  
• A new client for Lisa's business. 
• The opportunity to spend Christmas with family.
  

• To continue to connect with Pastors and fill our schedule for 2020.
• For continued safety on the road, we have several trips scheduled during months when there's typically a lot of snow.
  
• A dependable and affordable bunkhouse (trailer) large enough to sleep our family - to reduce lodging and food expenses.
  
• For continued health for our family.
  
• For wisdom with Owen, he has been taking his g-tube out and we were in the ER three times in December. 

About once a month we publish a new blog post. This offers a behind the scenes peek at our journey to become missionaries. Here is our latest blog post: