Hey everyone,
Yay for winter! How's the weather for you all? hehehe. I sometimes wonder why every email has to start with a regular weather update, but hey, it's interesting! lol. Right now as I look out the large family room window towards the now-covered swimming pool, I see a fast, steady, fine rain. It's pretty wet today. And very cold the last few weeks. A few mornings we woke up with frost on the ground, and at least once with a tiny bit snow! Believe it or not, people get pretty excited around here when we get snow.
Actually, just north of Redding, where you drive up into the mountains, it's big and official on signs that all vehicles will be checked to make sure they have chains on the tires. They won't let you drove further without them.
I figured it was time to write another update to you all, but I couldn't think of what exactly had all happened that would be exciting enough to write about. So let's see if I'll get ideas as I start writing....
On Dec. 6 was Dylana's 15th birthday, so we went out to celebrate by going to the Shasta Caverns. It was kind of fun, because we drive way up and out into the back, north of Redding into the mountains, by Shasta Lake. Shasta Lake is famous because its water level has gone down at least a hundred feet just this summer alone. It's water level changes very drastically from season to season. This summer it was so much farther down, that we had to take a bus down to the water, so that we could go with a boat across. Our tour guide was a newly married Christian youth pastor, and we were his only tourists. So it was really a pleasant experience, hearing things like "around 200 years ago" instead of the normal balony about the two hundred million years ago and all that concerning caves. :D
On Sunday (the 7th) we had a birthday party for Dylana. So that was a good opportunity to make new friends, because we invited girls we didn't really know. So that was good. It's good to finally make some connections here and start having a little more of a feeling of belonging. Even Dylana is starting to admit enjoying it! Thank God! :)
I had my last Spanish class this Friday, and I'm not planning on enrolling for that again this semester. I do want to graduate yet sometime! hehe. It was taking up a few hours twice a week, so I decided that I'll go without it for next semester.
Christmas break is officially upon us! My parents' school is over for this year, and will resume again on the 6th of January 2009. Every weekend, every break (Thanksgiving, Christmas), my dad always says he can't wait for school to start again. We're not going home for Christmas, and nobody is coming here to visit us for Christmas as we had hoped in the beginning. So hopefully we'll still find something to do. As for me and Dylana, we're planning to just keep right on doing schoolwork. Maybe we'll take two days off, like, the 24th and the 25th or something. The one thing we are planning for sure, however, is inviting our neighbors, the Hofers, to our house for Christmas dinner. We're not sure yet which date.
That reminds me. Out here in the United States, Thanksgiving seems to be a much bigger celebration than we're used to from back home. Our wonderful neighbors the Ron and Karen Hofers (remember, the ones I said we found out we're related to on the Dueck side) invited us over for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. Their inviting us sure made it feel like we had family here after all, which was good.
Okay, my email is jumping back and forth on topics, so here we are back to Christmas. Last weekend we had the Christmas Musicals that my sisters have prepared for, for so long! And it was more than well worth the effort! The first time I watched it (I watched it all four times), I was so touched and I'm absolutely serious, my life has NOT been the same since. My eyes were opened, more than ever, to the reality that King Jesus is alive and among us. The Kingdom of Heaven is real and tangible, all around us, and when we pray, God answers! The story was about a family who are about to be evicted from their house because of a two year drought the area's had. But when Lani, the main character, realizes and makes use of the gifts and blessings God has given her, it begins snowing! There's much more to it, obviously. We have the DVD of it, so if you are interested in watching it, let us know!
Well, those are the only events I can of right now to write about. However, I could not think of sending out an update without adding at least one testimony of what God is doing out here! I believe it was this last Friday night service when the pastor shared this testimony, so I'll do my best to remember the most important details:
God is powerful and He does need to make people spend thousands of dollars to come to a certain place to receive healing. As happened this time, God healed a woman of deafness over the phone, on the other side of the world! This woman has a daughter who goes to school here at Bethel. The daughter told this pastor at Bethel that her mother is completely deaf on her right ear, and she was wondering if they could still pray for her healing even though her mother was in Scandinavia! The pastor said, "of course." He told the daughter to bring her computer to the Healing Room on Saturday morning, and they would call her through Skype (that's a program over the internet that allows you to make phonecalls). So that is what they did. The daughter brought her laptop computer to the Healing Room, and she and the pastor called her mother on Skype. They prayed over the phone, and guess what? She said she had never felt God's presence before, but now she felt God's sweet presence all around her, and especially touching her ears. And then she realized that she could hear from her ear that had een deaf before! And to top it off, her husband who was not a Christian, was watching her! As a result, he gave his life to Jesus as well!
God is so wonderful! Jesus means so much to me, and even more so since we've come here. But it is not just because I'm lucky enough to be at Bethel. Jesus is as much God where you are as where I am. It takes a hunger for Him. You must desire His fellowship more than anything else in life. When you search for Him, you WILL find him. I did. He will reveal Himself to you. God really truly is there, right beside you. He wants to have a relationship with you! I speak with experience. I used to not know what it really was like to live in close fellowship with God all throughout the day, where I could just speak with Him and He speak with me at any time. Do you believe the Bible is true? Remember the part where it says, "Jesus remains the same yesterday, today, and forever"? Let that sink in. Jesus is the SAME powerful, the same loving, the SAME GOD that He was in the Bible times!
That's really been on my heart lately. I really really want to spread that message of hope to everyone I love back home. Jesus Christ, my King, love you. He is amazing. He is your Healer, your Provider, your best Friend. Nothing is impossible for Him! Just open your heart to Him! And I am speaking to YOU, even if you are already saved. I've been saved for quite a few years. But for every Christian, there must be growth. Even Jesus did. It says in the Bible that Jesus grew stronger, he grew in favour with man AND with God, he became more filled with wisdom... etc. If he grew like that spiritually in his childhood, how much MORE do we need to grow, even though we've been saved for years?
Well, so much for now. :D I hope you very seriously consider what I've said. And I hope you have a very merry Christmas, filled with more blessing than you thought possible! God be with you. And, as always, I very much love getting feedback from whoever cares to write! :) Love you all!
~Crystal~
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Crystal Dueck~
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