Cameroon

Every year I sit down and write some sort of holiday letter. I say ‘holiday’ not to diminish Christmas, but as a reflection of the reality that I generally don’t get it written until school gets out the week of Christmas and I’m not sure I have ever gotten it in the mail before the New Year! Sound familiar to anyone?

2009 has been an eventful and life-changing year! Not in my wildest dreams would I have predicted last year that this Christmas I would be on the road that I am now walking. There are still many miles to tread and tasks to complete before I reach Cameroon, but each day brings it one day closer. Most years it is a letter of reflection, catching up relatives and friends on the major events and/or changes of the past year, the annual attempt so many of us make to reconnect with the many people from our past who seem to have faded from our everyday lives. This year is a little bit different. Not only am I tackling the task a bit earlier (hopefully soon enough to mail in time to actually call it a Christmas letter), but my focus is forward. Though I have spent many hours reflecting on the many changes of the past year, those reflections keep pointing forward. After all, what is Christmas but an announcement of the arrival of our One True Hope for the future?

Jewish holidays were/are generally feasts of remembrance; times for the people to recognize and be reminded of God’s hand at work in the history of their people. However, those same festivals and feasts of remembrance also look forward. They reach out to a promised future, searching for deliverance, anxiously awaiting fulfillment, seeking the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah. How blessed we are to HAVE that Messiah!

What is the manger if not the first step to the cross? That may sound depressing for a Christmas letter, but the manger MUST lead us to the foot of the cross, and the cross to the depths of the grave. For only from the grave can we truly see the resurrection and even begin to grasp the significance of the tremendous gift in Bethlehem’s manger.

Let us rejoice this Christmas in the arrival of our Lord and Savior, but let us also rejoice in the Hope He brings – hope of souls restored and an earth renewed, the hope of friendships reconciled and families transformed. Not only do we have reason to rejoice in the arrival of that tiny baby through whom all the prophesies and promises would be fulfilled, we can rejoice in His presence NOW and FOREVER! Pretty amazing, isn’t it?!

Thank you all for you support! Your financial gifts are greatly appreciated and your prayers are deeply treasured. Praise God for what He is doing and all He will do in the year to come! I still have a long ways to go on many fronts before I can leave for Cameroon this summer, yet my excitement continues to grow. Please continue to pray as God prepares the way.

In Him, our one true hope,
Merry Christmas!
Kristi

We had some trouble getting this program to cooperate with just attaching my newsletter, so I am just going to paste the main part of the body for now….

Do you ever feel like you are living in a paradox?
• Time flies and yet stands still
• Ready to move on, yet not ready to let go
• Desiring simplicity, yet creating complexity

As Christians, our lives are a constant paradox as we seek to balance this life and the next, who we are in this life and who we are in Christ.
• We are expected to be in this world but not of it
• Called to holiness, yet saved by grace

In fact God (who is both JUST and extends GRACE) seems to also work in a seemingly paradoxical manner,
• Displaying his great strength through our weaknesses.
• Dying to give us life
• He was sinless yet condemned; we are sinful, yet saved.

Likewise, paradox is a pretty accurate word to describe many aspects of the lives led by many of our missionary children, military children, and other ‘third culture kids.’ Imagine a life in which ‘going home’ means leaving everything familiar, feeling most comfortable where you look like you do NOT fit and alienated where others expect you to find familiarity. Please pray for our missionary kids as they grow up in the balance between life on the ‘field’ and life at ‘home.’

This past month I have grown more aware of some paradoxes in my life. Through God’s provision, I am thrilled to say that my house is finally on the market, yet there is also some degree of sorrow in letting go. It is amazing to sit back and reflect on the many ways God has used that house to bless me in recent years. My dad and I have enjoyed many hours working together on various house-related projects, the spare bedroom has often been occupied (sometimes for a night, others for a month or so), and I have learned so much about owning and maintaining a home. Please pray that a final blessing will come through its sale, as I am counting on the proceeds to pay off my student loans, allowing me to head overseas without the burden of any financial debts here.

In recent weeks I have been blessed greatly by the opportunity to share with others the great journey on which God is taking me, yet I realize more each time I speak somewhere that moving on also means saying goodbye on some level. My calendar is slowly gaining speaking engagements, my mailing list is getting longer, and my list of prayer and financial partners is growing. Please continue to pray that God will provide additional speaking engagements, prayer partners, and financial partners, claiming with me his promise to complete the work He has begun.

As always, I appreciate your support, treasure your prayers, and leave you with my favorite prayer (from Ephesians 3:16-21) – “I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according this power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
In Him, Kristi

Ok,so I have written my first ‘newsletter’ and will attempt to attach it here. Please let me know if you want to get my newsletters. I would love to add you to my mailing list!

To download my August newsletter (in .pdf), Click here.