Symanzik Family Update

My daughter asked me today how to figure out how many hours, minutes, and seconds are in a year.
That got me thinking.
All our days are numbered and directed by God in His providence.
There are, on average, 365 days a year.
Times that by 24 hours and there are 8760 hours in a year.
Times that by 60 minutes and we get 525,600 minutes per year. Times that by 60 seconds and there are 3,153,600 seconds per year.

"O Father, may we each use each second of every day that You have ordained for us for Your Glory. May we each seek first Your Kingdom and Your righteousness all the days of our lives (Matthew 6:33); studying Your Word, meditating on Your word day and night (Psalm 1), and working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is You, O God, who works out Your good will in each of us. (Philippians 2:12,13)
Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).
May we remember always that You are, have been, and always will be our dwelling place (Psalm 90:1). From everlasting to everlasting, You are! Our times are in Your hand. Help each of us be strong and take courage in You for the tasks You've called us to. (Psalm 90: 15, 23, 24)
Thank you for Your love for each of us.
In Christ, and for Your Glory, Amen and Amen."

Well, it's been quite a year for us.

We thank God for all His provisions, the lessons He has taught us, the opportunity to be full-time on the mission field.....

Thank you to each of you who support us in prayer and financially. We appreciate it more than words can say.

Our prayer is that we will continually seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, that we will continue to grow in His wisdom and grace, and that the fruit of the Spirit will be evident in each of our lives.

Happy New Year!

Most Filipinos here stay up Christmas Eve most of the night.
They usually have a meal around 10p.m. which includes pancit or spaghetti, ham or pork, salads, etc.
They play games, sing, have a lot of fun. Some of our friends were up til 2 or 3 a.m. Christmas morning. Then Christmas day they slept til noon or so!!!

One of our 'little friends' enjoying the Christmas lights!

We, on the other hand, had our traditional Christmas Eve time. Most churches here do not hold Christmas Eve services so we held our own. We sang many of the traditional Christmas hymns, each child presented either memorized scripture or a song on their instrument, I sang a solo, Kurt shared a Christmas message. It was really good...maybe I can get him to post it on the blog!

Then we had dinner that the girls made. It was very good. They've been enjoying making recipes from the "Redwall Cookbook" based on meals talked about in the Redwall book series.
Then we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and went to bed.

Christmas morning, for the first time ever, one of our children was up before us. Usually we have to wake the kids up!!!! But this year Ben was up and waiting for us!
We had a fun morning of opening stocking gifts, having breakfast, lighting the advent wreath candles, opening gifts.

In the afternoon we had friends over for ham, mashed potatoes, salads, cookies, ice cream, etc....It was a fun day.

We feel blessed and thank God for His love for us that He was willing to send Jesus to earth for us.
May the true meaning of Christmas stay with each of us every day of the year.

Hi,

We hope you enjoy watching and listening to these kids sing a Merry Christmas song to you!

Bible Club Video

They sang this during the "Birthday Party for Jesus" celebration on December 13. See the "Sharing Blessings" blog for more pictures about that!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well, we had to shave James' hair off!

We called him our little monk for the first day or two of his new hair(less) cut!

"Why did we shave him?" you ask?????

Well, Ben decided he'd try to cut James' hair while I was gone shopping..
There were long and short and very short spots on James' head.....so, I shaved all his hair off to match the shortest areas!

We had a good laugh about that. Mikayla had cut Kirsten's hair when she was younger. Kirsten had cut Ben's hair when they were younger.....so now, Ben has cut his younger brother's hair!

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The Middle School Band of Faith Academy Davao went to several poor areas here near the school and 'caroled' the communities with their band instruments. They also passed out candy to the kids. Kurt went as a chaperon. The music was well received and the kids had a great time playing for them.

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Mikayla has taken Scottish Dance as her elective this past quarter. Her class danced the dances they'd learned for parents and other students the last day of the quarter. They did a great job!!!

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I was in charge of organizing the annual Christmas Party for our mission group. Our group has grown so we were thankful to be able to use the new auditorium at Faith Academy for the party. We had over 130 people. A couple colleagues planned games for the kids..............

We sang Christmas Carols and some of the Middle School band kids accompanied the piano.................

We had a lot of fun.

A group of us also sang "This Little Babe" by Robert Southwell.
It is an awesome song with profound words. See the previous blog for the words to that song!

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Thanks for all your prayers and support. We appreciate it more than words can say.

In Christ, and for His Glory,

Beth, for the Symanzik family