Christmas in Review

Here is a slide show of our Christmas season.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here is the link: http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=d037e6aa06f3ed012808c6&skin_id=1604&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Blessings,  Elena

Merry Christmas

We want to wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  You all have been such a blessing to me!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Love,
    Elena

The Voices of our Heart

This morning I was just so struck by a video that was shared on a friend's blog, Live Life Simply.  It is an amazing video that reminded me of our zooming technology.  Some very talented musicians were playing Christmas songs that have been around for years but they have done a new twist.  It just made me think how God has given us the voices of our heart through music.  The talent and voices remain the same within our souls but man's technology gives us new means to relay that song that is in our hearts.  I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcexJQM-8W0

If you would like to hear more here is a longer video:


Here is the link to the longer one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9XNfWNooz4

Christmas Blessings,
Elena

Christmas Ballet

The Christmas ballet by the Paradosi Ballet Company was so exciting at the church. The minute Mary heard that there was going to be a ballet, she said she wanted to watch it, instead of going to her class. She was so good when they began to perform. The opening had a guy blowing a large shofar horn. It was really loud and Mary clamped her ears but she didn't make a sound. She was so captivated by the dancers. She asked me which girl had the same name as her. I pointed out the dancer in dark blue. She then whispered in my ear that Jesus' mom and her had the same name! The dance was done so very well. Here are a few shots from the performance.

Here are few shots I took in the church lobby before service started.

Mary and the cute reindeer

Mary and her friend, Mady, in front of the nativity scene.

Lastly I am going to share a clip of one of the last scenes of the ballet. I just sat there and let the tears flow as I watched it. It was so beautiful!


Christmas Blessings,
Elena

Homemade Ornaments

Mary and I have been having fun making some homemade ornaments. The first one came from a book we checked out in the library. Here are the instructions:

Mary had a lot of fun helping me make them. We just used things I had on hand in my craft stuff.

She loves ringing the little bells on the tree!

This next one we did last week. A white felt dove. I cut out 40 of them. I took them to Mary's Sunday School class for the kids to assemble and put a slip of paper in the dove's beak. It was Luke 2:14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." The picture below is Mary "helping me" lol. She poked the pins in the big stack of felt. She said she was knitting so I could cut out the doves. It kept her busy and really made her feel important that she was helping make the doves.

This is the pattern I used to cut them out.

The finished dove on the tree. For instructions you can go here.

Christmas Blessings, Elena

Being with the One I Love

Eight years ago today I married the one I love! We both just think, "Wow, where has the time gone?" So many wonderful blessings and changes have occurred in our lives. Amongst all the changes the memory of our wedding day always stands out so clear in my mind. I remember waking up the day of our wedding. I got our of bed, had breakfast, got dressed and went down to get in my car to drive to the church. There was a beautiful paper white narcissus blooming in my garden. I picked it and attached it to this letter that I had written to Rich. I placed the letter and flower in the men's dressing room, so that when they arrived, Rich would see it. I meant it with all my heart and I still feel the same way!

Rich saved the letter and I have it in our wedding memory book. Last night we had a little toast with sparkling cranberry juice and we had a red velvet cake for dessert. Mary thought it was great fun.

Rich's folks took care of Mary while we went out to lunch today. She has so much fun with Grandpa and Grandma.

Rich and I went to our favorite fish restaurant. We had the Mixed Grill.

Crab cake, salmon and prawns, yummm!

After dinner we walked over to the Harry and David store. This is the beautiful tree they have out front. We bought some huge white mushrooms, garlic cesar salad dressing and salt water taffy. It was very crowded with all the people shopping for holiday goodies. We had such a wonderful day!

Christmas Blessings,

Elena

Moravian Stars

I had fun making some Christmas ornaments a few weeks ago. They are called Moravian Stars. They are from the Pennsylvanian German community. My sister had made me a couple of them a few years ago and we enjoy putting them on our tree. I decided this year that I would try my hand at making them. I had a book with instructions and so I dove in. It took a few tries and some setting it aside to regroup to finally be successful in making one. Once I got the hang of it, it was fun. Then I found this wonderful website with instructions and a video. If you are interested in making them you can go here. I made one gold one to hang above our nativity set and then I made a bunch of red velvet ones with gold dots. In the pictures they look pink but they were dark red. I gave them as favors at our women's Christmas brunch last week. I just love homemade ornaments. Mary had so much fun watching me make them and hopefully when she gets a little older I can teach her how to make them!

Christmas Blessings! Elena

Gingerbread Fun

We had so much fun yesterday. We had some friends over and decorated gingerbread cookies and houses. Here is a scrapbook that I made of our day.

This scrapbook design made with Smilebox

Christmas blessings, Elena

A Sweet Surprise

I won a drawing on Leah's blog, Live Life Simply. I was so thrilled to be getting this book! When I received the package there was a sweetest surprise enclosed ....

... two beautiful hair bows for Mary! Leah did such a lovely job in making them and Mary just loves wearing them in her hair. Thank you so much Leah! Please visit Leah's blog here. I just love reading about her family, her life and fun things she enjoys.
Blessings to you today!

Elena

Chile - A Wonderful Heritage

Pentecost had come to a small community in Nebraska. My grandmother was one of those souls deeply touched by this. She had been raised knowing the Lord, but this was whole new dimension opened up to her by a traveling evangelist holding meetings every night. She entered in with all her heart wanting more of the Lord and she was greatly blessed. My grandfather was sceptical of it all but he did not stop her from going or the children. My uncle was 14 at the time and he had started running around with a bad crowd and was starting to smoke and be very rebellious. When Grandma gathered up all the kids to go to church with her that night, my Uncle Cyle hid under the front porch. Grandpa went after him and pulled him out and told him under no uncertain terms that he was to be respectful to his mother and he was to go. So he did. He sat in the back and dug in his heels. At the end of the service the evangelist gave an altar call. The Spirit of God began to work on my Uncle’s heart and he took that step and walked down that sawdust aisle and accepted Jesus as his personal Savior. His life was transformed. After graduating from high school, he went to a small Bible School that was established by this evangelist. Part of the Bible School training was to send the students out like Jesus sent the 70 disciples, in the New Testament, to preach the good news. Jesus sent them out with just the clothes on their backs and a hearts full of the truth. My Uncle did this in the mid-west. They came into a town and he began to preach on a street corner. A crowd would gather to hear him and responded to his call for salvation. After a week of this, they would have enough funds to rent a small hall. There they had meetings each night until a church was formed and a building was built or bought. Then my Uncle would move onto another town. He formed a number of churches throughout the mid-west in this manner. He married his wife, Helen, in 1939 and they had 2 daughters. During this time he received a call from the Lord to go to Chile and preach the good news of Jesus Christ. When their youngest daughter was just a baby, they were sent out by the Assemblies of God to Chile. My Unlce learned Spanish but he carried a very heavy English accent. That did not dent the people that he was sent to. They were drawn to him because of his great love for the people in Chile. He loved them as his own and served there for 50 years. He started a large church in Santiago and also established a Bible School there. Many, many people came to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior through his life and ministry in Chile. When it came time for him to retire with the organization he was with, he said he didn’t want to and his heart was to live all his life in Chile and to die there. So, he came home and raised the funds to return and he lived and served in Chile until he was 81, he was flown to the US with a very bad heart condition and ended up not making it back to Chile, but he had his ashes placed in Santiago.

I was inspired to write this story about my Uncle Cyle as our church had a missionary from Chile, Rick Ellis, speak yesterday morning, sharing about their ministry in Chile. I was able to talk to Rick after service and he remembered my Uncle and told me that the church in Santiago that he started is still going strong. When I was in the middle of typing this story, I decided to go to the Internet and do a quick search to see if I could gather some more information about him. To my joy and surprise I found a Chilean website used to promote Christianity in the country. Today, December 6, 2010 this website posted an article honoring my uncle. For the link to his article go here.

The article is translated from Spanish to English by the computer. I don’t believe in coincidence, more in providence and I think that this is one of those times. It was not an accident that this man published this article the very day I sat down to honor Uncle Cyle and write about his life. I hope it is an encouragement to some one of the great work of the Holy Spirit in peoples lives, transforming us into the likeness of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

December 7th - I need to make a correction. I thought the date at the top of the web page was the date the article was written, but I logged into it today and it has changed to today's date, Dec. 7th. So, I am not sure of the exact date the article was written but I am still amazed at finding this article of my Uncle 11 years after his death on a current web page.