As we closed our time together, it was their desire to pray a prayer of blessing over our entire family (many names from our American family were mentioned as well!). It's a very humbling picture to know that these dear friends of ours are speaking to the Father on our behalf. We love these dear friends.  

Laurance loves holding sweet little Lael. Still working on getting Lael to close her eyes during the prayer :) 

Tonight we were enjoying some family time before putting the kids to bed...reading Christmas stories, singing carols and laughing alot. We thought, "oh, they are all doing so good, why don't we get a quick picture?" You've probably had one of these moments....all of sudden everyone's crying or no one's looking. That's why we're posting several different shots....couldn't get ONE picture where everyone was looking! It was still a fun evening....everyone was very excited that Christmas is one week away! 

 

 

 

 

 

Sossa took this picture of Randy and I when we returned this afternoon from the 2005 gathering of the Aja Churches of Christ. The meeting began Thursday night and goes thru Sunday afternoon. We spent most of the day there with Tori and Timothy. Louise and Sossa stayed here at our house with Jonathan and Lael. The length of time in the heat is too intense for the little ones. It was very exhausting for all of us. When we got home, Timo went to bed and slept for almost 5 hours. 

Timo was enjoying a little bit of rest in Randy's arms. I think these two guys look really great together! 

Randy gave a great lesson today from Philippians 2 and was able to talk about one of our favorite verses, "...shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life..." Randy likes to walk through the crowd as he preaches and it works really well over here. He had the wrapped attention of everyone there. You see some men standing in the background. Randy also took this opportunity to showcase some of the leaders from the churches that we are working with. The men behind him were each given a specific part in his presentation this morning. We were really excited to see these leaders "shine like stars." 

Randy and several leaders are pictured here praying for Janvier. He is a wonderful Christian man who is suffering with leprosy. He is presently having a lot of problems with his foot and today was obviously in a lot of pain. He is also concerned for his wife and 2 children because he is not able to offer them financial support. His wife is very loving and has a small business and does what she can to support the family. You can join us in praying for this family. 

Tori and Timothy are ready to go home after a fun and very hot day.  

Contagious Christmas Joy

Tori Vaughn is great company. Homeschooling with Tori is for the most part a lot of fun. We work hard and we laugh a lot too. She is such a funny person. She loves to laugh and she has a very quick sense of humor.
This week we have been working really hard in Math and Language Arts. We also have really enjoyed making some Christmas decorations. Tori loves to draw and she has been very creative in her art work. She is very excited about the season and loves drawing scenes with Santa and snowmen. As well she has done some great pictures involving Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, angels, shepherds, and wise men. Tori is constantly humming, whistling, or singing Christmas carols. Daily, she says “Mom this is absolutely the best time of the year!” This means a lot to me. I am so thankful that the heat and lack of “Christmas décor” outside of our gates does not dampen her joy for the season. She has experienced Christmas in America and here in Benin and she knows the differences. Her contagious joy blesses our family.

We have definitely entered the dry season and the heat is very intense. Sometimes when the power is off, it is very hard to keep going with school and sometimes we have to stop. However, most days we really must summon the strength to press on because you never know when we will have to take a daytrip (and miss school) to Cotonou for a doctor visit and we also are approaching a week of Christmas vacation. This morning the power was off and we were out in the schoolroom...we were sweating profusely and yet trying to press on with our work.....Tori was working on her math when she suddenly looked up and said, "Mom, I need a cold stiff drink!"
Laughing, I said where did you hear that? She then quoted the "stiff drink" line from 2 Christmas movies that we have watched recently. She said I can tell they are talking about a powerful drink and I want a cold one!..........

Later in the afternoon I heard Tori in the bathroom. We have a scented spray that is in the basket by the toilet. I heard her spraying it but it wasn't like she had her finger pressing on it for one spray, it was more like several short sprays. This went on for a minute or two.
I said, Tori what are you doing in there? She kinda giggled and said "I'm spraying Jingle Bells!"

Regardless of what it may look like outside, we are not short on Christmas spirit around here!:)

This is a picture primarily for any of our readers from the Fairfax Church of Christ in Virginia. Today we got all 6 boxes from the shower held for Lael! For everyone else, this is the church where my brother Sam and his wife Emille attend. Although, most of these people have never met us, they love Sam and Emille and they wanted to bless us by hosting a shower that would bless our family and Lael. Everyone was so generous. We had so much fun opening every box filled with wonderful things that we cannot find here locally. As you can tell from the picture, Lael is very excited about her gifts! She went to bed tonight looking so precious in her new pajamas. Keep checking in so you will be able to see pictures of Lael in her new clothes! 

Tori gave us a special surprise last week when she asked if she could wash the dishes!! WOW! She is a wonderful helper!  

What cute boys!! 

One of our favorite decorations is this nativity scene we bought in Ghana. 

Our friend, Judy Miller, lives in Cotonou and hosted us and some other missionaries for a Christmas party last week. It was so much fun sharing a wonderful mexican feast with such good friends and then Tori got to be in charge of trimming the tree with ornaments (she was very excited and experienced; she did a great job on our tree a few weeks earlier).  

Tori did a great job leading all of us in Christmas carols! She loved this so much...we practiced alot the week before. Her favorite songs are "Hark the Herald" and "Come Let Us Adore Him."