Long ago in Bethlehem . . .

As Brienzi, Aidan, Delaney have been going to Indonesian school, they've also been doing home school and a home school co-op. For the co-op, the kids got the idea to write a script for the story of the birth of Jesus and then put on a performance for the parents. They borrowed the clothes from the international school.

Ethan and his friend Elijah trying to squeeze in on the action as the angels visit the shepherds.

And again, Ethan trying to figure out what's going on, or what mischief to get into, while Elijah was trying to feed Jesus.

And when it was done, and all the cast members were backstage, we overheard one of the little guys saying, "I don't want to do this play." To which Brienzi responded,  "You have to. You already did!"

Joy to the World . . . the Lord has come!

Each year we're in Indonesia, we celebrate Christmas Eve with a group of friends that live in our city. It has become a very special evening for us and includes some of our family traditions. One of which is the playing of the hand bells. The kids love doing bells and this year, Kim led them in "Joy to the World."

And another tradition we started doing when Brienzi was around 3 or 4 was taking a picture with the light of the candle after the service (although, this year, we weren't coordinated enough and we got the light of the entire room in the picture too. But it still counts as a tradition).

Patience at Christmas

After trudging around town, motorcycles swerving all over the place creating backed up traffic, tromping up and down broken escalators, searching high and low for the simple-ist of Christmas gifts, only to meet up with defeat at every turn . . . I needed to hear this word:

Dave Dorr:

So what is patience? Patience is understanding the settled reality that we are not in control. We are at peace with the fact that life is run by someone else. When we are patient we are paddling downstream, letting the force of life guide us along, knowing we can steer, but not turn upstream. Impatience is turning the boat, rowing hard against the current; we still move downstream, but with incredible exhaustion.

Impatient people are tired people.

We want more control than we have. But God wants patience to permeate our inner being. Why? Not just because life and its trials will require patience, but we need to reconcile our souls to our lack of control, trusting that God is good. If God is good and he is in control, then we can trust the satisfaction or obstruction of our will is the good design of a loving and gracious Father.

And that is worth the wait.

Read the rest.