Merry Christmas

Good morning. It is the day after Christmas and we have not posted in a few days. The Christmas season here starts mid December and goes until Jan 16! Christmas is the kick off holiday to a month long celebration, including Christmas, New Years, Three Kings Day and they even have an encore to Christmas mid January just for kicks!!!
Christmas Eve we went to a party and Jennifer's Uncle Willy's house. We thought it was a family party, well it was I guess because when you are a friend here you are family! The party started at 8pm and lasted until 12am well at least we lasted until 12am any way. After that we went to Jenns other aunt and uncles house to spend the night there and spend Christmas day with them, we (the ,Hoogeveens) celebrated our family Christmas, Christmas Eve morning. They had some gifts there for us too, which was unexpected! What a cool blessing! However our day got cut short because of a death in the church Christmas Eve. So we left the house at noon because they were preparing for the visitation and funeral. So, we spent more time together as a family, what to do? So, we went to the beach and went fishing.
Once we came home for the evening I got a phone call from our friends Armando and Jeannette. Armando said that Santa had dropped some gifts off at their house for our kids so they were coming over!!! That was a nice surprise and another great blessing! Bridger said, "Wow we are being so blessed today!" and Blake said "Wow, we still got three presents like normal!" We normally get them each three gifts to open, we could only get them one this year, God still provided them three!!! How cool. What is even cooler is that the kids noticed it!!!


I am so thankful for great friends in Michigan. I got some Merry Christmas phone calls from some great friends! That was a huge blessing in and of itself!!!!


So far all has been great. God has been doing some amazing things. We are excited to get into a routine of things after the new year. With all the holiday celebrations it is hard to get anything concrete going.
Tuesday nights are going great, both Armando, Jeannette and the girls came over this week for Bible study. Armando and me sat outside and Jennifer and Jeannette sat inside of the house with the kids and talked. I am amazed every time I talk with Armando at how much his vision is like ours that God gave us for Puerto Rico!!!
We are organizing a food handout at a local park. Here there are people on almost every major street corner begging for money. Jeannette has always wanted to give them food but never really knew how to do it. So, we got together and talked about it. We are going to be having an food hand out event in a park, fliers are being made and people being invited. Armando is going to try to get his church involved with helping volunteer and to make food for the event. This event will not be sponsored by a church as both of our families feel that is not what God wants. He wants us do do this as the body of Christ, not as a church. We are called to serve as Christians so that is what we are planning on doing. This outreach will reach the homeless, drug addicts, alcoholics, church goers, no-church goers and every one in between! Please pray for a great turn out and that God provides more than enough food so we can send people home with some!


Today we will probably go to the beach again, it is only about 5 min from the house, and go get some groceries. Then tonight we are going to church to help set up for the new year celebration gathering Sunday. We will be setting up tables, moving chairs and setting up decor for a great time.
We have made some friends at this church and are excited to serve there tonight.


I hope to post more regularly after the holiday season is done here. It has been hard to be because we never really know when we will be home. Things just kind of happen here. You really just learn to go with the flow. It is an adjustment for sure.


Here are the kids...
Blake-
Hey This is Blake, during the time here I've seen God do some cool things here with us. Like yesterday for Christmas we usually get 3 presents but our parents couldn't afford it because of this new move. So we went over to our aunts house to stay over there for Christmas and when we woke up in the morning we got a surprise present from them which was awesome.But later that day my awesome father got a call and his friend said that Santa Clause messed up and they got extra presents and they were for us . So then I was like, hey we usually get 3 presents and this year we got 3 presents and the kids were so excited.I think its just cool about what God can do in our lives.Our family has been spending so much time together which is really nice because we can go out and explore as a family so we can go out and spread Gods word.


Dallas-
I think that this experience has been one of the best that I have experienced! I have had so much fun exploring the island(mainly in our area). We have been able to spend more time together as a family and that is really nice. We have been able to go over to my Aunts house a few times and I have been able to meet some Family that I have never met before and that feels nice. I have already met some friends and we have already gone to the movies together after only knowing them for two days and I think that God wants us to get to know them really well. Some of them go to the same Church that we attended last Sunday but others go to a different church. One of the girls, named Adaia has been helping me learn some Spanish and at the movies we found out that her dad helped us move in so my dad already knows her dad! I think that we have been fitting in really well. At the church they have a dance team and I get to join! The first meeting is in January and I CAN NOT WAIT! For Christmas we were able to get together with our Family in Toa Aloa which is about 45 minutes away so we ended up just staying the night at my aunts house Christmas Eve. My mom and dad only got us one present this year(and our stockings) when we usually get three, my Aunt each got us one present and we thought that was really nice of her to do that. Later that night my dad got a call from one of his friends and he said that "Santa" messed up and that he dropped of presents for us at his house. So we ended up getting three presents this Christmas as usual and I think that God did that for a reason. I think that it is Amazing what God can do.


Bridger-


Hi everyone. Christmas was good. My mom and Dad got me a skate board, Armando and Jeannette got me a Hot Wheels track set, and Aunt Waleska and Uncle Victor got me a Hungry Bear shooting game. We went to the beach.
We went to a family Christmas party and I learned how to play a gourd. It is a cool instrument here in Puerto Rico.
I met some new family members that I have not met before. I have an uncle here that we just found out we had.
That's all for now.