Advent

Winners!
On Sunday night we had our Abiding Way church Christmas party at the Melicks' (our pastor) house. It was a great time of socializing and food. It's fun to be a part of a church that can pretty much fit in our pastor's living room and dining room. The food was great and so are the people. And to top it off we won two movie tickets in the door prize drawing!

In-N-Out Celebration
Yesterday was the last official day of the semester. Both Josh and Stacy got all their papers turned in and celebrated at In-N-Out with some fellow OT PhD students, Kevin and Seth, and Seth's family, Ling (his wife), Yael (daughter--7), and Nadav (son--3). Praise the Lord for a good semester.

Tamalpais
We finally made it up to Mt. Tam, after being turned away by the weather and car problems before. Some amazing views. Below are some photos from the east peak.

Helped... again
Yet again we experienced the Lord's impeccably timed provision. On the very day we had to fork out a big, unexpected sum of cash, we got an even more surprising and unexpected check in the mail that pretty much covered the cost.

Upcoming Program
The big Christmas program is coming on Wednesday night. It will be a great opportunity for the families of the kids to be impacted by the gospel. Please pray for Stacy as she directs it and especially that the Lord will be glorified and that hearts will be drawn towards what Christmas is really all about.

Shelves, Stacks, Shifting, Sorting, and Studying
Today I (Josh) started working part-time at the library. I've been planning to work a few hours and I figured since I spend much of my days in the library anyway, I might as well get paid for it. Plus I get my study room paid for, a free cup of coffee everyday, keys to the library, and other perks that only a geeky academic guy like me would appreciate.

Christmas Party!

Since we are only in Cali for about two weeks of December we thought that we should have a Christmas get together before the time gets away. So we did... and we would like to tell you about it. Our new friends Josh and Elizabeth Howeth and Drew and Shannon Cunningham came over for some spaghetti, Christmas cookie decorating, and a game of Settlers. Drew and Shannon are the Settler pros as they are serious settlers that play via the internet against each other. And Shannon remains Queen of Catan until the next game...
We are blessed to be around other couples who are seeking the Lord and His Word at this point on the Journey.

Drew and Shannon

Josh and Elizabeth

San Diego and Qumran

This year the meetings for the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) gave us an excuse to take a mini vacation. They were held in San Diego and we thought, for just the price of one more plane ticket we could both go down the coast into the warmer weather for a couple days. I went down on Wednesday, the week before thanksgiving, and Stacy joined me the next day after she worked half a day. I took in a lot of papers and we took in a lot of San Diego sights together. It was good to meet up with friends and profs from both Wheaton and Multnomah. We went to the beach, the beautiful Hotel Del Coronado, Tijuana (briefly), Balboa Park, and to the Natural History Museum where they have the Dead Sea Scrolls on exibit.

It was fascinating to see little fragments of writing pieced together to make up so many parts of the Bible. It was fun to walk through the exhibit with little children and grandparents and all different nationalities looking at the Word of God. It was a wonderful reminder of how God preserved His Word through so many years so that we could read and obey it.

In all the whole time in San Diego together was a wonderful break from the somewhat ordinary. Here are a few pictures (none of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They don't allow that)

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