Welcome January!

Snow at home

I hope that you were all blessed with times of fellowship, family warmth and joy over the Christmas holidays.  Our highlights included time with family and friends (with lowlights including over 70 hours of time in airports or airplanes…).  How amazing it is to explore God’s world, spend time with His people and feel his love and care through the high and the low times we experience.

I wanted to touch base with everyone to look ahead to the rest of this term.  It is fun to hear about/read through the many different learning activities that you are all doing each week.  For your information, (not to panic you but so that you can update your calendars) the second term portfolios are due February 19.  If you are interested, I would be open to Skype calls so that your kids can share their learning with me.  These could be short calls that give your child time to share a report, read a book, perform a skating routine or musical piece or whatever your child wants to share.  This could be a long call when your child shares multiple projects.  I am available for these calls on most Fridays, some evenings and could make time on some Saturdays, if any of those times work for you.  If you would like to try this out, email me a time that would work for you and I’ll email you back the specific time that works.  My Skype name is nikihilde so that you can add me.

January….a time I always find productive and refreshing!  Please let me know how I can help you.  My unexpectedly long journey home has put me a little behind in going through the emails you have sent over the past two weeks, however, I’m hoping to be caught up with personal responses to all those emails by the end of this week.

Sunset in the Middle East

We visited friends in the middle East over Christmas – it was inspiring to see the passion of a church that knows it is a privilege to meet and worship together with other believers (not just a weekend ‘option’ that so many North American Christians seem to treat church).  It was a good challenge for me to check my own attitudes and habits: attending church or corporately meeting with God?

(What do you think of our very different experiences this Christmas?!?!)