1st Sunday of Advent / 1st Christmas decorations

Today we put up our first decorations. For several years, we have begun by decorating a small Christmas tree, then putting it in the kids' bedroom. The kids enjoyed it very much, as well as putting snowflake decorations on a window. We'll get our bigger Christmas tree sometime after Dec. 10.

We had good naps this afternoon, then drove off for the 5:00 p.m. service of Trinity Int'l Church. Our friend Charles led worship for it's monthly bilingual service. I like having the morning to relax and do things together, then go to a worship service later in the day.

A woman gave an announcement about needing someone to watch her dog and cat while they were away this Christmas. We spoke to her afterwards. It looks like we'll bring their dog to our place to live during the holidays. This will give our kids a chance to see how they do with pets under their roof. That will liven up our holidays even more.

I had a brief discussion with the pastor's wife about the arts ministry I help with . I was encouraged to see her interest in it.

I spoke with someone there, who mentioned that she and her husband would likely be moving back to their home country. The coming and going of people is one of the challenges of international churches

Thanksgiving--Round 2

We had our 2nd round of Thanksgiving tonight (Saturday). This time it was with our mission teammates in Paris.

We're getting more daring in driving in Paris these days. We have learned that it makes getting back home much easier if we can pop our kids into their car seats and let them sleep, rather than trying to walk to bus or metro stops and take public transport. While traffic was nasty going to central Paris, we did find a free parking spot. Parking is the hardest thing about driving in Paris.

It was fun to be together again. All 3 families on our team have 3 children. Ours are the youngest 3 kids. They had their own little table and did well eating turkey. Today was so much easier to handle them than it was last year, as they are a lot more independent.

It was actually snowing outside our window a few minutes ago, although this has now changed to rain.

My wife mentioned on the way back home that she was glad to have an outing today. I remember in the movie "Forest Gump" that Forest would remember the day of the week that his mother and his beloved Jenny died. I think that we always may associate Saturday with Jessica's departure.

J* from Canada shared in an e-mail tonight how hearing of Jessica's loss surprisingly triggered some memories in her of losing a son in the womb. She raised some interesting questions regarding him that I will probably wrestle with similar questions about Jessica in the future. How would her other son have done with a brother? How would he have fit in his sisters?

If he had lived, then they probably wouldn't have had one of her daughters who was born afterwards. My wife and I were pretty sure that Jessica would be our 4th and final child. Now we're thinking of having another child. If we do, then this next child would take the 4th spot that Jessica would have had.

Our 2nd floor neighbors are partying hearty after 2:00 a.m. Fortunately, we're not directly over them. I'm tempted to ring their doorball at 8:00 a.m. in the morning.

Miscellaneous stuff

Tonight we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with our organization's colleagues in Paris. We've done list many years and it is good to get to see everyone again.

We got a nice note yesterday from Dr. Litfin, the President of Wheaton College. While he probably didn't draft it himself, he did sign it and someone in the Chaplain's office passed on the word to his office. Again, Wheaton College was another source of prayer for us this past month.

I had a couple of conversations with preChristian friends yesterday. One, an anti-religious woman of a Jewish background, wanted to help us, but didn't want to intrude. She mentioned how strong we seemed in this situation, as well as how it must be nice to have faith in a situation like this. This was a positive affirmation on her part. While picking up my daughter after school, I got into a conversation with a woman who attended the memorial service. She ended up figuring out that I was a pastor. I haven't necessarily broadcast this around, especially in getting to know people. I guess Jessica's death has forced that information to get out. She took this knowledge positively, saying that she could ask me some of her theological questions when she would need to.

After 4 weeks, I think that fatigue is one feeling that we're experiencing. A temporary change of scenery would probably do us a lot of good right now. We need some divine strength to push us ahead at this time.

We missed out meeting with Jo from Michigan yesterday. But I was able to pick up the coloring books that she brought for the kids. Again we're grateful for friends who bring things for the kids when they are passing through Paris.

Memories of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Chris, a friend, former neighbor, and ministry colleague in Zimbabwe, sent us the following words this morning:

"In our shattered times, anguish relents

Not at mere idle words spoken in vain,

But rather from the silent eloquence

Bestowed by those rare souls who share our pain." (Evans)

Chris & Joyce have worked many years in Zimbabwe and recently returned there. They have witnessed and experienced much suffering over the events in their adopted country, that some say is about to have complete financial collapse. Living a life of Thanksgiving probably is a daily choice for them and many of their friends.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the support and encouragement we have received from many friends like them who have gone through and/or are going through suffering.

During the past nearly 4 weeks, we have discovered many old and new friends who have lost children or siblings through during pregnancies or when they were already born. I'm sure it has been painful for some of them to remember these situations as they tried to bring comfort and perspective to us.

Our son continues to have the roughest time with Jessica's absence. He continues to get sad at night and talk about wanting to go to heaven and find her. This morning he talked about wanting to build and paint an airplane in order to fly to heaven and bring her back. I don't understand how our nearly 7 year old is processing his grief, but recognize him verbalizing his difficulty the most of our 3 kids. We need prayer for wisdom and discernment of what is happening with him.

We also don't want a spirit of death to settle over him or our household. If any of you feel at ease praying for these kinds of issues, please do.

Tonight we'll celebrate our first of 2 Thanksgivings of this week. Yippee!

My sympathies to you Detroit Lions fans.

Follow Up Care

3+ weeks after Jessica's passing, we're still getting on with life. The cards and e-mails are slowing down, but we still get some gems of encouragement each day.

A friend from Michigan named Jim sent an e-mail reminding me to choose joy this Thanksgiving and citing a couple verses from James. While the details are vague in my mind, I recall him losing suddenly at least 1 family member an possibly 2 earlier this year. So his words carry some punch for me, as he also is moving ahead.

A couple days ago we received an empty cradle box from a church in Colorado where my brother is pastor of Family Ministries and where my father is involved. Thanks Nancy and Lorna. They have a ministry called "Empty Cradle Ministry" for families who have suffered a miscarriage, stillborn or death of a young child. It included the books "Free to Grieve: Healing and Encouragement for Those Who Have Suffered Miscarriage and Stillbirth" by Maureen Rank (Bethany House, 1985) and "Mommy, Please Don't Cry...There Are No Tears in Heaven" by Linda DeYmaz (Multnomah, 2003). Linda DeYmaz has a website titled www.mommypleasedontcry.com Both books will be part of our journey.

A pastor named Mark and his intern Lois paid us a visit yesterday. We met Mark while taking a ministerial stress seminar by Clive Sampson 7 years ago. Mark heard about our loss, telephoned us right away, and came to the memorial celebration. He followed up his promise to give us a call in a couple of weeks and came by yesterday. It was an encouraging and cordial time together. He has raised 7 kids in Paris, which is already something that we have huge respect about. This morning he invited us over for tomorrow for a Thanksgiving meal with his family.

My wife has mentioned that her biggest challenge at this point is coming up with meals each evening. We've had lots of offers for help in different ways, so we'll need to channel some of them toward the meal service.

We're now planning on taking a week away (December 4-10). Some friends in Alsace in eastern France have offered for us to stay with them. It's about 5 hours by car away, which is a short trip for us. At this point, we just need some time away together to see some different things. There is snow there now, so our kids might get a rare occasion to play in the white stuff.

We've appreciated the generosity of some friends and churches already in helping with some of the unexpected expenses related to Jessica's death. Some of them are still to come, like our getaway next month, as well as a potential trip to the U.S. in summer 2009 in order to place a memorial plaque for Jessica at the family gravesite of my wife's family. It seems important for our kids in particular to have a specific place and time to do this. If anyone is interested in contributing in Jessica's memory, please let us know

Thinking biblically about Facebook

I'm a huge fan and user of Facebook. I've found it useful for our ministry, as well as personally. For example, the status section of Facebook was where I first announced that Jessica had gone to heaven. Except for a few people who we contacted directly, the others who first found out were those that caught my status note and asked what happened.

I also have used it or still use it for Passion Paris this past June, as well as for la fonderie and le pavé d'Orsay.

I came across this helpful blog entry titled "Thinking biblically about Facebook." I find it a balanced piece of writing. It doesn't attempt to throw out the baby with the bathwater, but does raise some good questions and concerns.

It has already challenged me with the need to take a Sabbath day rest from it once a week. I guess one test of whether something is an addiction is whether or not we can step away from it without too much pain.