Snow Day!

Yesterday into today produced a large amount of heavy, wet snow here in Philly and we are enjoying a nice quiet snow day.  Jonerik is actually taking a nap right now because we didn't get as much sleep as expected last night (thank you neighbors) and he has been shoveling at church all morning.  Here is a glimpse of the snow outside one of our living room windows:

So far our January has been challenging and exciting as usual.  We enjoyed a staff retreat with Cornerstone last week.  We went to a retreat center in NJ and spent some time outside of the city bonding as a staff (thanks to fun games like Quelf) and talking through the next 6 months.  We all participated in a 'test' called UCIPHER which is meant to help you understand yourself and your team better.  We had a good time of learning and sharing about our personalities, abilities, and motivations.

In January some of our regular ministries take a break:

Adult Bible Study

Kid's Club

God Squad

Teen Club

Family Night

While some things stay running or change for the "break":

Women's Bible Study (Wed mornings)

Sunday School - Growth Groups

Food Cupboard

In January of this year, while some things were on 'leave', we had three Wednesday night prayer services.  This was a great time of worship, study, and group prayer.  We plan to continue this prayer service once a month on the Wed. that follows our monthly Family Night.  Our hope is that we will become more passionate about prayer in our individual lives and as a church body.  That we will have a hunger to learn more about what it means to communicate with a holy and loving God.

Limaris has started her radiation and she is adjusting as needed to how her body is responding.  She goes to the hospital once a day M-F and alternates evening and morning appts. weekly.  This week she is getting her treatments done in the evening, next week it will be during the day.  Emily watches Gigi some days while Limaris is at the hospital and has enjoyed having a little shadow following her around the house.  Here are a few fun pictures of things we like to do:

There is an app on Emily's phone that takes your picture and then you can dress yourself (or someone else) up like a princess.  Gigi is a natural!

The second picture is taken in the back yard.  If you are wondering why it looks like a castle behind our apartment, it is because the building where we live used to be a hub for some kids ministries with our church.  The church no longer uses it, but the castle has remained =)  One of the selling points for us when we were deciding to live here, as you can imagine.

For Christmas we bought Gigi 2 DVD's from Sheila Walsh's series "Gigi, God's Little Princess".  Gigi loves the DVD's and has claimed the character to be her own.  The personalities - and hair - are actually quite similar!  We just got her a book from the series for her birthday and we had fun reading that this week.  It is fun to see her attach herself to the character and I pray that the truths in these books/DVDs will sink deep into her heart.

To see more of the Gigi series, here is the author's website:  

Gigi, God's Little Princess

Balancing work/ministry, family life, and other responsibilities has proved to be a challenge at times, but we are taking it one day at a time and praying our way through. It is hard to believe that January is almost over already!