I trust that each one of you enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving with Family and Friends. We had a great time here at our house. We enjoyed having Stacey Smith visit us from Tuesday-Friday and Joe and Sylvia Wells arrived Thursday about 11:30 and just left this afternoon.

Yesterday was our special Ladies day here at the church. Because where we meet right now, doesn't have a space big enough to host something like this now, we were able to have it in a local restaurant. Our theme this year was "The gifts of Christmas" and we started at 10:00 and went until 3:00.

The morning started out with a couple games, (a word search and a word scramble) and moved on to our speaker who was Sylvia Wells this year. We enjoyed a short time of refreshments in between our lessons, and then we had Ladies choir that sang some Christmas carols with some verses in between. They have been practicing for about 8 weeks after our Friday Bible Study and really enjoyed it. They did a great job!

After the choir we had another game time...3 groups had to "dress up" someone like a snowman using 2 rolls of toilet paper, a piece of black poster board, tape and scissors. Then there were another 3 groups that had to "dress up" someone like a Christmas tree. They were given a pack of green crepe paper, a few sheets of colored paper, scissors and tape. Everyone was so creative and it was so funny.

After the game, we had lunch, then a demonstration of a simple floral arrangement, and after that, we had a craft time. We ended the day, with a few door prizes, and "thank you" gifts for some special ladies. It was a wonderful day, and such a blessing to have people who shared the work load with me!

This morning we had a great service. There were over 80 in the Sunday School hour and 98 for the worship service. The young people lead the music and did a great job. Joe Wells preached this morning. We had a family visit for the first time. The husband talked to Tony after church and indicated that he had accepted Christ recently. Another lady talked to us about being baptized.

This evening we met with about 20 people who are going to be working to put together our Children's Christmas party on Dec. 19. It is so neat to have a great group of people willing to share the work load and everyone seems really excited about the plans we are putting into action.

This week, I will be meeting with our Ladies Ministry Team to "debrief" about our day Saturday...and make a few plans for the future.

Thank you for praying for our family and for our ministry here in Manta. Please be praying for our kids as they travel back to their homes in the US. Lexi and her fiancee Jonathan will be traveling back to Kansas from Springfield, Mo. where they enjoyed Thanksgiving with Ashley and Shane. Mandie, Mike and Ioan will be traveling back to their home in Ohio from VA. where they enjoyed Thanksgiving with Mike's family.

Please continue to pray for the building program here in Manta...work continues to move forward. We are excited to see how God is providing our needs in this area.

God Bless you as you serve Him this week!
Joy