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We thought it might be fun to give you a look into our December, so here we go!

December 4th – Matt was “installed” (commissioned) by the leaders of the church we attend here. They thanked him for always being willing to help. Then they prayed for him to use the gifts God has given him however He leads. The leaders recognized many people including Sunday School teachers. The ladies sent me forward to accept the lap lap on behalf of the Sunday School teachers. Matt got his own lap lap for being installed. haha Everyone shared a meal together after church.
December 7&8 – Our three in-country families went to Champagne Beach for our Team Retreat. It was our family’s first time going – the sand felt like soft cake and it was beautiful! We swam, snorkeled, tried to feed wild pigs, and saw a venomous water snake. Our main intention was to just spend time together as a team. We also spent some time together in prayer and seeing what God’s Word says about our relationships with each other.
Afternoon of the 8th-11th – As we were headed home in the van, Angie felt tired and worn out…and yucky. She was sick in bed for the next 4 days. Sigh.
December 13th – Ethan turns 16!! Angie asked him multiple times what he wanted to do for his birthday to no avail. Finally on the 12th he decided on a party here at the house. Six last minute invites and two trips to the store later and we had 20 people gathered in the nakamal to celebrate our boy. He said it was a great birthday!
December 14th – We got to divy up Christmas dinner items sent from our teammates in the States! We got ingredients for green bean casserole, gingerbread cookies, cheese balls, and more tastes of home.

December 18th – Matt preached on how peace, shalom, and a local word tamat all relate to one another. It takes a lot of work to write a sermon in English and then translate the whole thing into Bislama (keeping in mind cultural differences), but Matt’s gotten the hang of it!
December 21& 22 – Angie was able to storian with two ni-Van women on these days. Both encounters did her heart good. The first day was with a woman who has forged a friendship with a stateside PBT missionary who has visited here.
The second day she kept her promise to show a nearby thrift store owner’s wife how to make a rag rug with the shirts she can’t sell. She was so excited to be given the partially made rag rug that she gave Angie a woven basket (bag) and kisses on both cheeks!
December 24th – We posted a Happy Christmas video on Facebook. Later that night we shared Christmas Eve with teammates here – classic Christmas carols, Scripture readings, and Christmas cookies. It was just what we needed.

December 25th  It’s Christmas morning!! We whip up a batch of baked oatmeal with cranberries to put in the oven. Then it’s time to hand out the presents and then, going from youngest to oldest, we open presents one at a time and ooh and ahh over each other’s gifts. At 10:30 we stream the Christmas Eve service from our home church in Texas. A few hours of playing with gifts and getting our potluck dishes ready and it’s 4 p.m. and time to head over for Christmas dinner with our teammates. We had a great evening together eating, playing Exploding Kittens (no kittens were harmed), and killing a centipede that wanted to eat our gingerbread cookies! The centipede was very much harmed…

December 30th – Back to work! With the help of teammates, we printed, stapled, and folded almost 200 Genesis portions in 4 languages that will go out to many villages soon. It was a good day knowing that we were doing a small task that would make a big difference! Angie was rewarded with lunch out with Lauren (she paid!) after we finished.
 
December 31st – New Year’s Eve was snacks and games with friends. We made it to 11 p.m., decided to celebrate midnight with Fiji (there is only one time zone ahead of us!), and headed home where the kids kept us up until the real midnight anyway. We figured we might as well take a picture to commemorate the occasion! Angie got almost no sleep that night but technically that was into 2017, so I guess that doesn’t belong here.

We look forward to what 2017 will bring!
Happy New Year!             
                                           ~the Weldys
 
Prayer Points

~ Please pray with us that God will raise up additional support for our ministry. Because of increases in our monthly budget (insurance and return flights in Oct), we are now at 75% of our monthly budget.

~ Our team hopes to welcome interns to Vanuatu this summer for the first time! Please pray that our team will do a great job preparing for and hosting them. Pray also that this may lead to more long-term teammates here in Vanuatu.
 
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