Thankful Hearts

Dear Family and Friends

Happy Thanksgiving to you all and hope you each have a wonderful holiday! We are so thankful for each and every one of you and all your love we feel even though we are so far away. We feel prayed for, loved and supported by all of you and we are grateful to you for this. Thank you for communicating and keeping in touch with us and keeping us updated on what is going on in your lives.

We have so much to be thankful for this month and year. Thank you all for your prayers, as we have been house hunting. We finally did find a home and it is such a blessing from God. We will be moving in a couple of weeks and we are so grateful that this somewhat stressful month is coming to a peaceful close. God answered our specific prayers for this move and we stand in awe at his faithfulness. We came across the house through our head board member that had us over for dinner last Friday. This family will be moving out of town because of a job transfer. We had been trying to get together with them for months and haven’t been able to schedule it. So finally we got together last weekend!! They were actually showing the house to a couple that night and so we asked about it and the next thing we knew we had a home to move into. The location of the house is great and it will allow our house helper and guard to continue working for us. The hospital where I will be delivering is less that 2 blocks away and our church is about 2 min away. There is also a nice yard for our dog, which was very high on the kids prayer list. So we are very thankful for God’s timing and provision once again for our family. We appreciate your prayers and encouraging e-mails these last couple of weeks.

We are also thankful for good health, as this last month has also been a little shaky health wise for all of us. Emma was treated for malaria last week and has recovered quite amazingly, and we are still unsure if it was malaria or what actually was going on inside of her!!!!! Macie with her sensitive skin gets any kind of rash that’s available here but Payton has survived somehow, even though he gets the dirtiest and plays with the most creatures.!! Luke and I have had a couple of weird bugs, but they all have passed and we have survived another set of African health adventures. We are so thankful for the patience that God has given us and also an amazing amount of peace through all these weird and unexplainable things. We daily have to choose if we are going to worry about it or give it to God. God has used so many things here to challenge us daily to let Him have control in every area….big or little. God cares no matter what it is and He has shown us that in real ways over these 9 months here.

So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your prayers, love and support. We can feel your love and prayers and appreciate your faithful friendships. We wanted to share our thankful hearts with you and wish you a happy turkey day. We will be gathering with all our fellow ACTION missionaries for a big treat of a meal at a local hotel and will be enjoying home made pumpkin and apple pies as many of you will also. May you each reflect on all the things that you are thankful for today during the holiday and each and every day after.
Love and Blessings,
Elise, Luke and all the gang!!!