A few thoughts from Christmas:
1. You know you're a little homesick when you find yourself enjoying a few cloudy gray days and even hoping for a drizzly Northwest rainy day!
2. We've resigned ourselves to being artificial tree-users, unwilling to pay exhorbitant prices for semi-nice trees here.
3. We discovered that putting up Christmas lights is a great way to meet our neighbors. Everyone on our street puts them up and we take time outside admiring each others' lights!

We trust you had a Merry Christmas! In Mexico, most people actually celebrate the night of the 24th, typically being with family, eating a big supper at midnight, and opening presents afterwards. The festivities go until early in the morning. Then everyone sleeps and snacks on the 25th.

We, however, did not go to such great lengths. We enjoyed dinner with Victor and Martha, leaders in the church, and some friends from South Africa. The kids benefitted from Tim's impulse buy of sparklers at a traffic light. All of us had kids so we didn't last until midnight! We came home and enjoyed a web chat with Tim's parents. It was fun to be able to read Matthew 1-2 (an ancient Glessner Christmas Eve tradition) with them. Christmas Day was a relaxed affair. It was fun to share the morning with family over the Internet. We enjoyed having another missionary family with us as well as a lady and her son who have recently started attending the church. Having people at our house helped make the holiday seem more home-like. Barbara-Lee put together a feast, and we played games. One of the neighbor boys even showed up in time for cheesecake (he has a knack for that)!

Our work in the universities, our Bible Studies, and other work will start up again the week of January 10. We hope to be able to go into that time with a clearer sense of priorities for the New Year. Now that we have a taste for what things are like, we'd like to be able to choose what is the best use of our time. We are thankful for the start the Lord has given us. He has blessed us so much.

PRAISE
1. Getting to know neighbors.
2. A time to be together more as a family and rest.
3. The Incarnation!

PRAYER
1. One of our neighbors is a young man named Nazaret. He's started coming to youth group and is interested in coming to church with us.
2. The lady from church who was with us for Christmas is experiencing domestic problems. Please pray for God to work through us in reaching her home for Christ. Praise the Lord that her husband was at church on Sunday.
3. Pray for our church. Pray that God will encourage the leadership and strengthen them for the work.
4. We will be trying to secure our FM-3 visa in January (it allows us to be here as missionaries). Pray for a smooth process and patience on our part (Tim hates paperwork!).

We'll get back to Jose and Maria updates next month!

Thank you for your prayers for us!
In Christ,
Tim, Barbara-Lee, and Drew

PS: The answers to Drew's vocabulary quiz last month: cinco=five, bocho=VW Beetle, mira=look, and rico=rich, as in yummy
Drew's newest vocabulary quiz: mucho, Feliz Navidad, El G--aaaa--s, and coco.

mexico@theglessners.org
http://www.theglessners.org

Mailing address:
APDO 1072
Puebla, Pue. MEXICO
C.P. 72000

New Phone: 011 (522) 222-48-50-07