Photo: (Top) In early December, we hosted a Christmas outreach at our home. Here the group is playing Pass the Parcel, a British Christmas game. (Bottom) Kaitlin's parents and sister came to spend Christmas with us and several international students joined us for Christmas Eve Candle Light Service and dinner.
We hope you have enjoyed the holidays and had some wonderful days of celebration and rest with friends and family. We had a great visit from Kaitlin's parents and sister and got to include a few international students in our Christmas Eve celebration.
Before students completed finals, we spent one evening going to First Baptist Richardson's Carols by Candlelight Christmas pageant and then came to our house for wassail and sweet Christmas treats. We had several students come who had never been in a church before and who had never seen the story of Jesus presented. We had a great time chatting with these students about what they had seen and showing them why Christmas is such a significant time for us.
After all these celebrations, Mark and I have had a few quiet days at home and it has been so nice. We've been able to finish up most of the preparations for baby girl and now are awaiting her arrival. It looks like she will be coming closer to her due date, Jan. 17.
As our faithful support team, we wanted to keep you updated on our maternity leave plans. Once baby girl is born, Mark will be taking a couple of weeks off of work so that we can adjust to our new life and then I'm planning to take 8 weeks of maternity leave. If all goes well, I'll head back to work mid semester, but if we need a little more time to adjust, I might extend maternity leave to 12 weeks. We'll keep you updated. We would greatly appreciate your prayers during this time as we begin to figure out life as a family of 3!
Thank you for being our faithful ministry partners! We could not serve at UTD and be a gospel presence there without your generosity, prayers and partnership.
Blessings to you!
- Mark and Kaitlin
Prayer Requests
- Please pray for a healthy labor and delivery of our baby girl. Also pray for us a we learn to do life and ministry as a family of 3!
- We are hosting a BSM leadership training day on Jan. 11. We will continue to cast vision for the ministry changes we are making this semester and prepare the students to lead out in small groups, Free Lunch outreach and more. Please pray that the students will gain a God-sized vision for seeing their peers come to know Christ and that they will be excited to be part of it!
- We have been in the midst of airport pick ups for new international students. We are so thankful for all the volunteers helping us. Along with a few other ministries at UTD, we'll host the Big Howdy on Friday night, Jan. 11 for all the new international students. We're expecting about 500 students and many volunteers. This is a significant night for new international students to get connected to people who love Jesus. Please pray that authentic relationships are formed and that the logistics go smoothly for the night (there are many pieces to hosting a big welcome effort like this!).
- The new semester begins Jan. 14! Please pray for a movement of God to happen at UTD this semester! We trust that there are students ready to hear and respond to the gospel and we are excited to be part of this!
We pray for you, our ministry partners, too, so feel free to email us your specific prayer requests!