Matthews Family Herald

Hi everyone,

It is the Sabbath - and as a new "resolution", and productive way to use our work-free day, I am endeavoring to be more social, and to stay in touch with friends and family.

So what have we been up to over here in Germany?

Well, first of all I am glad to report that no one is sick right now!!!!! (imagine making herbal teas, and remedies and administering morning and night for 6 children for over a week-plus waking several times during the night! You can imagine why I am soooo happy to announce this!)

We are enjoying having James home a lot for the holidays- Yesterday- he led us in pt and has been helping home school our kids this past week( for which I am most appreciative!) He's put together a Yahoo Group to help in fostering and facilitating home fellowships in our area. He's also studying a German/English parallel bible in an effort to learn the language in the context of our faith. The home church fellowship website is:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/heidelberghomechurchnetwork

(Here's Dad and I playing a Dreidel game with the kids using jelly beans. The other photo is of Dad's German/English parallel bible. The Luther Version in German and ESV version in English.)

Rachel is in AZ still enjoying her holidays; please keep her in prayer. She is greatly loved and missed here. She has an amazing talent for taking photographs. While she was here for our celebrations, she took this uniquely angled photograph.

(Each window sill was adorned with tea light candles.)

I recently got a couple of herbal books that I am enjoying, and a large shipment of herbs from Shoshanna's bulk herb store( I am sipping a cup of stress-free tea right now, made of Ginko, St. John's wort,Gotu Kola, Raspberry, Ginseng, and sweetened with Stevia.) I can't wait to experiment making creams and such, out of my own herbs. I enjoy learning all I can and try to implement change into our family for our optimal health and well-being. Well that 's what is new in my own little world.

(Enjoying a "cuppa" in this first picture. The second picture is of the the seasonal set mentioned, in its entirety. The third is of another other set I bought second hand and that was made in

Bavaria, Southern Germany. Those Almond Sugar Cookies were made by the children.)

Micah has been perfecting his magician skills. He checks out every book he can, and got a large magic show for Hannukah with over 100 tricks. He has a gig set up already at the library. He also has put in a lot of comm. service hours at the library and getting some good training. It helps motivate him at home for his schooling and chores as well. He and Jacob also got a large art set for Hannukah , and has been impressing us with there paintings.

(Winter and Summer so well captured here in Micah's two acrylic paintings. Could these be the same tree even?)

Hannah's sweetness and beauty continue to bless our presence. She is improving in her math and reading skills, and really enjoyed the book Heidi, that we just finished(Our country for the month that we are studying is Switzerland.) She is also highly enjoying the Little House books. She shows a lot of interest in flowers and herbs ( I hope I have a little apprentice to share my hobby with) and she always wants to have a cup of tea with me.

Jacob has probably been the most stir crazy lately since he is the most athletic and has a hard time keeping his body still. He is growing so fast, it seems his bones are outgrowing his skin- getting tall and lanky. I hope to find archery or fencing lessons for him soon when we get settled into our new home (which we get to start moving into in a few days!)

(Jacob the acrobat. His other beloved move is to spin.)

Nathan is enjoying building Lego sets (Hannukah) and his skills and attention span are quite impressive. he has been getting in trouble a lot lately however for saying things like shut-up, butt, and other kinda crude things. He doesn't care for the taste of soap too much.

(Nathan, Eden, and Hannah playing with Eden's new tea set. The next shot is Nathan playing with his Legos.)

Eden has hit a growth of development in speech-and blows us away every day with her new word usage and understanding. She is always very funny and sweet.. She was much more interested in the boys wooden swords than the doll she got for Hannukah.

(Here, Eden is finger painting with shaving cream, colored with food coloring. The other picture is of Eden in a new dress she received from the Army's Angel Tree gifts.)

They are all my greatest joy every day! (And my greatest frustration)

-Heather

Good Sunday morning to all,

We are so excited to finally have our family van here. I was able to pick it up Friday and it's been a huge blessing to be able to use.

Heather will be taking her driving test here on Monday and then we'll both be able to cruise those Germany autobahns...

Rachel leaves in a day or few and we are going to miss her. She'll pick up our lil blue Yaris after the Bachert family brings her from the Tucson Airport to Sierra Vista. She'll spend a few days there and then head to see her almost fiance and his family for a couple of weeks.

We are enjoying the third day of Hanakkuh and the kids are excited about what tonight's gifts might be. I'm making latkes and Heather is making a big roast and it's all part of our holiday feast we'll be eating tonight. We played the dreidel game a night or two ago with jelly beans and Jacob was the winner. We'll play "hide the geld" pretty soon and that's always fun for the kids and the adults. Kinda like finding Easter eggs but with chocolate, golden foil covered coins. We tie in how Jesus as the Messiah ties into this celebration in many, many ways but a couple of them are that: Hannukah is called "the festival of lights" and that Jesus is "the light of the world." Also, the lead candle which lights the others and is centered and placed higher than the other candles is called the "shamash." We also teach that this candle represents a hidden mystery in Jewish custom pointing to Jesus.

Micah is enjoying volunteer work at the library but has been unable to go lately since he's not feeling so well. Various family members haven't felt so well as we traverse through the cold season.

I've already helped record or transcribe a few records of trial and I've got more to come this week.

We should be moving into our off-post rent home here in a couple of weeks and we can't wait to get our big family into a home with a little more room.

Oh, it started snowing today and the kids were so thrilled over it. I was too, watching them and remembering how excited I was when the first snowflakes began to fall each year, as a child.

We love you all and keep you in our thoughts and prayers.

-The Matthews in Germany

Hi family and friends,

Here's some rapid fire updates for you:

-Micah landed a volunteer slot at the on-post library here in Germany. He started yesterday and he really loves it.

-We've found a homeschool group consisting of other military families here in Heidelberg.

-Rachel is due to head back to Arizona and spend a few weeks with her almost fiance and we are going to miss her. She's scheduled to return to Germany in early January.

-Our family van is already "in-country" and we should be able to pick it up this week or the next.

-We should be moving into our home off-post in early January.

-Our missionary friends in Kenya just gave birth to their newest baby girl:

www.purechristianity.blogs.com

-Hannakuh starts this Friday.

-Our friends in Arizona who are in the early stages of building an intentional community in Missouri have launched their website:

http://thisismyfamilysblog.blogspot.com/

-Please keep my Uncle Terry in prayer for some significant medical concerns and we are asking for God's healing.

-We held our first home fellowship last Saturday night and it went really well. I made my homemade Sabbath bread and we enjoyed sparkling grape juice for the opening ceramony and then some excellent, Southern style iced tea to go along with our meal of chicken egg noogle soup. After dinner, we listened to and sang praise songs with accompaniment guitar playing provided by our daughter, Rachel. We read from Proverbs and then went into a discussion of all that was going in life. Among the things discussed, I recall one topic was: what would be the effect of an apology from white persons on behalf of the wrongs committed against those of African descent in our country by previous generations of white folk. One of us had a dream where we were apologizing on behalf of our ancestors for what had occurred in the past. Those apolgized to we extremely moved and received such healing. Only later did we realize that MLK day is coming up. Would an apology help things? I think it would.