MERRY CHRISTMAS

From Mozambique to your heart-- Merry Christmas from the Vanden Bosch's! 

We're overwhelmed by the prayer support and love we've felt over the last many days (and years!). We can't keep up with the emails but we must say thank you to all of you! More importantly we're praising the Lord for all He's done in 2013-- more than we ever dreamed of. Thank you Jesus! 

christmas this year

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas, as we all have been.
This year I'm thinking about what I want it to be as we start traditions as a family of 3.
I love traditions. I even love the ones that may have totally fallen away from Jesus-- like shopping and wrapping and cookies and lights.
Each year I try to "be" different but I'm not sure any year if I am at all.
We've been busy-- we've baked cookies.
We've decorated trees (2 tiny artificial ones, our farangipani outside).
We have lights and there are presents!
And I'm loving it. I love sharing in Nede's anticipation as she takes down a link each day from our Christmas chain, I love all the hope and wonder and miracles I expect this time of year (this year especially!).
I also can't help but think about what this time is like for many of the neighbors around me.
For many this is a time of hunger, not cookies and hams.
For many this is a time of malaria, malnutrition and chronic disease, not joy and rejoicing.
For many it's a time of heat and humidity, rain and leaky houses not a white Christmas and sleigh rides.
Theft and burglary increases, not giving and receiving.
For many it's not "the most wonderful time of the year."
There must  be more Jesus in this somehow.
Where do we find it?
What does it mean for us?
I wish I knew.
I haven't figured out how to do Christmas here, or anywhere for that matter.
I love the anticipation and hope that builds up in my mind and heart this time of year.
All I know to do is to search those hopes, to analyze them and make sure that I'm trying, in all things, to give glory to God in the highest for EVERY good thing I have.
--To worship Him for being my savior and pouring his amazing grace over me. Every day.
Every moment.
This is Christmas this year-- watching where I put my hope, worshiping him the best I know how, wondering how to share Christmas with my neighbors here and watching for Jesus while we enjoy some traditions.
What is Christmas to you? Where is Jesus in it?

please go buy him some fish

There's been a handful of times, things I've experienced here, where I can honestly say, "that is a miracle."
Nothing more, nothing less-- an act of God that could not be explained by any human efforts. No medicine in any social-economic class could heal so quickly, no best surgeon could restore to "normal", no amount of money could buy wellness and no genius intelligence could dream up a solution. God did a miracle.
Remember the little guy that I wrote about a few weeks back? Weak as a newborn, small as a toddler? Almost the same age as my boisterous Nede.
We sent him to the hospital; he and his aged granny. All we could do was hope he got care that was adequate-- to give this little fighter another chance.
Much to my surprise, a week later we went to the hospital to visit him, he had been transferred to Beira, to the larger, more equipped hospital 4 hours away!
Right then we started praising the Lord because this boy had been forgotten. This boy, previously I felt, had been forgotten and left to his own devices (which was nothing.). And this granny, knowing nothing but war and hardwork, to you and me=suffering. She had nothing to bribe with, nothing to give but somehow it worked this time-- they received CARE! The system was helping.
Fast forward about 4 weeks more and our little friend was back on the veranda of our clinic. WALKING! Granny smiling P-R-O-U-D!!!! He gained 3kg while he'd been away. His swollen, inflamed jaw/cheek/whatever that was, approaching normal. SMILING!
Despite his grim diagnoses he's on the proper medication. He's getting the treatment that his body desperately needed. He is no longer forgotten. He is helped and THAT is a MIRACLE.
Before he left I slipped Granny some money, "please go buy him some fish" I smiled.

her aspirations

If you need a reminder that God is alive, doing wonders and giving gifts, remember back with me to one year ago. Nede and I had finally made it to America. I had met someone that I had hopes would become more than a penpal. 

Fast forward to December 2013, I head to Nede's end of the year program but this year, not by myself, not as a single mom. We're complete, we're a family. And then, I read the end of the year report and see this...

"When I grow up I want to be a bibale recorder to teech peepale like my Daddy to teech peepals about Jesus." Nede Portani Grade 1
Tears well and I realize again, Lord, you were worth trusting, in my darkest place you were there, with a plan, with a good gift, wonders in the works, may my heart never forget...