This year, I traveled down to Slovenia to visit my dear friends, the Werdebaughs, over Christmas.  It was such a time to be there!  This family is so dear to my heart and even though they live far away, I try my best to visit them whenever I can. Shawn has been one of my best friends since we were in training together in Colorado 5 years ago.  Their kids are still under ten and are full of excitement at Christmas!  They were so excited to have me there and we spent many hours playing with the kids and sitting up late talking about life and Ministry.  I found out, the kids had never rode on a train before.  I decided that my gift to them would be to take them on a train ride through the Sloven Alps near the Beautiful Lake Bled.  The kids loved it and even managed to have the opportunity to go into the locomotive and see how the engineer drives!  I pray daily for this dear family who live in such a difficult region, and for their children who literally stand up for Christ daily in their schools.  Please pray for them!  Also a urgent prayer for them would be for their youngest who is now in the hospital with a collapsed lung and Bronchitis, which happened after I left.

On my way home, I stopped in Ljublijana and visited Blake Patty, one of the JV Kids who has gone off to college. We had coffee and lunch together and talked about his time so far at Wheaton.  He is a bright, godly young man, who I am sure will have an impact wherever he will be. What a joy to see how the older JV Kids are going off to school and making differences back in the U.S. now.  God is good!