Message from Kendon

I was getting ready to put a post on here about Juan and then received an email that Kendon sent out letting people know about Juan's situation. His message also had a good update on Christmas, so I thought I would just put his email on here for those of you who haven't seen it.

"Dear Ones,

We wanted to get a quick prayer request out for Juan, Jose Angel's brother. He went home for a Christmas visit with his mom.

She has been suffering and grieving pretty badly with the death of Chepe and has been wanting Juan to come home to live with her. She finally talked him into it. However Wendy talked to Juan on Friday to try to find out what "he" wanted rather than what his mother wanted him to do, and he admitted that he really didn't want to leave the Home. When Wendy suggested that he go for Christmas and come back in time for the new school year in January, his face lit up and he said, yes, that is what he really wanted to do.

Even though Juan will be back on January 3, it was sure hard to say goodbye to him this morning. We got all the kids together and staff to pray with him and give him hugs.

Pray that God will use this time in his life and pray for his mom. She recently committed her life to the Lord. We are praying that she will hear directly from the Holy Spirit concerning His will for Juan.

Preparations for Christmas are in full swing but we sure do miss Greg and Marquette Garvick (have you all bought your tickets for next year?). Greg and Marquette have been coming down for a number of years to help us get ready but were not able to come this year. But we are thankful for Daniel and Kara, Lee and Staci, and our interns, Katie and Danelle. What would we do without them?!

The guest dorm has been turned into "Santa's workshop" and all the gifts that we have received from different churches and friends are waiting to be organized and assigned to the kids. Kara's parents are bringing the stocking stuffers, thanks to a special drive at their church in Missouri so we'll take care of that just in time for Christmas Eve.

Year after year, we wonder what God is going to do for the kids for Christmas and it is always truly amazing and overwhelming! Some of our staff today were commenting how this will be the first Christmas celebration for two of our new little boys, Javier and Eliseo. Whenever the topic comes up, their little eyes begin to sparkle with excitement.

Pray that our kids will experience the love of Jesus as never before, that the reason for celebrating is not lost in the materialism of the age in which we live.

God bless you...thank you for your prayers.

Our love,

Kendon, Wendy and Ian...for all of us at NLCH"