Christmas Party

We pray that this latest news finds you doing very well and that you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year with family and friends. Thanks to our wonderful moms, we were able to fly to Overland Park, KS to spend Christmas with our son, Jeremiah. It was really great to be able to spend sometime with him and to relax for a little bit after our Christmas party with the children.
There was a lot of preparation, planning and hard work that went into the Christmas party, but we believe that is was well worth it and that the children really enjoyed the party. This year , five of our children helped with much of the preparation. They helped wrapped presents, make cupcakes, decorate and fill candy bags and even helped clean the children center.

The message this year was teaching them that Christmas is not only about receiving gifts, but the day that we celebrate our Lord's birthday, and that we need to be thankful for all the things that He has given us and that we need to trust Him completely. We even shared how we stepped out in faith to buy their Christmas gifts and how we trusted Him to provide the money that was needed.

Therefore, we went to San Jose and shopped for three days and bought all of their gifts using our credit card and waited for Him to provide. We have to admit that we were a bit nervous when we added up all of the receipts and then we received a message from our church saying that our monthly deposit had been made and it was just enough to cover our normal expenses for the month. At that moment we prayed to God and said that we knew we had heard from Him and that we trusted for Him to provide.

It was now time to go back home, and as we were driving back home we were talking about how we trusted Him to provide but that we were still very nervous because we don't want to have any credit card debt. As we were talking, we received a message from some dear friends in the states, and they asked if we still needed money for Christmas. We said that we did, but we did not tell them how much we needed. They then sent a message back with an amount that they would be sending., which was almost exactly what we had spent with a little bit leftover. Wow God is so faithful.

Trying Times

We have been recently hurt by a local person that we trusted and had ben helping us in ministry and we believe recently stole one of our cameras. For us, it was not the stolen camera that had hurt so much but it was the trust that was broken. Also, the pictures that were on the camera were taken by one of our children who we work with and those pictures are irreplaceable.

We also found that one of the people that we work with from street ministry had passed away, another was brutally beaten up and is in critical condition in the hospital, and one more was hit by a car. They would really appreciate your prayers.

Stateside

We also wanted to let you know that we will be coming back to the states from March 30-May 18th, so, if you are interested in having us speak at your church, home group, or just get together, please let us know. Right now, it looks like we will be in Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia, and possibly Alabama. We are really looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible.

We love to hear from our friends and family around the world, so if you would like to share any comments, prayer requests or news about your lives, please drop us a line.

With God ALL things are possible. Matt 19:26.

Lots of love and Blessings,
John & Cindy Thalheimer
Missionaries to Costa Rica