Newsy News!

Every day seems like a whirlwind and when there is a day to just chill, it’s usually filled with cleaning, errands, or catching up with friends and relatives on the phone. I thought I’d fill you in on ‘the latest’ as it’s been a little while!

I have so much to be thankful for this week. God has been very good and continually showers His lovingkindness upon me and my family and it leaves me overwhelmed and full of smiles every day. I’m thankful for His protection and sovereignty in every situation.

Last Saturday, I received a call from my mom saying that my grandma and great aunt Ciocie were in a bad car accident. They were admitted to the hospital and the procedure of tests and examinations began. Grandma was released after a day and continues to heal at home. Ciocie, on the other hand, received the worst injuries. She broke her ankle, suffered a huge gash on her knee that needed 30+ stitches across the knee and up the leg, fractured her ribs, and suffered facial fractures as well. She also needed blood transfusions as her blood count was extremely low. As she is very frail and also has Parkinson’s, it is taking a longer time to heal. She was released from the hospital yesterday and will be staying at a care home until she can walk.

Our hearts sympathize with their pains and we trust that God will give them both a swift recovery. My mom has been super busy running back and forth from home trying to meet their needs, spend time with them, run errands, and just be an extra support. It is a difficult time for my mom as she also is recuperating from a hard fall. She has been nursing her shoulder for over two weeks. The orthopedist is waiting for the swelling to subside to see if she tore her rotor cuff. So, if the Lord brings this situation to your mind, please pray for my grandma and aunt’s recovery and an extra amount of grace, strength, and healing for my mom.

On a happier note, I have some very exciting news! My brother Thomas and his wife Robin are expecting their first child! So I am going to be an aunt for the very first time ever! I am so very excited for the both of them and I’m excited for myself. This means that I can now shop at Babies R’ Us, or Baby Gap, or Gymboree, or…well, you get the point!!! We’re all very excited and wishing Thomas and Robin the very best!

This week will be full of work, and the regular routine or activities. However, this coming Friday thru Sunday is our annual Christmas conference that will be held in Indianapolis! Andy Andrews will be a featured speaker so that will be fantastic! We are all very excited as we approach the weekend and are being kept super-busy practicing music specials for it! It should be a great weekend of wonderful meetings, music, fellowship, and fun!

My dear readers, may the Lord bless you richly! Have a holly jolly week! Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Weekend

This past week has been a blast!

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I went with my dear friends to visit their family and grandparents. We had such a lovely, relaxing time celebrating an early traditional Thanksgiving. It was a gorgeous weekend, so one afternoon Mandy and I decided to enjoy part of it and take some pictures….which you will see.

On Thanksgiving Day, I went with a group of friends to enjoy the day at another friend’s house. It was great to spend time with their family, sit around and relax, and play ping pong for hours upon end.

Of course, Friday was – SHOPPING! Oh yes, we hit the mall and outlet mall and had a grand time. Then to wind down the weekend, we went skating downtown Chicago.

Special Memories made with some of the Most Special Friends!

Dear Sweet Mandy

 

Yours truly

the guys cutting up some firewood before dinner

of course, there’s always computer time at the Ehnis’ – haha!

Sheri, Me, Mandy, Shannon

Millennium Park in Chicago

Chicago

Such a beautiful day in the city!

Brooke and me at The Bean

of course, no city trip would be complete without french fries!

Waiting for “The Messiah” to start at Moody Bible Institute

It was such a spectacular performance. The music and singing were phenomenal. I was totally impressed that the whole concert was Scripture!

True Love vs. Infatuation

Young Ladies Christian Fellowship posted a great article: “What True Love Is”.

I would encourage you to check it out and read it and continually remember to surrender all your emotions and desires to the Lord – we will never be disappointed!

Would You Like Fries with That?

One of my friends sent me a really cute email a little while back. We seem to both share a common enjoyment for french fries and I couldn’t help but smile as I read her note. Enjoy, my readers!

“Do you know what I love the most? Of course you don’t, but I asked so I could tell you. I have to tell someone because it’s pressing down on my threadbare nerves. I love crispy, golden, French fries! There I said it. At Red Robbins, with any hamburger meal you order, you get a basket of bottomless fries. Yes that means all you can eat. How cool is that? That’s about the neatest thing in the world! (Apart from Jesus. Yeah, Jesus and fries have got to be the best ever!) These days I have developed a craving for fries on Sunday and it wasn’t this way until I came to the RCI.  Probably Flint atmosphere gives me a sodium deficiency.

Every Sunday when I start having this “fries craving”, I become determined to find the closest burger joint…or else! Most of my friends have picked up on this, and they know you don’t mess with Cristina when she hasn’t had her fries on Sunday! Whoever invented fries was brilliant. Guess who’s even more brilliant is the Creator of fries. Ok potatoes.

Bottomless fries remind me of something I’ve been thinking about this week. Unconditional love—it’s the ultimate weapon. God’s amazing love and mercy are the shock absorbers to life’s sometimes bumpy road. I saw that in China. All nations and all peoples are special objects of God’s love. I see it in Michigan. The world is more than ready to tolerate thieves and murderers than Christians who love the Lord. When you love others, you’re doing a powerful thing.

My Dad used to take me out for fries. He would then take me up on his knee; look in my big blue eyes and say, “Cristina I have a secret to tell you.”  My face would brighten up as I said, “A secret?!” Girls love secrets. That’s not an earth shattering revelation. Girls have always loved secrets. So I lean my ear in and Daddy whispers, “I love you.” A smile would spread across my face.

I still smile when I think of that. Now that I’ve come to school in Michigan, I have a heavenly Daddy to do the same thing. I recently read this phrase in a good book, “Put together all the tenderest love you know of, the deepest you have ever felt, and the strongest that has ever been poured out upon you, and heap upon it all the love of all the loving human hearts in the world, and then multiply it by infinity, and you will begin perhaps to have a faint glimpse of what the love of God is.” Wow. I love people because Jesus loves me.

Ok I take that back there are three greatest things in the world: Jesus, Daddys, and fries. In that order. Yes whoever invented fries was brilliant. Seeing them reminds me how much Jesus loves me!  I wonder if there’ll be bottomless fries in Heaven…”