We had a lovely day celebrating Christmas. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll post about all our Christmas happenings. It’s a very full time of year for all the Jarai churches. and by the end of the season we’ll have attended over eight different village church events.

One special Christmas tradition we have is singing carols every evening after supper. Each night a different child gets to light and blow out the candles. Typically everyone gets to choose a carol to sing. It’s one of our favorite parts of the season.

This week Josh was gone Monday-Thursday to Phnom Penh, so we had to find some extra things to do! Monday night the kids had a big sleep-over next to the Christmas tree. (The tricky part is putting up mosquito nets.) Ezra and I slept in our own beds, but I did stay up and participate in all the party activities!

Last Sunday we had our Bible Club Christmas party. We started off with cookie decorating. Then we did singing and the Christmas story. We finished the event with three different water games. Everyone was very muddy by the time we were done! (Pictures taken by Jeff Davis.)

Today we celebrate Ezra’s 4 month birthday. Right after Ezra’s 3 month birthday, he started sleeping through the night. This has been a sweet gift to me, since the extra sleep is a great help for my daylight hours. Part of Ezra’s sleeping is due to his love for sucking his fingers…or hands. He just loves sucking on his fingers and it’s so cute so watch. He sometimes gags himself as he tries to get as many fingers as possible in his mouth. (After I wrote this post, Ezra decided to stop sleeping through the night. He’s been up at 2am every night this week.)

Ezra has started laughing and I could just listen to it all day.  He usually ends by spitting up, very much like Isaiah did when he was a baby. It’s always amusing to see what he finds funny. The other day he kept laughing when I was practicing speaking Jarai to him. When I called Josh in to try, Ezra stopped laughing and listen very intently. I guess that tells you something about my ability to speak Jarai!

Last Friday we decorated for Christmas. We all had a fun time and the kids were so excited to put everything put. Clara got the honor of putting the star on the tree.

We took the kid’s picture in front of the tree. Josh told everyone to “make a Clara face!” I’m sure you can figure out which picture that is. Clara is the master of making grumpy faces during picture taking.

Excited about Christmas!

Ezra here – Daddy has been gone this week teaching at the Pastors’ Bible School and I’m here to report what mischief has been taking place. Most things are going on as normal, but some of the older kids are being more helpful than usual. However I don’t understand what’s been going no at nights.

Monday night Anna and Mommy stayed up while everyone went to bed. From my bed, I could smell nail polish and popcorn and I heard a lot of pages being turned. Later Anna slept on Daddy’s side of the bed. In the morning I saw no evidence of that anything unusual had taken place.

Tuesday night Isaiah and Mommy stayed up late while everyone else went to bed. Again, I heard popcorn, but this time it sounded like they were buying and charging each other rent. I also heard talk of going to jail. Whatever happened it sounded like Mommy ended up with all the loot. This time Isaiah slept on Daddy’s side of the bed – guess they both escaped jail!

On Wednesday night Becca and Mommy stayed up and did the popcorn and jail thing. I think Becca took all of Mommy’s money for I heard loud weeping from her before bed. Then Becca came in and slept on Daddy’s side of the bed.

Clara has been up early with Mommy and I think this morning they put cocoa powder in the coffee. I don’t think Clara or I will be sleeping on Daddy’s side of the bed. He’ll be home soon and I think Mommy looks pretty worn out from all the extra evening excitement. I’ve been making sure she gets up at 4am to give me detailed reports of the evenings!

This is our fifth year year celebrating Cambodian Coronation Day! Delighted to have two kings this year along with our three queens.

On August 8^th (5 days before Ezra was born) we took a trip to Sea Life Bangkok Ocean World. We visited this aquarium when Clara was born last time we were in Bangkok and everyone was looking forward to going again. We were able to use Christmas money to sponsor our trip. Thankful for people’s generosity.

We had a great time seeing all the fish and other sea creatures. A highlight was the shark tunnel, where we walked through the shark, sting ray, and other large fish tank in a glass enclosed tunnel. The place where we could walk on top of the same area was a highlight as well.

What a special treat for our family, especially since we don’t have access to these kind of things in Cambodia. I love watching our children get so excited seeing everything. We love that we can visit special places while here for Ezra’s birth – it’s a special treat!

A few weeks ago while studying ancient Greece, we decided to hold our own Olympics. The kids each made their own flags to represent their countries (Becca – Unicorn Land, Isaiah – Zebra Land, Anna & Clara – Panda Land).

We had an opening and closing ceremony and had two days of events with medal ceremonies after each event (the kids made gold, silver, bronze, and “Clara” medals).

One of the things I love to do is write tunes for Bible verses to help Khmer and Jarai children memorize Scripture. So far we’ve put together 14 new verse songs and written two original Jarai songs. Anything I’ve done with Khmer is easy, since I just use a Khmer Bible translation. Anything we do in Jarai we translate first – Josh works with the Jarai Bible translators to translate the verse.

Above is our Jarai Romans 5:8, song by a group of young people who came to our house to learn the song.

This June we will celebrate our 10th year wedding anniversary, what better way to celebrate than a two-day night getaway. (Thought we better before I have another nursing baby again.)

Josh and I left Thursday late morning and came home Saturday morning. We enjoyed lots of uninterrupted talking together. We also took a trip to a waterfall that our family enjoys. It was fun to be able to get into the water together, rather than playing tag-team while watching kids. Thankful for the time away we had together – thankful for the gift of marriage.

Last week we celebrated Josh’s 37th birthday. All the kids got dressed up for the celebration. Our day consisted of special food and extra time with the birthday man. Early in the morning, Becca and Isaiah secretly decorated Josh’s office while we were praying.

Becca made Josh oatmeal cookies. The most amazing thing was that Becca patiently allowed all her siblings to help with the mixing process (a hard thing for even an adult to do!).

For dinner we had grilled chicken and buffalo kabobs and had homemade mac&cheese, salt and garlic potatoes, and salad. For dessert we had strawberry cake with raspberry frosting To finished the evening we had a special show in honor of Daddy with original songs, performances, and a play done by family members. Happy Birthday Josh!

For history we’re using Susan Wise Bauer’s The Story of the World Vol 1. We recently ready about Hammurabi and the start Babylonian Empire. I combined our weekly art class with our history lesson and all created our own Law Codes.

I tried to provide an example modeled after Hammurabi’s Code….Isaiah used Bible verses.

We’re looking forward to adding Jensen child #5 to our family sometime around/after mid-August! So far the pregnancy has gone smoothly (besides the car accident which happened after I was expecting). We’re waiting until the birth to find out the gender and we have competing wishes for a brother or sister going on in our home.

Saturday is usually Fine Arts day in school, so I teach music and art to our kids. Last Saturday I decided to be the one who did the art. Lots of fun and laughter.

Last weekend we celebrated Valentine’s Day with our traditional family party. We made heart-shaped pizzas, made and decorated heart-shaped cookies, played games, and exchanged cards and the kids each got a new book.

The kids worked very hard on making cards for everyone. It’s always a really fun time.

The next evening Josh and I had a special dinner after the kids went to bed. So glad God has  given us all these Loves.

Christmas morning we decided not to start out with quiche and cinnamon rolls, since usually the kids are hungry/grumpy by the time everything is ready. So this year we had Honey Cheerios, pumpkin bread, and scrambled eggs for breakfast and had the cinnamon rolls and quiche for lunch. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, my yeast was going bad, so the cinnamon rolls did not turn out as well as I had hoped.

After breakfast Isaiah and Anna performed separate Christmas plays. It’s Becca’s tradition to do a Christmas pageant every Christmas evening with Little People. She spends weeks preparing. The younger kids did not want to be left out, so we watched their programs in the morning.

Afterwards the kids passed out gifts. We put a big emphasis on the kids giving things to others for Christmas. They get really excited about buying and/or making gifts for everyone in the family. It’s so much fun to watch their delight in giving. As Becca says what makes Christmas really special is that we don’t just get gifts, but we get to give gifts too. Becca spent a lot of time making special gifts for each family members. One thing she did was to make paper frame backgrounds for each family member and had a picture of her and that family member printed to put on each one.

After lunch we had a rest time and then played games for the rest of the afternoon. Then we had a supper of Indian Buffalo roast.  After supper we finished up the gifts. We gave the kids their gifts. The theme was art supplies and they were so excited. I love seeing them so excited about simple things…they each also got their own magnifying glass. Becca finished passing out her gifts to Josh and me. She spent hours writing and illustrating original stories for each of us.

Our last event was watching Becca performed her Christmas Pageant. She basically quotes the Christmas story from Luke and Matthew. It gets better and better every year. What a blessing to watch.

So that was our Christmas. Thankfully there were no funerals nearby like in past years and we enjoyed a semi quiet day. Thankful for the time we had together. Thankful for the traditions we can keep even though we live in Cambodia. Thankful for the birth of Christ!

We started our Christmas season by decorating our Christmas tree the first Saturday night of December. The kids were happy to get their Christmas pjs.

We also had our traditional Christmas countdown calendar going with special activities and gifts spread throughout the month.

This year we enjoyed listening to Piper’s Advent readings each night as we lit our Advent candles. Afterwards we sang Christmas carols. Every night each person got to pick a carol to sing (Clara and I picked together) – so we typically sang a total of 5 songs each night. Some favorites were Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella, The Holly and The Ivy, and Good King Wenceslas.

Because of all the Jarai church celebrations and our having a special Christmas Bible club for our neighbor children, we decided to postpone our Christmas celebrations until the day after Christmas. There was no way we could do all that Sunday Christmas Eve and be prepared for Christmas. This was especially true after the car accident. I was so worn out the day before we celebrated Christmas and that was only a few hours into the morning.

On December 25^th we did all our normal Christmas Eve stuff. On of Becca’s goals this past year was to make a meal for the family. She decided she wanted to make tacos and since that’s usually what we have on Christmas Eve, she made the meal then. We also prepared 11 bags of fresh fruit to deliver to our neighbors as Christmas gifts. We started around 4 and didn’t finished up only after 6:30. The first few families just accepted the fruit and the last 4 invited us in to visit.

Becca’s dinner and dessert (brownies) were delicious. Afterwards we had homemade hot cocoa and watched The Muppets Christmas Carol.

Every birthday, I like to look back and refect on how our children have grown. I think of all the past years, this is the year we observed the most growth in Becca’s maturity.

Educationally, Becca went from reading out of duty to reading for delight. She completed the All About reading curriculum. She’s thriving with Khan Academy math and will be starting 3rd grade math next month. She continues to memorize large passages from the Bible from listening to it at night. She has an amazing memory and we’re always delighted with the connections she can make with her Bible knowledge.

Spiritually, Becca has come along way. Right around her last birthday she entered a period where she was very insecure about her sin and was quite concerned about the right way to ask forgiveneness. It ended up being very exhausting for me. Then she hit seven-and-a-half and everything cleared up. I was very thankful for the moms who encouraged me that this was just a period of growth. The difference in Becca is like night and day if you compare the first half of the year to the last.

• We’ve also seen Becca grow in the way she helps her siblings. She’s really grown in the ways she’s willing to help Clara and interact with her.

One other growth I was refelcting on recently has to do with Becca’s bike. When we moved to Cambodia 3.5 years ago, we bought Becca a bike. She was very protective of it – willing to share, but very distressed if she saw her bike being treated badly.  So now we live in O`Yadao and are surrounded with neighbor kids who typically don’t take care of things. Becca’s new bike (she got for her birthday) is always being abused and it doesn’t phase her. The other day Josh asked her if it bothers her to see her bike abused. She said she doesn’t like it, but that it was ok. What a blessing to see this growth in her.

So thankful for the work God has done in Becca this past year. Thankful for the gift she is to our family. Looking forward to seeing what God will do this next year.

The second full week in November we took a trip to Siem Reap. We had a few reasons for going, but one of the highlights of the trip was horse riding. Last year we gave Becca a one-hour horse ride for her birthday. Since then, she’s been saving her money to go again. We were really proud of Becca’s careful saving of her money for a year to go horse riding again.

We had a lovely morning at the horse farm. Becca had a half-an-hour lesson in the ring before she went out on her ride. The lesson was mainly for helping her get used to riding the horse and riding a gallop.

This year Isaiah decided to ride with me. It took some convincing, but he finally agreed to go. He was so thrilled to be up on the horse. For the first 10 minutes he waved at everyone who passed us.

Josh, Anna, and Clara rode in a horse cart. Clara insisted on wearing a helmet most of the trip.

Becca had a delightful time and was thrilled with her horse and the ride.

Some other fun things we did were swimming in the hotel pool (Clara was amazing with how much she loved jumping in the water), eating a Burger King, and shopping.

We have so much to be thankful for that I am overwhelmed with the thought of listing the many things we can thank God for. So for this week, I’ll just focus on one: our family. Look at them – I am so blessed by the life of each individual in our home.

My husband – who is a kind, patient, humble, loving leader-lover He’s my best friend – the person I’d like to spend all my free time with. He makes me laugh. He keeps me going. He’s proud of me and encourages me. He loves me – and that’s the most amazing thing of all.

Becca – our first born daughter who has taught me so much about being a mommy. I love her creativity and her imagination.

Isaiah – his laughter and desire to help. His hope to someday conquer his sisters with an army of brothers.  His big grin.

Anna – her forlove  life and her sense of humor. Her desire to have sleep–overs every night. Her craziness.

Clara – her adventurous spirit, her desire to do everything everyone else is doing. Her jokes. Her singing.

Those a just a small spattering of things I’m thankful for in the precious family the Lord has given me. Such joy flows in our home because of each one of them. Now – I will add that we are by no means perfect and we have our issues and frustrations (we’re a normal family!) – but that’s not the point of this post. I’m thankful for so much when it comes to the wonderful people who fill our home. Thanks be to God for the gift of each of them.