Merry Christmas! One Month Abroad

Merry Christmas! The Savior is born!
The Savior--yes, the Messiah, the Lord--has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!
Luke 2:11

What a different Christmas for us! 
Our typical Tennessee Christmases have been full of parties, friends, family, and traditions. We happily ran here and there to celebrate the season with as many people as we could. We are so grateful for the many important people in our lives that we have had the privilege to celebrate Christmas with in the past years. We are so thankful for families that live close together and the chances to see them all for the holidays. 

This year we have had some new experiences. 
We went to a candlelight worship service at our new church. It was so lovely! Addalyn got to help pass out candles :)


We attended a primary school age group Calypso Competition. It's a part of the Carnival celebration that occurs in St Kitts during December. We are hoping to attend the big parade next week!

One tradition in particular that we wanted to carry over was our birthday party for Jesus
We had friends from St Kitts, Switzerland, and Nigeria come to celebrate the birth of Christ with us for Christmas Eve! 

Christmas day has been different, slower, less going on. We are missing our families, but we are also enjoying being together the four of us. It feels like a big step, our very first holiday away from home. There are lots of emotions and feelings, but also lots of joy. We know that we are right where Jesus wants us to be and we can't think of a better way to celebrate when Jesus came to be with us. 



This month has also been full of settling in. 

With lots of help we moved into our house!

We found the local playground

We got back into a rhythm with school

We help facilitate church one morning, and I (Katelyn) taught the kids' class!

We had visitors!
Aaron's cousin's stopped by on a cruise and spent the day with us :)

We found a cow blocking our street.

We got to witness the baptism of one of our new friends.

And we get to see this view every day!

During our missions training we talked about a "transition bridge" 
We talked about how major transitions take us from Settled --> Unsettling --> Chaos --> Resettling -->  New Settled
After a loooong season of what felt like chaos, we finally all feel like we are in a season of resettling. It's such a blessing to know we are here and that we can make a home here. We are starting make friends, find our way around, and we can decipher stronger accents than we used to be able to. We are quicker with the money conversions, remembering to greet people properly ("Good Day!"), and getting used to the heat. While we know that the process can be a bit like a roller coaster, we are praising God for His faithfulness and the ways He is showing up here. 

We are excited about 2017 and all God will do in our first year here! 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love,
The Comers

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