Gingerbread House

Who Doesn't Love Decorating with Candy!

Christmas Coupon/Fundraiser

Thigpen Jewelers
442 N. Wilmot Rd
Tucson, AZ 85711
520-886-5557
35% of ANY single item in the store....
watches, necklaces, diamonds, earrings,
pendants,handbags, bracelets,
silver/gold, and more!

Plus 5% will go to our out going costs!!!!!!!!!
Help us out and get a great deal!

Just mention you saw this on my blog or leave me a comment with your email and I will personally mail you this coupon!
Think how happy all those people on your list will be!!

Good Now - December 24, 2010

All I Want For Christmas.....

All I want for Christmas is.......................MY TWO FRONT TEETH!!!!!!!!

Logan's Thanksgiving Performance

Don't forget to mute the music...

Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

Missions Training International

As many of you know we attended our final training in October. It was held at Mission's Training International (MTI) in Monument Colorado! At first we were not too excited to go because it cost a lot of money and was three weeks longs. We thought, "What could we do for three whole weeks?" Well God blew our socks off once again!!! The training was amazing! Here is just a taste of things we learned and did while we were there!

*Meet amazing people who are on similar paths!
*How to exit our world and enter others
*Conflict management with family, teams, and people we will work with
*Paradox (two feelings with one experience)
*How to handle transition
We were even taken hostage in a little box with 21 people
(that was an experience)
*Priorities
*Longevity
*Healthy Good-byes
*Importance of Sabbath and Rest
*SO MUCH MORE
Our MTI Family!

What was really great was the kids that their own class and were learning the same things at their age level! We were truly blessed by the training and feel that we are better equipped to leave for New Zealand!Aunt MichelleAunt Sandy

Halloween

We were so blessed to be in Colorado for Halloween. We were able to spend it with Paul, Alison, Jared, Drew, Laney, and Lynn Marien. We just love spending time with them. The little ones caught on to trick or treating pretty quickly and starting saying, "we love trick or treat!"

Logan's Arm

Many of you may already know, but on October 4 the kids and I (Erin) were playing at the mall play place. Logan and another little crashed and Logan broke his arm. It was pretty bad. We could not move him because it was like a noodle and had to be stabilized. In the end we had to call 911. The fire department came and then the ambulance. Poor Logan had to ride in the ambulance alone because I had both Landon an Levi with me. Bryan met us at the hospital where they sedated Logan to manipulate the arm so he could go home until he had his surgery. Unfortunately the sedation did not work and Logan could feel it as they broke his arm back into place! Two days later he was in surgery to get a wire put him to help the bone grow back the right way. As of today his cast is off and he is doing good. He will still have to have one more surgery to get the wire out!

Girls Time

I know this post is a little late, but better late then never :)! For my birthday I got to have a fabulous Girls weekend! My sister, mom and I went on a 3 night cruise. It left from LA and went to Ensenada! It was short, but we had a blast. We got to hang out, eat lots of food, sit by the pool, and of course shop!
Chips before the Cruise!
Visit with Uncle Peter, Aunt Shary, Cousin Nick, and Baby Vince!
Shopping!
More Food!

Final Training

We are off for our final trip to Colorado before we head to New Zealand. We will be attending a three week training in Monument Colorado. The training is called SPLICE!

Spiritual - How to stay strong anchored to Christ during inevitable turmoil and stress

Personal - Understanding that my actions speak louder than my words

Lifestyle - How I will navigate with wisdom all of the lifestyle changes that will affect me, my witness, and my family

Interpersonal - If one of the hardest parts of missions is getting along with other missionaries, how will I manage?

Cultural - What are the personal attitudes and sensitivities I have that will determine what the people of New Zealand will say about me behind closed doors?

Endure/Enjoy - What do veteran cross-cultural workers mean when they say that living overseas is full of paradoxes and dissonance?

The boys will also be attending their own classes where they will learn how to discover the world around them and new cultures! This will be something new for them especially since none of them have been in all day 8-4 school! Also, Logan will have to keep up on his school work while we are gone!
We are very grateful for your continued prayers & support.

Why we think it is so important...

Discipleship is an intensely personal activity of two or more people. It is a deep relationship where we can be real and deal with real struggles. It is being there for the relationship. Jesus was and is relational. A great picture of how relational Jesus was/is can be found when we look at Luke 10:38-42.

38As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus and Mary were concentrating on their relationship before worrying about everything they could be doing! In turn we want to follow Jesus’ example. Above all in our ministry in New Zealand we want to be there for these students. To sit with them, to listen to them, to grow in Christ with them. We want to invest our time into these students and encourage them to do the same and invest their time into their unreached friends and family!
We are looking forward to start this adventure. Please pray with us as we seek new supporters and trust in God to provide!

Spare change fundraising ~ A 30 day experiment.

As you undoubtedly know by now. We are raising funds in order to begin our new ministry opportunity with The Navigators in New Zealand. Some of the requirements that we have before we can leave for the mission field are to have our monthly needs and our outgoing costs in place. Also, we have one last set of training exercises that we need to accomplish before departure to prepare us for our transition. Before we can do this training our fund-raising percentage must be at least 90%. Right now we are still hovering right around 80%. In addition, we are also raising funds for our outgoing and setup costs to a sum of $25,000. All of this seems so overwhelming for us at the moment, but fortunately for us it is not overwhelming to the faithful and sovereign God of the universe.

So, I have come up with a fund-raising strategy that I would like to share with you... I am calling it - Spare Change Fund-raising. I realize that many families (us included) go from paycheck to paycheck somehow making it through the month with nothing left to show for by the end of each month. However, somehow we always seem to have a bit of spare change that we have collected over the weeks that sits idly in our vehicles or on our dresser or slips through the couch cushions. So I am proposing that you collect and save your spare change over the next 30 days, pray about what options you have, and do something with it. Consider these 3 options: 1.) Use it for yourself. 2.) Give to someone you know directly that really needs it. 3.) Give into our Navigator account to help send us to New Zealand. Our family is going to partake in this process and we are excited to see how God leads us to give.

As I was pondering over this idea, God put into my heart and mind the lesson of The Widow's Offering from Mark 12:41-44.
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on." It reminded me that no matter where I am at in life, even if I don't have much, God still wants me to put in everything I have.

If at the end of the 30 days you would like to give into our account their are a few options to do so. One option is to mail a check made payable to The Navigators and send it to P.O. Box 6000 Colorado Springs, CO 80934-6000. Please make sure to indicate our name and Nav ID # 23719123 in the memo field of your check to ensure that it goes into our account. The second option is to deposit your change and give online through our secure donation page with The Navigators. Please click on this link... https://donor.navigators.org/dp/donate/controller.cfm?action=showDonation&staffID=23719123

I pray that if you do decide to take me up on this offer, no matter what the amount or option you choose, that you will be blessed for it in the end.

As always, you are such a blessing and we are eternally grateful for your continued prayers and support.

Bryan's Birthday

For Bryan's birthday this year we decided to kidnap him to Phoenix! We packed the car and went to his brothers for a visit and then we surprised him with a Diamond's Back game! We had lots of fun and enjoyed a baseball game while we still live in a country that has baseball :)

Bryan and Scott

Riding the Light Rail to the game!

Slip n' Slide... Don't forget to pause the music mix!

Logan starts Kinder

1st Day of school! Go Logan!!!!

Poor Logan has the Haines Gene of sticking their tongue out while thinking :)

Logan's teacher Mrs. Lofgren!

One great Kinder story! The class voted on a mascot....they chose Horses.
For those of you that know Logan, he is very literal and hates being called
anything, but Logan. So the teacher will say, "Horses line up...
Horses it is time to go." Logan is not thrilled about this part of
Kinder and does not like being called a Horse.
Oh the problems of a six year old!

Summer Fun!

LOGAN TURNS SIX!
So we have had season passes to Sea World so when Logan decided he would rather go to Sea World then have the sleep over he was thinking about we jumped on it! We jumped in the car for a last minute trip and headed to Sea World! We had such a blast and made great family memories!
SWIMMING LESSONS
When you live in Tucson it is a must to learn to swim as soon as possible! So both Logan and Landon had swimming lessons with Miss Elane...an old friend of the Thigpen family! They loved it! Logan can now swim laps in the pool and Landon can jump off the diving board and swim to the side! Poor Levi was not old enough and very sad...so luckily a friend let him come and play at their house during the lessons!
4th OF JULY
This year we spent the 4th with Gramma Jeanne, Poppies, Cousin Drew, the Crawfords, and the Moores! We had a great time and drove down to Patagonia for Fireworks....we had seats right under them!