how something that looks so soft and beautiful can be so cold and harsh! I think someone should figure out how to make Minnesota winters hover around 72 degrees with a slight breeze from the southwest.

Today marks our 741 day-versary!

We began ’08 in Lima, Peru and spent the first five months of the year traveling to the Andes Mountains, throughout the Amazon Jungle, and along the Pacific Coast. We taught classes, led meetings, learned customs and grew greatly.

In June we wrapped up our nine month trip to South America and spent June and July visiting churches in the States, attending a Grotzke family reunion out west, and taking a fishing trip to Canada with the Barringers. Seth also ran his first marathon with his dad (and is still recovering!).

We moved to Minneapolis in the beginning of August and began our Masters programs at Central Theological Seminary. September 1st was Seth’s first day as Assistant Pastor at Liberty Baptist Church of Eden Prairie. He finds great joy in his new ministry and loves sharing God’s Word with young and old alike. Crystal began working shortly thereafter as a Spanish-English Interpreter for medical, legal, and educational appointments. She has been able to use her Spanish in a variety of situations and continues to learn specialized vocabulary.

Our studies at Central have been both a blessing and a challenge. We have never read so many books! Crystal has profited greatly as she studies Biblical Counseling, and likewise Seth as he focuses on theology and biblical studies. We look forward to continuing our studies in January after a short break.

We pray that this Christmas will find you “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” (Titus 2:13).

We are done with finals for this semester! For some reason the relief isn’t nearly as great as I had imagined it would be. This may be so because of the large amount of reading and difficult paper that I still have yet to write.
The semester flew by! Crystal and I measured our weeks by the weekly trash day. We began counting how many trash days we had left until school was out (sad, I know, but you do anything to keep your hopes up). It seems like just yesterday we still had 4 Dump Days left, and today we are all done. I doubt we will count how many Rubbish Removals until we start school again, but I imagine that the days will move just as speedily.
We have learned quite a bit in the past few months. We have read thousands and thousands of pages, written many papers, sat through a plethora of classes, and heard countless lesson. My hope is that at least a small percentage of the good stuff will stick around long enough for me to use it!
Our ministry at Liberty Baptist Church has greatly facilitated our learning. God has used the church to challenge us and help us grow. We really enjoy the people, and I love hanging out with the teens (this is not to exclude the “teens” from the “people” group. Current debate is raging concerning the “peopleness” of teens. There are several studies going on as I write which hope to put the argument to rest, “are teens really people…” I prefer not to comment on this due to my job consisting of working with these, shall we say, “folk.”)
Well, I hope that the few of you out there reading this will have an enjoyable Christmas season. (and that if that lone Australian who has eyed this page reads this, “Good Day, Mate.”)

We weren’t sure who looked the best here…

somewhere else. You think that by now someone could have figured out how to get rid of this nasty thing that comes every year called “winter.” Would it really be that hard?

I just want to thank all of you out there who claim to love and care about us, and yet failed to mention anything concerning daylight savings time. Shame on you.