"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"
 

Just for a moment, try to imagine thousands of small villages, scattered throughout valleys, covering hillsides, and dotting ridgetops for as far as you can see every direction. Some are full of Muslims and feature a prominent mosque towering above the houses and the trees. Others are home to Tibetan Buddhist people and colorful prayer flags wave and flap in the wind on poles jutting up from every rooftop. Even more villages are home to ancestor-worshiping Chinese peasants, and the most prominent feature in the village is a bright red flag with yellow stars flying high above the local school house: the perpetual sign of the ever-present Chinese Communist Party.
 
None of the afore-mentioned villages look exactly alike, yet all have one thing in common: they do not celebrate Christmas. The lack of holiday festivity is not because they are "grinches" who hate to have fun, nor due to poverty or an inability to buy proper gifts for the children. The principal reason they do not celebrate Christmas is because they know nothing about true Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ!
 
The vast majority of the people in northwest China have never heard anything true about Jesus (just as most of us couldn't speak coherently for more than thirty seconds about any of the other major religions of the world). That is why we are giving our lives for the sake of the Gospel in this unreached place, that they might not just "have Christmas" but know and love and worship the Christ whose birth we celebrate!
 
We are so blessed to get to enjoy this Christmas here in America with our family! However, our hearts really do ache to return home to China as soon as possible to continue sharing the Gospel with so many of our friends and neighbors who do not know Jesus!
 
To those who are supporting us with your prayers and finances we thank you so very much. Please join us in giving God glory for the "indescribable" gift of His Son this Christmas, and pray that the Lord speed up our return* to China in the coming new year!

 
Merry Christmas!