In exactly two weeks Greg and I will be leading our youth group in participating in 30 Hour Famine!

During the 30 Hour Famine, our youth group will NOT EAT for 30 hours.  Why?  Because every day nearly 8,000 children under age 5 die because of hunger-related causes - that's one child every 10 seconds.  We are NOT okay with this and we will NOT stand by while children die from lack of food, but the good news is that we can do something about it!

Beginning after lunch on Friday, March 11 the youth, Greg, and I will fast for 30 hours to raise awareness and money for those dying of starvation in Mali.  During the 30 Hour Famine event we will experience a small taste of what it's like to feel hungry, learn more about world hunger, the needs of Mali, and participate in service projects at our church.  (For more details please visit the official 30 Hour Famine website.)

30 Hour Famine is our chance to do something about world hunger.  Our youth group has come together and set a group goal of raising $3,000 – that's enough money to feed and care for 100 children for a month.  Would you consider sponsoring me for $1, $2, or even $5 for every hour that I fast?  Every $30 that you give is one month a Malian child will be provided with food and care – isn't that amazing?!?  You can give safely and easily online by visiting the LIALC Youth 30 Hour Famine Fundraising Page.  All financial proceeds will go directly to World Vision to feed the hungry in Mali, and your gift is tax deductible.

Thank you so much for partnering with us in raising money for starving Malian children!

Even amidst hard times, we are so grateful for our family and the gift of laughter.  Christian and Abbie make Greg and I laugh everyday!  After bath time Abbie has started a new ritual of ticking herself - enjoy! :)

Our church and our family are going through some hard times right now.

Greg and I serve in a Chinese American church – practically speaking this means there is a Chinese congregation (primarily either older folks or newly immigrated people) and there is an English congregation (primarily younger individuals who have grown up in America).  The Chinese congregation has been without a pastor for several years, and last Sunday the majority of our church members voted for our English Pastor to no longer serve at our church.  Because of this decision, a number of the English congregation members are leaving our church.

Greg and I are sad, scared, angry, and just confused.  We were so excited when we came to LIALC three shorts months ago.  We were full of hope about our potential ministry here, and now are struggling with how to deal with this.

Please pray for us to have wisdom, direction, and peace.  Please pray for our church and the leadership.  Please pray for our youth group.  Please pray for God to guide us during these hard times.

To celebrate Abbie's 2nd birthday we had a penguin themed birthday party!  Abbie has been obsessed with penguins since her first birthday when we went to the aquarium.  PopPop and Grandma bought her a stuffed penguin, and she LOVES it!  She sleeps with "Pengi" every night and carries him around with her almost constantly.  She can spot penguins a mile away in stores, and requests to watch "Happy Feet" or "March of the Penguins" almost every day.  So we knew a penguin party was the perfect theme for our little penguin lover!

Below is the invitation we sent out (without some identifying information).  We invited 5 of her little girlfriends from church over to our home, and Abbie had a fabulous time with them!

We decorated our living room with 3D snowflakes, blue/black/white/orange balloons, and penguins!

We had three activities for the little girls.  First they made penguin crafts - they made little penguin stick puppets and colored penguin pictures.

Our second activity was reading penguin story books.

And our final activity was a penguin hunt.  All over our home were little, paper penguins the little girls had to find.  (It was basically an Easter egg hunt only with penguins instead of eggs. :)

For lunch we ate fish sticks, goldfish crackers, baby carrots, and blue jell-o jiggler "ice" cubes.  We served the food in silver buckets, just like zoo keepers use to feed penguins at the zoo.  At the end of the party each little girl took home a tiny, silver bucket with bubbles, balls, penguin cookies, stickers, and a little homemade penguin coloring book.

For dessert I made penguin cupcakes and cookies.

Abbie enjoyed having everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to her!

Blow #1

Blow #2

Hooray!

After the guests departed, Abbie took a long nap and then we opened presents!  Among many wonderful gifts, she got new baby clothes for her dollies from PopPop and Grandma and a penguin backpack from Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa.

Abbie officially turned 2 on February 3 - Chinese New Year! :)  Today at church she wore a little Qipao, brought her Chinese New Year stuffed rabbit, and I put her hair in traditional Chinese knots - she was too cute!  Zhongguo gongzhu shengri kuaile!  (Happy Birthday Chinese Princess!)

It's been a wonderful year seeing Abbie change so much! :)  Below are the pages I added to her scrapbook to remember this past year.  (It only took me three nights to complete these 14 scrapbook pages - see Rachel's Scrapbooking Plan for more details - you can do it too! :)

This month Christian Audio is offering a free download of Adopted for Life available during the month of February!  Please take the time to download this free audio book to your iPod or computer and listen to it when you get a chance - you won't regret it! :)

Adopted for Life is a fabulous book about adoption!  It's a great book to read if you're interested in adoption yourself or have a friend or family member who is planning to adopt.  I wrote a short book review about it on Rachel's Reflections.

Go to the below link to download the book (complete with easy to follow instructions):  http://christianaudio.com/free