Christmas: Refugee style

Well even though the Refuge is a "young" church we already have our own Christmas traditions.

One would be our Christmas program.

This year the roles were played by: Zoe, Gab, Christian, Dawn, Isaac, Joy, and Rachel!

We'll do anything to see Dawn dress up! :)

Joy wasn't very happy to play Marry. And Isaac was a very distracted Joseph.

The Lees and Jess signed a couple of songs. Isaac really stole the show!

Another tradition would be going to the Christmas Eve service at Willow Creek!

Our traditional see how many people you can pile on the couch picture! (I think we missed our see how many people can squish in the bathroom picture this year...)

Are we excited??? :)

What a fun group!

These cool lights everyone thought were to be used to shine in other people's eyes...

Another part of the Willow tradition is to leave notes at Lauren and Wolfgang's house! This year we did a little decoration with lights too! (Light was the theme of the service.)

Christmas Eve was celebrated with a Candle Light service at the Refuge.

Fire hazard?

Cuteness award!!!

Merry (late) Christmas!

Matthew 1:22-23

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said to the prophet: The virgin will be with child and give birth to a Son and they will call Him Immanuel which means God with us.

Christmas time is here... :)

Last week it was time to begin decorating for Christmas at the Refuge!

We got all of the decorations out...

...and put them up all around the church!

It is always an exciting time of year (at least for me!) to work together with others to make the place look so pretty!

And it is also a good reminder of the seasons not being about us...

...but about sharing the joy with others!
Alright this is a short post. But that is what you get when the photographer helps decorate! Besides that means that you will have to come to the Refuge to see what it looks like in person! :D

A beautiful fall day. Perfect for a walk!

Here it is November and we still had gorgeous weather! So why not take advantage of it and go for a walk?

Rachel had sustenance! (M&Ms :P)

And when that ran out she found some corn! Nummy, Nummy!

She actually tried it! :O

Mrs. Hemmer had fun trying to figure out the game that Lauren and Wolfgang brought.

She was determined to figure it out and she spent nearly an hour with it! Talk about determination!

Summit joined us! She ran the entire time!

She also found out that she loves Dandelions! She kept running and pouncing on them!

Pretty as a picture!

We took our walk into the woods and went to the creek.

I heard it was really cold!

But everyone enjoyed it because it was a really warm day!

Everybody joined in on the fun whether they were in the water or just watching!

Great explorers!

After that we were all 'Dog Tired'. :)

Snow!

Sunday afternoon we saw our first snow of the year! Although it wasn't quite like snow and it wasn't hail but it was some where in between.

I think we were all thinking (or at least I was) that it really cool to have snow but it was just way to early in the year!

We were all freezing!

You might be wondering why we were nuts enough to be out in this cold. The reason was that a giant tree had just fallen down and we all wanted to see it.

Some of us were trying to remove it...

Alright the tree wouldn't budge for them but thankfully Jason had his truck there! Hurray for Big Louie!

The Refuge Tree Service?

Personally I wouldn't want to see those two with a running chain saw! ;)

Along with the snow came another celebration this Sunday.
Jordan got a new puppy this week! Her name is Summit (I hope I spelled that right!)
Sorry no pictures with the proud Poppa but isn't she cute?

A visitor from Germany

For the last couple weeks Kathrin was visiting Wolfgang and Lauren from Germany.

She has such a fun personality. The Refugees were blessed to join Lauren and Wolfgang in enjoying her company! We all had so much fun with her but alas the time of her visit flew by far to quickly!

Asian Invasion

Along with the gorgeous warm weather that we have been having comes the Asians Beetles!

Last Saturday at the campground Mark went to check on the church and this is what he found! :p

Yes all of those little black dots are beetles! Just what you want your little kids crawling on! Right?
On the stage. I'm glad my flute wasn't up there!
They loved the windows because of the light! Ew!

A big thank you to everyone who worked so hard to get the building cleaned up before church!

Saying Good-bye

As the weather gets cooler when fall comes so does the time to say good bye to the work campers at Mendota Hills.

Recently we all went to Lauren and Wolfgang's site to show our appreciation to Dave and Orla.

Since we Refugees can't do anything without having food involved we had ice cream sundays.

Everyone brought their favorite toppings (potluck style ;)

Dave and Orla are so special to so many people that we had quite the crowd!

Feed me Mom!

Someone brought this game that is very similar to bean bags. The difference is that you play with disks and try to aim them into several different holes.

Loyal fans...

I was pleasantly pleased with this picture because if you look close you can see the disk just leaving Zeb's hand!
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We are sure are going to miss them while they are gone! Not only for the fabulous job that they do at the campground but also for the wonderful gift of friendship that they have given to each of us!
We hope that they know...
...how much they are loved by all of us!