Thanksgiving with the Hollingsworths

It has been a huge blessing to be so close to my family over these holidays, even though we miss our church family at Bethel Grace terribly. I enjoyed being around my mom over Thanksgiving and learning the tricks of the trade (a.k.a. how to make the renowned Hollingsworth family stuffing). We were a big group and had so much fun! I am so thankful for the family God has blessed me with!

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went in search of a Christmas Tree. It’s the first time I’ve been to a Christmas Tree farm (that I can remember, at least). Despite the fact that we didn’t get to actually chop the tree down ourselves, we had a blast! We looked through rows and rows of trees until we found the perfect one – our little “frazier.” No, we didn’t name the tree based on the T.V. series, it actually is a type of pine with really cool needle shape and color. I think the pictures will do better at explaining what it looks like.

On Monday, I spent the morning decorating the tree to the sound of some good Christmas music. I think this is the earliest we’ve ever gotten or decorated a tree.

There will be more to come as Christmas is approaching (I’m hoping for a white one). Thank you for taking time to share in a little of the family fun from this weekend.

For more pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend click here.

~Heather

God’s glory in fall colors

I am always amazed at the creativity and the beauty found in God’s creation. Everywhere we’ve lived there are priceless examples of God’s Glory in creation. I love soaking it all in and marveling at His use of color, texture, forms, etc. I will never cease to be in awe of our Creator.

This fall we got to enjoy the display of God’s Glory in the fall colors of Lancaster, PA. I don’t have to say anything more. When you see these pictures, marvel at your Creator and thank him for His wondrous works!

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20

“When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” Psalm 19:1

I’ll leave you with lyrics to a great song by Keith and Kristyn Getty called “Don’t Let Me Lose My Wonder”:

I’ve seen days melt into nights in circles of lights,
I’ve watched a spider spin a star between the window box flowers,
I’ve heard you laugh and cry in a single sigh,
And a story form within.

Don’t let me lose my wonder,
Don’t let me lose my wonder.

I saw her broken dreams inside but helping others fly,
I saw his eyes without a doubt though other lights faded out,
And though her calling roared,such graciousness poured
From the vision of her soul.

A baby cried through the dark beneath a jeweled spark,
I knew Your voice upon the hill and heard my lostness still,
I found my home in the light where wrong was made right
And You rose as the morning star.

For more fall colors pictures click here.

~ Heather

Church home in Pennsylvania

Lord willing, Crossway Church (a member of the Sovereign Grace family of churches) will be our home for the season we’re here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We’ve been blessed by the preaching, the worship, and the fellowship. Our good friends, Rob and Kendra Bigley are Crossway members, and we’ve been blown away by the warmth and sincerity of others in the church that we’re only just getting to know. We start the membership class this Sunday.

Living Hope Church, Pretoria, South Africa

Living Hope is a church-plant in Pretoria, South Africa. Josh Mack is the pastor, and Grace Fellowship, in eastern Pretoria, is the “mother-church”. Lord willing, we’ll be calling this little church ”home” in a little over a year… : )

On being a Kindergarten teacher…

Hi, this is Heather again. I have to keep this brief for now because I have lesson plans to write (one of the many joys of being a teacher).

For those of you who don’t know, this year I am a Kindergarten Spanish Dual Immersion teacher in Pennsylvania. God is so good to have provided me with my dream job this year.  There are so many joys and challenges to the job that I could’ve never anticipated.

The first 2 days felt more like subing than anything else, but these students are mine for the whole year! I’m so thankful that I have a whole year to invest in their lives and to develop my classroom management. I’ve learned so much these first 2 days that it’s hard to put in words… Let me start by saying that being a teacher is an incredible JOY!!  To see their faces each day, eager to learn and to hear parents telling me their kids were singing the song we learned yesterday in class to them… such a blessing! Every little success is a huge stepping stone for this age.

So far my students have learned our “Buenos Dias” song and a few words like “silencio,” “pintar,” “maestra,” “Yo me llamo,” “linea,” and more! They are so excited about learning Spanish, although every once and a while one of them will ask me, ” why can’t you just tell me what you’re saying?” I know they will be learning and growing so much this year, as will I. I’ve already learned so much about repetition, keeping the kids constantly moving (or they fall asleep), and the importance of establishing solid routines from the very beginning.

I love the staff at my school and the principal. They’ve all been a huge support and encouragement. I look forward to all that God will teach me and grow me this next year. I’m sure you’ll be hearing many stories from my classroom this year. I’ll leave you with this quote from one of my students. During Music class, the teacher asked them what they liked most about class that day. He said, “I like busting out my moves!” *Priceless…

My Classroom

Hey everyone!  I’ll update you soon on my job, but first, here are some of the promised pictures of my classroom.

 

Calendar Time – A Kindergarten classic

 

Play Center – The kids can’t wait for this one to be “open”

 

Reading Center, Computer, and TV – All essentials.

If you’d like to see more pics, just click here.

Pennsylvania Road Trip Pics

We just uploaded our road trip pics to our Picassa album. Almost all of them were taken from inside our moving van while driving, and most of the pictures of the 2 of us were “arm-out-in-front-of-you-self-taken”… All that to say that they’re not exactly “calendar quality”, but they still give an overview of our trip and will serve us well as memories. Here are a few of them:

 

And here are a few more pictures of friends we got to spend time with on our trip:

With Pat Howell, a long time family friend – Little Rock, Arkansas

And Elisabeth Howell - Little Rock, Arkansas

With Ryan Paige and Zach and Alex Hoffman – Nashville, Tennessee

With Jeff and Courtney Mixon - Louisville, Kentucky 

This trip was a great experience, a great time together, and a great time with friends. We’re blessed! : )

For an overview of the trip and pics of the other friends we saw on the trip (except Christen Paige, who we forgot to get a pic with! ), click here. If you want to wade through the rest of our pictures (even after deleting a bunch, there’s a lot of them!), you’re welcome to. You can find them here.

Blessings…

Donovan and Heather

Road Trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Well, we’re safe and sound in Lancaster, Pennsylvania!

It was a good trip! The days were long, but we enjoyed ourselves. To help pass the long hours on the road, we listened to the Chronicles of Narnia on audio book and kept a look-out for different state license plates (we saw 42 states in total! ).  We really enjoyed seeing the country… The road from Arizona to New Mexico is gorgeous! Filled with amazing rock formations and landscapes. And everything from Arkansas on was incredibly lush and green and treed – many of these states are far more beautiful than I would have thought! We saw deer a few times and a tortoise once (actually, I very nearly smushed it!). The biggest blessing of all though was the opportunity to visit with several dear friends. God was very gracious to us!

We’ve been very busy since arriving in Lancaster. We got new phones (Pat has our new numbers), and have been looking for an apartment (mostly), a new bank, and a car. We put in an application on an apartment this morning… : )  Heather has very much enjoyed her induction and training this week, and is excited to be working in this school district. We’re busy, but blessed!

Chris and Jessica Herring - Surprise, Arizona

 

Heather’s “Black Mama”, Cooky, and family – Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

Dave and Stacey Hare – Louisville, Kentucky

(If you think of it, please pray for them – they hope to finalize their adoption and bring their adopted son and daughter home from Ethiopia in the next couple months)

Okay, that’s enough pictures for now. We’ll post them all on-line at some point and let you know so you can see them if you’d like to. I’ll write a little more next week…

Blessings to you!

~ Donovan and Heather

P.S.: Did I mention that we saw Billy Graham in Nashville?

 

Our Engagement Story

We were engaged on Saturday, January 26, 2008. This is Heather’s ”Reader’s Digest” version of our engagement story:

“I (Heather) went to Pennsylvania to visit my family and Donovan planned to visit a few days later. He arrived in Pennsylvania Saturday morning and promptly met with my dad for breakfast to ask him an important question (I wonder what?). After lunch, we decided to take a walk around Lititz, which is a cute little colonial town near Lancaster where my parents live. My siblings and parents suddenly had lots of things to do and couldn’t go along for the walk (highly suspicious).

We walked around the park in Lititz for a while and the chocolate factory and grabbed some coffee at a nearby shop. Then he wanted to throw more snowballs down my back so we went to the park again…

Now, at this point I need to take a break and tell you about a dream I had while I was in Peru, most likely induced by the Malaria pills I was having to take. I dreamt that Herci had helped Donovan design an engagement ring with this huge yellow stone with 3 tiny little pearl-looking things in the middle and a scrunchy band. In the dream I still said yes, but I was definitely a little disappointed about this ring. In my dream I complained about it to Herci, not realizing she had designed it! I told Donovan about all this over the phone and we laughed about it together…

Now we’re back to Saturday, January 26, in Lititz, at the park… Donovan got down on one knee in the snow and told me he had a gift for me and pretended like he was going to pick up another snowball to throw at me. But I was a little suspicious, especially since he was mysteriously on one knee. I said “no you’re not doing this!” He then told me that he loves me like he loves nobody else and he told me “Te Amo” for the first time (which, for those of you who don’t know, is another word for “I love you” in Spanish that is usually only used for a lover). He asked me to marry him and told me he wants to spend the rest of his life serving and worshipping God together with me… AMAZING! Of course I said YES!!

Then out came the yellow ring and I laughed so hard… It looks just like the one in my dream… The box says:
 

Herci
Designer Jewelry

“The ring of your dreams”

He put the huge-ugly ring on my finger and stood up. After playing along with it for a while he got back down on his knee and asked me if I wanted to see the real ring and I answered with a pretty blunt “Yes!” It is a beautiful setting with 2 blue sapphires on the side of a central diamond, symbolizing us and God in the center. The inscription on the band is “MASIMDUMISENE,” which in Zulu means, “Come, let us worship Him together”. Perfect! Anyways, to say the least I’ve been smiling from ear to ear since Saturday…”

 

So, that’s Heather’s account… Here’s a little of Donovan’s thinking behind it all:

I’d made a point of never telling Heather “te amo” before… I wanted to only say it when it was evident I wasn’t saying it flippantly, and that I was committing to love her in that way for life… The phrase “I love you like I love nobody else” came from a lot of thought about how I could strive to show others I love them and love them very much (and I think telling people so is important), while still making it clear to my bride that my love for others was different and did not compete with my love for her in any way. Heather and I talked about this a while back and I asked her if she thought that little phrase would be one helpful way of conveying that to my wife… Again, I held out on actually saying it to her until I knew it would be clear that I was not saying it lightly…

And a little about the inscription: By “worship together” I mean a life of loving, enjoying, and glorifying God in absolutely everything together, savoring and declaring His “worth” in all things… Of course that includes ministry and service, seeking to be used by the Lord as much as possible, but it also includes enjoying laughter and beauty and good food and so on together, always mindful of and thankful to Him who was creative and gracious and good in making it all and showering us with these gifts… It means keeping Him central in everything. It means seeing each other as gifts from His hand, and enjoying the Giver as we enjoy the gift…

“All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
       How vast is the sum of them!

 Were I to count them,
       they would outnumber the grains of sand.
       When I awake,
       I am still with you.”

~ Psalm 139:16b-18 

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

~ James 1:17