Holidays, Haiti and other things

Well again, it's been a while but sometimes the long breaks in between give me more things to write about (:
So the holidays went well for me, I was blessed to be able to drive up with a staff family here from TMI who goes up to Minnesota every other Christmas to visit family. Sometimes they go up through Illinois and other times they go right through Indianapolis but it pretty much takes the same amount of time. I was able to ride in the van along with them up to Indianapolis and even helped drive so they could rest. We made a few stops, the first being at Blair's parents house in Gainesville, FL and spent the night there. Headed on to Atlanta, GA from there to a former team member of the Hames' and spent the night there as well. We made it up to Indianapolis sometime Sunday afternoon where we parted ways, they on up the road to Rockford, IL and I to my cousin's house. I spent the next few days with him, as we only really have seen each other at holidays our whole lives. I went
"home home" on Christmas Eve and man the weather was nasty with sleet. It was good to see my family again as it had been 9 months since I had! My sister and brother in law from Boston were snowed out in the Northeast so they ended up driving all the way to Indiana and so the whole family was home for Christmas. Did a couple other family gatherings and spent a few days with my brother in law and sister, including New Years which we spent most the night doing multiplayer games on their friends Nintendo Wii. I'm sure there's some video footage floating around YouTube where I look ridiculous dancing. (: They also blessed me with a plane ticket home so that I could stay longer, otherwise I would have had to leave early back with the Hames who were driving back. The ironic thing is, when I flew back I chose to go through Baltimore because I hadn't been to that airport before. Well, this was also the first time I flew with Southwest. Have you ever seen those commercials for them how the workers are all like "We love you bags! Bye bags!" Well it's not true haha...they lost mine and a bunch of other people's bags; my guess while they were in Baltimore because some people connecting from Buffalo had theirs lost as well. Ah well, I'll probably give them another shot. I joked with Paul Kostner (a fellow staffer) that at least I didn't pay Southwest to lose my bags! haha

After returning back to Florida (A VERY cold Florida I might add, and I do mean below freezing cold on a consistent basis) I was going to be moving into my new housing, at least for the next two months as I finish out my internship. Many of you may have known from before that my previous house was only temporary as the one I am in now was having some major rebuilding done to it. Well the "temporary" was a whole 9 months but oh well haha. I went without heat my first two nights there but a lot of houses had heating issues because they hadn't been used in so long! I'm still in the process of moving all my stuff over... I was blessed to get a washer and dryer from some staff who are moving to Australia for a very very good price and now I'm just praying for a microwave hahaha. Anyhow, the Lord is taking care of my needs and I'm making it. In fact, my back has been bothering me lately so I have arranged for a chiropractor appointment tomorrow which I'm hoping will clear things up. Just praying they don't find anything seriously wrong with me that I would have to keep coming back. It is for a good price though because I'm with Teen Missions. Praising God for this.

Lastly, as I'm sure you all know because it's all over the news, Haiti was struck by a 7.2 on the Richter scale earthquake and the city of Port Au Prince was pretty much leveled. This was only about an hour's drive from where I was this past summer (20 minutes if you had American roads and cars) but I just found out my friends are okay. I am so grieved by this but trusting the Lord that good will come from it and that it will be an opportunity for the Gospel to be spread. Please keep praying for the families in Haiti. It was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and now hundreds of thousands are without a place to live or don't know where their family and friends are. Thank you so much for your prayers, God is good all the time, even when we don't understand!

Until next time,

Danny
Jer. 29:11