Hi Everyone!

It is soooo good to be writing this e-mail from HOME once again...yeah! We arrived back in Swaziland early evening yesterday. We were greeted at once by our journeyman girls, Julia and Kimber, who live next door. They helped us unpack the truck and get settled back into the house. We have spent the day resting, unpacking, doing laundry and going to the grocery store to re-stock the pantry. While we were gone, our main breaker tripped (normal around here!) and we lost everything in our fridge/freezer, including our Christmas turkey. Luckily, we were planning on being gone for our team's retreat to Kruger for a few days so Monica had been not buying much. We have lost the contents our fridge enough times to know not to keep it full when we plan on being out of town for a few days. The grocery store was fully stocked (rare to get everything you need on one trip!) so we are back in business again with plenty of food and things to make some holiday goodies. Mission team family, we have a turkey and ham still so no worries! :)

Monica saw the doctor yesterday morning in Johannesburg and although he really did not want us to return to Swaziland, we promised him we would return to Johannesubrg for good if anything else should happen with Monica and baby. Steve and Lacie were able to come into the visit with Monica to watch the scan of the baby, too. It was really cute to see Lacie watching her little brother on the screen.

Baby Boy Allen is doing great and now weighs a little over 1kg, even though Monica is still suffering from nausea on most days. The doctor has put Monica on bed rest and told her to limit her activities, which will be a challenge with Lacie in our house! :) Praise the Lord we have had several friends offer to help us with watching Lacie or anything else. Of course, Steven has been wonderful, as always, and doing his best to keep Lacie active on different activities. We are all thrilled to be home again!

The plan now is to return to Johannesburg on January 16 for another check on the morning of January 17. In addition, we will also get to do a 3-D scan following the doctor's appointment. At this time, too, the doctor will decide when he wants Monica back in Johannesburg to wait until the baby's delivery, probably sometime mid to late February. Looks like we are planning a delivery around the beginning of March but we will keep everyone posted.

Thank you for all your prayers, support and love! We thoroughly enjoyed getting to talk to immediate family and any communication with many of you during our time in Johannesburg. What a blessing to have so many people supporting our family!

We pray each one of you have a most blessed and wonderful Christmas! Our plan is to be with several ex-pat friends on Christmas Eve for dinner at a friend's house not too far from ours. On Christmas Day, we originally were going to host our mission team family's lunch but the girls are going to do it for us next door. We are wanting to attend a church service on Christmas morning at a nearby church in town. It will be a rare experience to hear a service in English. Our team will gather for Christmas lunch and we all bring different items. We plan to be home Christmas evening to rest and enjoy time as a family.

If anyone wants to reach us on Christmas or Christmas Eve, here are our phone numbers...these really do work! :)

Home - 011-268-404-8520

Steve cell - 011-268-648-4739

Monica cell - 011-268-633-3189

Thanks again for your prayers and support! Continue to pray for our family during the next few months. We will do our best to write more often and update you as possible. Monica jokes that perhaps we might now be able to get caught up on e-mails and other computer business so hopefully, we will do better at writing.

We love you all!

Steven, Monica, Lacie and Baby Boy Allen