CHRISTMAS EVE

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas! It indeed is a day to be thankful and most importantly joyful, that our loving God sent His Son to be with us on this blessed day!


We spent Christmas Eve with our neighborhood friends enjoying pazole, tamales, flan, and punch. It was a good night full of laughing, talking, eating and taking lots of pictures.


These are our friends, the Mora family...


and the other friends we spent Christmas Eve with was the Corona family.

And here we are, all the Havens, in front of the Christmas tree in ...yes...Disneyland! On Friday we flew down to LA to see Jessica. Saturday we went as a family to Disneyland...something we hadn't done in 10 or so years. Beautiful warm weather...not too crowded...it was a great time! (Space Mountain is a family favorite). Being together with Jon and Jessica was the best present we could have asked for! We flew back on Christmas Eve morning.

Bethlehem

On Monday, the 10th, the High School group took a bus load of FD kids to Santa Clara to a live nativity scene that a church was putting on. Below the exciting and loud bus ride along with a full complement of Camp MayMac songs!


Each high school student was responsible for one or two kids and they stayed together as they went around the place.

The church basically re-created what it may have been like in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. They built a small town in their parking lot complete with Roman soldiers controlling the crowd, booths that displayed perfume, woodworking, woolmaking, wine tasting (non-alcoholic), mud stone making, food samples, etc. Lots of people dressed up and there were lots of animals including a real camel that the wise men came in on!

Though of course some of the nativity scene was not accurate, it still told the message of Jesus' humble beginnings. I started walking around with some of the kids then I sort of stood off to the side and people watched. A feeling of actually getting a taste of what it was really like to be there during the Savior's birth came over me. There were the smells of fires, animals, and perfumes that pervaded the air. It was crowded as if everybody was there for the census. There were the shouts of the Roman soldiers keeping people in line. There were the faces of the people trying to see what was going on in this small town, especially once they heard from the shepherds what they saw out in their fields. Everyone went over to where the baby Jesus was born to see what this was all about.

2000 years later we still are doing the same thing.

Iglesia Libre Concert

This past Saturday, our Hispanic Church, Iglesia Libre sponsored a concert at the church. They had this group come and the main singer used to be a very familar and popular singer in Mexico. He since has become a Christian and dedicates his music to Him. Below is a picture of him. He reminded me of Carlos Santana except was he playing bass!





We took a handful of girls with us to see the concert. Handful is a very accurate description of this group! Spunky group!

But is was fun and the music was very good though I understood very little of it!

Dinner at Neighbors

On Monday night the 2nd of December, we were invited next door to have dinner with our neighbors along with friends Holly and Betsy. We had a dinner of Chicken Pezole with Chips. It was very good! It was nice to sit down and talk with our neighbors. They had twins this past summer and they are truly adorable:

This is Anahi the oldest daughter who helps out quite a lot with the work load.

These are the other daughters, Angie and Sara, doing Betsy and Holly's hair. Yes, 5 kids that all are girls except one of the twins is a boy! (yes, the one in blue above!)

Dad came home a little later. We had a nice conversation in Spanish about work and what it is like to live with all those girls! It was great to spend time with them and get to know them a little better.

Thanksgiving on Saturday

Living here in the Farm Drive area we have obviously been doing a lot of different activities with the kids from the hood. Patty and I wanted to do something to involve the adults for once. So we came up with the idea of having some families over for a Thanksgiving meal. On Saturday we cooked up a bunch of traditional Thanksgiving food and had a few of our friends come over and help. Below was a team effort; peeling potatoes. The guy with the glasses is Ruben who cooked us 2 deep fried turkeys! They were delicious! Thank you Ruben!

We had orginally invited 3 families to join us and as the day went on and some of them could not make it, we just started inviting kids and told them to go home and invite their parents, siblings, basically whoever lives with them.

Below we are giving thanks (not everyone is in the picture...we had 46!) for the food we had to share with our neighborhood friends!


We had a buffet table set up in one of the downstairs rooms and used all 3 ovens/stoves at our disposal to cook a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, and rolls. Pretty nice having 3 complete kitchens! It would have been hard to do that out of one place with one stove! We ate outside on the tables.

We fed over 45 people! It was awesome time but a lot of hard work. One of the kids moms said she was very thankful for the meal and she had never had a meal like this in any neighborhood. This was very strange for her, sharing a meal together. Here's Patty and Cece enjoying some of Ruben's delicious chicken.

Friday Night

Our daughter, Jessica, was able to come home for Thanksgiving week. Friday night was her last night here before having to return to LA. She wanted to have a bunch of her friends over so we opened up the Center for the evening to allow both the neighborhood kids to play and Jessica's friends play and sit around the firepit. It was a fairly cold night, so the fire was nice to have around for people to keep warm.

We brought out the marshmellows, chocolate, graham crackers and the marshmellow sticks to do the favorite kid snack - s'mores. I guess it's a combination of eating all that sugar and the opportunity to burn something which makes this such a popular thing to do!

Add in a couple of games of Knockout and Jumprope, and that makes it a fun evening of bringing all these different people together.

Bible Club

Last week at Saturday Bible Club, Joe Brown, our new senior pastor came by with his family to help out. During free time he found a skateboard and was playing around. (an excellent boarder to be sure). The kids loved watching him do some amazing moves.

Game night

On saturday November 10, the Gathering college group challenged the Fellowship class to a game nite. Since we had to play table type games the Gathering lost for the second year in a row. We were hoping to play Dodgeball but for some reason they turned us down. We were hoping since it was the only game we stood a chance.

Capitola

Patty and I were able to get away for the weekend (November 2-4) to Capitola for our anniversary. Our anniversary was actually back in September but we have very seldom been able to celebrate on or near that date! We were able to get away for the weekend and stayed at this condo right on the beach. For those of you familiar with Capitola it's the front row of colored houses and it's the far one on the left. Beautiful! We stayed on the lower level and the owner lives upstairs. She has owned this place for nearly 50 years. It was an ok place (kinda rustic on the inside) but it opened right onto the beach which was what made it awesome!

It was a beautiful weekend weather-wise. It was in the 80's both days with no fog. One night we walked to the store, bought some groceries and then ate outside the beach house while watching the sunset. It doesn't get much better than that! Beautiful sunrises on both days and here is one of the many pictures we took right from our front porch!

Halloween

On Halloween we (along with some other young college age people) opened up the Center. We had lots of food, pizza, brownies, cookies and cake thanks to Stacy's aunt! A bunch of kids came early for the food and then went out into the night to score some candy. Let me rephrase that - scored a lot of candy!

Here we are out doling out the food. What a feast!

A few others did not go out trick or treating so we lit the fire pit and had smores, hot chocolate, dough boys and apple cider. A few of the trick or treaters came by and joined us for awhile. Hot chocolate is nice when you're out in the cold. Most of the kids left the neighborhood to go trick or treating so most did not come back but a few did.

Festival

On Sunday the 28th of October, Hillside Church put on a festival for kids that had jump houses, face painting, sail boat races, soap box derby races, and lots of food and candy. We walked with about 10 kids from FD over to the church. A bunch more showed up there with their parents which was cool. At the end they had a story time about David and Goliath. Here is a picture of Javier having some bounce house fun.

Maria getting serious about her face painting, err, I mean arm painting?

Reuben and Jose enjoying a lighter moment with Cubbie. Cubbie doesn't seem so sure about this.

A few other kids waiting in line for the jump house.

5.6 Earthquake

We had an earthquake last night in the South Bay. It meausred 5.6 on the Richter Scale and was centered in the Alum Rock area. It was the first earthquake I have felt since the Loma Prieta quake back in 1989. I was in a meeting at church and the first thing you think about after you realize it is an earthquake is how big is it going to be and should I do something. Everybody at the meeting went under the tables except me. I'm really cool so I didn't. (or stupid!). Then you wonder if you are near the epicenter or far away from a really big one.
When I got home I turned on the TV to see how big it was and where it was centered. On the news station people were sending in photos of the damage from their homes to the station and they were showing them on the air. I went to the website and tried to download some of them, but I was not able to. I just remember one picture of home office that had stuff all over the place. I was wondering if that was caused by the quake or the guy is just messy! "My desk is not messy, the quake did this!". So anyway here are the photos I was going to send in to the station:

On the air they said their were no injuries, but we had one. We lost a turtle. It is a really sad day at the Havens household.

This is a picture of Patty's knick knacks that fell of the wall. (yeah, yeah, you can all sing along, "knick knack, Patty whack, give the dog a bone!") These came from Africa.

Oh did I mention that the turtle is ceramic and fell off a pot in the window sill.

Random Thoughts 2

I came home the other night and a young girl we know was looking at a flyer and couldn't understand it. It was in Spanish and I asked her if she could read spanish and she said no. She is bilingual but learned to read only English in school. So I read it out loud in Spanish to her (the best I could!) and she translated it back to me in Spanish! I thought that was cool! (I actually understood the gist of the flyer.)

Later that evening I did one of the best parts of being an elder. A few of us went over to the house of an elderly couple to pray for them. They are dealing with some health issues and wanted the elders to come and pray for them. These moments are real special to be able to interecede for them before our Creator. We even brought communion and took it together. There is really something special to break bread together with some of God's faithful and longtime servants. These people had been through a lot but there was so much joy in their hearts for what God has done for them. And they still share God's love with the people they come in contact with! They were constantly smiling and laughing even though they were in such physical pain. I hope that I will be like that when I get older!

I work with college age students and I love their passion and enthusism to learn about God and learn what their role is in this world. Then to see seniors/older people who still have that passion and enthusism as they near the end of their journey and have learned what their role is, is awesome! The wife was asking why God still had her on this earth since all of her sisters have gone home. She must still have something to do.

On the way back home after that great experience, I was riding with a couple of elders who are in the retirement age of their life. They were talking how they have no plans to retire. Why would they stop working to sit at home and play golf at a reduced income? That would mean that their tithe would go down and they would rather keep working so that the things that God is doing can still be financed by them! All believers should think this way!

Random Thoughts

Patty hurt her back the other day and it is taking quite a while to heal. But being the slave driver I am, I made her go to the grocery store with me. (I believe excercise, moving around is better to heal a back rather than sitting and laying around doing nothing). On the way into the store we were stopped by a guy asking for a couple of bucks. I said I'm sorry all I have is a $10 will he take that instead? (I'm such a troublemaker). So I was interested in his story so I asked him. Boy, I couldn't get him to stop after that! His name was Joe and he had got laid off at a local car dealer. He was looking for more work, (using Craig's list!) but most jobs had tons of people applying for work. He said he got around with a monthy bus pass so he was able to do 2-3 job applications a day instead of more if he owned a car. He also uses a church in Los Gatos as his contact place. I found that interesting. He lives underneath hwy 280. I asked him if there was anything I could get him and he gave us a short grocery list. We went inside and purchased his list and ours and came out and gave him his groceries. He was very appreciative and said God bless you and asked if we'd pray for him to get a job. So please pray for Joe.

My thoughts were many after that exchange. As we drove away he hid the groceries under his coat so he could continue asking for money. Is this form of begging more productive than getting a job? Why don't more people stop to help out? If 10% of San Jose attends church on a regular basis that means there is about 95,00o people who could be helping the homeless and poor. Plus people who don't go to church that feel compelled to help those who are in need, are also helping. Shouldn't this problem be eliminated?

I remember years ago that I couldn't wait to move out of San Jose. I wanted to move to an area that was a lot cheaper to live. We always struggled to make ends meet. And it almost happened once about 12 years ago but it fell apart at the last minute. But now I don't want to move. I love the city of San Jose. God has really given me a passion for this place. My eyes are now beginning to see what God sees so why would I leave when there is so much to be done here? I feel compelled now to "invest" my (oops!) God's dollars here with the local economy. I frequent the farmer's market as much as possible. I frequent local retailers instead of the big corporate stores. (This is hard to do and not having much luck!). Patty and I went to a local theatre to see Guy's and Doll's instead of going to San Franscico. We have been looking for local resturants to go out to instead of going to the corporate types. We are here and we need to support and pray for here, the city of San Jose!

DOOF

On Saturday we took about 27 kids to Doof-A-Palooza, held at Google. Doof (food backwards) is a show bound for PBS. This was a food fair with many booths geared for kids to expose them to healthy foods. There were a lot of booths that had different things going on. For example, how to make spring rolls, how to make butter, how to make pies, pizza, etc. Below is a picture of Sarah Kompelien a friend and chef at Google, and some of the girls making pizza dough.

Joey Altman, who has his own tv show, Bay Cafe, (on Kron4 on Sundays) did food shows with the kids. You signed up and then at different times you go in and tape your show. Most all of our kids signed up and were able to be on Joey's show. Below is one group of our girls making a salad with Joey. This was recorded like a real segment and they all got DVD copies of their show. Joey did a great job with all of the kids.

This was my group of boys for the day.

One of the booths was to paint pumpkins. These are some of Patty's girls for the day.

Here is the entire group. All the kids had a great time. Some of the different comments on what they liked best was making pizza, doing the Joey Altman show and kicking the butter ball around. My group liked making the spring rolls. They made a special extra large one for me to eat that was along the lines of a Dos Manos burrito!

Going to Google was also quite an experience to expose the kids to. They were amazed at seeing a company like this and this day made for discussions about how to work in a company like Google. Staying in school and getting good grades. Then going to college and getting a degree that opens doors to work at a place like Google. There are opportunities that are available to them if they work at it and not make the same mistakes their parents made. All in all, it was a great day for kids and the leaders!

Cupcakes on a Friday afternoon

Yesterday, the kids didn't have school. I opened the Center and had kids here all afternoon. They played football, some of the guys took a bike ride with Robbie (newest Hillside couple, he and Stacy, to move into the neighborhood), some played pool and a bunch of girls came upstairs to our apt. because 2 of the older girls wanted to bake cupcakes. Here we are enjoying the cupcakes and the leftover frosting. Yum! It was a fun afternoon. I'm so glad we have a good, safe, fun, clean place for the kids to come to when school is out.

Spanish Parties are the Best!

A couple of weeks ago, I Patty, went to a birthday for 2 girls that go to KidTrek, our after school program. I have known both of them for several years. What fun we had! Several kids and I walked down the street to their apt. 1 1/2 hours late but true to form, we weren't late at all. This first picture is of me and some of the kids in the bounce house and yes, I was achy the next day from all the bouncing! They love it when I get in the bounce house with them.

Here I am enjoying one of my favorite parts of the hispanic culture...their delicious food! Homemade tacos are the best and these are 2 of my favorite little girls!

This last picture is of the first (yes they had 2) pinata at the end when the candy came out. It was raining candy. The kids loved this! This party went till somewhere around 1 in the morning. They had music, LOUD music, delicious food, (tacos, salad, cake and pesole (sp?) and lots of family and friends. They really know how to party and I was honored to be invited!

Yellowstone

One of my suppliers from work went to Yellowstone this past week and it snowed the whole time he was there. He went to go fishing but it was too cold from him to do much. It's amazing that it was cold and snowy there and about another 1000 miles east of there it was 89 degrees with a very high humidity. They had to cancel a marathon in Chicago because it was so hot and humid. So he sent a few of the pictures he took so I thought I would share them with you all.

One of the upsides to snowy weather (besides the beautiful white snowscapes) is that it brings the wildlife out. So enjoy.