Thanksgiving trip

Hello friends! As you can imagine the reason I didn't post a blog last week was it was Thanksgiving! I traveled back to CT on Tuesday and stayed until Saturday am. We had a great Thanksgiving Eve service at Calvary on Wednesday night hearing stories of thanks and appreciation of what God had done in our many lives over the year.
Our family this holiday included my brothers family, his in-laws the Sarris's and our long time friends Jenny and Jonathan Nelson from Virginia, as well as friend Bill Robbins (who's missing from the picture).
We fit in a quick trip to the tree farm to cut a Christmas tree and then a quick run at the mall for a jolt of holiday craziness there! I flew home the next morning. Since it was Saturday and I arrived in CA early, I jumped on the Surfrider train up to San Luis Obispo to visit my boyfriend Michael and his family. Stayed through Monday to visit and attend his Bible study group and then headed home on Tuesday via the train. Somehow I picked up a cold while enjoying my time with family and friends (I guess the cost of such gatherings) and I'm slugging away at this cold so I'll be better for the holidays to come!
This week I've got a prayer request for you regarding one of my WI kids. She (who will remain nameless) is really struggling with a difficult home situation, not able to get a job and not having transportation. "Stuff at home is really hard and I don't think she's getting any encouragement for her faith. She says that things have just gotten worse since I left and she feels like she just can't please anyone. Please do pray for these students. I really miss them and I am grateful for such things as Facebook that keep me in contact with them fairly regularly.
On another topic that is similar, I've really been impressed with the girls in my youth group here. They are much much busier than my WI kids, but that just comes with the territory here in SoCal. What impressed me last night at youth group was how solid and serious they are in their faith. Not that they don't struggle and all, but they (my particular group of girls) really have a handle on what it means to stand up to peer pressure and to resist the daily onslaught of influences around them. They do have each other and we talked about the influence that good friends have on one another, but they have a strong sense of what is right and what pleases God. I pray that God will protect them from our enemy and the inevitable attacks that he will try to wage on them in the future. There are others in our group that are not so "lucky", who struggle just like my WI kids with difficult family situations and really hard lives. I do still love teens and am moved by their struggles. Please pray for this next generation, that they will be able to recognize the Truth and to fight off our enemy!
Thanks for checking in and thanks for your concern about what is going on in my life and ministries!