1. The Lord making Heaven more real to me
2. Sabbatical time in Montana
3. Seeing our adult children making good choices
4. Hosting the Art of Marriage at 3 churches
5. Being nominated and approved as a deacon of our church in Little Rock
6. Being given the privilege of focusing on strategic technology direction at FamilyLife
7. Watching my daughter tee off in front of former President Bush
8. CCCI US Staff Conference at Colorado State University with Francis Chan and David Platt
9. Getting to teach an adult class again for the first time in Little Rock
10. Watching a brother in Christ grow in absolutely remarkable ways
11. Seeing the impact that eMentoring is having in thousands of lives
12. Being a Scoutmaster and seeing the growth in the young men that are part of Troop 99
13. Dreaming about new types of digital content that I can help FamilyLife develop in the future

What were your highlights in 2011?

Judy Wall Elliott
‎*****I must let you know what an impact the new book had on my family on Sat Dec 3rd. Spent Saturday here in beautiful SC with my 6 kids and their families.*****
Read the BEST Christmas book to eleven of them: WHAT GOD WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS by Barbara Rainey. My 91 yr old Mother, with mild dementia, occasionally asks who I am, who normally sits quietly on the sidelines of activity, but appeared to be listening intently as I read to the children. She was so moved at the end of the story that she gave an impromptu lecture on the importance of having Jesus in your heart to the 10 of us at the table. – We were spellbound by her voice and the truths spilling from her, her words which never faltered or stumbled and continued at least 3-5 minutes! Amazing & Shocking to all of us, some of them had never heard her say but a few words!
This was a first for her in years…. it wasn’t her it was truly the Holy Spirit using her!!!…. O how blessed we all were and still stand amazed! This book is really inspiring and letting the kids open one of the 7 little boxes and hearing the Christmas story from the view of Gabriel, Joseph, Mary, the Shepherds, the wise men and the Box #7 – made us almost gasp…. !!!
I have sent this message to many of my friends, some things must be shared and this is one of those. THIS is a MUST HAVE for sharing with the family. We loved it. (Possibly only available through Family Life Today for this Christmas.) Thanks to Josh at FLT – overnighted it to me so I could have it for our party on Sat Dec 3rd. It is GREAT!!!

• The HFO team led the first international “If You Were Mine” adoption workshop for those exploring adoption
• HFO partnered with MPAK (Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea) to hold a thank you lunch and discussion for nearly 40 Pastors and their spouses already serving orphans through adoption and orphan ministry (adoption runs counter culture in Korea – these Pastors are truly stepping out in faith)
• Paul Pennington, Hope for Orphans Executive Director, was invited to preach on Orphan Sunday at the Onnuri Church, the largest English speaking church in Seoul.  The re-broadcast and webcast of this service will reach over 100,000 people! (link: http://onnurienglish.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-07T08_57_55-08_00)
• A highlight was the return of the Pennington children to their birth country.  A touching and tearful moment occurred when Noah Pennington reunited with his foster mother who lovingly cared for him as an infant for 18 months (vimeo.com/32288126 <http://www.vimeo.com/32288126>).  Returning adoptees spoke in powerful ways with nearly everyone we met.
• Paul’s daughter Elizabeth Golic also spoke about adopting Ben from Korea and their family’s journey of faith through Ben’s life and death earlier this year.

The HFO team is humbled and honored that God allowed them to serve on behalf of the orphan in Korea.  They truly believe that He is stirring and preparing the hearts of many Koreans to be the visible gospel in a significant way.

Click here to see a few of the highlights from the trip (works best on full screen mode): <http://www.photosnack.com/slideshows/f609e30b3a036b78934b6f8da2036743>

The Walkers gathering around the Thanksgiving table.

I love Thanksgiving. It truly is a great holiday with a great focus and less encroaching on it than many others. It is always good to be driven to give thanks for our blessings.

We had a wonderful weekend with my (Butch) side of the family. It was great to have everyone together, even for a day, as that is rare with adult children now.

I was reminded of how blessed I am to have a strong and godly family heritage. It is such a rare thing. But I was also reminded that I have the blessing of being surrounded by friends who pray for us and support us in doing the work we were created to do. Who could also for more than that?

We thank God for you!

We had a packed house with about 180 people, used all the available chairs.  Speakers did a great job, especially Jonathan who did the Power talk (gospel presentation).

65 want to get involved with HomeBuilders

67 want to volunteer for future events

29 indicated decisions for Christ!

79 prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit

75 recommitted their life and family to Christ

 

To God be the glory,

Jim & Judy

Hello there!

I am a missionary
serving here in Romania.  I have a wonderful group of young women from our
church that I am taking thru the “Life Ready Woman” course.
They all have a very good proficiency of English, but I’ve been previewing each
lesson to see if there are any “americanisms” or langugage-related
things that could help their understanding.

The reason(s) I’m
writing is (are) that I don’t know if you have any plans to someday have this
either translated into other languages (or subtitled in English, which “my
girls” say would help them immensely!).. but if you do, I would be more
than happy to pass along some of the things we’ve come up with that have been a
slight hindrance to understanding the concepts presented.

…the study has been VERY
well received and has been helpful for all!  We represent several
seasons of life: single, married with no children, married with
pre-schoolers – - most in their late 20′s/early 30′s… and then there’s
me:  old enough to be their mother and an empty nester! I LOVE this
age group!!!  And have met with some of the gals for 6 years now!
I’ve learned a LOT from them!

Serving Him with you,

Mary
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

We talk a lot about what is going on with FamilyLife in the United States, but our partners throughout the world are doing amazing things globally. Besides the good news I recently shared about Weekend to Remember in China, check out this prayer letter from one of our international FamilyLife directors about their recent experience doing the conferences in Cuba.

We began looking for an agency to help us and spoke to several. When we spoke to the folks at Dillon International in Tulsa we very quickly knew that we had found the right ones. Their heart of service and of love for our Lord Jesus came through loud and clear. They walked and prayed us through the journey of adopting our son and then, 2 years later, our daughter from Korea. We not only got the help we needed, we found some new lifelong friends.

2012 marks the 40th year of Dillon International serving the needs of adoptive families before, during and after their adoption. As November is National Adoption Awareness Month, it seemed like a good time to share. Soon, we hope to take a trip with these wonderful folks back to Korea with our 3 youngest children (the oldest 2 have already been) to visit our adopted kids’ homeland and possibly meet their birth parents. You can be praying about that as it is quite expensive to travel internationally.

Thank you Lord for Jerry and Deniese Dillon, their vision to serve you through adoption and all of the wonderful team that you have assembled to help make that vision a reality! We have been blessed.

If you know our family, you know of our heart for Korea because our family is now Korean/American. That’s why I was so excited to see this note from Paul Pennington, Director of Hope for Orphans, FamilyLife’s orphan awareness ministry. Gotta love the kid front and center in the picture, too! Kids are the same everywhere

Today HFO participated in our first ever Pastors Conference in Korea. It was a great day of testimonies and vision casting. We prayed that God will bring an awakening in the Korean church for the thousands of children waiting for a home.

In this picture, with our team, are all pastors associated with our partner MPACT along with their wives. I believe that  every single one of them is an adoptive parent in a culture where very few believers would even consider adoption. They are pioneers. They especially enjoyed the Q&A time with Ethan, Hope and Noah.

Thank you for praying for our team. Last evening we had a wonderful worship service at Onnuri church that none of us will ever forget. The Spirit was present in a powerful way. Tomorrow, we travel to Holt Korea and the orphanage that our grandson Benjamin came from. This work is a pioneer in making it possible for Koreans and we believe now US citizens with dual Korean citizenship (living in Korea) to adopt domestically at ZERO cost.

Blessings

Paul

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Long but engaging and comprehensive. This 4th edition covers the impact that the new world of social media has had on traditional CRM. It’s a brand new world and this does a good job of highlighting the reasons those of us in marketing or technology need to care.

View all my reviews