End of Year Wrap-Up

We've had a very busy last month in our house... hence the lack of blogging. So I am going to try and make up for it here!

For Thanksgiving this year, we headed down to Fulshear, TX to celebrate with the whole Beck clan. It was a great weekend full of Turkey Trotting, midnight Black Friday shopping ("Back of the line! Back of the line!"), outdoor movies in the hot tub, lots of games, and plenty of laughter.

Meme and Gabriella enjoyed the "art cart" together and created many Thanksgiving masterpieces much to Gabby's delight. Thanks Meme for being such a good grandmother for this creative girl!

Oliver cuddled right up to his sweet cousin McKinley - he loves babies. And she definitely loved him back!

We ran a Turkey Trot through my parent's neighborhood on Thanksgiving morning to burn a few calories before the afternoon feast. The kids joined in on the new power wheel that lives at the grandparent's house!

My sisters worked to have shirts made up that said Beck Family Turkey Trot 2011 and were very cute!

Even the non-participants got a shirt :)

My mom set a beautiful table and we all worked together to prepare a delicious feast!

The babies had to endure many photo shoots that weekend - of course including a bathtime shoot!

At the beginning of December, we got to celebrate a big birthday for Oliver - 6 years old! We definitely have a big boy on our hands and it is so fun to get to live life alongside of him watching him discover the world and helping him to understand more and more every day. We are so proud of who he is and see him growing and maturing everyday. What a joy it is to parent him!

I got to bring cupcakes up to Mrs. Robershaw's Kindergarten class on his actual birthday and we all enjoyed celebrating him there. He loves having us in the classroom and we love being there as much as we can. We are very thankful to have a school that is so welcoming to family visiting and appreciates parent involvement!

Oliver with Mrs. Robershaw... happily posing for pictures as usual :)

We hosted a wild and crazy Batman-themed party at our house to celebrate his birthday. We had many friends and family there and had a great extravaganza!

Oliver with both of his grandfathers.

All of the kids got to dress up as superheroes complete with capes and masks. We played games to ward off the "bad guys" (aka the daddies) with silly string and enjoyed ice cream sundaes - the birthday boy's favorite dessert.

Even the girls got dressed up. Little sisters love to follow in their big brother's footsteps.

Oliver also started his first ever sports team and had his first game the day after his birthday. He is on the Knicks basketball team and enjoys running around with other Kindergarten-aged boys trying to learn the rules to the game but mostly just enjoying the mass chaos that is sports with young kids. It is darling to watch and has been a great experience so far for our family.





Gabriella FINALLY got to perform in her first-ever Preschool Christmas Program. She has been waiting on this for two years and has dutifully acted out her big brother's program every year in anticipation of the day when she too would get to be up on the big stage. She performed every song and the actions required and made a darling addition to the Graham Cracker Express Christmas Program! She is so proud to be in the Oreos class and get to go to Spanish class, Library and do center time!

She loves playing with her friend Alyssa at school. Here is our little Christmas Tree and her friend Alyssa performing!

And I must mention our now eighteen month-old darling Melia (aka Scoot Row, Rosie, Mels Bells, Leet Squeet, or Squeeters). She is saying more and more words every day and even putting two words together into sentences of late. She is fiercely independent, enjoys emptying dresser drawers and begs for "bite, bites" all day long. We love her spunkyness and she is an adored member of our family. Here she is a bloomer hat and an underwear necklace!

Family Photo Shoot

My awesome friend Ann Marie was gracious enough to shoot some family pictures for us a few weeks ago. I'm thrilled with how they turned out! Thanks Ann Marie!

I love fall and the fall colors in the background make me happy. And the wonderful faces of my family make me even happier!

Matt's Trip to Colombia

Earlier this Fall, Matt was asked to join a team from our church traveling to South America to help share the gospel of Christ and be a part of a team that will be working to build church-based coalitions to work on social, economic and spiritual issues in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. We are so proud of our husband/father for his willingness to go and serve (and I was so thankful to have the help of my mom who stayed with us the week he was away)!

Here is a copy of the letter he sent out initially explaining his trip:

September 3, 2011

Dear friends and family,

Colombia, South America. What images does this country bring to your mind? Drugs, guns and politics? Soccer, salsa and Shakira? How about forty-five million people loved by God, many of whom have yet to learn of that love?

My pastor has invited me and one other person to participate in a strategic mission trip next month. We’ll be in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia, sharing the Gospel and exploring the possibility of planting a church there. The two of us are serving as scouts, not unlike Joshua and Caleb who were sent to bring back a report on the Promised Land!

This promises to be a very exciting opportunity to trust God. Our church is looking to become a church-planting church, and this is a way for me to play an important role during this transition. The trip is eight days long; we’ll leave Saturday, October 29, and return Saturday, November 5.

Having never been to South America, I’m excited to travel there. This may even justify that Spanish 101 class I took so many years ago (although I rather doubt it)! More than that, I’m thrilled for the opportunity to watch God at work. I am absolutely certain that if anything good is going to happen while I’m there, it’s because the Lord will accomplish it.

I know I will come away from this trip humbled by God’s power and love, as I see Him take my meager and imperfect efforts and turn them into glorious results. Lord willing, my experience in Colombia will encourage others in our church to engage in our future ministry in Barranquilla, as well.

I’m going to need your help in a couple of ways. First, will you begin praying for me right now? The Lord has a plan for this trip; I want to know and participate in His plan. Please also pray for my family while I’m away those eight days.

Second, I’ve been asked to raise my financial support for this trip. The total cost is $2,600. Would you consider joining my team? Make your tax-deductible checks out to “Trinity Bible Church” and mail them to me.

Thank you for your support, financial and otherwise, and I look forward to sharing what God has done when I return.

Thank you,

Matt Dillard

And here is a summary letter he wrote after retuning from his trip:

God is faithful. If my time in Colombia taught me nothing else, it taught me that God is faithful.

God is faithful. When I was first approached with the possibility of going on the trip, one of my first concerns was having enough vacation time. You see, Amanda and I have plans to visit Israel for two weeks in the spring, and we'd also hoped to spend one week together next summer on a vacation. When we worked the numbers, we discovered that I could go on this trip, and still have one day to spare.

God is faithful. A second concern about the trip was the extra strain on Amanda with me not around to help with our three young kids. Amanda's mother was able to stay for the week, and Amanda's sister Natalie, who just moved to Dallas, was a big help, too.

God is faithful. One of my chief concerns was raising $2700 of support for the trip. Oh, me of little faith. By the time I left, God had raised up for me $4040! This extra blessing spilled over to help cover the cost of another team member on the trip.

God is faithful. Yes, he is faithful to me. But he is also faithful to His people all over the world. In a dirt poor barrio called Mesolandia - where raw sewage runs through the streets and little children run barefoot through that sewage - there is a small coalition of four pastors who have joined together to tackle their neighborhood's ills. They are gaining confidence in their abilities to make a positive difference around them, particularly in the areas of health and security. I am excited to see how God works through them in the coming months and years.

God is faithful. In another barrio across the city, another group of pastors has come together to solve their neighborhood's economic poverty. They are starting a business to turn their trash into recyclable materials that can be sold for a profit. Lord willing, this will create up to 100 jobs in a community where unemployment rates approach 50%.

God is faithful. He took a nervous white American and used him as the foot in the door for sharing the good news about Jesus Christ with 40 people, most of whom prayed to accept God's gift of salvation through faith in His son. I was blessed with the opportunity to share the gospel myself, and then eventually to turn that part over to a member of the local church, so that she could be confident in doing it on her own after I left.

God is faithful. Despite all that God was doing around me, I woke up Thursday morning ready to come home. I missed my wife, I missed my kids, and I didn't feel like I had the energy to keep going. Before I knew it, it was 4:00 pm, and I realized that I was nearing the end of an incredibly rewarding day. Without me even noticing, the Lord had lifted my spirits and given me energy through the Holy Spirit. I am convinced that His power got me through that day, and I now look back on His faithfulness there as being one of the defining moments of the trip for me.

God is faithful. I came to see Colombia, to think about how my church might be involved there in the future. I came away with a much larger definition of church. It remains to be seen exactly what role Trinity Bible Church will play in Barranquilla, but it is clear that The Church there is growing.

I want to thank all of you for your support, whether through prayer or money. One fellow traveler told the members of a local church that whenever they see one American in Colombia, there are fifty more Americans back home praying for them. It was a great feeling to know that I had such support behind me.

My pastor is fond of saying that God never uses a tool without changing it in the process.

In this, too, God was faithful.

Matt meeting with some of the local pastors. Sitting next to him in the blue shirt is his translator David. The other man in the hat (and the American Eagle shirt) is another translator named Hansel who Matt really hit it off with!

This is the view from the third floor of the hotel that he stayed at while on the trip. It was also one of the only quiet places to get internet access. So I talked to him every evening while he sat here by the pool :)

Halloween 2011

Our Daddy was in Colombia over Halloween this year - but we were thankful to have our Meme in town to help us trick-or-treat. We also had Gabby's friend Georgia join us too! The kids were really into it this year and basically ran from door to door (and sneaking a few treats in between houses). Melia was the only one of my babies that actually enjoyed dressing up. She LOVED her ladybug costume and was happy to join the big kids at the doors. It was a wild night as always, but we had a lot of fun too!

A fairy, batgirl, ladybug, and super hero

With Meme