Merry Christmas: The Hantla Family 2006 Christmas Letter
Merry Christmas!One of our favorite things about making and sending Christmas cards every year is looking over the address list of recipients. We praise God that He has put each one of you in our lives and has blessed us through you. Thank you for your love and care for us.
Even more importantly, we love to remember what Christmas is all about: Our Creator, Judge, & King come to earth, born in a manger be our Savior. Jesus tells us in Mark 10:45 why Christmas happened: “The Son of Man came…to give his life as a ransom for many.” So even as we remember God’s graciousness to us, giving us each other; we are in awe of God’s love shown to us, giving us the greatest gift ever, Himself. Even though we have earned judgment because of our sin, God died in our place so that we can spend eternity with Him. So this Christmas, when you think of baby Jesus, think of Jesus on the cross in your place if you trust in Him entirely.
We just returned home from our celebrating our 5th anniversary! Time has flown, and what amazing blessings have been packed into those five short years! Both of us are now working side-by-side at Arizona Heart Hospital as nurses in the recovery room and ICU while Jacob continues his Real Estate practice. Together, we graduated with our Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing degrees at Arizona State University, helping each other along. Jacob also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Bioengineering. Thank you all who helped us through the e years of transition. Praise God for all the ways that he has made his care for us evident through you and others.
This last year, we have also been blessed by being able to be involved in God’s work far bigger than ourselves. Much of our life centers around our church, East Valley Bible Church Tempe (soon to be renamed Grace Bible Church), where we lead a small group. Jacob was given the privilege to preach a couple sermons this year. In 2006, we spent just over two months in Mexico working on recording the New Testament in an indigenous language of the area, Huichol. So many of you have helped in raising funds to purchase at least 1,000 of the solar-powered devices that will allow the largely illiterate people to be able to listen to their own personal copy of God’s Word. And praise God that he has provided so that the total amount necessary to purchase these players has been raised, over $30,000. They will be distributed in early February as the effort to translate the Old Testament into Huichol is begun. Please pray.
This year definitely had its share of travel. We’ve already mentioned our two recording trips to Mexico. For our December 14th anniversary we returned on a cruise to the Caribbean where we last were five years earlier for our honeymoon. In the summer, we spent a week with our families in California. That was followed by a trip to Boston and a week-long east-coast roadtrip as two of our closest friends, Jeremy & Tracy Foster, were married.
We will be celebrating Christmas this year here at our home in Chandler. Kiki’s mom, Debbie, is visiting from Mexico. Jacob’s parents have moved about a quarter mile from our home; Jeremy & Jessica, Kiki’s brother and sister-in-law, have moved five houses down the street with our first nephew Anders. Christopher, Jacob’s brother just moved about a mile away. So we are surrounded by the friends and family that we love and can’t wait to see so many more of you at Christmas celebrations in the coming days. I hope that this gives you an idea of what’s up in the Hantla household. Merry Christmas; and thank you for your love, care, and prayers.
Love,
Jacob & Kiki
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