The cold of winter

The cold of winter was more than physical this year.

In January, Chris' mom, Shirley Hanson, began her fight with inflammatory breast cancer. She is undergoing chemotherapy now, and in the summer will likely moe on to surgery, followed by radiation, followed by hormonal treatment of some kind. Please keep her and my dad in your prayers!

And March 1 brought Marilyn a broken foot! She was on cruthches for all of March, and is now in a walking brace that is slowing her down far more than she would like!

And as I write this, on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, it is snowing :-(

The Hanson Clan

On Christmas Day, the entire Hanson clan gathered at Wendy's house in Edgewood, NM. Here we all are in Kirk's recording studio (where we cut a Hanson CD!) On the bak left standing are Kirk and Gwen with their two girls, Atalie and Hallie. In front of them are Matt and Maria, and their daighter, Zoe, is being held by Dad, with Mom next to him. Behind Mom and Dad are my sisters Jeni and Annie, Next to them is our clan: Tim, Marilyn, Ben, Elsa, Dave, me. And in front of us are my brother Jeff with his wife Marsha, and daughters Myka (kneeling) and Rachel. It was a wild and lovely time!

Tim in Cambodia

Here Tim (sitting in blue shirt) is with the guys from Calvin and the students from South Korea at one of the jungle temples in the Angor Wat area. Sitting to the right of Tim is Essra, a Cambodian who attends the Christian university in South Korea, and has become a Christian while there. Essra has gotten toegther a group of his friends to play the Calvin guys in a two-and-a-half hour soccer game (which the Cambodians won in a shoot-out: Tim says they are short, but fast!). Essra has also asked the Calvin guys to pray for him as he tells his Buddhist family about his conversion. Tim has really enjoyed getting to know this young man.

Monkeying around

Here, Tim experiences some of the native wildlife. He also rode an elephant, and ate snake, crocodile, kangaroo and ostrich, saw poverty and beauty like he's never experienced, and discovered the ugliness of man's wickedness in the Killing Fields. He has visited the site for the new Asia International University, for which he and his senior design team are planning a bio-fuel generating plant, and discussed it with some of the people involved in its planning. He has also declared the state of the utilities there "frightening". He loves the shopping, the countryside, and the people.

Cambodian Sunset

And from a New Mexico sunset to one from half-way around the world... Tim left us for Cambodiaon January 3, and as I am posting this, he should be in the air and on his way home on January 23.

In winter's grip

Winter has had us in its grip. Above is a photo of the record-setting two foot snowfall in Rio Rancho which caused Ben and Elsa to miss their flight to Texas and forfeit a few days with the Johnson clan. We all hunkered down at Chris' parents' house and waited out the storm.

Christmas flew past!

Well, the time together flew by much too quickly (at least for me!) Above you'll see us on a bright, sunny Christmas Eve morning (Ben, Elsa, Tim, Chris, Dave). Marilyn was our photographer! We really enjoyed our time with the kids, and enjoyed singing and playing together at church.