Well, It’s that time of the year for us to go up north a ways and set up for the 200 middle school students who will be spending the weekend retreating from school! Tomorrow we leave in the morning to go set up the sound and video stuff for our annual middle school retreat called, ESCAPE. Ryan and Brandi (our friends from Portland) are here to do the videography and help with the kids, respectively. And I, Anthony, am running the sound board and overseeing the band and sound setup, while Jessica is running the camp bookstore. We are excited, tired, and very busy and would love your prayers while we all minister to the middle schoolers during the camp. Please pray for logistics, safe travel, healthy bodies and kids, and that the students would see Jesus Christ through us and experience change (for the good). It is an honor to represent all of you, our team, as we all reach out to love these kids for Christ.
Peace,
Anthony for the Amors (and the Walters)
The big news in our house this week is that Alethia finally made the transition into her “big-girl bed.” It has been a long transition as she has not slept in a crib in over a year. When we traveled to the States in November and December of 2007, we took a small packable tent with us for Alethia. We figured that since we would be in a lot of new places and on the move a lot that at least we could provide her with the familiarity and security of the same bed every night. 
So, she became somewhat fond of her tent. So fond, in fact, that when we returned to Germany she had no interest going back to her own crib. We even set the tent up inside the crib to make it an easier transition, but every time we took the tent away she would scream and cry and not go to sleep. We figured that it was not such a big deal if she wanted to sleep in her tent. We travel enough anyway that in some ways it made it easier because she always had her bed no matter where we were and became a very good sleeper in it. However, she began to grow out of her tent. 
This fall we got her a toddler bed and set it all up in her room and began to give her the choice between the two beds. Although she would choose the bed once in awhile, as soon as we started to leave the room she would always run back to her tent. Finally this week I decided that she was ready. The tent was taking-up too much room and was getting in the way. So, on Wednesday night, we said goodbye to the tent and packed it up. We tucked her in to her “big-girl bed” and said a prayer with her and that was it. She hasn’t even asked about the tent since.
In other news…Masami hit his big 3 month birthday this week! The last 3 months has just flown by! We had a check-up and the doctor said he is looking great. He already weighs over 14 pounds and grew out of all those 3 month clothes a couple weeks ago. And in the last couple of days he has officially become a thumb-sucker (just like his sister). This is great since the pacifier was doing nothing to comfort him. 
He also has really started to respond to us and is starting to smile a lot. His favorite thing to smile at is the word “guacamole.” I’m not sure how we discovered this, but it works nearly every time.
A couple weeks ago we went down to Garmisch, Germany for our annual Malachi Staff Conference. It was a bit stressful with slightly ill children (Alethia with a bad cold and Masami with what we think is acid-reflux) and all sleeping in the same room for the first time, but it was worth the trip. The conference part of the retreat was based on the book The Emotionally Healthy Church. It gave us a lot to talk and think about that I really appreciated. We were able to get connected with and be refreshed by some of our Malachi teammates who we don’t get to see often.
The view from our room
I got a much-needed hour away from the kids with friends in the amazing outdoor hot-tub, and Anthony got to spend an afternoon snowboarding in the German alps with others. All-in-all it was a great 5-day getaway and conference. Now we are ready to jump back into a new year of ministry.
Me and Jennessa
One of the the most fun nights at conference was our 80’s party. We all got dressed-up, had a viewing of the music video “Pop Goes My Heart” (from the movie Music & Lyrics), watched a slide-show of photos of ourselves from the 80’s, played an 80’s trivia game, and did 80’s karaoke. Our team won the 80’s trivia game (thanks to Anthony and AJ), and Anthony won the Limbo contest. It was a great night.
Well, that is all for now. Don’t forget to check-out Alethia and Masami’s page for updated photos. I’ll post new ones here in a couple of days.
