And the Winner is...

With Evan and Eric at a guest house in Toronto, we
tried our best to capture all our faces as we did our
Christmas greetings by Skype. Thank you, Lord,
for technology. =)  And, Eric played for us on his
new Epiphone guitar that he received for free. The
provision was mentioned in the December 24th posting.

        As in previous years, last week, we got together as a family to pray for the happenings of the year before. It roughly takes about two hours to thank Papa God for everything He’d done for us. Typically, we do the whole process in two days. As always, the fun part was recollecting what happened in any given month. We laughed at our funny moments, smiled at accomplishments, or grimaced at hard memories, but we always ended up thanking the Lord for what He’d allowed to happen to us. We also praised Him for getting us through all kinds of happenings last year. Then, we went through the more serious part of our tradition which was to pick the winner of the “person-who-changed-the-most-in-the-last-year” award. The reward of 1,000 Baht wasn’t very much (about $30.00) but each of us wanted to win it because of how hard it was to get it. I’d never won it and it’s not for lack of trying. Someone in the family was always far more deserving.

Here are the sheets that I hope to pay attention to
as the Lord uses my family to help me be a better person.

       We’d tweaked it through the years but the best way we’d done it was to write three positive and affirming character traits that each person possessed. Then, on the bottom of that list, we wrote down what we prayed the person would be better at, in the new year. Our gauge for who to vote for as winner was the last part. Basically, if we’d heard the answer from any of the previous years’ responses, then it’s a sure indication that the person didn’t change much in the last year. And, of course, we had prayed to vote and choose wisely.

         Ethan, our youngest son, now 12 years old, won for 2013. It’s the very first time for him. He earned it. He changed a LOT and became more and more responsible. We are very proud of him. Now, if only I’d get a turn. Maybe next year I’ll finally win? =)