Happy New Year! We can hardly believe it is 2018, but we are so excited for this new year and all that it will hold.
December was a busy and exciting month for us for a lot of reasons, and below are just a few:
Henry’s Motorcycle
If you follow us on Instagram (which you should 😉 ) you would have seen a few posts about how we were fundraising in order to be able to purchase a new motorcycle for Henry, our Ruby Ranch foreman. Henry wears a lot of hats for us at RR. Everything from managing the other employees to making sure the horses are rotated through the different pastures. And a few months ago it became apparent that transportation was becoming an issue, as his personal motorcycle was not working and was in pretty bad shape, and the engine went out again on our former ranch vehicle. So we decided to fundraise to buy a brand new motorcycle that would last a lot longer. There is an awesome back story of how Henry sowed some of his own money into the purchase, and how we were ultimately able to give it back to him, but our friend Chachi wrote it up really well, so you can head over to their family blog if you’re interested in reading about that. Long story short, Henry received a new motorcycle at the beginning of December and it is awesome!
Harvest House Publishers Donation Arrived
Landon worked for nearly 15 years at a Christian publishing company called Harvest House. In God’s amazing timing, right as we were saying yes to moving to Nicaragua Harvest House was going through some changes, one of which was to outsource their distribution department, meaning the entires warehouse staff would be let go. It was a hard thing for many of our friends, but Harvest House handled the transition very well and we were grateful for the ending Landon experienced.
Since living here in Nicaragua, HHP has continued to bless us in many ways. These have included hosting us for an informational meeting about RR with their entire staff, sponsoring the recent bathroom building construction, and the most recent donation of gently used tools, which just arrived last month!
Another amazing non-profit here was able to help us get the boxes down to Nicaragua in a container they had sent, asking that we only pay for the customs fees. Through a donation from Harvest House, the fees were completely covered and Ruby Ranch is the proud new owner of all pictured below. Now we just need a workshop to put it all in! 😉
Such a blessing to receive all of this!
Scout’s First Christmas
Our little girl is growing and developing amazingly. She continues to bring so much joy to our lives, and even puts up with silly outfits for Christmas Eve.
We celebrated her first Christmas by spending Christmas Eve with the Buzbee and Ohran families. We ate an amazing meal together, visited and played a hilarious wrapping paper ball game that is a tradition of the Ohran family. Christmas morning was a slow one together, filled with hot coffee and warm cinnamon rolls, and then at midday we picked up Jamie’s sister, brother-in-law and brother at the airport for a week-long visit. It was a beautiful first Christmas.
First family selfie
Merry Christmas from our family to yours!
Family Visit
Speaking of family, it was so fun to have them here. Though there was some illness that kept us from doing everything we had planned, we enjoyed the time just being together. And getting to introduce our family to places we have been talking about for years. Plus, the Scout snuggles everyone got weren’t too bad either. 🙂
Introducing Ty and Jodi to Granada
As we look towards what 2018 will hold we are full of anticipation and excitement. Not only will we be working on the continuing development of Ruby Ranch, we will also host numerous teams, makes dozens of trips to the prayer house, and watch our daughter have many of her firsts. It is going to be a great year!
If you would like to partner with us prayerfully or financially we would love to talk with you about that. Please use the contact page here on our website and we will get back to you promptly. Also, please follow us on Instagram for more day to day ongoings.
La Vida Nica 