Merry Christmas from the Whited Kids

I know it is a bit early for a Christmas wish (at least in my mind). I know some of you have already finished your Christmas shopping and have your house all decorated... just don't tell me, okay? =0)

Anyway, one of my friends who is always on top of things like this (you know who you are) sent me a Christmas video with her kids & dogs. I, in turn, made one with my kids. It was pretty simple.

I tried to embed the video here, but there kept being an error... so here is a link instead. Everyone else may not find this as funny as we do... but I hope you enjoy a good laugh!

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/ZxFqNKURaZFVh1hboQsq

Merry Christmas! =0)

Blessings,

Melinda =0)

Whited Update - November 23, 2009

Thankful! What an appropriate time of year to be thankful, right? =0) Of course, we should be THANKFUL year ‘round, but we are especially thankful right now!

Recently, a friend and I have been memorizing the book of Philippians. I’m still in chapter one… and not many verses along, but I’m not giving up. I’m memorizing one verse at a time. But as I’ve been memorizing, it has been special to hear God speaking through these verses to my heart. Also, it has been amazing to see how some of these verses convey what Dano and I feel toward YOU!

³I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

⁷It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. ⁸God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

⁹And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, ¹⁰so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, ¹¹filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:3-11

Now, Dano & I have not been in chains, but we are living a life to proclaim the Gospel. No, we are not “on the frontline,” but we have surrendered all to Him in order to advance the Gospel and the translation of God’s Word all over the world to remotely located people… the unreached… those who have never heard about Jesus, and those who never will unless someone goes. Yes, we can do that from right here in the United States*. The work Dano does in the hangar here in the Carolinas impacts missions worldwide! This is work that we could not do without your partnership… your partnership in the Gospel! Many of you have been with us for many years as we have followed this call on our life. Some of you are new to our team. You cannot imagine the JOY we have because of that partnership. Your prayers, friendship, encouragement, and financial support are the most affirming pat on the back you can imagine. You ARE in our hearts. God CAN testify how we love you and long to spend time with you! And lastly, Paul’s prayer for the Christians at Philippi is our prayer for you. We want God’s best for you to the glory and praise of God! Thank you for EVERYTHING!!

God has recently allowed us… actually He urged us to take a trip to Texas. God provided housing for us through First Baptist Church of Arlington, and He provided for all our needs while we were there! Thank you to the many who allowed God to use you! We had a wonderful time visiting with many of you or at least seeing you briefly at church. Amazingly, we were there about three and half weeks, and we STILL ran out of time. There were many folks we did not get to spend time with that we had hoped to. =0( Unfortunately some of our time was eaten up with a sick little boy, but he’s fine now! God even used that situation to show Himself to us! Oh, how our heart longs for Texas, but honestly I can say that about other places we have lived. God has blessed us with “family” all over. HOME is hard to define if we have to use a geographical place… we have many! Thank you for loving us… thank you for loving our kids.

While we were in Texas we were able to share our current ministry with Wycliffe with many people and what it is doing in the area of Bible Translation and how mission aviation plays a role in that. If you didn’t get the opportunity to hear about this, you can let us know. We’d love to share with you. You can also learn more by watching a SHORT video here at the JAARS website: http://www.jaars.org/multimedia. You can also see these videos on the JAARS Facebook page. You can become a fan! =0)

We are still praying to reach 100% of our support level. If you don’t partner with us monthly, will you pray about joining our team? No gift is too small. We would love to be 100% supported before Dano starts Aviation Pre-Field Orientation in March! We’d love to be fully supported before the New Year! =0) If you know of someone else who might like to partner with us, please send them our information or send their information to us. We’d love to share how THEY can impact the world for Christ by partnering with us. Information on partnering with us is below in green.

If you did not receive our October 2009 newsletter via e-mail, please contact us. We can e-mail you another. Or you can see it here on our blog. It was the one with Derek eating a chicken foot on the front.

PLEASE let us know how we can be praying for you and/or your family. We consider it a privilege to pray for/with you. Remember to keep us updated on your requests. We LOVE to hear how God answers prayers!

Praises:

God’s AMAZING provision for our trip to Texas!

Meeting new friends on our way to Texas and in Texas. For example a Wycliffe Associate provided housing for us in Little Rock, Arkansas on our way to Texas.

Overall healthy family!

Dano & I celebrated our 18^th Wedding Anniversary in November!

Wesley will be THREE next month!

On our way to and from Texas, we went through Tennessee and were able to have a quick visit with our family and even with Melinda’s Daddy (see below).

Our Prayer Requests:

Please pray for Richard McDonald’s healing from cancer. (This is Melinda’s Daddy. You can learn more at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/richardmcdonald .)

Please pray that we would reach 100% support. We will NOT be able to serve unless we reach 100% support.

*Please pray as we are nearing the time to receive our assignment. We still feel called to Papua, Indonesia, but there are several places we could be assigned. One of those places is right here where we presently serve.

Please pray for the health of our family especially for Wesley to be healed from his eczema.

Please pray that we’d be sensitive to the Lord’s leading in our life, and that we’d bring Him Glory in all that we say and do here in our home and out “in the world.”

We’d love to hear from you! Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

In Service to Him,

Melinda for the family

Dano, Melinda, Olivia, Derek, Emma, Wesley, & Virginia

3529 Thompson Rd.

Lancaster, SC 29720

803-283-3725

Be sure & check out the new pictures in the posts below this one.

Ministry Websites:

http://www.wycliffe.org/

http://www.jaars.org/ This site has been completely revamped! You should visit if you haven’t in a while or never have!

(if you have trouble with any functions, you might try internet explorer as your web browser)

To give a financial gift:

Just send in a check with a separate note designating the gift for the ministry of Dano & Melinda Whited (account number 215422) to:

Wycliffe

P.O. Box 628200

Orlando, FL 32862-8200

If you’d like to commit to give monthly, quarterly, or yearly, please designate that on your note.

If you have any questions, just e-mail or call 803-283-3725.

You can also give online or through an electronic fund transfer. To set up an electronic fund transfer, visit:

http://www.wycliffe.org/Donate/WaystoGive/ElectronicFundsTransfer.aspx

or to give online, visit:

https://www.wycliffe.org/Donate/MissionaryMinistries.aspx

if you have any trouble with the website, try internet explorer as your web browser

Look Who's Standing

YIKES! She's pulling up! How fast time flies. Virginia turned 8 months old this month. She has such a sweet, sweet spirit! The whole time we were in Texas, she was a baby doll, and everyone commented on what a great baby she was. She did wonderfully the whole time. She even traveled great... slept when she was supposed to, and when she was awake, she was entertained by the crew! Oh, not sure if I ever mentioned that she's crawling everywhere, too. She's doing her best to check this house out... we have to keep a close eye on her!! Thanks for praying for her safety! The kids are still in love with her! Olivia is trying to take over my job, I think. Everyone wants to make her laugh or play peek-a-boo with her, and she's constantly smothered in kisses! She tolerates everyone well... but sometimes she's a little leery of Wesley.... and rightfully so!

Blessings,

Melinda =0)

October 31, 2009

Halloween brings strong emotions for many people, and for others it is just an opportunity to dress up, have fun, and eat candy. I must admit that I have been torn between the two. I KNOW that Halloween IS a VERY EVIL day because of what some people choose to do. I also know that many make this a VERY FUN day, too. So how should a Christian respond? Should we shun it completely? Should we just have fun? Or should we choose to use it as an opportunity to share some LIGHT? Well, when you throw the third choice in there, the answer seems obvious, huh? I am not a philosopher or a Bible scholar, but here is an answer from a wise man that you might find interesting, challenging, and thought provoking! I hope you enjoy reading it!! =0)

(Remember, you can click any picture to see a larger version. If it takes you away from the blog, just click the back button on your browser to return here.)

Meanwhile, while we were in Texas, we just had fun on this particular day. Next year I hope to do something MORE significant. What? I'm not sure!

Normally on October 31st, we go to our church's Fall Festival... at least here in SC and when we lived in Texas. In Ohio, we went trick or treating (gasp) because there wasn't a Fall Festival.

When we started talking about going to Texas during this time, our kids were sad to miss our Fall Festival here. Well, as parents do, we really talked up our Texas Fall Festival and told them it was bigger and better (you know... like everything in Texas!). =0) (No offense to our SC friends!)

Well, Wednesday before Halloween, Wesley got sick! UGH! Not just sick, but we're pretty sure he had the flu... you know... the swine flu! We were pretty sure the Fall Festival was out, but we weren't telling anyone just yet. Well, when Friday night rolled around and Wesley still had a fever, we knew we weren't going to the festival. Even though he was sick, he was still playing and having fun. (We'd had him on the homeopathic flu stuff that makes the flu MUCH milder.)

So, as I was in bed Friday night, I was thinking about what we could do instead. I knew the internet was full of fun ideas. I decided to get up in the morning and do a little research! Thanks to familyfun.com, I had a lot of great ideas. After a trip to Wal-Mart, I was ready to make the evening fun for the kiddos... and us! What made it even more fun was that Wesley's temperature broke in the early afternoon, so he felt even better! =0)

The older girls wanted to be mermaids. Olivia saw a costume in my Family Fun magazine that was pretty "easy" to make, so we did. The boys were cowboys. We got the hats at the Dollar Tree; so for $2 the boys had costumes since the rest of the stuff was just ordinary stuff. Virginia wore her sweet tutu that a friend made & gave her when she was born! We already had the rest of her stuff, too.

Since we were on a nice street, we thought we'd take the kids to a few houses to trick or treat (gasp again), but first they needed a snack. We ate bones (made from bread sticks).

When we returned, everyone made their own mummy pizza (which happened to be great because we recently studied Egypt for school).

We also had jack-o-lantern oranges that Dano "carved." (What a GREAT Daddy.) They were

filled with the oranges that were removed and grapes. We added some edamame for something green. Then we had some frozen bananas covered in white chocolate with chocolate chip eyes and an m&m mouth to make a ghost. (I normally avoid all things involving witches, ghosts, or anything that could be evil... even if it is a "cute" witch or ghost. However, I decided to do the ghost since it involved a banana. I know... that is lame!)

In the end, the kids had a GREAT time. At first when I told them we weren't going, Olivia cried. =0( The other kids' expectations weren't set so high on things, so they were open for change. Thankfully, our evening turned out wonderful even for Olivia. They got about 10-15 pieces of candy each, and with good planning it might go bad before they have the opportunity to eat it! I'm such a candy scrooge! ;0)

Blessings,

Melinda =0)

PS Let me know if YOU do something to spread LIGHT during this holiday! I would love to know what you do. (and for the record, we do spend a lot of time talking about this holiday and the danger of it and why we don't do certain things because of our choice to live for Christ and God's Glory... but next year, I hope we can SHARE God's light more intentionally during this season!)

Results of Mom's Test

Praise the Lord, she's as clean as a whistle! She was finished with her test around 8 a.m. this morning! Thank you for your prayers!!

Please Pray for My Mom on Thursday

Thursday morning my mother is having an arteriogram (you probably know more about this than me). From what I understand it is to see how the blood is flowing and to see if there are any blockages. Mom's blood pressure has been pretty messed up for a while. She recently had a stress test which I think "signaled" that she needed this procedure. If they find something they can fix during the test, then they'll fix it. So if all goes well and nothing is to be fixed, she should be out by noon. If something needs to be fixed, she'll stay the night (or more??). Michelle is taking her to St. Thomas in Nashville in the morning. If she comes home after the test, she'll be spending the night with Michelle so she can keep an eye on her.

Thank you for praying for all to go well, for wisdom for the doctors, and for them to see whatever they need to see. Please pray for mom to have no complications. Above all, pray for the Lord's will to be done.

Thanks for the prayer support for my family!

Blessings,

Melinda =0)

Dano Speaking & A New Video

This Sunday night Dano is speaking at Lamar Baptist Church at 6 p.m. in Arlington, Texas. If you are nearby, we'd love to see you. Come hear what God is doing in our lives. Come hear how JAARS and Wycliffe are working together to speed Bible Translation. There are still so many without God's Word in their own language.

At the same time, I will be speaking to the kids at AWANA. I love doing this. I want kids growing up knowing what God is doing all around the world. I want them to know that there is something they can do... pray and maybe go! When I'm finished, I'll join Dano at the end of the service. I hope to see you there!!

If you can't make it, please pray for us. Also pray for Wesley, he's been sick the last several days. Pray no one else gets sick... so far so good.

Blessings,

Melinda =0)

Here is a video that shares what JAARS does: