{"id":272,"date":"2023-12-19T21:12:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T02:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/?p=272"},"modified":"2023-12-19T21:12:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T02:12:23","slug":"concerts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/2023\/12\/19\/concerts\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently, we went to our children’s Christmas concerts.  Oh how much fun it is to watch budding singers and musicians.  They display their excitement and pride in their new skills, waving to parents from the risers or sitting tall to peer over their music stands in hopes of seeing a loved one.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I really enjoyed was watching the conductors with their students and their interactions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the band conductor appeared the students watched very intently, wanting to perform their best and display their efforts. They had learned they would perform best if they followed the conductor’s lead.  At times, it was obvious the conductor was talking to the students between songs, or perhaps even during the songs, but the sound equipment was positioned so that the audience could not hear.  Only the students could hear and see the conductor’s messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What joy he displayed both before and after their performances!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The past 5 weeks have been filled!  Time with family, time of illness, time preparing big school projects, time enjoying where we are, time sharing about our ministry, and time preparing to make another transition.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all the hustle and bustle: shopping, working, cooking, and preparations (or in my case packing, sorting, and purging) are we aware of our Conductor? Are we watching his movements?  Are we listening to his words that perhaps are only meant for us?  Can we perceive the joy He has for us as his children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday, Chris had his first check (CAT scan) since his last clean PET scan in mid October.\u00a0 We moved up this scan so we could do it while we are still in the US.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In amazement we got the results already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All clear!  We thank God for this continued gift of good health for Chris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As many of you already know, we will celebrate Christmas a little early in Grand Rapids, and drive to Chicago on the 25th.\u00a0 We depart for Thailand the morning of December 29th, and arrive very late at night in Thailand on the 30th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We ask for continued prayers for the kids as they have many goodbyes ahead, some easy, and some very hard.  When they were little the transitions were challenging and now that they are bigger the transitions are still difficult, though in different ways.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the joys and even more so the challenges let us rejoice, a Savior has been born, to us, He is Christ the Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Recently, we went to our children’s Christmas concerts.  Oh how much fun it is to watch budding singers and musicians.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hirtfamily.net\/chris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}