Christmas Greetings, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, from the Southerlands!

This year, Kelly and I thank the Lord for the joy of seeing our family continue to grow through marriage. Lord willing, by the year’s end we will have three of our six children married. The outpouring of the Lord’s love and care for us has been evident in these marriages, a successful surgery to remove cancerous tumors from Kelly’s body, and also in His faithful comfort when we learned that further blood tests were indicating that the cancer was still present. Now we are praising the Lord for very good results for her most recent blood tests. It seems a new medications was very effective. We are often reminded of your prayers for us, and we are profoundly thankful for you.

As we come to a season when the gift of the incarnation of God’s Son is more present in our minds, I want to ask you to consider the words of Simeon, who Luke indicates longed many years for the Consolation of Israel. Simeon blessed God with these words, “For my eyes have seen Your salvation which you prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).Apparently, Simeon had Isaiah 52:10 in mind, “And all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” When Jesus was born, salvation had come!—