the bookers in missions

…the BANG of a tire popping, that is… and the BANG of our fridge dying.

We have a few “out of the ordinary” expenses at the moment, and we’re not just talking about having our first baby…

We need to replace one of the tires on our car that blew recently, buy a new fridge (we have a borrowed one in the meantime), and also install an air-conditioning unit in our living room/kitchen area so that mom and baby and everyone else can survive Townsville’s summer in our new place.

Here’s what we need:
1. New tire = about $200.
2. New fridge = anywhere from $1300-$1700.
3. AC unit plus installation = approximately $2400.

If you’d like to contribute toward any of these needs specifically, please let us know by emailing us at ryanandadriel@gmail.com. We’d be so grateful.

It’s hard to believe that in just a few short weeks, Baby Booker will be making his debut! We’ve just finished setting up the nursery, and next on the list is practicing how to install the carseat and packing our bags for the hospital! We’re so excited to begin this adventure and no doubt we’ve got a lot of learning to do in the weeks and months ahead.

We’re also excited to welcome mom and dad McIntosh (Scott & Gwen) near the end of the month… and then mum and dad Booker (Bob & Sylvia) in early February. Everyone is excited to meet this little guy!

Please keep us in your prayers as Adriel is in the final stretches of pregnancy in the height of the Townsville summer. Please also pray for a smooth delivery of Baby Booker, and grace for us as we learn how to be mom and dad!

We really do hope and pray that you can make the most of time spent with loved ones while celebrating the greatest birth of all time. After all, what better event than Christmas to remind us to extend kindness, generosity, and charity to those around us? Enjoy!

Love from the Booker Three

p.s. Our latest newsletter is out: the year 2009 in review and what’s ahead for 2010. Please email us (ryanandadriel@gmail.com) if you didn’t get a copy and would like one.

After a long, sweaty weekend the Bookers have moved house. We’re now in our new house and can’t keep saying “I love this place!” enough. Thanks to several friends willing to roll their sleeves up, we were able to move last Thursday and then spent the weekend setting up house. This is not just a new house for us – we believe it’s a representation of a whole new season beginning for us.

This is our first family home – with plenty of room to grow into. We’ve moved in just in time to celebrate Christmas and to welcome our first visitors next month: Adriel’s parents and then Baby Booker (hopefully in that order!).

Last night we had a Christmas/housewarming party to welcome our friends to the new place, and it was thrilling to see over 70 people come through and enjoy our home very comfortably both upstairs and down. (In our last flat 12 people was stretching it!)

Our upstairs has four bedrooms: a big master bedroom, a nursery, a guest room, and a study (which doubles as a second hang-out room). It also has a large open kitchen/dining/lounge room, a good size bathroom, a garage with space for Ryan’s workshop, plenty of storage, and a big front and back yard with lots of potential. (That’s a nice way of saying that right now it’s very ugly… but we plan on fixing it up over time. *smile*)

The downstairs has another three bedrooms, lounge room, big kitchen, and bathroom. Good friends of ours are renting the downstairs unit from us: Emma, Katie, JP, and Renee. As YWAMers we’ve grown to love community and feel this is the best of both worlds for us: our own private space, but with built-in “extended family” right downstairs. It’s perfect!

We’re pretty much all set-up now, except for the nursery and the guest room, which will happen over the next couple of weekends as we have time. Our mailing address has not changed (PO Box 6221, Townsville, QLD 4810, Australia)… but what has changed is that we now have a guest room! So, if you’ve been thinking about a visit to the tropics, now is as good a time as ever!