Another JV Thanksgiving

What a wonderful JV Thanksgiving we had!

This was the 14th Thanksgiving that we've celebrated with our JV family! The first one was over in Poland in 1993 at Dan and Laura Hash's house...it was just us and them that Thanksgiving, and the first time either Laura or I had ever cooked a turkey! We've come a long ways since then!

For many years after that we had Thanksgiving at our house in Havirov, but moved it up to Malenovice when we outgrew our house. I think this was our 7th year there!

Over 70 of us gathered this year to spend the week-end together enjoying good food, sweet fellowship, and a few football games thanks to my brother-in-law, Josh, who figured out how to get a satellite hook-up so the guys could see games from the States. Way to go Josh!

Becca, our JV Kid director, had prepared all kinds of fun things for the week-end - she is so creative and fun! FROB (Fun Room of Becca!) was a hit as always, as was Family Frenzy, a happy time where we have workshops that we do as families...painting clothespins (no end to glitter, glue and paint!), dipping spoons in chocolate and decorating them (YUM!), basketball games, X-Box games, dancing with Leah (you'd have to be there to see that!), and a big Narnia puzzle time to work on! So fun!

One of the best highlights though was our annual talent show on Saturday night. The kids plan and prepare for this all year! Some recite poems, some play instruments (the picture is of Caleb playing sax with his teacher who came for the occasion!), some do gymnastics, some sing and some dance, and some even juggle cool things! It's always such a beautiful time to see how God has uniquely and specially gifted each one of these kids. Tyler put together a cool video that I'm going to try to put on my blog if you want to take a little look at the talent show! If your internet is slow, let it load before trying to watch it.


Another one of my highlights is seeing my nieces and nephews! Can't resist putting in a few pictures of them! These are Josh and Kristi's kids, Blake, Becca, Kendra and Luke, who all live in Slovenia and serve there with JV. Tyler and Luke were the oldest and youngest kids at Thanksgiving this year so we had to have an official photo of the Patty men!

And we couldn't resist having one of the "Patty women" too!!













Sweet memories of a happy, rich time together! Thank you Lord for our JV family!

And here's a short video summary of this years Josiah Venture Talent Show! Enjoy! (made by my very talented son, Tyler!)