Dear Family and Friends:   

Does our blog always coincide with a major snowstorm? Since we have one once or twice a week now, it is very likely!  I’m including some snow photos this month for our friends and family in the UK.  I’m even painting snow landscapes!!! Never before, but now one has to find beauty in the snow!

We are expecting 8-12 inches tomorrow and we had that x2 last week, so today we will go to Hudson and celebrate our twenty year wedding anniversary, then get ready to get some serious work done in the snow tomorrow!

Here are a few photos of an outreach of our Kingdom School at the Schenectady soup kitchen last month. We love our students and so much enjoy our worship times together.

Michael has been visiting local area churches each Sunday as well as continuing to develop relationships with other  Pastors at the Capital District Ministers’ Fellowship.

We will be meeting with our mentors, the Litteers, soon.  They pour so much wisdom into us – we are so blessed.

I’m excited about painting – a gallery in NJ just sold a large one and I expect to curate an exhibition in Hudson next month. It’s part of a project building relationships with local businesses and the CCCA to promote and value artists and their value as economic stimulators.  I believe that my church right now is the art world and I am having fun carrying the atmosphere of heaven to folks who might not otherwise get to experience it.

  This cross is in our back garden and you can see the deer tracks running through!

I’m teaching an extra icon writing class here in Philmont and that is a joy.  Here is one of my egg tempera portraits of Nelson Mandela.  I’ve been reading his biographies since Christmas and have learned so much about the spiritual walk through him. His strength and ability to keep his eye on the goal is inspiring.

He reminds me of the words of Saint Paul:         

“You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.  And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.”  1 Thessalonians 1:6-7 Mandela was educated by Methodists in his youth and I believe that early faith and education was a foundation for his ability to persevere and uphold his belief in freedom for all people.

Our prayer requests this month center around our need for more relationships with people who are excited to love and serve God in this area.  We look to the Lord for direction and discernment and we give thanks for the blossoming of our careers in photography and painting to be all that God has destined for them to be.

Many thanks to all f you who support this ministry with your gifts and prayers.  You are daily in our prayers,

Love, Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography website:

www.mickhales.com

Christine’s Painting Websites: www.christinehales.com

www.newchristianicons.com