Today, as I’m sure all of you know, is Christmas! And if your family is anything like my family, you tend to over-commit. On top of doing Celtic Christmas, we are also helping backstage with the musical Camelot, leading worship music at our church, and squeezing everything else in between. During all the chaos, I sometimes have to remind myself what Christmas is all about. It’s not about the presents, it’s not about carols, it’s not about the white snow (especially out here in the desert), and no, it’s not about Santa Claus. It’s about the Savior, Who came to earth, not because He had to, but because He wanted to. Who gave up all heavenly glories to come down here so that we could mock and ridicule Him on a cross, while He died for us. Christmas is about celebrating His birth. No, we may not have the day correct (does anyone but  God, in all honesty?), but we’ve set aside this day to be with family and friends to honor and remember His coming into this world as a tiny, helpless baby.

I’m so thankful for this time of year, because it allows us to remember what Jesus did. But through this next year, a challenge for you…treat everyday like Christmas (and Easter), in the aspect of taking the time each day to remember what Jesus did.

This is Evelyn Coffing, thankful for yet another Christmas, signing off.

If you live in the city of Albuquerque, then it appears to be that you are getting some snow. And so I want you to know that I am completely and utterly thankful for it. What could be better than millions of little love bits from God falling down all around me? Not to metion it’s fun to eat, great to sled in, and even more fun to have a snowball fight. If you get snow on a regular basis during the winter, then have a blast with it! Here in the desert it doesn’t come too often. And when it does, it tends to melt within 15 minutes. (Not this time though, thank God! ) If you’re one of those people who doens’t like snow, then I hope you live in someplace warm like Florida. In which case, enjoy the heat and humidity. But if you’re like me and love snow with a great passion, then get outside and enjoy it.
This is Evelyn Coffing, in the Great White Albuquerque, signing off.

Last Christmas, our entire extended family decided to help us out due to my Dad needing emergency brain surgery in California. Instead of exchanging presents that year, they focused entirely on us and made our Christmas season very special. We felt loved, very well cared for, constantly watched over, and never had a want. And to top it off, Mom and Dad did make it back home just in time for Christmas day. This is one Christmas memory that will never leave me, nor can I ever repay the family enough for all their kindnesses over the years.

Another item that continuously gets me excited are the new Concert prospects this next spring. We are just wrapping up Celtic Christmas (come out to Faith Lutheran this Sunday at 6:30 for a great holiday tradition!) and already now booking JUBALation’s next 2012 Concert Series for March and April. As this next year rolls on up, new music and new ideas come together–we are so excited to share this new upcoming season with you! We strongly believe there are artists at heart out there just like us who want to make a definite positive mark within our communities, initiating honor, life, and integrity. We want to encourage YOU; to remind YOU that YOU are working toward a great thing.

One final update: though there are numerous Burns Night activities going on in January, we are no longer available to be hired for that holiday. Enjoy and have a safe night!

I hope everyone’s health is still strong going into the holiday season. So… Celtic Christmas’ first show was last night and it went great! If you were there, awesome! And I hope that you had as much fun listening as we did playing! If you haven’t been able to go yet, I really recommend going! There are two more performances, so come and bring a bunch of friends!  It’s a really great show with all new music with a few traditional favorites. We have Kim and Jenny doing the Irish dancing, Kathy doing fabulous reading, Aiden doing really good bagpipes, and of course yours truly (JUBALation) doing a few songs of ours as well. It’s a great time and everyone who comes always enjoy it immensely.

Dates:
Sunday, December 11th, 6:30 pm at New Covenant Church
Sunday, December 18th, 6:30 pm at Faith Lutheran Church

Either performance you will probably want to come at least half an hour before the show in order to save good seats, and be forewarned, if you come to the Faith Lutheran Celtic Christmas, you’ll want to get there if at all possible more like 45 min to an hour before the show to get good seats. We’re always packed at that one.

Hope to see you all there!
Natasha

Celtic Christmas is an event we all look forward to as The Next Chapter leads, yet again, another fantastic season. The first 3 Sundays of December – the 4th, 11th, and 18th – are primed to be another lineup of explosive performances and fun all around! See you there!

Deep gratitude goes out to everyone for their patience as 2011’s performance year was surprisingly short due to an unfortunate accident in the summer. I have fully recovered and JUBALation is gathering storm to make the next 6 months something to remember.

If you are looking to host a house concert, or just want a brand new local group to make your venue hall shine, let us know! Beginning January 25th, 2012, we are booking new gigs and concerts. We have a personal message to share through our music and stories of hope, joy, and the real meaning of prayer. And who doesn’t need a good hour or two of gaiety, relaxation, or inspiration?

A few things to look forward to:
- our first CD to come out Spring 2012!!!
- new music
- original new music written by our very own
- come out to gigs around town!
- brand new concerts
- Burns Night is January 25th! Book us while we’re still available! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns_supper regarding this holiday)
- and of course…sunsets, new memories, faithful friends, and all good reasons in general to live life and love it

Dominique

As you may know, today is Thanksgiving. So allow me to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

This year our family has so much to be thankful for. Namely for Dominique’s health. She would not be here if it were not for God’s protection and she is recovering splendidly.

However, I have a question for you. Why do we only have one day set aside each year to be thankful? So, I have an idea. For the next month, I would like you to comment and let us know what you are thankful for. We will be posting also with a list of things that we are thankful for until Christmas. I’m excited to see what y’all come up.

This is Evelyn Coffing, unbelievably blessed by God, signing off

I Hope this post finds everyone safe and well. I’m back home now, and things have finally started to slow down a bit, giving me time to catch a breath and write this. I got home on a Saturday afternoon, (Sep. 3rd to be exact) and from the moment of touch down, it has progressed from being non-stop to pretty busy. So I got home Saturday afternoon, and I literally had only time to wash clothes to have clean ones to pack, and that monday my family and I left to go to Atlanta, Georgia to see and be a part of Celtic Woman’s newest DVD performance. It was absolutely amazing! It was so neat to see them live again, and very interesting to see how everything worked and be a part of the ‘behind the scenes’ of the DVD performances we watch all the time. They did amazing, as always, and it was especially neat because they talked quite a bit more than they have before. I can tell you right now, the DVD is coming into our home as soon as it comes out! We were gone a week for that, and we got back on a Friday. The same day that we got back, my dad, Bria and I left to go down to Elephant Butte for the weekend to help our Uncle at the Balloon Rally down there. Again, it was super fun, and we had tons of fun crewing and playing in the water. One of the highlights of that trip was that I got to fly with my uncle in the balloon over the lake, and we did several Splash n’ Dashes! (Plus a couple of Splunk n’ Dunks) We got back home Sunday evening. Once we got home, it was off to the races again to help get ready for my cousin’s wedding that weekend that we were playing for. So we put music together, practice, and help our Aunt with whatever she needed help with to get the wedding ready. It was lots of fun with lots of laughs, and it was great to see family and friends. Several of whom came from out of town. This past week showed no signs of slowing with Evelyn and I starting babysitting for a couple of Women’s Bible studies at Church, and visiting with family while they were still in town. Last night as a send off for some family going home we had a jam at my Apo’s (grandmother’s) house with GREAT food made by Apo and my dad. Two of the best cooks in the world! We also got to see and visit with friends that we hadn’t seen in a while and catch up with them.

So, that’s been my life in a nutshell since coming home! As you can see, it’s been busy, but it’s been really good at the same time.

As for my time up at Headquarters, it would take much longer than I have time for at the moment to fill you in on the details of that trip, but for short, I had an amazing time! I got to see God work in huge ways, and needless to say, I loved my time up there! God worked in my life in so many ways, and I had the priviledge of seeing others grow in God, and be a part of it. I’ll go into more of that later when I have more time, and share pictures with you too! For now,

Au Revoir! ~Tasha

Pictures from Atlanta and the Butte:

Dinner before performance

The Fabulous Fox Theatre!

Elephant Butte Balloon Rally

As you know, it’s been 10 years since that horrible day. The day where we woke up to find two of the tallest towers in New York City set ablaze and collapsing. I was 7 when it happened and quite honestly, I didn’t grasp everything that was happening. I didn’t know if this was just a bad TV program, or if I was dreaming, or what. But when I saw them collapse, by heart did too, as I’m sure yours did as well.
I didn’t know anyone that died, and I thank God everyday for that. But as I thank Him, I also pray for those that did lose a loved one, whether family, friend, co-worker, boss, or whomever.
If I feel this much pain and grief for someone I don’t even know, how much more must the family and friends of those victims be grieving. I can’t offer my condolences enough (although I will try) to make up for the loss, and I can’t bring back the nearly 3,000 people who died, or heal the thousands more that were injured as a result of this terrorist attack. I can however, (and do) pray for the families and friends that lost someone near and dear to them on September 11, 2001. I can pray that our nation, who turned back to God in our hour of need, will do it again without another catastrophe as this. I can learn the lessons that came as a product of that day; lessons like unity, courage, and hope.

So to all who read this post, may you remember the lives that were lost, and the unity that our nation, the United States of America, felt after that day. In God We Trust.

This is Evelyn Coffing, remembering the day, signing off.

Where do I work? I work in the mail room. So I’m basically one of the people who picks the orders that people send, pack them, and send them. We also do a lot of collating. I can honestly say that there is much more physical labor involved in the mail room than you would at first think, and I have a whole new respect for those people who work in any kind of mail room! I will never again order things online without sending a prayer for those people who pack those odd and multi-sized book/material orders! ;P

Where do I stay? When I first got here, I stayed in a house. (IBLP owns half of the houses in this neighborhood) but a few weeks ago, Savvy (my roommate) and I moved from 5 Cheval (our house) into Heritage. Heritage is kinda like the girls dorm. It’s really nice and I love living there.

What do I do other than work? For meals, they provide lunch every weekday, and dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have staff meetings every morning and on Tues. and Thurs. we have evening staff meeting. I enjoy going to all the staff meetings, and I learn a lot from them. The past few mornings we have been going through a video series about the Gospel of Luke. It’s been very interesting and very good. 
Of course, it’s not all work and no play. On Friday evenings they have volley ball at a park close by that has a sand court, (super fun!) and on Saturday afternoons they have Volley ball on a hill on the property. It’s a lot of fun, and though I’m not very good, I think I’m slowly getting better. Practice makes perfect after all, right? There’s also the town Hinsdale we can visit. It’s only about a 20 minute walk away. It’s a really nice town and one of the really cool things about it is that it has a train and station there. It also has Starbucks which is a Godsend for some of the people here.

How’s the weather? The weather is usually pretty good. But of course there are some days when it’s just miserable. It’s usually the most humid when it’s going to rain soon. (of course ) It has also been raining here quite a bit too. And though I love the rain, I think I love the rain in Abq more. I don’t know why, but the smell of rain in Abq is so much cleaner and fresher, and I just love it! Thankfully, all of the really bad raining has always happened while I’ve been inside somewhere or at night. (I walk everywhere, so it’s nice when I don’t have to get to wet.) It is pretty neat though to get to see God’s fireworks show (aka, lightning) some nights. Last night was quite the show. Lots of lightning and thunder. And all right outside our window.

Other news, my Dad is coming up for a business conference and so he’s going to come see me!!! I’m sooo excited! I can’t wait to see him! I’ll take lots of pictures and hopefully be able to post them sooner than later. Speaking of pictures, yes, I have been taking them (though not as many as I should) and I will try to get them up sometime soon so you can see where I live. This is getting to be a rather lengthy post, so I will sign off now, but if you all have any more questions or anything, feel free to ask!

Love you all!!
Tasha