We are back safe from our trip to Wisconsin. Greg was awesome and drove through the night and let me sleep the whole way. We were blessed with some special times with family over the last week and I will update with that and some pictures over the next couple of days.

Since we have moved so many times lately I have sent out Thanksgiving letters instead of Christmas letters for the past few years. That way people have our new address each year. Actually I think I will keep doing it in the future... it is really nice to have that task completed well before Christmas. I thought I would just post our letter in case some of you didn't receive it this time. I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving.

I also couldn't resist posting another picture of our sweet Samuel since the ones from our letter didn't copy onto the blog:)

Dear Family and Friends,
As many of you have probably heard our dear son Samuel Mark Hintz went to live with his Creator before He had a chance to be born here on earth. The day after his due date he just stopped moving. He was born the next morning October 30th and the Dr. said that his death was due to a cord accident. Our whole family was able to spend lots of time holding and snuggling Samuel, and taking pictures with him. This is time we will treasure and remember forever. In a day and age when life in so undervalued and sometimes not even acknowledged, we were in awe of this perfect creation God had knit together in my womb and blessed us with . He was absolutely beautiful. We loved inspecting all of his perfect parts. This baby had been prayed for before he had been conceived. Our whole family was so looking forward to sharing life with Samuel and his 9 months with us were completely enjoyed by all of us. We are so thankful to God this Thanksgiving that He blessed us with Samuel. His life with us was much shorter than we were anticipating but even now we celebrate all that he did with us as a part of our family. His life was fun for all of us, feeling him kick, hiccup and wiggle around. We are so thankful also for all of the love, support and encouragement that people have given us over the last few weeks. It has been much harder than we could have imagined, but we are clinging to the hope we have in Jesus. He is a faithful and loving God and we will continue to trust in Him. We are so thankful for your continued prayers in the months ahead as we know it is going to be difficult.

We still wanted to send out our Thanksgiving letter this year because even amidst the challenges and grieving that we face we are still thankful to God for so much. We are thankful for the great 2 years God blessed us with at the seminary. We are also so thankful for our vicarage congregation here in Oklahoma who has rallied around us and shown us such love over the last few weeks. God has taught us so much already through this and we are treasuring all of you even more than before. We thank God for you this Thanksgiving. We pray that this Christmas you will have a renewed appreciation for the gift that Jesus is to us. Having lost a son, we look at God willingly giving up his son for us in a different light. He died so that WE could live eternally. Wow, now with a son in Heaven with his Creator we long for that day when we can join him.

With love in Christ,
Greg, Sara, Louis, Caleb, Anna and Elijah Hintz