Sy's Email

The following is an email that Sy sent out to our friends and family from our church back home, The Light, a few days before Christmas...I am posting it for two reasons: 1) It gives a good update on what's been going on with us, as well as the economic conditions here in Iceland and 2) Not everyone that reads this blog is on our church email distribution list...

Merry Christmas everyone. I have been meaning to send an email for a while, but better late than never. Just wanted to let everyone know that Dasha and I are doing very well in Iceland. I know some of you have been keeping up with us on our blog that Dasha does such a good job of updating. I have been extremely busy with basketball and work and I am really excited about a little Christmas break. Our team hasn't done as well as I would like, but we are getting better. We are 3-7 in the league, but we have lost some very close games that we could have won. I am hoping we can pick it up in the new year and get on a winning track.

The baby is doing really good. We had a doctors appointment this week and we got to hear the heartbeat and everything seems good. We go for the the 20 week ultrasound on the 30th of December and then we will get to know if we are having a boy or a girl. We had decided not to find out, but then Dasha changed her mind so we are really excited to find out what we are having.

We have found a really nice church here in Selfoss where we live. It is a small church and it really reminds me of the Light. I got to share my testimony last Sunday and it went really well. Dasha has been getting more and more involved in the community and she is really starting to enjoy Iceland more. We have also had several opportunities to share with my teammates and we are praying that God will bless them and draw them to Him.

We will be spending Christmas with my family in the capital city. It is only 30 minutes from our home and we are going to stay with them for 4-5 days and just hang out.

I know many of you have probably heard about the economic crisis here in Iceland. The country pretty much went bankrupt and many people are really hurting. I know it is going on all over the world, but we were the first country to go down. My mom lost her job, but she will continue to get paid for a few more months, which is such a blessing because there are no jobs available here. God has also really blessed my dad because he had just gotten a pretty big project that will last until this summer. They are saying that things will get really bad in about 2 months since most people that have been laid off the last couple of months will be receiving their last paycheck then. Who knows what will happen, we just keep praying.

Dasha got her residence card which was a lot easier process than what I had to go through in the states. The only problem we have right now is that we are not in the health system. We didn't know this, but it takes us 6 months to get into the system to receive free health care. So we have to pay for all our doctors visits, which is not bad since prices here are not nearly as bad as in the USA. It was just bad timing due to the pregnancy and we have to see the doctor every month. Dasha and I should be in the health care system in early April, which is just in time before we have our baby in mid-May. We are thankful for that because it could have been really expensive to have the baby without being in the system.

Well I don't want to write to long and bore you guys. We really hope all of you are doing great and that you have a blessed Christmas.

Here is all our contact information. We actually have a US number you can call anytime. It is a local call for you guys we would love to hear from you.

Phone (local): 256-513-6575
Sy Email: saevar@inbox.com
Dasha Email: ladashat@yahoo.com
Skype: sysigur, dasha sigurmundsson
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