We wanted to share our Christmas picture and our annual Christmas letter here... It would be way too costly to send it out to everyone we know, but we do want to share it with many other dear friends...
Here
you go… Our annual Christmas and New Year’s Letter!
We
pray 2013 has been a year of love, joy, and peace… and hope each of you have
experienced the love, grace, and faithfulness of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ throughout the past year. As has
become our tradition, here are a few highlights from our year, each from our
own perspective…
Tricia: As I reflect over the past year I am humbled
and in awe of the blessings the Lord has brought into our lives. First and foremost are the rich friendships
He has blessed me with, new as well as old.
Friendships which I know have been fashioned and created by the hand of
God. What a blessing to have friends…
friends who pray with and for me and my family, friends who help out in times
of need, friends who understand the frustrations and weariness of homeschooling
demands, friends with whom it is safe to be transparent and real, friends who
live out selflessness before my eyes and encourage me to walk with God more
intimately and serve others more selflessly.
Another
tremendous blessing is my Moms in Prayer group.
What an inspiration and encouragement this group is! We meet twice a month and spend 1 to 1 ½ hours
in prayer for our children. Have you
ever heard another mom pray passionately for your child using scripture as a
guide for those prayers? It truly is a
powerful, humbling and heartwarming experience!
We always leave our times of prayer together encouraged, refreshed, and
renewed. Praying with other moms creates
a bond of friendship like no other. It
is a priceless treasure.
And
yet another blessing for our entire family is that after months of prayer, and
following our Lord’s leading, we are worshipping and serving with a new church
family, Hunter Street Baptist Church. What
a blessing this has been for our entire family!
Even though it is a large church, it does not feel large. We have been welcomed, loved on, and
ministered to from the first day we walked through the doors. The Hunter Street family is intentional about
preaching the Gospel and loving people.
They are passionate about making sure the Bible is taught… clearly,
thoroughly, and in depth; and to all ages.
James and I attended an in-depth 12 week study on “Understanding Your
Salvation”… Wow! The riches of the grace
of God, words could never adequately describe what God the Father, Jesus the
Son, and the Holy Spirit has done for us.
My salvation was costly and provided me with so much more than I could
ever even begin to deserve. This change
has led to one thing that has truly humbled and blessed my heart… God has
answered a prayer I have prayed for at least 8 months now! I have been asking the Lord to provide each
of us (all 4) with Godly mentors. James
and I have just started a mentoring program in which we have been paired with a
wonderful, Godly couple who have been married 50 years! What a blessing they are! Our time with them has been encouraging and
refreshing, and I am humbled at how our Lord has moved to answer this prayer!
I
had to say goodbye to my beloved Bootsie this year. She had been a part of my life for 20 years…
it was a hard and sad time. I still look
for her in the mornings when I go to get my coffee. I miss her meows and her sweet little face
peering in the porch door window. She is
irreplaceable; she was a cat like no other…
I
continue to homeschool, the boys are in 4th grade this year! I still love being a soccer mom and pace up and
down the sidelines cheering for my boys!
We continue to attend Community Bible Study and are blessed by
friendships there and strengthened through the study of God’s Word. I continue to run for exercise and to clear
my mind, although I have not done as many races this year. Life is good.
I am thankful for my health, my family, my friends, and my Lord.
James:
Tricia
pretty much covered it. The boys and I
enjoyed helping a friend resurrect a foreclosure so his parents could live
closer to family. What a
transformation! Several years worth of
no attendance to the yard required that the boys and I tackle it over three
weeks, including removal of a tree that had grown through the eaves of the garage.
Plumbing, electrical, framing, and lots
of painting… all for another sweet couple that just celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary. Riding bikes and
playing soccer with the boys rounds out the rest of my “spare” time.
David: 2013 was an interesting year. First on January 22, 2013 we got a Wii for
our birthday; it came with 3 games and we really enjoy it. In February, I ran the Kids Mercedes Marathon,
my time for my race day mile was 7:20; even though I was inhibited by some hop-scotching
girls from a different race set, I was one of the fastest there. We also helped some friends by bagging eighty-two
55 gal. bags of leaves, it was very hard work and although we were doing the
work out of love, Paul and I both received some surprise green backs and a
Bachmann N gauge train set. In September,
we went to the beach with some of Mommy and Daddy’s friends, and while there saw
some of our homeschool friends; even though they were girls, we had a blast! While we were there we rode our bikes to the
ferry and went to Dauphin Island. Then
we almost didn’t make the ferry back! Daddy told me to try to make it to the
ferry, so I took off like a rocket for the ferry. Daddy had to ride after me so I didn’t get on
the ferry by myself. He said I was like
a mile ahead of them. We all made it there
while it was still loading the last vehicles.
A few days later we were back at home playing our favorite sport-
soccer. Again, we made it to the
tournament and again we lost: 3 to 2. We
were sad that we had lost but not as sad as Daddy. This would be the sixth championship to lose
to the same team. This year I took a
sudden interest in college football and some guy named AJ.
Paul: Here are some interesting things that
happened this year. I pulled my tooth
out with pliers. The tooth was not
pushing the baby tooth out, so I had to pull it or Daddy was going to do it for
me. I made a Lego city with a police
station, bank, fire station, forest, an airport, and river with boats. Mommy takes us to art class once a week and I
really enjoy it. We have learned to use several
different drawing tools including a compass and smudge sticks. We also have learned different techniques–blind
drawing, perspectives, and vanishing points while also using different textures.
As a family, we like to go to Oak
Mountain State Park and ride our bikes. Mom
only does the family trail with us. Dad, however, took us on an epic ride- 4 1/2
hour, 22 miles of rugged off-road terrain with 1600 feet of evaluation change
on our 16in steel Academy bikes. Dad made a promise we’d get real aluminum mountain
bikes after completion of this challenge. We’re hoping we won’t have to wait
much longer-hint, hint! David and I also
enjoy helping work on our cars. We normally enjoy doing tire rotations but last
month we dropped the fuel tank on the Windstar to replace the fuel pump, that
was hard work. As tools go, I got my own
pick axe because it’s nearly impossible to dig under our fort because we’ve
gone so deep into the earth. Just a
couple days ago we found a kitten in the garage. It had snuck into the garage while Daddy was
parking the car before he put the door down. Mommy was leaving to spend some time with
friends, when she stepped out she found a cute little gray surprise. She thought
maybe Daddy had brought it home for all of us.
We kept the kitten for 3 days before we found its owner. I did not want it to go back home.
May
2014 be filled with blessings from the hand of God, with good health, and with
lots of love! “The LORD
bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious
to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26
Love and Blessings,
James,
Tricia, Paul, and David
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