Christmas Card Delivery!!!

 

It's Christmas card day here on the blog! I grew up in a home that sent Christmas cards every year, and I think I was still in high school when I started sending my own cards. When I was first out on my own, I decided I wanted to be a card-sender, even if I didn't have a husband or kids to share on my card. I'm so glad I did that, and I'm so glad Ryan and I have carried on that tradition in our marriage. (Fun fact: I designed our first card sitting beside the pool on our honeymoon!) 

I always like to share our card and letter here every year...we hope you enjoy this year's take on it!

Plans, Plot Twists, and Purpose

            None of us have lived the kind of year we thought we would in 2020. Proverbs 19:21 says “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” This year proved that proverb true beyond any doubt. But just because it was a plot-twist laden year that challenged us all doesn’t mean it was a bad year! Here are some of our favorite foiled plans, plot-twists, and renewed purposes from our eighth season of marriage together !

·         Last December, we served as narrators in our church’s huge Sights and Sounds of Christmas program. We had no idea it would be the last time we would participate in such a program – because we would move, our worship pastor would retire, and large social gatherings would be extinct for a while.

·         At the end of 2019, we became official members at our church and had no idea that within a year, we would be searching for a new church home in a new town – which, by the way, is a daunting task made all the more daunting by a pandemic.

·         Right at the end of December, Bekah took a temporary job at church, filling in for her friend Abagail’s maternity leave. We had no idea that would transition into a permanent full time job in the spring and then immediately transition into a work-from-home job.

·         In January and February, we tried out a “fun new idea” of planning at-home dates, and we had no clue that by March, that would be the only option. (Still…an indoor picnic, root beer taste test, copycat desserts, and a salsa night are all fun dates!)

·         Ryan was elected to the church board in February – totally unaware that he would have to resign for our move before he ever attended an in-person meeting.

·         We spoke together at a Valentine’s banquet and didn’t have any idea that would be our last time to speak to an in-person gathering until October!

·         Ryan planned an amazing surprise Valentine’s Day getaway weekend for us. We stayed in an Airbnb overlooking the canal and Indianapolis skyline. We spent the weekend conducting our official Marion County tour – and of course Bekah came down with a rotten cold the day we left. We still had a great time, and it’s a good thing, because travel was about to become nearly illegal.

·         We remodeled our entire guest bathroom (gutted it and started over), added board and batten to our entry, repainted the entry, living room, and kitchen, redid the guest room, and put down a mulch border around all our landscaping…and had no idea that by summer, we would put our house up for sale. But it was okay, because all those projects were so much fun to tackle together while home for weeks on end during quarantine.

·         When the pandemic and quarantine arrived, we began documenting all the strange things we did, hoping one day we could look back and say remember when…you couldn’t find toilet paper at the store? Watched church on livestream while you wore your jammies? Hoarded disinfectant cleaner? Could only send one person to the store? Attended every meeting on Zoom? Only had to look professional from the waist up? Went to drive-by birthday parties? Cleaned your groceries before you brought them in the house? Got your first mask?

·         Ryan was asked to record a really powerful monologue for our church’s Easter program, and he and the videographer spent four hours recording it. And in a 2020-style plot twist, we found out the next day his mic died halfway through, so he spent four more hours watching his monologue and sentence-by-sentence voicing it to be dubbed and played on Easter Sunday morning. (No one ever knew, by the way, that it was not a real-time voice.)

·         Because of the pandemic, Ryan’s rehab department scaled back, and he was reassigned to a temporary job at the main hospital – working on a proning team. Definitely never expected to see that on his resume!

·         After eight years of waiting to go to Hocking Hills, Ohio, to hike the park, we planned our annual birthday trip to that area. We rented a genuine tiny cabin and arrived at the end of May…to find the park still closed because of the pandemic. Though highly disappointed to miss out on the park we have waited so long to explore, we found smaller parks that were open and hiked everything we could find for the weekend – and had a great time away. Did we mention there was a hot tub?

·         After eight years of praying for a chance to work together in ministry, God opened a door for us to do just that. In May, we applied for a job as a Community Advocate Couple at Gateway Woods, a ministry northeast of Fort Wayne, in the tiny burg of Grabill. We were surprised to be invited for an interview, and two days later, we were offered the job. In another 2020-style plot twist, the day after we accepted, we found out Ryan’s rehab hospital was shutting down entirely, putting him and 120 others out of work. God knew all along and was ready with a new plan.

·         Less than a week after that, our house in Kokomo went under contract: sold (without an official listing) to one of the pastors at our church who had been searching for a home for months!

·         In June, we said goodbye to our beloved small group; we had no idea the spring 2020 semester with them would be our last. It started in person and ended on Zoom!

·         In mid-July, we packed our car and moved into temporary housing in the WillowBridge apartment building, living for a couple of weeks directly above the apartment that would become our official new home. At the end of July, we went back to Kokomo, loaded our moving truck, and made our permanent move to the farthest we have ever lived from our original homes. This is also the first time we have ever lived in an apartment or worked in social work!

·         In August, we started our new job in earnest. Our days begin early and end late, and in the middle, we do just about everything: listen to stories, help set goals, provide accountability, maintain the building, do administrative work, write devos, drive tenants to work, plan community nights, and the many “other duties as assigned,” which have included everything from repairing an overflowing washer to removing a wasp’s nest from the shed to moving everyone into a tornado shelter on a hot summer night. We just never know what a day will bring!

·         This fall we had some multi-year dreams come true: we purchased a tandem kayak and took some trips on the river down the road, and we purchased our first RV! We’ve been researching them for the past four years, and now we have one of our very own. Her name is Abby, and we are in the middle of renovating her and planning our first trips for next spring and summer! We are excited to spend our days off with her – exploring all kinds of new places.

And so we end this strange pandemic year with nearly everything looking different than it did at the start – but fully aware that God saturated the year with HIS purposes prevailing over our plans. We would love for you to come visit us if you’re in the area (or want a day trip). Grabill is a cute little town, and Fort Wayne is right next door, if bigger cities are your thing. We’d love to show you our apartment, share our ministry with you, and show you our favorite Allen County finds. And by the way…we’re still blogging, we still have our Braeya-girl (she’s 14 now!), and we still love coffee. Some things never change – even in a pandemic year.

Merry Christmas to your house from ours!