Merry Christmas 2011
For those of you who are not on our Christmas card list, I apologize for the oversight. Here, however, is what you would have received in the mail from us:
What a year 2011 has been! We don’t normally do a Christmas letter, but so much has happened in the last year we thought we would put it all in writing to keep you updated.
As you probably know, we moved to the Joplin area for Joe to pastor a church. This Christmas brings us to the close of our second full year at Pathways UMC in Oronogo, which is north of Joplin. Last December we broke ground on the land the church had bought and construction started on the church’s first permanent building. Prior to that the church had been meeting in an old school building in nearby Alba. The school had sat vacant for many years until the church moved in. The building was drafty, creaky, and smelled a little funny (can you tell how much we loved that building?). We spent January through August in the construction phase of the new building.
A lot of our time this year was devoted to the church, whether with building projects or with preparing for the church’s grand opening. There were a lot of activities throughout the summer to let the community know we were moving to our new location. We hosted a concert with the Mark Chapman Band and a comedy night with Skinny Improv. We also did a Back-to-School Blast for kids and did outreach through events in the community during the Hope Epidemic and Serve 2011. It’s been a busy year but we’ve made a lot of great memories with our “family” at church.
This year also brought some big changes in our lives as well. This summer we took the plunge and bought a house in Carl Junction. The house we lived in before was a rental with a hard-to-mow lot and a pain-in-the-neck swimming pool (or frog hatchery) to keep up with. The carpet was ugly as was the outdated linoleum throughout the house. The house we bought is only a mile down the road, but sits on a lovely, tree-filled lot and has lots of recent updates. The view out every window is trees, which was wonderfully beautiful throughout the summer. These same trees have filled us with dread this fall as we have watched our yard fill up with leaves! Those leaves aren’t going to rake themselves! The joys of homeownership, right?
Speaking of our home, we’re sure many of you are curious about how we fared in the Joplin tornado. At the time of the tornado we were still living in the rental house, although we had already signed the paperwork to buy our new house. Where we live is northwest of Joplin, so we were totally unaffected by the storm damage. When the tornado hit, we were in the car on our way home from Springfield. We were moments away from where the tornado went through and the large hail forced us to take shelter off the road, under an overpass. Thankfully, we were a couple of miles north of the path the tornado ended up taking, so we were safe in the spot where we waited out the storm. As we waited, we turned on the radio and heard play-by-play of the places in town that were being destroyed. It was a scary time as we didn’t know what awaited us. The tornado started just outside the city limits on the west side of Joplin and kept right on going, tearing a ¾ mile wide path across the entire city, exiting outside the city limits on the east side of town. Along the way it destroyed thousands of homes, hundreds of businesses and killed 161 people. Of the people who were lost, we personally only knew two of them – our church’s bookkeeper and the electrician who was performing work on the new church building. Four of our congregation members lost their homes in the tornado. In the six months since the tornado, many businesses have either rebuilt or relocated to new buildings. Most of the debris has been completely cleared and many homes are either newly completed or under construction. We had thousands of volunteers and countless donations during the time that followed the tornado and the outpouring of generosity toward Joplin has been inspiring.
Other news I’m sure you’re interested to know: Truman had his fourth birthday this month. He is loving the new house – especially the fenced yard and the never-ending parade of squirrels he gets to chase outside. Tina is still working at Missouri Southern State University. This year she has had a chance to sit on a couple of committees, including the committee on emergency management for the campus. This committee was an integral part of the campus signing an agreement with Red Cross just weeks before the Joplin tornado, an agreement that led to the campus being a major source of support to the entire community in the weeks and months following the disaster. The ink was barely dry on the agreement when the tornado hit and we hadn’t even had a chance to be trained in how to handle a disaster! After the fact, the Red Cross and FEMA both told us that our response to the disaster has caused them to re-think how they will handle wide-scale disasters in the future. Since we hadn’t yet been trained, the campus leaders just jumped in and did what they knew best – and set a new standard for disaster relief in the process!
Other than work and church stuff, we have had a chance to do some traveling this year. In March we traveled back to Minneapolis, MN for a week. We visited our old favorites – Raising Cane’s, IKEA, Mall of America, Izzy’s Ice Cream, and Bad Waitress. We were also blessed to see lots of old friends. In November, we were able to travel to Gulf Shores, AL for a few days for a time of retreat and relaxation, thanks to our friends who generously let us borrow their family’s condo. Joe took the time writing sermons while staring at the beach and Tina used the time to read. We enjoyed some of the great restaurants Gulf Shores had to offer, including LuLu’s (founded by Jimmy Buffet’s sister) and Hawg Wild BBQ.
Certainly there are lots of details of the past year that we’ve left unsaid here. Either we’ve forgotten or the details are just too mundane to bore you with. We do hope this letter finds you and your family full of joy. We hope you have a blessed Christmas and New Year!
Merry Christmas!
What a year 2011 has been! We don’t normally do a Christmas letter, but so much has happened in the last year we thought we would put it all in writing to keep you updated.
As you probably know, we moved to the Joplin area for Joe to pastor a church. This Christmas brings us to the close of our second full year at Pathways UMC in Oronogo, which is north of Joplin. Last December we broke ground on the land the church had bought and construction started on the church’s first permanent building. Prior to that the church had been meeting in an old school building in nearby Alba. The school had sat vacant for many years until the church moved in. The building was drafty, creaky, and smelled a little funny (can you tell how much we loved that building?). We spent January through August in the construction phase of the new building.
A lot of our time this year was devoted to the church, whether with building projects or with preparing for the church’s grand opening. There were a lot of activities throughout the summer to let the community know we were moving to our new location. We hosted a concert with the Mark Chapman Band and a comedy night with Skinny Improv. We also did a Back-to-School Blast for kids and did outreach through events in the community during the Hope Epidemic and Serve 2011. It’s been a busy year but we’ve made a lot of great memories with our “family” at church.
This year also brought some big changes in our lives as well. This summer we took the plunge and bought a house in Carl Junction. The house we lived in before was a rental with a hard-to-mow lot and a pain-in-the-neck swimming pool (or frog hatchery) to keep up with. The carpet was ugly as was the outdated linoleum throughout the house. The house we bought is only a mile down the road, but sits on a lovely, tree-filled lot and has lots of recent updates. The view out every window is trees, which was wonderfully beautiful throughout the summer. These same trees have filled us with dread this fall as we have watched our yard fill up with leaves! Those leaves aren’t going to rake themselves! The joys of homeownership, right?
Speaking of our home, we’re sure many of you are curious about how we fared in the Joplin tornado. At the time of the tornado we were still living in the rental house, although we had already signed the paperwork to buy our new house. Where we live is northwest of Joplin, so we were totally unaffected by the storm damage. When the tornado hit, we were in the car on our way home from Springfield. We were moments away from where the tornado went through and the large hail forced us to take shelter off the road, under an overpass. Thankfully, we were a couple of miles north of the path the tornado ended up taking, so we were safe in the spot where we waited out the storm. As we waited, we turned on the radio and heard play-by-play of the places in town that were being destroyed. It was a scary time as we didn’t know what awaited us. The tornado started just outside the city limits on the west side of Joplin and kept right on going, tearing a ¾ mile wide path across the entire city, exiting outside the city limits on the east side of town. Along the way it destroyed thousands of homes, hundreds of businesses and killed 161 people. Of the people who were lost, we personally only knew two of them – our church’s bookkeeper and the electrician who was performing work on the new church building. Four of our congregation members lost their homes in the tornado. In the six months since the tornado, many businesses have either rebuilt or relocated to new buildings. Most of the debris has been completely cleared and many homes are either newly completed or under construction. We had thousands of volunteers and countless donations during the time that followed the tornado and the outpouring of generosity toward Joplin has been inspiring.
Other news I’m sure you’re interested to know: Truman had his fourth birthday this month. He is loving the new house – especially the fenced yard and the never-ending parade of squirrels he gets to chase outside. Tina is still working at Missouri Southern State University. This year she has had a chance to sit on a couple of committees, including the committee on emergency management for the campus. This committee was an integral part of the campus signing an agreement with Red Cross just weeks before the Joplin tornado, an agreement that led to the campus being a major source of support to the entire community in the weeks and months following the disaster. The ink was barely dry on the agreement when the tornado hit and we hadn’t even had a chance to be trained in how to handle a disaster! After the fact, the Red Cross and FEMA both told us that our response to the disaster has caused them to re-think how they will handle wide-scale disasters in the future. Since we hadn’t yet been trained, the campus leaders just jumped in and did what they knew best – and set a new standard for disaster relief in the process!
Other than work and church stuff, we have had a chance to do some traveling this year. In March we traveled back to Minneapolis, MN for a week. We visited our old favorites – Raising Cane’s, IKEA, Mall of America, Izzy’s Ice Cream, and Bad Waitress. We were also blessed to see lots of old friends. In November, we were able to travel to Gulf Shores, AL for a few days for a time of retreat and relaxation, thanks to our friends who generously let us borrow their family’s condo. Joe took the time writing sermons while staring at the beach and Tina used the time to read. We enjoyed some of the great restaurants Gulf Shores had to offer, including LuLu’s (founded by Jimmy Buffet’s sister) and Hawg Wild BBQ.
Certainly there are lots of details of the past year that we’ve left unsaid here. Either we’ve forgotten or the details are just too mundane to bore you with. We do hope this letter finds you and your family full of joy. We hope you have a blessed Christmas and New Year!
Merry Christmas!
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