2022 Christmas letter

Dear Family and Friends,

The tree is up, but not yet decorated and there’s lots to do before Christmas Day arrives!

This new year started with Dan’s new Toyota Tacoma, which he immediately accessorized with running boards and extra lights. I was just thankful that he also lowered the height so I can climb in the passenger side!

In 2022, we’ve seen our doctors virtually and in person; we’ve exercised with online classes, in-person group classes at the Y with masks, and finally without masks. So far, we’ve avoided Covid and gotten all our immunizations for Covid, flu, and pneumonia.

Early in the year, I volunteered to help a small local Nazarene church with their bookkeeping when their bookkeeper passed away last December. There’s been a learning curve, but I managed to catch up their books on new software and improve their record-keeping. It actually has been fun for me! They’ve been pleased, so I was asked to continue as their church treasurer starting in January!

It was also fun for me to help organize, with 2 other women, BFCN’s (Belleville First Church of the Nazarene) Easter Breakfast. There, Dan attends monthly Men’s Breakfasts, and we are part of 2 Life Groups for fellowship and Bible study. JoyFM, where I used to work, offered a women’s concert in May; several of us girls from BFCN attended and had a wonderful evening.

May also brought a missionary family (friends of ours) our way, so we hosted them for a couple of nights, even taking them to a Cardinals game before they went on with their time in the U.S. before returning to the Philippines.

We were asked to attend some training sessions in Kansas City to assist missionaries as they use new financial software. Still a part of the Nazarene Missions Tech Team, Dan is often referenced to help make technical things work as he assists others around the Illinois District as well. It is good to be useful.

It was a wet spring and a HOT summer, but we grew lots of blackberries! Dan spent many hours keeping the yard and gardens thriving! We attended several Cardinals games in person (we watch the rest on TV), along with several wonderful musicals at The Muny in Forest Park. My favorite was “Mary Poppins” – so professional and fun! Summer also included Food Truck Fridays in Tower Grove Park – yum! And we always invite folks to join us on our screened porch to enjoy 4th of July fireworks that we can see for miles!

In July, we attended the Illinois District Assembly. Unfortunately, we lost the District Missions President the day before the meeting. A few weeks later, Dan was asked to be the new District President of Nazarene Missions International (NMI). The district area is the southern

2/3 of the state. While we’d been volunteer missionaries for 12 years, he’s never been involved in this support organization. He’s facing a significant learning curve but has a good council of folks to go through all the experiences with him, as they rebuild interest and activities of the NMI that were limited during the Covid years. We’re hoping for some Missions Team (Work & Witness) trips in 2023!

July was a busy month – we finally got to celebrate our 25^th anniversary (a year late) with our dream of an Alaskan glacier cruise and it was wonderful on Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas.

This year was an expensive one as well – we had to replace our computers (over 10 years old), our cell phones, and our home’s HVAC system.

In October, Dan was able to attend several training days for NMI presidents in the US. And, on Districts each fall and spring, there’s usually been a missionary speaking tour scheduled. Covid had precluded any early scheduling of a missionary so, a few days after Dan returned, we spoke in 9 churches/zones (in a 2-week period) around the Illinois District about our missionary journey in “God’s retirement plan”. I helped by sharing some of our blog entries of our experiences.   

In November, Dan drove us out to Marcy’s home for Thanksgiving (5 days of driving and 2 days of visiting). She’s now an SRO (school resource officer) while serving as a local police officer. It was great to spend some time with her! Monica is the only one living near us now, but she’s a very busy lady in a serious relationship, sings at her church, runs races literally all over the country, and seems to enjoy her full-time job in the county auditor’s office.

Erica visited for Mother’s Day and my birthday in August and in November as she ran her 7th Hot Chocolate 15K Race. Janet enjoyed a surprise Facetime call with Adam on her birthday that we all enjoyed.  Derick and Darin are both still in North Carolina. We have occasional chats with both of them as Derick is staying active with various rope access safety jobs and consulting while Darin has bought his first home and stays busy outside of work rebuilding/customizing old cars.

Looks like we’ll celebrate Christmas a few days later this year, when we can get a few family members gathered here! Skype, Zoom, Facebook, and other social media will have to do for the others others.

As the years keep going by more quickly, we surely do wish to see more of our friends and family! As God continues to bless us with good health, we keep busy but love to make time for those we care about. Please let us know when you’re near the St. Louis area so we can connect!

Wishing you all God’s blessings in this wonderful season!

    With Love and Appreciation for all,                             

    Blessings,  Dan & Janet

Summer of new things

This will break our recent years' pattern of using the Christmas letter to cover the full year.  Suddenly this summer, we are finding our days and weeks filling with more than the routine exercise classes at the Y.  

It started with a call from our church global missions office asking if we could be available to with a new project that, in most cases, we could do from home.  They are changing a number of the computer finance tools that the missionaries use and the staff felt that our skills could be useful as part of the support team during the transition. As we learned more of the details and plans, we agreed.  The full schedule is not clear but this certainly does not look like a short term project and we are okay with that.

Alaskan glacier

Last year was our 25th anniversary but, due to Covid's impact on travel, we had deferred our hope of visiting Alaska.  But then, once again, God stepped in and we 'randomly' learned some dear friends had just scheduled a cruise to Alaska and they were excited to have us join them.  On a very short timeline, we got booked and went on our planned-but-unplanned holiday.  It was a wonderful time and made even more special by the couple we shared it with, Clark and Connie Armstrong.

Then, at this year's Illinois District Assembly, we tragically learned of the passing of the District's Missions president the night before.  A few weeks later I (Dan) was having a text conversation with the District Superintendent about some changes on the district web site when he mentioned that he was gathering names of possible candidates to fill the missions position. I went on with the site work and then asked if he had been hinting in some way.  He responded, "Well, yes, sort of."  I responded that because I had no experience or knowledge of the district level missions organization, I was not interested.  However, that being said, I was available...  Soon he responded by asking that I prepare a bio for consideration to go with the others he was gathering. A few days later, he called to inform me that I had been elected if I would accept!  If you have been around this blog for very long, you know that we have learned that God's plans are far better than ours. So I accepted with no clue of what this meant or how I could fulfill it. What I told God that night was this is ALL ABOUT HIM!

In the meantime, Janet has been volunteering at a Nazarene church not far from ours in Belleville as their bookkeeper after theirs passed away, leaving books that needed to be reorganized and redone. She keeps busy feeding us healthy meals, some from harvesting our prolific blackberry vines, the single small apple tree that resulted in 1/2 gal of apple butter, and our vegetable garden.

So as you can see, we have new opportunities and responsibilities God has once again led us into.  HIS guidance and your prayers are all we need going on from here.