2016 Christmas Letter

To all our dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! We’re SO blessed to be home to spend the holidays with family again this year!  Every year, God leads us to a different situation to be used. Last year at this time, we had just returned from 2 months in the Philippines serving in what was initially to be a short assignment on the campus of Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary! 

In January, we returned to Manila and to the jobs we had been filling on an interim basis – Dan led the regions IT team, while Janet handled the role of Philippine Micronesia Field Treasurer.  Three months turned into 4 as we agreed to serve in these transitional roles through the year. We returned home to the States in early May, travelling to Marcy’s home a couple of weeks later to visit and to attend Megan’s graduation from the University of Rhode Island. On our drive home, we were thrilled to get to meet our granddaughter Tessie in Pennsylvania and her 2-year-old daughter Tatum! The rest of the summer went by too quickly as we returned again to Manila in August for 4 more months.  For our 20^th anniversary, we took a special side trip to Okinawa for a week in September. (Dan had served there as a Marine 47 years ago.)

These were truly the most challenging assignments we’ve ever tackled! God sustained and guided us through as always. We left behind many great Filipino friendships that will continue on Facebook, as well as friendships with a special group of Chinese students and the U.S. and Canadian missionaries we served with there!     

Home now, we’ve started going back to group classes at our local YMCA (sore muscles!) and are really feeling the cold weather after being accustomed to temperatures in the 80s and 90s! One Sunday morning, we cheered Erica on as she ran her first 15K and, that afternoon, we enjoyed Caitlyn’s high school choir’s madrigal dinner! We are certainly looking forward to Christmas at home with Monica, Caitlyn, Dylan, and Erica.

Family news…

Marcy is a local police officer in Fairhaven, MA. Husband John is still with Samsonite (we benefit from his samples!). Megan is in grad school at Simmons College in Boston, working on a masters program in social work. Morgan is a junior at Curry College near Boston, majoring in Nursing. Tucker is an 8^th grader enjoying life with both sisters away at school.

Monica is still enjoying her CPA job in Belleville at a local hospital, although she may relocate to a different office in the City in January. Dylan is a freshman and Caitlyn is a junior at Belleville East High School. Monica has spent lots of time training and ran a marathon this fall. Dylan is on the high school cross-country team. We love attending Caitlyn’s choir concerts and Monica’s church choir Christmas concert.

Derick and Nola live in New Jersey so Derick can work on the outsides of the skyscrapers in New York City, living his dream of “Life on a Rope” as a top-level-certified rope access technician. Nola continues to enjoy her work as a nanny for a local family. They are taking every opportunity to visit and grow in their relationship with Derick’s daughter Tessie, who lives in Pennsylvania, and her daughter Tatum, as they learn to be grandparents.

Darin still lives in Raleigh, NC, where he works to fund his passion for building custom motorcycles in his off-hours.

Adam does computer work. He and fiancée Dana Anderson (she works for Caterpillar) live in Peoria, IL.

Erica is enjoying her management position as purchaser at the Lutheran Senior Services facility where she still sometimes cooks. She moved to a cute apartment in St. Louis with her cats last year. When she’s not working, she’s been running in the large park across the street or going to St. Louis Blues hockey matches. Thankfully, she still enjoys spending time with her mom shopping or cooking.

God continues to provide rich experiences and wonderful people to work with in our retirement from paid careers. Along this pathway, there are a couple of important things we continue to learn (or relearn):

-  The special, never-ending value of family and friends like you. We are so blessed with your ongoing friendship, prayers, and support as we follow His leading. We so appreciate being able to keep in touch electronically when we can’t be with you in person!

-  “God’s Retirement Plan” is WAY better than any we might have ever dreamed of! He is keeping us active, useful, challenged, excited, and growing (see Romans 8:14-15 in The Message).

Our only plans for 2017 so far are to help with the global conventions before Nazarene General Assembly in June! We’re hoping to plant our own vegetable garden in the spring and settle into the community for a while!

May your Christmas season be blessed and your New Year filled with joy!

Dan & Janet Reinhart         

835 Autumn Rise Lane, Columbia, IL 62236       home: 618-722-5114

Reinhart47@aol.com - cell: 314-484-1898       JanetM52@aol.com - cell: 314-484-1906

2015 - Christmas Letter

December 2015

To all our dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! We’re SO blessed to be home to spend the holidays with family again this year! Every year, God leads us to a different situation in which to serve. Early this year, we spent 3 months at the Nazarene Eurasia Regional Office and now we have just returned from 2 months in the Philippines!

In Europe, Dan assisted Brad Firestone with IT projects including a quick trip to South Africa, while Janet helped with digitizing publications to upload into the Wesleyan Holiness Digital Library. The snow was gorgeous, just like a Christmas card! We had the opportunity to visit Berlin, Germany – SO much history! We also got to spend a long weekend in Rotterdam with Erik and Petra Groeneveld, native Dutch friends who we met in 2014 in Australia!

We returned to the States in early April and thoroughly enjoyed almost 6 months at home! We joined the Y, used the local library, planted and harvested our vegetable garden, and sang in our local church choir. Dan got to ride his motorcycle, installed a “French drain” in the back yard and added some landscape edging around the house.

During that time, we became aware of needs matching our skills in the Asia-Pacific region so, in October and November; we served in Manila on the campus of Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary (APNTS). We renewed friendships and made some awesome new friends among the
nationals, students and missionaries there. While we were there, the WMC (Nazarene World Missions Communications) office on campus wrote an article about us! Here is the link to it: The Reinharts and their call to missions.

Home now for the holidays, we’re even (almost) enjoying the cold weather since leaving the warmth of Manila. Christmas will be special this year when we travel to Massachusetts to be with Marcy & John and family and Derick & Nola! We’ll celebrate with Erica and Monica on another day and with Darin by Skype.

Family news…

Marcy is a local police officer in Fairhaven, MA. Husband John is still with Samsonite (we still benefit from his samples!). Megan is a senior RA at University of Rhode Island, studying Human Development and Family studies with a Psych minor, and she’s applying for masters programs in social work. Morgan is a sophomore at Curry College near Boston, majoring in Nursing. Both girls work at a local seafood restaurant when they’re at home! Tucker is an 8th grader enjoying life with both sisters away at school.

Monica is still enjoying her CPA job in Belleville at a local hospital. Dylan is an 8th grader at Zion Lutheran School (he was so good as one of the leads in the school Christmas play!) and Caitlyn is a sophomore at Belleville East High School. We have enjoyed seeing her in a holiday madrigal dinner and their Christmas choral concert! Monica’s choir concert is this weekend.

Both of our 8th grade grandsons have grown A LOT this past year in both height and maturity.

Derick and Nola live in New Jersey so Derick can work on the outsides of the skyscrapers in New York City, living his dream of “Life on a Rope” as a top-level-certified rope access technician. Nola continues enjoying her work as a nanny for a local family. They both also have been enjoying opportunities to visit and grow in their relationship with Derick’s adult daughter Tessie, who lives in Pennsylvania, with her daughter Tatum. So now he is getting used to being a Grandpa…

Darin still lives in Raleigh, NC, where he has just taken a new job installing security systems in businesses, while building custom motorcycles in his off-hours.

Adam does computer work. His and fiancée Dana’s home in Washington, IL, was destroyed in a tornado in October 2013, but they were not injured, and have a new home in Peoria, IL.

Erica is enjoying her management position as purchaser at the Lutheran Senior Services facility where she still sometimes cooks. She’s moved to a cute apartment in St. Louis with her cats this year. Her boyfriend Matt is a pilot; when they have the same days off, they are active outdoors people – hiking, running, biking, camping.

God continues to provide rich experiences and wonderful people to work with in our retirement from paid careers. Along this pathway there are a couple of important things we continue to learn (or relearn):

• The special, never-ending value of family and friends like you. We are truly blessed with your ongoing friendship, prayers, and support as we follow His leading. We so appreciate being able to keep in touch electronically when we can’t be with you in person!

• God’s Retirement plan is WAY better than any we might have ever dreamed of! He is keeping us active, useful, challenged, excited and growing (see Romans 8:14-15 in The Message).

We’re headed back to the Philippines-Micronesia Field Office in Taytay (Manila), Philippines, in January for 3 months to assist with technology projects and in the finance office with the awesome teams there. And we’ll wait to see what He will do next!!

May your Christmas season be blessed and your New Year filled with joy!

Dan & Janet Reinhart 835 Autumn Rise Lane, Columbia, IL 62236 home: 618-722-5114

Reinhart47@aol.com cell: 314-484-1898 JanetM52@aol.com cell: 314-484-1906

reinhartsroad.blogspot.com

Shopping, APRC Fun Day, & Palm Sunday

22 – 28 March, 2010

At lunch on Monday, Greg was telling us about the small Cokes that seem to be a Filipino favorite – they're called sakto, because it's “exact-o” the right size! It's less than 7 ounces and a cute little bottle but, often, Americans like to have 2, not just one...

Evenings of fellowship and a Sunday Wedding

March 15 – 21, 2010

Not that I've been feeling anxious, but Judy's turn at staff devotions on Monday morning were calming, as we pored over 4 scriptures telling us not to be anxious or worried. “Cast all your cares...” It's a blessing to be part of this group of Christians who work hard, accept us as we are, and are willing to share their concerns with us and with each other. 

March 8 – 14, 2010

We already knew that this would be a busy week! Monday morning's staff devotions were my responsibility this week, having been “drafted” by Faith, who keeps asking others to take her turn! Anyway, since I was sharing my testimony, Faith said she'd choose and lead the music and bring a snack to share! We enjoyed suman, the Korean sticky-rice wrapped in leaf strips, sprinkling them with a little brown sugar (it's granulated sugar that's brown, not like the brown sugar in the States that includes molasses). God demonstrated his leading as all the songs Faith chose fit perfectly with the Scripture topic I used for my testimony.

MISSIONARY RETREAT!

Friday morning, we were scheduled to be on campus for only the morning, as Dan needed to be part of a conference call scheduled from the States about the national quiz to be held at Mt. Vernon Nazarene University in July.  The call ran a little long, so we arrived late for lunch in the canteen, and ate a quick lunch almost by ourselves!  We drove home to Camden to finish packing what we would need for a weekend at the beach and returned to APNTS.  The rest arrived in bunches for the next few minutes and soon were ready to leave in the Coaster Bus. Having left before the weekend rush of traffic and with Greg Taylor driving, we made good time down the C-5 and the SLEX; through Santa Rosa and Tagaytay, we recognized this path as the way we'd taken by ourselves a couple of weeks ago.  Past the sugar cane refinery, though, we turned left/southwest this time and continued, watching the sun set as we followed it to the west coast of this big island.  Twenty of us arrived at Coral Beach Club Resort after dark (2 more arrived the next morning) and checked into 8 rooms in record time.

March 1 – 7, 2010

Tuesday morning, during our morning devotions Dan noted that God had directly addressed a question he had been thinking about while in the shower a few minutes earlier.  It was the issue of questioning whether his work here was useful.  The devotional writer made it clear that the issue is the Lord's responsibility not ours.  We are simply to do be obedient. God is so good at answering our smallest prayer.

Devotions and another 'Adventure'

February 22 – 28, 2010

Our co-workers in the APRC listened silently as Dan led devotions Monday morning, shared one of the stories of how his son Derick was used by God while an inmate in a state prison. They were touched by how God worked in response to Derick's prayers, and how Dan's life was affected as well, even though not one of them is a parent yet. We continue to be amazed at how God is using these experiences to help others understand how He can work in unimaginable ways and places. So many illustrations are available from those difficult years, only Heaven knows the possible results as long as we are faithful in sharing.

February 15 – 21, 2010

Our devotion time, with our APRC coworkers on Monday, included a good discussion on things in our lives that are good, but that take too much of our time/money/attention from our relationship with God. It was led by Herald, who had arrived at work in the IT department with a cute girl's wig on! He left it on until we were finished with our singing, devotion, discussion and prayer, then whipped it off as we all said, “Amen!” – he'd had a haircut, shaved down to about 1/8”! Since Herald is a soft-spoken guy, it was twice as funny as if someone else had done it!  This was an added object lesson of reducing the stress in his life.

Mangadang umaga (beautiful morning)!

February 8 - 14, 2010

One of Dan’s coworkers, DJ, led devotions Monday morning. We all had a good laugh over his topic title because “Distraction” sounded, with soft Filipino vowels, like “destruction” to me and Dan! So DJ exaggerated his pronunciation so we’d be sure it was “DistRACtion” he was talking about. And Faith is so sweet! She remembered that I had mentioned last week that I love popcorn, so she brought some microwave popcorn and made it for the devotion time snack!

It's February already...

Monday, 1 February 2010

It’s February already?!

After a few days of trying to coordinate schedules, Olive and Faith and I finally found a time after lunch to just begin recreating the October financial records, but were stopped shortly into the process since all the basic lists are not ready for us to complete even 1 transaction. But it’s OK, really. Olive must now coordinate the necessary information so it can be loaded into our program. Now that we’re ready to begin is truly the right time to clarify this. We’ll try again in a few days once the developers know which things we need.

Second week in Manila

Monday, 25 January 2010

We’re starting our second work week at APRC, and continuing to get a handle on our duties and expectations. It was Judy’s turn to lead devotions so Bibles and hymnals were distributed around the large table in the conference room and we sang 2 familiar hymns. Judy did an excellent job of leading the music, the discussion, and the prayer requests. Filipinos know how important it is to spend time with each other and caring about each other’s needs!

First 'regular' week, settling in...

Monday, 18 January 2010

Up at 6 a.m., it’s time to start our new routine.  We need to be at work by 9 this morning (just working the morning today), but 8 a.m. starting tomorrow.  This is such a nice house, with 3 bedrooms (obviously we only need 1 of them) and 2 baths upstairs.  After showers, we began to get acquainted with the kitchen. For now we’ve got Terri’s French press to make coffee and we have cereal and juice to get us going.  Dan is brave to drive in the Manila traffic! 

Arrival and Orientation Week

Tuesday and Wednesday, 12 January 2010

Five a.m. is really too early to be at any airport… but we are at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, waiting for our first-leg flight to Atlanta, on our way through Tokyo to Manila, Philippines.  Erica rode with us, having spent the night, then went on home for more sleep.  We left our heavy winter coats, scarves, and gloves in her car; we’re SO glad we won’t have to use those again for a long time! 

Blessed confirmation

Thursday Jan. 14 - Another amazing confirmation 

Our first full day here in the Philippines began with devotions using a soft back version of Chambers, ‘My Utmost for His Highest’.  I’ve use this material before and its always beneficial. This particular copy belonged to my (Dan) mother until she went to be with our Lord this past August. She had often commented that she enjoyed how God is using us and she lived missions though our experiences. We understood this connection as she often told us how she had felt God’s call on her life as a teen but her father would not hear of it.  So it felt right to bring this along on this assignment.

Arrival in Manila

We are here.  After 25 hours of travel and both of us with the 'blessings' of varying degrees of cold symptoms (thank to the flu shots we got last week) we can't say it was the best trip we've had but it was ok.
God is Good. Our pass through immigration and customs was one of the fastest we have experienced.  Greg Taylor met us and we are spending the first couple of days with his family while the house we have been assigned to gets final preparations.  Greg and his wife Terri will also be leading our orientation training for the next couple of days.
It's time for rest now as we adjust to the 14 hour difference (ahead) from home.
Nite all. The future looks good from here...

Another winter away...

This has never been an objective of ours but who are we to argue with God.  In fact we have not even considered it, but as we moved through the fall this past year, He presented again for the 4th year in a row, a need to serve a portion of the St Louis winter in a warmer climate.  This time it is the longest assignment yet, 90 days...

Week #2 Leaving Korea, on to Philippines

Friday, September 25, 2009
It was arranged that we would go to the 10th floor for a nice breakfast buffet and we were amused to hear 60s music playing...

The 10 am BQM training went well and included a demonstration round for these participants.  John Kim may have worked harder than Dan during these times, having to translate and contextualize all Dan's teaching.  We had noticed that many Korean words seemed to end in the sounds “mee-dah”, so we really got a good laugh when Dan said, “It's OK,” and John translated it to “It's OK-mee-dah!”