Sunday, December 21, 2008

Christmas Card Time...



It's that time of year again, not to stamp 50-100 Christmas cards (although, I admire those who do!), but to type out our anual Christmas blog post that takes the place of our yearly mailed Christmas letter.

I (Eryn) will write first. This year has been eventful to say the least! First, I have decided to take on a new career... well, it was counseling that I went to school for in the first place, but I kindof sidestepped that for a while and decided to bake. We prayed and felt that God gave us the go-ahead to both be 26 and 28 year old students. So I quit my job at the bakery and am full-time in school. It feels strange sometimes walking up to the movie theater and saying, "Two student tickets please." But we don't complain about the discounts! So far, I have felt really blessed by Colorado Christian University and my masters program in counseling. My teachers are great and very experienced.

This year we have felt more homesick for the South, but we had a great vacation to YellowStone with my mom and grandparents and also got to go to visit David's family for a while when his sister, Sarah, got married. (I did the cake... see posts from Sept. for pics:) I got to go home for Thanksgiving, and David made it home for a 1 day whirlwind trip getting to visit with my dad and my mom's family.

Our health has been up and down all year. David had a malaria scare, and currently has mono! I had surgery, and I think we have basically traded off who is going to be sick with something from week to week. Well, it hasn't been that bad, but we have definitely had some interesting times of playing who is going to get up and get that (meaning I or David want something but don't feel like getting it, so we just wait each other out until someone finaly gives:).

We did get to have a wonderful vacation together this year in Clearwater Beach, FL. David's brother-in-law's parents graciously let us stay in their condo for a week. It was heaven! One day it was raining and we just stayed in bed all day and watched movies. The relaxation and the ocean helped us get back to the grindstone.



David here, and i just thought I'd add a little tidbit of my own. Eryn pretty much covered everything. I must add, however, that this has been a really hard year for us. We're fine, and really blessed. And really, the fact that we're having a hard year should be even more of a comforting read than all of the good stuff, because it makes the truth of God's relationship with us more apparent: not that he will make the path easy for us, but that he will give us the right feet to deal with the difficult path that is before us. Here is the quick run down: my job is insanely stressful, we have both been sick a lot, we have no money, we don't have a good church home, and we miss our family and friends terribly. However, God has also strengthened our faith, drawn us closer to each other, taught us about trust in him, proven himself (o'er and o'er, as they say), and overall made us more into his image, which, lets be honest, is pretty great. So, although I'm sure we'll have great blogs in the future about how our fifth child just won the junior surf competition on the north shore of Oahu, where our church plant has just passed the 5 million attendance mark, for the time being, we can all be glad of the truths that Eryn and I have learned about trying to put together a departmental seminar while your wife writes three papers, after which you eat a bowl of Ramen noodles, check how big your neck has swollen from mono, get ready to take your malaria medicine, look online for a church to try, all while trying not to think about what your passive aggressive boss will say about all the time you missed from your various tropical diseases (obviously a little exaggeration was used in that last part, as well as a liberal use of the run-on sentence)....and how God has used those things to mold us.

(Eryn again) You can see why I didn't want to follow that:) I feel the need to add that our family truly blesses us through gifts of money, necessities, and good comforting conversation. We do feel that God uses our friends here and those we keep in touch with as well as family to bless us.

We are at the halfway point in our stay here in Colorado and we still love it, but miss our family and friends terribly! We hope you all are doing well and we look forward to one day being in closer proximity to all of you.

Love,
David and Eryn Jones

4 comments:

melanie said...

You guys! We love you guys and will keep praying. We feel the distance too (we know you were talking about missing US the most). We are super sad not to see you all at Christmas. But have no fear that we will speak of you often and wish you were there. And I will wish we were sleding down a random hill in the dark somewhere in CO...but that this time I would have more...eh, hmmm "control." :)

I will be praying. Feel better soon Dave!

mel

Sarah Nicholson said...

Hey guys! I ditto (never tried to spell that word) what Mel said. We will miss you guys so much at Christmas time. Maye we can arrange to blow up dolls to take aroung with us as your representatives:) Anyway, I have been praying for you guys everytime I think about it. It's good to know honestly how things are going and how God is working through everything. Again, Chris and I love you and can't wait to see you... maybe we can make a trip to CO in the spring?...

Daniel said...

LOVE LOVE LOVE.

ENCOURAGEMENT ENCOURAGEMENT.

Eloquent statement about how great you guys are and how proud of you I am.

LOVE ENCOURAGEMENT, LOVE ENCOURAGEMENT, ENCOURAGEMENT LOVE.

That's pretty much the gist of what I wanted to convey.

Honestly, you encourage me by how good you are at seeing through "The Matrix" of this world. It is rare to find people who describe/define events in this life completely independent of the way the world would describe/define them. (Something "wordly" good may be "kingdom" good, bad, or neutral. In this case it is definitely worldly bad, but you get the point.) Anyway, you guys seem to get that, and that is rare.

LOVE AND ENCOURAGEMENT, AND WE MISS YOU,

Daniel

Robin Mace said...

i agree with daniel! it is encouraging to me in my hard times to know there are other people out there that are dear to me that see it that way. you guys are amazing and i love you very much. i constantly count down the days that you will be closer! merry christmas :)
robin