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