Our family Christmas letter for 2008

Thanks for visiting our family Christmas letter for 2008. Here's a quick update on what's up with us:

Natania is now 4 ½ and is full of energy. She loves to draw and has learned lots at her preschool program, which she attends four days a week with five other kids. She is wonderfully fluent in French and chats with Jennifer often. She loves to dance to the music at church and at home, and she out does all of us with her energy. She missed her big sister while she was in Montreal, and every time it was her turn to say grace at supper time, she prayed that Angela would have a safe trip home at Christmas. The first time Angela came home for a weekend visit, Natania asked us if it was Christmas already.

Sarah is in grade 6 at École St.-Antoine, and participates in the crossing guard patrol and “brigade verte” doing the recycling for the school. She loves participating in “G4G” (Girls for God) on Friday evenings, a young people’s program run by a couple of girls in town. The program includes crafts, games, singing, bible stories and verse memory, food, and lots of fun. In November, Sarah successfully passed the admission test for the International Baccalaureate program at École du Phare, the same program which her older siblings have enjoyed. Among her highlights of the year was Drama Camp at the local summer day camp, Cousin’s Camp and our various family trips. She likes to bike to school and spends lots of time with her friend Lydia.

Benjamin is in secondary 3 (grade 9) in the international program at École du Phare. Certainly one of his highlights was his school trip to France, where he toured sites related to the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec, from the French side of the ocean. He continues to deliver the Sherbrooke Record five days a week, saving money up for his school trip and also for his passion of drumming. For 18-months, he has been working towards purchasing a set of electronic drums, and he finally achieved his objective in early December, when he bought a “Roland TD-9”. (If you want, you can see/hear what they are like on YouTube.) The great thing about electronic drums is that with earphones, he’s the only one who can hear the drums! Benjamin is also fascinated by technology, and dreams about getting a video camera and making movies on the computer (you can see an example of his work at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evCGf0AF2Vo where he made a movie about cleaning his room).

Angela has just completed her third semester of CEGEP, this most recent one at John Abbott College on Montreal’s west island. She transferred from Champlain Lennoxville as she wanted to take Physics from her uncle Bruce, who teaches there. She boarded with Bruce and Sian and their three kids, so she felt somewhat like she was at home (but she says she missed us!). She was on the Dean’s List for her first two semesters and hopes to be on the Honour Roll for the most recent one as well. She is enjoying the science program and is considering doing chemistry at university, although this is still up in the air. During the summer, Angela was a Guardian at the community day camp and thoroughly enjoyed her first summer job. She continues to dabble in two of her passions: photography and writing (visit her blog at http://www.angelathepoet.blogspot.com/).

Rick & Jennifer enjoy the challenges and rewards of family life. Jennifer switched to full-time at Air Canada last June, which mostly means she makes better use of her time when she’s in Montreal at work. Usually, this means three days work but only two nights away from home each week. There are moments when she doesn’t enjoy her job, but mostly she finds it rewarding to help her customers in solving their problems. The recent layoffs have made things a little more hectic, and there are fewer people to trade shifts with. Rick’s job of managing two nursing homes can also be challenging at times. He’s focussed on building up the fundraising capacity of the charitable foundation associated with the homes, and developing a long-term plan to replace an aging building. Rick built a web site for the homes, which you can view here: http://www.mcrh.ca/

It is good to be in Lennoxville at this time as Rick’s Mom is needing more and more support in her battle with cancer. The decision has been made not to do any more surgery or treatments due to the advanced stage of the cancer, and just to focus on keeping her quality of life as high as it is possible in the time she has left. “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes. 3:1)

“Father, we stand in awe of what we celebrate. How can it be that the all-sufficient God of the universe became a helpless child resting in a feed trough?
How can it be that the divine Word reduced Himself to unintelligible sounds?
How can it be that the hands that once sculpted mountain ranges, now made flesh, reach to grab hold of a loving mother’s finger?
We don’t know how it can be. But we do know that it is — that Jesus came, the visible expression of the invisible God, to bring God to us and us to God.
Though the darkness of this world at times seems overwhelming, in midst of that darkness we again see the light of Christmas, the light that cannot be overcome.
And before Him, we bow down and worship.”

If you haven’t kept up with our blog through the year, be sure to see the other entries below for lots of other news about family happenings. We send you our love and God’s blessings at Christmas time.

Rick & Jennifer