Merry Christmas 2008

Greetings from Elizabethtown PA. Most of you have heard by now that I moved back to PA this fall. I arrived back in PA on October 19th – just in time to celebrate my 50th birthday. Wooohooo.
I don’t remember much about the beginning of the year. I didn’t keep a daytimer this year or a good calendar so I guess nothing exciting happened. Since Deb’s family moved there were no soccer games to go to this year but I’m sure found something to fill my time.
My idea of camping has always been at the very least, a trailer with a bathroom. For some reason I started thinking about tent camping. I bought a tent this spring and started collecting camping equipment at yard sales and WalMart. I found that one of my friends, Loretta, was interested in camping with me. Loretta has the brother, Chip, to my dog, Jazz. We made plans to go camping three weekends this summer. There were some requirements for the places we camped. For one, it had to have bathrooms and showers. The first two weekends we went were extremely hot. We just sort of sat around and moved our chairs to follow what little shade we could find. Our last weekend camping was probably our favorite because it was much cooler and the campground had more shade. We had a great time. I’m not sure Jazz enjoyed the experience. I think she is too much of a “princess.”
My neice, Deb’s oldest daugher, Rachel, spent the summer with me again this year. It is always fun to have her around. I finally got a chance to see some soccer as she played for the semi-pro team in Colorado Springs
I made a trip to PA in May to celebrate my parent’s 50th anniversay. We had a little party for them. In April, Dad had fallen and broken his hip – the one that had been replaced in 1991. We weren’t sure he was going to be up to a party but he was and we had a great time. We had a discussion about their plans for the future and after talking it through and praying about it, I decided to move back to help out a bit. They are still pretty active and able to do a lot of things but the upkeep on the house and yard is a little too much for them.
Towards the end of June I gave notice at work and told them that I would be leaving by the middle of October. I love my job and the people I work with so it was not any easy thing to do. Within a couple of weeks there was a plan to work towards having me keep my job and work from home. We found ways for me to do my job remotely and so far it seems to be working well. It has its challenges and I miss the office interaction and my view of pikes peak, but I am so grateful to be able to keep my job and do what I like to do. I was not looking forward to looking for a job in this economy. God is good!!
The move east went very well. God worked out so many of the details. I was nervous about getting enough help to load the truck but I had planty of help to load and they got all but one piece of furniture in the truck. One of my uncles volunteered to fly out and drive the truck
home. All I had to do was hold Jazz and watch the scenery go by. I sold my car to a family from my church and was able to drive it up until the last day. Just so many details and so many answers to prayer.
My brother Ed and his wife Val are still living in Lancaster. Their daughter Becky is teaching again this year. Their son Shaun graduated from college this year and is working as a graphic artist.
Deb and her husband Michael are spending their second year in Yorktown VA. Rachel will graduate from college this year. Matthew turned 16 and is driving, Hannah is 12 and Gabrielle is 10. My how they are growing up. I’m looking forward to some weekends in VA and soccer games.
Cliff is still in Mount Joy and still driving truck. It will be good to be able to see my family more often.
My parents are doing pretty well. Dad had hip surgery, mom had hernia and shoulder replacement surgery this year. Mom’s shoulder surgery was December 5th so she is still recovering. Dad is still driving the Amish around and coming home with stories to tell. Mom keeps herself busy and she does the cooking, so that is good for me.
Turning 50 – well, what can I say about that milestone? I thought it would be fun to get the girls from the Sunday school class of my childhood together to celebrate our 50ths. I hadn’t seen some of those girls in 20-30 years. There were six of us and we had a great time catching up and laughing.
Being back “home” has been good. In some ways it feels like I never left. I’m back at my church and they have put me back to work in the choir, worship team and singing solos. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with more family and friends in the coming year.
I hope this letter finds you all well and enjoying the holiday season with your family and friends. May the reminder of what Jesus did fill you with wonder and awe this Christmas season. He came from heaven to earth to show the way; from the earth to the cross, our debt to pay; from the cross to the grave; from the grave to the sky…..

Privacy

Recently I asked someone when they were going to join Facebook. The response was that they are a private person and that Facebook is too public.

That got me to thinking about our "right" to privacy. In this age of identity theft, it is in our best interest to keep a lot of information about ourselves private and off the "information highway." You and I both know people who should keep their lives more private. We don't always want to hear every nitty gritty detail of someone's life.

It was said to me recently that Facebook and MySpace were created for the "me" generation - the generation that thinks it's all about me. If you've never been on those websites, you should take a look sometime. I know people on there with hundreds of friends. I may know that many people but how many of them do I have the time to keep in touch with or with how many of them do I really want to keep in close touch. It amazes me that people have the time it takes to keep up with Facebook or MySpace. You can easily eat up hours of your time trying to keep up with your friends and keeping them up with your life. It is interesting to see what people are up to and I do spend a few hours a week catching up on the lives of my friends/family - especially those that I don't get to see on a regular basis.

On a spiritual level, James 5:16 says "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." So, how private should we be about our lives? If we keep everything private, including our sins, I think we can miss out on some things that God wants to do in our lives. I'm not saying that we should confess all of our sins to everyone we know. Confessing our sins to other christians, especially those who are more mature in their faith, gives us access to more prayer power on our behalf. It allows us to not feel alone and defeated by our sin. In many cases it brings opportunity for discipling and allows us to grow and mature. On the flip side, as we grow and mature and learn from our sins, we have the opportunity to help others going through the same experiences.

Choose wisely the times to be private and the times to be transparent. Rely on the prompting of the Holy Spirit.