So here I am writing on November musings when November has come and gone, but I always find writing my Christmas letter a good time for reflecting on the past year and what God has done in my life and this way I can share that letter with you just a little easier. Here is a random selection of pictures from the past year, followed by my Christmas letter, but hopefully I will have sent it your way, but if not it is at the bottom for you to read at your leisure.
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| Visiting Grandma at the Lincoln Home. |
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| Some of the family and Grandma with her soft pretzel. |
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| Enjoying a walk at Schnormeier gardens with mom. |
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Z and I with our cousins Karen and Kay at the bed and breakfast in upstate
New York for Brook and John's wedding. |
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Visiting with Uncle Dave and Aunt Betty at the bed and breakfast.
A good weekend with pieces of the White family. |
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| While at Niagara falls prior to returning home from Brook and John's wedding. |
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A remnant from mom, Z, and I's art challenge. This particular week the
challenge was a self portrait. |
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| Some of the Painted Turtles team at the Color Run in April. |
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| On the patio enjoying supper during our visit to the Finger Lakes area of NY. |
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| Holly and I at Watkins Glen. |
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| Ready to head to Costa Rica. |
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| Performing "King of Hearts", a drama we learned while in Costa Rica. |
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| The youth from Cuatro Cruses and us during our visit. |
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| Clearing the hillside by the church of banana trees and other vegetation. |
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| Enjoying a fresh mango picked from a tree during one of our walks in town. |
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| This is the bus stop we helped to build while in Costa Rica. |
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| Holly entertaining her bridesmaids with breakfast a few days before her wedding. |
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Mom made this smoothie for me one day after a run at the Wilderness Center.
i can't quite remember what was in it - maybe watermelon, strawberries, and mint,
whatever it was it was refreshing. |
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Friends and I on our 6 hour progressive meal, a delightful way to spend
a Friday evening with a friend from overseas and an opportunity for her to
see each of our houses, plus some. |
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Passing the accountability ball with the youth, a chance to share your struggles
and/or ways you have seen God in the past week. |
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| After the Buck Creek Triathlon. |
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| My fans and good companions at Buck Creeks. |
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| Enjoying getting our feet wet at our annual fall camping trip. |
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No pictures of me at Gettysburg, but my compadres and I were walking through
the National Cemetery here and I snapped a picture of them. It was a nice afternoon
for a tour of Gettysburg. |
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After the Ohio State 4 Miler, in front of my old home at my Alma Mater. It
was interesting reflecting on my 4 years at OSU while running around campus,
something I never would have been found doing during those years, I was not
a runner. |
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| A fondue supper to celebrate birthdays. |
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| Collecting my Christmas tree. Great help from the youth and a fun afternoon. |
Dear Friends and Family,
Another year has just about come and gone. It has been a year of ups and downs. All in all I have had a good year and God has blessed me many times over, but my heart mourns at times for those friends/family that I can no longer share this little piece of my life with.
Well, what have I been up to? In February, my mom, Janelle, and I set off for the East Coast to spend a day in New York City and take in an art show of one of mom’s friends at a gallery there. We planned to spend Friday afternoon/evening with Grandma and some family, then head to NYC on the train Saturday morning and return in the evening, and finish by spending Sunday with family again before heading home. However, a snow storm with bitter temperatures hit the coast Friday night and since Janelle’s asthma doesn’t do well with cold, we opted to stay and spend the day with Grandma. Disappointed as I was to miss NYC and the art show, I enjoyed the day with Grandma at her new home at the Lincoln Home. We visited and joined her in activities, where I helped her put together a soft pretzel mix “kit” to sell in the gift shop. She was so proud of it, she crossed off “Aunt Annie’s” and put Verna’s, so I purchased it and took it to my aunt’s, baked it up, and took a couple pretzel’s for her Sunday morning. She even held up the pretzels in our family photo. I was glad that I could bless her in that way. God blessed us with that weekend, despite our changed plans, it became even more evident to me, as this was to be my last goodbye to Grandma before she passed away in April at the age of 96. There are still times I think, oh I should call grandma and tell her.....oh yeah, I can’t do that anymore.
I continue to work with the youth at church, and have been encouraged by their faith and desire to know God more and in new ways this year. This had it highs and lows also, the low came just a little over a week after my trip to visit grandma, with the unexpected passing of one of our junior youth. She had just started coming to junior youth a few months prior and I was enjoying getting to know her as one of the youth and looking forward to getting to know her better, and those dreams of seeing her grow up and blossom into a young lady were gone just like that. I have seen God’s hand working in and around us even in the events after this though, as it prompted me and some of the other ladies from church to get together and participate in the Color Run in April. Through this I saw strengthened relationships and found it to be a bonding experience, as well as the first 5K for a number of them.
Now onto the highs of working with the youth and seeing God work in young lives. This spring, I worked with the junior youth to put together a prayer walk for Easter. It was a joy to see their creativity and excitement. With the eighth graders and high school youth we had the opportunity to go to Costa Rica and participate in a discipleship program. We prepped our trip by focusing on the acronym BLESS and setting our sites on blessing others both here and there. BLESS stood for Begin with prayer, Listen, Eat together (spend time getting to know one another), Serve (since we have spent time together and know what is needed, now we can serve), and Share. We started out with a very meaningful evening of prayer with both youth and parents, and started journals, which were well used on our trip. During our time in Costa Rica, we learned about God’s “furious” love for us, dramas, kids club activities, how to share our testimonies, and then we served in the town of Cuatro Cruses where we made new friends, helped build a bus stop, went on prayer walks, helped lead kids clubs, cleared a hillside of banana trees, learned to love gallo pinto, and saw the power of prayer in a new way. We returned home with new youth, ready to share their stories and their faith. It has been a pleasure to watch their joy as they get together for accountability group and worship time and just hear their reflections on life. I continue to pray that this continues to be a wellspring of their lives.
In May, some friends(Holly, Beth Steiner, Sara Weaver) and I headed to the finger lakes area of New York for a relaxing weekend. We visited Harriet Tubman’s home, Corning Glass Museum - where we made vases, went on a dinner cruise on Seneca Lake, and hiked at Watkin’s Glen. Then at the end of June, right after returning from Costa Rica, I headed back to upstate New York for my cousin Brooke’s wedding near Buffalo. We had a good time, the whole family(mom, dad, Janelle, and James) went and we had an enjoyable weekend with dad’s brother Dave’s family staying together at a bed and breakfast. Afterwards we all spent a few hours at the American side of Niagara Falls. I have only ever been to the Canadian side and I found I could have spent a little longer there. Worth the stop. It was also good to see Brooke and John again, after spending time at their home in California when we were at Jeanette’s wedding last fall. Now, sometime I will need to plan a trip to Florida next time I want to see them. What can I say, I am not the only White with a love for seeing new places. Then I returned to Ohio and had the pleasure of celebrating with Holly (my old roommate) at her wedding (to Nick Miller), the only unfortunate thing is that now she lives in Holmesville and though it is not too far, it is far enough, it is not as easy to just swing by.
I had a nice fall, a good camping trip to Keystone State Park in Pennsylvania with the usual suspects (Ang & Todd Zuercher and the boys, Krystal & Jason Glick and Tessa, Holly and Nick, and Sara Weaver). We hung out, hiked, played games, and sat around the fire. Jason talked me in to coming to visit in Harrisburg the weekend he was running a half marathon in Gettysburg, so I could run the 5K and hang out with Krystal. It was cold for the race, but we had a good time and spent a few hours touring Gettysburg - I will have to return to finish our tour sometime. I also did a couple of triathlons this summer, one at Portage Lakes with my friend, Rochelle, and one at Buck Creek while spending the weekend in a cabin with my family. We spent a day in Yellow Springs while we were there. I also did a 10K and ran the whole thing, as well as the Ohio State 4Miler, and multiple 5Ks. I have one more 5K this year, it is this weekend, should be nice and chilly, but it runs through Stadium Park in Canton by all the Christmas lights, so it should be nice.
That sums up most of my year minus some gardening, a visit from my Paraguayan friend, Elly, including a 6 hour progressive meal with the girls, an enjoyable visit to Shnormeier gardens with my mother, riding my bike to work, and probably too many other things to share with you here. However, I will tell you one more thing, God blessed me and my friends with a nice day for the fall party this year, one I will not soon forget. However the memory is somewhat bittersweet, as just before Thanksgiving God called home my dear friend and neighbor, Anna, who has been a regular guest at the fall party for a number of years. I find I think of her sometimes at odd times that I wouldn’t have thought of, such as washing dishes or thinking about what game to play or other times. I will miss her, as many others will, but God has blessed us with many good memories of time spent with her and as we move on forward with our journeys in life, I continue to try to be conscious of God’s presence and His hand in my life and in the world around me, I pray you also will do the same.
I didn’t get any new Christmas music this year and haven’t been struck by any particular lyrics in that realm this holiday season, but throughout the year I have been touched by an album called “Birds of Relocation” by Eric Peters. One of the lines in one of the songs is “live like a living soul” and two of my favorite songs - The New Year and Fighting for Life, they speak to my soul of keeping my eyes open and remembering to look to God and for God each day despite what is going on around me. When we strive to live like a living soul and live for God, we have hope that we can overcome our failures and our struggles - “this is the year to perch on hope’s repair”, “But this is the year, it’s the year that something changes”, “I go into the darkness carrying a light, I will have no fear because I’m not alone, I got angels’ voices and friends who love me for who I am, So when the waters come, I fly above this flooded earth looking for a sign of life, And I relocate on boughs of hope, Like a living soul”
Go out this year carrying a light, and have no fear, for you are not alone. Merry Christmas, and God’s blessings to each of you, Kristin
