Showered with Love!

We feel so blessed by all of our family and friends who are blessing us and John Paul with many gifts and prayers. Before we headed to the midwest for the holidays, we attended a Christmas Party for the school I taught at the past two years. The parents threw us a surprise baby shower, and so we were blessed with many gifts prior to leaving. 

Then we arrived in Kansas City and our parents hosted a baby shower where many family members and friends were able to attend. We enjoyed a lovely luncheon, a game of Baby Price is Right, and opened several gifts and lovely cards.

The luncheon spread

 Baby Price Is Right

 My cousin Anna painted this for us! We can't wait to hang it in John Paul's room!

One of the many adorable outfits we received!

We truly appreciate everyone's generosity. We also greatly appreciate your prayers for John Paul and his birth family! Please keep your prayers coming :)

Waiting with Quiet & Joyful Anticipation

"Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child…It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope."  

~Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Seek That Which Is Above, 1986

Family and Friends, 

It has been quite some time since we last blogged. Okay so maybe 13 months. I am accepting that it is far too daunting of a task to play catch up on what has taken place in the past year, and so I want to highlight a few events and make a resolution to begin again and keep up with the blog!!! In order to get a general idea of our year, you can check out the next blog entry where I pasted in our Christmas 2012 letter!

So a few highlights!

Well first, let me say, that I am one proud wife! Nathan has been working diligently in the northeastern part of the country to bring forth more fruit through the mission of FOCUS, as a regional director. Of course he cannot take the credit alone, for he is only one instrument for our Great Lord and Savior, and also because of the other amazing missionaries whom have dedicated their lives to serve the FOCUS mission and the souls they reach on college campuses. However, I do want to honor Nathan and bring to your addition a great honor he has received this year. He was awarded the Presidential Recognition Award, by the founder of FOCUS, Curtis Martin. Nathan was honored, in Rome, back in October, when 100 missionaries traveled there during the Synod of Evangelization. I am very proud of him. Though he may not feel this way, he is truly a humble servant! Much to his surprise (and mine) a video was made in his honor to recognize his great work. Please take a minute and honor Nathan by listening to what a few people had to say about Nathan. Did I say that I am so proud of him?

In other news, just about 2.5 weeks ago, Nathan and I received a call that greatly enhanced our Advent preparation for Christmas! Just as Mary awaits the birth of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we joyfully and quietly await the birth and adoption of a baby boy. On December 4th, Nathan received a call from our social worker saying that a birth family has chosen us to adopt their son. Nathan then left a voicemail that I will never forget, and that left me feeling like jello on days on end out of pure joy! Then when I called Nathan back, he informed me that this little boy was due in 6 weeks!!! And so, we now joyfully and as quietly as we can, anticipate the birth and adoption of this baby boy. After our struggle with infertility, this is by far the greatest Christmas gift we could have ever asked for, and the most blessed way to truly enter into this Advent season. We are blessed. We do please ask that you pray for the health of this child, for his birth mother, his birth family, and for God's will in this adoption. It will not be final until after his birth, and so we wait, pray, and hope.

Also this year, I, Lauren lost three dear souls in my life. First back in April, I lost my father's mother, Regina, who was 99 years old. She was the most devout woman that I know. She always had a rosary in hand and was very proud of her family and of her flowers! In October, I lost my mother's mother, Jean, who I truly consider one of my best friends. She too, loved our Lord, put all her faith, hope, and trust in him, and praised Him always in the good and the bad. Finally, just this past November, I lost my father's sister, Mary. She was the sweetest kindest soul, and fought a good fight in her battle with cancer. Please pray for the repose of their souls, for the peace of their family members, and for constant reminders to live as these beautiful women of God lived their lives. 

There are many more things to write about that have happened over the past year, but for now, I will leave it at this, and we will hope for a much more productive blogging year, especially if we have a new addition to our family :)

We wish you a very merry Christmas to you, your family, and your friends.

In Him, Through Mary,

Lauren &  Nathan

Our Christmas Letter

(This is the letter we sent out via mail. Unfortunately we were not able to reach everyone this year by snail mail, and we are sorry for that. If you did get one by mail, it should be coming to you today or tomorrow!)

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!  We wanted to let each of you know that you are in our prayers during this special time of year.  We truly appreciate the difference that you make in our lives and are touched to be blessed with so many amazing family members and friends.  Also, we wanted to take some time to share with you the many blessings that we have received during this last year. 

Lauren:  This past Easter Lauren finished her Master’s in Education at the University of Kansas.  This summer she decided to look again at teaching high school math.  In her search, she interviewed and was offered an adjunct position at Delaware County Community College near where we live in Philadelphia.  She is teaching Pre-Algebra and Algebra to 3 different classes there.  She has continued to tutor middle school and high school students in mathematical endeavors.  She is now tutoring several students, including a couple via Skype.  We have fondly dubbed these sessions as Skutoring or iTutor.

We have had some sorrows this year too with losses of both Lauren’s grandmothers, Regina Dirnberger and Jean Carmody, and Lauren’s aunt Mary Hess.  All three of these women were amazing examples of love and joy to us and lived inspiring lives of faith. We will continue to remember them in our prayers and how they motivated us to bring the love of Jesus Christ to those around us. 

Nathan: Nathan continues to work on his Master’s in Theology from the Augustine Institute with hopes to finish Summer 2013.  Nathan is now the Director of the Atlantic Region for FOCUS.  He runs a team in their Philadelphia office that oversees 16 campuses on the east coast.  Nathan was honored with the Presidential Recognition Award from Curtis Martin, the President of FOCUS.  He traveled to Rome to accept the award while joining many of his fellow missionaries as they prayed and heard talks from some of the world’s bishops at the Synod on the New Evangelization.  Nathan has been able to help develop some more leadership initiatives within FOCUS, giving him the opportunity to teach FOCUS staff often throughout the year.  In his free time, Nathan has picked up home brewing and has enjoyed making a few different types of beer throughout the year and sharing them with friends in the Philadelphia area.  Also, Lauren has convinced Nathan to start running, and he hopes to run his first every 5K in March of 2013. 

A Growing Family: Through a series of tests and many doctor’s visits in the past 2 years, we discovered that we would be unable to have children.  We started to pray and researched growing our family through adoption.  This past summer we started the paperwork and in September we were officially approved to be an adoptive family for a domestic adoption.  We hoped and prayed that we would be placed with a birth family soon. To our great surprise, as we drafted and now redrafted this letter, we were called! We have been placed with a family! The baby is due in January!!! We are more than elated, but we ask for your prayers for this great adventure for the birth family, the baby boy that we hope to adopt, and for us, as well.  We are honored that God has chosen us for such a wonderful way to grow our family.  Often, we remark that this is truly all we desire this Christmas, and now we know Jesus is hearing our petition. Of course the adoption will not be final until after the birth, so we do ask that you pray for God’s will in this situation, and for the peace of the birth family. We truly see them as the most generous and heroic couple for the decision they are making for their child.  And now we wait, with quiet, joyful, and hopeful anticipation, as the Holy Family did, on the birth of a son.

Thank you for your sincere prayers and affection towards us.  We believe that we would not be the people we are without you.  During this Advent and Christmas season, we will remember each of you in our daily prayers and offerings.  Jesus Christ is the light of the world and we pray that He will be the light of your lives this Christmas! 
                                                                                        Yours Truly,
                                                                                        Nathan & Lauren

13 Months have gone by...with no blog posts!