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