Greetings to all of our friends, old and new! We hope you are enjoying a wonderful December! This time of year we always reflect on the
past year and God’s blessings to us. We
write this letter as a communication to our friends but also as a reminder to
ourselves.
We had some difficult times early in the year when my
father, Don Schaefer, died of pancreatic cancer in February. I am fortunate that I was able to clear my
schedule and spend his last five weeks with him and my sisters in
Arkansas. I am glad that my Dad knew the
Lord and that he is now with my Mom in glory, and I’m blessed to have a special
bond with my sisters! We spent countless
hours together this year cleaning out our parents’ home, and we sold it last
week. So many memories!
On a happier note, some awesome news is that our daughter,
Rebecca, was married to Joseph Obenschain on May 26th! It was a beautiful day of celebration.
She and Joseph are living in Richmond, Virginia where Joseph
is working as a helicopter pilot with the National Guard and Rebecca is working
as an administrator at an engineering firm.
We are thrilled that they will be spending a whole week with us at Christmas!
I am now a
retired homeschooling Mom! Noah headed off to Lee University (in
Cleveland, Tennessee – just about 80 miles from here), where he has a full tuition
scholarship and is double majoring in theatre and psychology (yes, he is
the offspring of two engineers). He is loving Lee and the college life!
Our other
boys are in Knoxville. Nathan is
finishing up his last year of Nursing School at
the University of Tennessee and is hoping to work in critical care.
Caleb is working
full-time as the Sony expert at Best Buy.
Terry is
still flipping houses (see his work at H2HRenovations.com). I worked a brief
internship at an environmental engineering firm this fall. It was fun, but I’m still not sure exactly
what’s next for me – whether it’s career or ministry or a combo. I was asked to lead a team of women to Lesvos,
Greece this past summer to work with refugees (and Terry came along as our bodyguard, driver, and porter). Looks like we
will be going again next year – this time we’re planning to take both men and
women to work directly in Camp Moria! It
is exciting to how God is working in the European refugee crisis. And we’ve fallen in love with the tiny town
of Panagouida on Lesvos, which is becoming a little home away from home.
One fun memory we had this year was when we took a brief vacation
at Cedar Point, OH, and rode roller coasters for two days. Rebecca was able to join us as she hadn’t
started working yet, and we flew her to Columbus and surprised the boys by meeting
her on the way up.
I have concluded
that this little trip really symbolized our lives together – ups, downs,
twists, turns, fears, joys, yelling, waiting (lots), but most of all – SPEED! We were reminded that life goes by fast.
“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a
little time and then vanishes.”
James
4:16
Our prayer for you this year is that wherever you are this
season, you will trust God and enjoy the ride He has for you!
