New Year

As our family enters into 2012 we realize that this will be a year full of many adventures and challenges. Our house has officially been added to the volunteer calendar, and we start working tomorrow. We are walking very humbly in this process, because we know that God is blessing us with an amazing opportunity.

When visiting another Habitat home in Elgin I learned that a volunteer had taken on the project of refinishing the original handrail going from the first to the second floor. This labor of love literally involved striping layers of paint off the large piece and recreating the missing pieces to complete the railing. I was moved to tears to think of the heart that went into this home, and now our home will be filled with love even before we move in.

Chris and I have lived in a spacious and gracious 1920's apartment, and in the basement of our friend's warm home (that was once a barn), and now we reside at my parent's handsome colonial home. In all these places we have found home, in each other and with our four wonderful children. That being said, owning a home represents something to a family and we are very ready to make a home together in the very near future.

In God's faithfulness to both of us, in our marriage, in our financial journey, and in the gift of our children there are so many stories or testimonies. Every story points back to God and how good He is. Through trial and through blessing He is our heavenly Father who loves us. He loves us so much that he gave us love through His only son Jesus.

Every volunteer that steps foot in our home and the other Habitat homes all over our Nation and world are a reflection of this love. For this gift, and the work ahead of us in this New Year we are extremely grateful.

1 John 4:7-12

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."