Happy New Year!

Welcome to our 2nd annual New Year's letter! It was a whirlwind Christmas season for us this year, with getting ready much later than usual and the cold weather keeping Corrie busy. But it was also rich with blessings and time with friends and family.

New Year's combines two things I love: starting new projects and coming up with ways of doing things better. This year our theme is "Trim the Fat". We have come out of our 2 year inertia and are looking around at what needs to change and what needs to be simplified. We want to be ready for whatever is coming up next for us.

We will trim the fat in our budget. We have been impulsive and passive for too long, and we want to be in a place where we can not only make decisions out of a place of freedom, but be ready to bless others out of the abundance that God has given us.

We will trim the fat in our diet. Corrie and I have seen the effects of neglecting our health this year in more ways than we like, and have committed to making some better decisions in this area. Again, being impulsive and passive have put us in a place where things need to change.

We will trim the fat in our "stuff". Both Corrie and I feel very strongly that we have too much stuff and will not only be simplifying what we keep, but committing to be very careful about how much more we bring in. We do not want to have more stuff than we have time and energy to maintain.

We will trim the fat in our time. We want to focus on the things that are important, like building relationships and keeping strong family ties. We will guard against those things that steal our time, and ensure that anything that we commit to is from the right motives.

Praise God! He has brought us through a dark place and has taught us many things along the way. I am very excited about 2010. I feel the need to prepare for a new season of blessing and coming up higher in what God wants for us. And we get to meet our little Zoe soon! Thank you all for your love and support as we have been learning how to live as the family that God has made us. We wish you all the best in this new year!