Merry Christmas from the Edmondson’s

Merry Christmas!

What an incredible year this has been!  I’m thankful for the friends and opportunities God has brought our way this year.  Our house has seen challenges and trials, as any year brings, but this year has been exceptional.

The circle of life continued again this year! Near the end of 2009, Cheryl’s father passed away with cancer.  In early 2010, my father passed away, also with cancer.  We walked through cancer with dozens of friends this year and we saw too many families whose lives were disrupted with the grief of death.  At the same time, we celebrated the birth of many dozens of babies and weddings in our church and among friends and family.

Our immediate family has seen many changes this year.  Jeremy graduated from college and started working full-time for the ministry Soles4Souls, where he is social media manager.  He’s doing an incredible work in his first career job.  Nate continued his studies at Moody Bible College, completed a summer internship at Grace, and had multiple preaching opportunities.  Cheryl started working full-time again at Fort Campbell Credit Union as Accounting Manager.

Cheryl and I traveled to separate mission fields this year.  I went to Africa and Cheryl went to Guatemala.  Together we continue our love for traveling by going multiple places.  We are true empty-nesters now and glad we enjoy each other’s company so much.

Grace Community Church has continued to exceed all the expectations we could have set for the church.  We celebrated 5 years together this September and our growth is still averaging over 30%.  God keeps bringing hurting people our way and we keep experiencing genuine life change.

We are closing out the year by selling our house and buying a condominium downtown in our city, with an incredible view of the Riverwalk and downtown.  We’ll soon be walking to Austin Peay State University ballgames, restaurants, plays and the museum.

This coming year has some excitement in store for us.  Jeremy will marry his high school sweetheart in May.  We love Mary and welcome her as our daughter.  We already consider her one of ours, so this will only make it official.  Nate will be spending the summer in Europe, studying abroad. We will miss him, but happy for the opportunity he has.  We have some fun travel plans. I’ll be going to Costa Rica in January with Mary.  Cheryl and I are headed to an island off the coast of South Carolina in February and we are making plans for San Francisco this summer.

Christmas and year-end always reminds me how blessed I am.  Please allow me to thank you, my blog readers, Twitter and Facebook friends, and family members at Grace Community Church.  I love each of you being part of my life.

God is stirring my heart for some expanded opportunities in the New Year.  I am looking forward to more good times together in 2011!

Merry Christmas!

(If you are a regular reader…or a new reader…I’d love for you to comment just to let me know you are out there…)