Merry Christmas! Happy 2021

Grateful for blessings at Christmas, 2020

Dear family and friends,                                             This year has been a year of gathering.  

              

We gathered our wits after having been gone on three missions four and a half years out of seven. 

We gathered our gardens, 

picking and hacking out old roots

 of stubborn weeds

and trees 

to plant greens and reds and yellows and purples, 

grateful for harvest, 

           grateful for good seeds, 

grateful for continual living water.   

We have gathered with neighbors 

to regroup after hurricane winds 

destroyed all that was without strong roots.  

Grateful we are for roots that grow deep.  

We commemorated with worldwide church of 16 plus million the blessing of the heavens opening with humble prayer-- and invite ourselves and our friends to continue efforts to 

Hear Him 

and respond 

in faith and humility.  

We gathered

 to celebrate a daughter moving forward in faith to marry her best friend.  

We have gathered for days and days remembering pilgrims and pioneering and building our personal frontiers.  

Thankful are we, for parents who prayed and wept and petitioned and plod fresh ground in their personal wildernesses. 

 Mostly, grateful are we to acknowledge heaven’s power in offering us a reason to celebrate new birth,

a birth that offers us rebirth

                                   

--the birth of a Holy Child, a Perfect Son, one who loved us sufficiently to bear our sorrows, heal our wounds, lead us to safety, and love us completely.       

As we gather physically, virtually,

or in spirit, we gratefully acknowledge that every good thing comes from the Architect and Designer of all good, 

which includes close family ties and friendship.

In your celebration of His birth and beginnings 

which dawn daily, 

we pray that you will sense our prayers 

in behalf of YOU--

our loved ones, near and far, 

and acknowledge and feel and sense 

a portion of His power 

in your lives 

as we feel it in ours, 

especially in times 

of uncertainty and change.  

Merry Christmas!  Happy 2021!  

Please know that you each are beloved! 

 Love, Laurene and Val Starkey

5 ¶ ^aTrust in the Lord with all thine ^bheart; and lean not unto thine ^cown ^dunderstanding.

6 In all thy ways ^aacknowledge him, and he shall ^bdirect thy ^cpaths.