Really? 2025?
That just doesn’t sound real. 2024 was a doozy of a year. On the surface, daily life looked pretty much the same. But there were some major events to celebrate and some really hard things to walk through. Hoping this review of 2024 will bring you up to date. The photo gallery at the bottom will hit the highlights, but you’ll want to read on to see the full picture.
Avant Communications Team
Our newly “merged” Avant Communications Team is now working together from Kansas City (Missouri), Kaufman (Texas), Guatemala, and Puebla (Mexico). Now that we (the former Español team) are one with the Avant home office, we focus our efforts across several languages worldwide so we can maintain a cohesive voice for our efforts to train and equip missionaries to serve around the world. It’s exciting to see this cross-cultural effort as God helps us break down the barriers that might hinder a smooth workflow.
Speaking of languages, we recently launched a version of the Avant website in Portuguese: Avant Brasil, opening up our training/equipping to another language group. A fun tidbit… I’ll be going with my church to Brazil in July and I’m learning Portuguese! It’s amazing how God connects every little detail for us. The ministries aren’t necessarily connected, but learning the language will help me on the trip and will help as I work on the website.
In the spring, we had our formal merge as we all met in Kansas City (our home office) to meet all of the departments/staff that our work affects. Each night we had the opportunity to share a meal in the home of a different leader in our organization. This week-long meeting also allowed us time to bond and enjoy time together. Sweet friendships were formed, and I miss my new friends (even though we communicate almost daily as we work). We are meeting again in April at the Kansas City office, and hope to have another meeting later in the year in Puebla, Mexico. I’m looking forward to it! Right before the meeting in April, I’ll be attending a SiteStacker (the company we use for our technical needs) conference with other tech people on staff. This means I’ll be gone for two weeks at the beginning of April. You all might want to check on Scot while I’m gone!
Missions conferences are always a highlight. Normally they are near the beginning of the year. Country Bible Church had a great turnout in February (2024). Grace Bible Church switched things up and had the event in the Fall. It was a full week of activities and events that allowed us to connect with lots of different church ministries and groups of people. We even enjoyed a fancy evening of dinner and art at the Biblical Arts Museum in Dallas.
Sadly, I am still way below sustainable support levels for my ministry. Please pray for God to provide new individual supporters and churches to help sustain this ministry. You can give (or refer others to give) here. If you have any connections to groups or churches who would like to partner with me in training and equipping cross-cultural missionaries, please let me know!
Friends, Family, and the House
The People
As always, we love to spend time with friends and family. This usually revolves around football or baseball, good food, church activities, and live music. We celebrated birthdays and holidays, and we have photos to show it! The gallery below has captions for each moment we enjoyed (I have no pictures of Alphonse’s birthday since I was in Nicaragua at the time). And then there’s my weekly babysitting gig with my grandkids! This is always the highlight of my week. And since they are home schooling, I get to participate in their work and watch as they learn all the things!
This has been a packed-full year for church activities. I spoke at our Country Bible Church spring ladies’ retreat for the opening session. In the fall, I helped on the retreat organization team for Grace Bible Church and was the bingo MC (with a surprise as “stand-up comedian”) for game night. I’m facilitating one of CBC Bible study groups in Kaufman, and I’m still on the Grace curriculum team for their ladies’ Bible studies. We tackled the book of Revelation this year (we’ll finish up teaching in the spring).
For Scot and I, several concerts made their way into our schedule. After having the Rolling Stones concert cancelled on us thanks to the pandemic, we decided to go to Houston with some of Scot’s old friends to catch a performance before it’s “too late” (if you know what I mean). Wow! Those guys have way more energy than I do! Then in August, we got to see Sammy Hagar in Dallas.
On the other end of the musical spectrum, Scot treated Amanda and I to the crazy fun musical Beetlejuice at the Music Hall at Fair Park. Then, Glee and I took my mom to the Majestic Theater in Dallas to see Herb Alpert. That was more fun than we expected!
This year, for Thanksgiving, I took Mom to see my brother (Bob) and his family in Florida. We ate way too much food (he’s got a BBQ restaurant… and then there’s the holiday turkey).
Kid Updates
Natalie is killing it with her work. It seems she’s landed a bit on the political side of things. I’m not quite sure where she got that 😉! She runs her own social media management business and works as the Public Liaison for the Nueces County Sheriff’s Department. Some of her work entails writing content for social media, taking photos of events, and promoting the department’s achievements and activities. She also serves as Public Information Officer for the county’s emergency services. Her husband, Carl still serves as a Lieutenant at the police department. Logan (youngest) is still at home and dominates on the tennis team. Carson is stationed in Hawaii as he serves in the Coast Guard. Madeleine is a teacher in Houston.
Amanda still works as the Director of Green Oaks Life Prep in Arlington. She also home schools the kids! She’s a busy little mama. Casey works as Material Manager at DynaTen in Arlington. Winry is now six, Alphonse is four, and Lilly is two. More about Lilly below.
Joe is still working for Aspyr Media in Austin as their Market Analyst. If you pay close attention to the Christmas gallery photos, you’ll see someone new sitting next to him. They’ve been dating several months, and we were thrilled to include her in the festivities. Edith is a great fit; creative, smart, responsible, kind, and chimes right in with our sarcastic bantering 😍.
The Projects
We are slowly updating/restoring things here at this old house of ours. We haven’t gotten to any of the “fun stuff” yet since there are a lot of things that still need attention. Our electric bill was completely out of hand, so in 2024 we focused on making the house more energy efficient. I hated to replace the original 124 year-old (plus or minus) windows, but we tried to make them look as close to the originals as we affordably could. We also insulated below the floor (you could feel the wind whipping between the wood planks from below) and replaced the main floor’s HVAC unit. These investments significantly lowered our monthly energy bill! Praise God it was a successful project.
We were able to spruce things up with a couple of small DIY projects. Amazing what a little paint will do. The front door and the stairway got to have mini makeovers (photos in the gallery).
I also had the opportunity to paint a mural on a chicken coop! It was a fun project with a whimsical flair. One fun part was that all of their little critters (chickens, ducks, bunnies) surrounded me as I was painting.
The Difficult Stuff
We’ve also had some hard things that don’t always get shared in pictures (or social media). So here are a few updates that you could be praying about.
Last January, I had a planned surgery. All is fine, just something that needed to be done. However, all of the insurance still has not come through with the reimbursement. We are trying to be patient as we wait for those funds. I am extremely thankful to have an advocate in our Avant office that keeps on top of these things for me. It looks like we are making some progress. Your prayers are appreciated in this matter.
Scot went through an ordeal with quick onset cataracts. For several months, it was very difficult for him to work and drive. He ended up having the cataracts removed from both eyes and he can see better than ever now. The whole experience made me appreciate the work done in the world to make things more accessible for those with disabilities. We discovered so many things with the software we all use on a daily basis that could be easily fixed if it would just become a part of doing business. Small things like the contrast in filling out an online form (he couldn’t see instructions or even where the cursor should go). I am now even more motivated to aim for building accessible websites. The results are good for everyone! Not just for the people with disabilities.
My brother in Florida (Bob) was diagnosed with throat cancer late in the summer. He was experiencing a lot of pain and swelling and was having difficulty eating and even talking. They were able to remove a small tumor on his tonsil, followed by a grueling couple of months of chemo and radiation. He finished up in December and has finally started gaining some weight back. Please pray that the follow-up tests come back clear and that he is able to get his sense of taste back.
Amanda and Casey’s youngest, Lilly has had a really rough year. She’s been in and out of the hospital with some scary emergency events where she’s been almost non-responsive. They’ve run all the tests imaginable and they still have no definitive answers. They have started seeing some patterns in the events, so they are hoping to be able to avoid them going forward. But they still don’t know why. And it could be something she outgrows. The “not knowing” and wondering when/if it will happen again is extremely stressful. Please pray for peace and trust in the hands of our heavenly Father and that she remains healthy from now on.
I really hope to be more consistent with updates this year! Thankful to have all of you cheering us on.
Photo Gallery
