I am posting our Christmas newsletter here. Merry Christmas! Happy Birthday, Jesus, our Lord and King!
Dear friends and family,
We are grateful that this year was not as eventful for us as last year. We have found that with two kids needing at least one nap each daily we just don’t make it out much. But that’s OK with us; we are especially enjoying our time together as a family and really don’t miss the days when we could come and go as we please (well, not too much anyway).
Nicole, now in the fifth year of her dream job as stay-at-home-mom, has taken her craft to cyberspace as the happy lead-blogger at thepantrybook.com. The blog theme is “Eucharisteo” which means radical gratitude; she shares her ideas about homemaking, mothering and the daily struggle to keep Christ first in a world full of distractions. Our family “photo of the day/month” email (which many of you received for years) has been replaced by the blog. Any family updates can now be found there. In the magical but few moments when both children are napping, in addition to her blogging, Nicole enjoys quilting and preparing wholesome foods. She is the local chapter leader for the Weston A. Price foundation, an organization that is dedicated to educating people about and connecting them with sources of whole, traditional foods.
Kent is in his final and most enjoyable year of his dermatology residency. The highlight was a tropical medicine course this past summer followed by a two-week military medical missions trip to Paraguay. It was very similar to the Christian missions trips in which he participated during medical school — minus the most important part, evangelism. His time overseas renewed his passion for missions and dermatology, and also allowed him to brush up on his rusty Spanish skills. He spent September studying dermatology at the National Institutes of Health, which included running two Grand Rounds conferences for the National Capital Region dermatologists and residents. He graduates in July and then takes his certification boards.
Adele continues to serve well in her role as older sister. She has a unique talent of being able to calm her brother by singing to him. She got her ears pierced on her fourth birthday, not wanting to sit on her mother’s lap or even hold her hand during the process. When it was over, she didn’t cry and even said that it didn’t hurt. She dresses like a Victorian lady, changing her clothes at least seven times daily, mostly wearing “wedding gowns” (which is what she calls dresses that go “all the way to the floor”). She’s still learning how to keep her wardrobe changes from piling up on her bedroom floor.
Everett is a very social and cheerful one-year-old boy. Although he cannot crawl or even sit up yet, he spreads joy wherever he goes. He recently learned how to roll over from his tummy to his back and does it whenever he wants a change of scenery. His vision, while still impaired, has improved and he now sports fashionable blue baby spectacles. He would rather chew on them than wear them, however, so he doesn’t wear them all the time. He is also a very verbal boy, making “pre-speech” sounds all day long. He knows two words so far, “dee” which means Daddy, and “sss” which means Sissy. We’re still trying to get him to say Mommy but he’s not good with M’s yet.
This year, with the future of our nation and our world being ever more uncertain, we find ourselves longing for a simpler, less technology-dependent life. We are less fulfilled by a culture that demands continuous entertainment and emphasizes work as a means of collecting more stuff. We desire a deeper connection to the land, which we feel is what God intended for us. Despite visions of backyard chickens, bee hives, and miniature cows, we have delayed making plans for our permaculture homestead until we learned where we would call home after residency, which we recently have. Kent has been “penciled in” to the newly created position as the only dermatologist at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. Kent has wanted to work there since before he was in medical school and he is thrilled to be given his dream job. But, to paraphrase a recent Christian hit song, we find that we are continually reminding ourselves “All we know is we’re not home yet…Take this world and give us Jesus; this is not where we belong.” This Christmas we are thankful that God did indeed give us Jesus and in so doing, has given us everything that we need.
Love,
Kent, Nicole, Adele, and Everett Handfield
“Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” Ephesians 1:3
