Annual Christmas Letter 2019

Dear Friends and Family,

2019 has been a year of change for us.  Thankfully God has led us all the way and brought us through this year that has flown by faster than any previously!

In January, Janet started working for God’s Bible School and College, for the Spring semester as cook’s helper in the kitchen.  She learned a lot and enjoyed getting to work around the staff and students.  But it was hard on her arthritis, especially her left knee.  So we were all relieved for an opening in an office job mid-May, when she got trained in Donor Records.  In August, she started learning lots more new things in training to be an Administrative Assistant for the Constituent Relations department.  God has helped her so much.  It is a privilege to be part of the GBS family, to care about and pray for all the students and staff, and to experience the presence of God in the workplace every day.

Because of Janet’s knee problems, we started praying about moving to a ranch-style home with bedrooms and laundry on the main floor and we put our house on the market in May.  It took a while to find the right house and buyers for ours, but in mid-August, we closed on both houses and got moved to Florence, Kentucky.  We love it that God answered our prayers for the features we needed the most in our house, and we are enjoying the benefits.

Rowen is a little closer to his work now and continues to enjoy installing all kinds of window coverings.  He also helps with a lot of closet/pantry installations, which are more tiring work than blinds.  God has been good to him, helping him be safe in sometimes awkward or unsafe positions he has to be in to put blinds in hard to reach places.  Rowen’s diabetes is still an issue, but God helps him to know when his blood sugar is too high or too low, so he can make adjustments. He still takes five insulin shots per day, but we are very grateful for the insulin being provided for free through his doctor!

We have enjoyed having guests in both of our houses throughout the year.  It seems that our guests are happy, even if our guest room -and all our bedrooms- are smaller than at the previous house.  But the living area is roomier and open and we love having guests for Sunday meals and look forward to having at least part of our family here at Christmas. 

We gained a granddaughter when Mandylyn Joy was born to Randy and Joy on August 26.  We are anxious to see her (and the rest of her family) at Christmas, as we haven’t had time off to go on a trip as far away as South Dakota.  Before too long, Tim and Brenda will have another baby girl, so by the end of the year, we will have 9 grandchildren.

Jeff and Lesa were out of the country for almost five months, but we have gotten to see them several times since they are back.  They came and helped us move and do the things we needed done at this house.  Jason and Karen are still hard at work at God’s Bible School and Jason is planning to graduate in 2020 with his Masters. 

Elizabeth qualified to graduate from God’s Bible School this past May, but after much prayer decided to continue on another two years and add on a teaching degree, so she has been working very diligently in her challenging teaching classes at GBS.  Emily is busy with her sophomore year in college at GBS and enjoying the American Sign Language classes she takes at Cincy State. They both worked at Chick-fil-A all summer, and Emily has continued to work opening shift on Saturdays during the school year.

We have lost several relatives, dear friends, and other acquaintances to death this year.  Recent and unexpected deaths have brought home the renewed realization of how important it is to live ready to die.  We do not know when our last day will be.  We want to always have everything in the clear with God, so when our time comes, there are no question marks about where we are spending eternity.  Right now- while we are alive- is when we have opportunity to make sure we are ready. There is no guarantee that we will have a lingering illness in which to get ready!  And why would we want to waste our lives anyway?  The only joy-filled life is one lived at peace with God, knowing our sins are forgiven and we are in right relationship with God.

Have a Christ-filled Christmas and New Year! 

Rowen, Janet, Elizabeth, and Emily Albertson

 Taken in our backyard November 3 by Danette Teed

Taken at Higher Ground Conference Center at the GBSC Staff Christmas Party by Rachel Pohl

Where did November go?

To our joy, we discovered this late fall that we have a Burning Bush in the back yard!!  We have wanted one for over 30 years, as we enjoyed them so much in Colorado.  They are very prolific here too, and the Lord gave us one for our own!!

We decided to have it in our "Christmas" picture, which Danette took for us on Sunday, November 3.

 We had Kashleigh over for the afternoon and her dress matched the tree.  She is one of the "bus kids" at church.  She loves to come to our house to spend Sunday afternoons now that we have moved closer to church.  She also comes to church with us on Sunday evenings most of the time.

 In this picture, Kashleigh is standing on our porch in front of the Jane Magnolia tree.  We didn't know about Jane Magnolia trees until we moved to Kentucky.  It has beautiful pink blossoms in the spring.  We decided we wanted one as soon as we came across them in our other neighborhood.  Now the Lord has given us two of our plant heart desires!

 Kashleigh wanted to be in the family picture.

 We tried to get a family picture with Danette with us, but somehow Kashleigh pushed the wrong button and we didn't get the picture.  But Danette is in the picture below, at dinner time.  Danette and Elizabeth are on the bus every Sunday, so Kashleigh loves them.

That night, the GBSC choir came to our church for a concert.

 We enjoyed the wonderful singing and testimonies.

 November 8-10 we had the Manners, missionaries in Taiwan with us.  They took us out to eat at Cracker Barrel on Saturday evening.

 We had time to play some Chickenfoot dominoes with them.  We played downstairs because it was warmer down there.  Byron and Missy are more used to warm winters and it is hard on them to come to the US when it is cold.  They were the ones who taught us to play Chickenfoot version of dominoes.  We had a good time with them. 

On Sunday, we had Caleb, Danette, and Rebecca with us to enjoy time with the Manners.

 We sat around visiting in the living room before Missy and Byron had to leave to continue on their journey to Florida.  

The next Sunday, we had Jimmy and Danette, and Eli and Eli Albring.  Mrs. Albring's name is said like "Ellie."  We call them Eli Squared or Eli to the 2nd power.  They are newly married last summer and are in our Care and Connect group at church this quarter.  We had fun visiting and getting better acquainted with them.

Eli has been teaching at Aldersgate Christian Academy and Eli is on staff in recruitment at GBS.

The next Sunday, we had Rebecca, Jimmy, and Danette for dinner.

I taught Rebecca how to play Mancala before she had to go back to the school to work in the kitchen that evening.  Danette and Emily practiced for playing the offertory on Sunday night.  They played God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen so well.  They both "plucked" one of the verses and every child in the audience sat spellbound!

After church that night, the pastors treated the laymen with milk and homemade donuts.  They were yummy!

 Regina and Sherilyn-sweeter ladies you will never meet! 

 Darrell with Kari

 The Harms kiddos picking out their donuts.

We couldn't put the Christmas quilt on the quilt rack, since the quilt rack is installed in the laundry/sewing room.  We want it in a room where we can all see and enjoy it. So we used push pins to hang it on the wall.

After the wall is "Christmas-fied."

Natalie came to see us Nov. 26-27 before flying home to Colorado for Thanksgiving.  We loved the opportunity to see her again.

We played Mancala together, while Emily and Elizabeth did some studying.

This picture shows the other side of our wonderful basement room.

               After the girls got enough studying done, we girls played Chickenfoot with Natalie.

 Emily and Natalie wearing their school logo-wear before heading to the airport! 

 The next day was Thanksgiving.  We started out with Abi and Gaby Montero from Mexico and Tsion (pronouned C-own) from Ethiopia coming over in the morning.  They didn't get to go home from GBS over Thanksgiving break.  We called them our GBS orphans.  Tsion had never put together an interlocking puzzle before.  

 We had eleven guests for dinner.  Besides the girls, we had Jeffery General, another GBS orphan, Chris McCain, a GBS Master's student who goes to our church, Retha Elger, Marvin and Joyce Cooper, and Gary, Denise, and Wesley Mitchell.  Gary works in Maintenance and Denise runs the Commons and the Resource room at GBS.  They are wonderful friends.

 Jeffery and Wesley helped put the puzzle together.

 The GBS student table

 The "adult" table.

 We played Things, and then played Chickenfoot.

 The kids played several games, including Apples to Apples.

 Later the girls played Monopoly.  That was a totally new game for Tsion.

The girls stayed the night with us and the next day, Tsion helped me decorate the "pencil" Christmas tree and Gaby arranged the Nativity on the piano.

 We haven't had a tree for many years, so it was fun to put one up again.

The finished product

The girls went back to GBS in the afternoon, and Jason and Karen came over for the evening.  After supper, we played Things and enjoyed their company.

 During the dark part of the year, we really enjoy having lights on our house.  On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we made  a lot of pumpkin bread and then took a loaf to eight of our neighbors.  We met several we had never met before.  One of them told us that we won the "prize" for getting our house lit up first in the neighborhood.  We pray that our "lights" will shine for Jesus in this dark world we live in. 

October

Every month is busy and keeps me behind in my blogging, so now is a little time to catch up October!  

We enjoyed having Dessi come and stay with us for a few days in early October.  She went to classes at GBS and visited around with other friends, but we enjoyed our time to catch up and visit with her.

 We enjoyed eating outside in the fall weather.

Dessi took the girls out to eat with her one day.

 Another meal together before she left us --until next visit!

On October 6, we had three of our church couples over for Sunday dinner.

 We had Lonnie and Leta Witt, Marvin and Joyce Cooper, and Doug and Joan Hodnett.  They had all been to our other house and we wanted to show them we had an "elder-friendly" house now, without steps to get in the door.  Caleb Teed was there for the afternoon also. 

We had Keith and Crystal Schaper and their family for a missionary service at church.  They are missionaries in Guatemala.

 The 11-12 was Homecoming at GBS.  It was a busy time.  One of the highlights was getting to see  Glen and Helen Reiff.

 We also got to visit with Calvin and Marsha Hartman, more of Rowen's cousins, but we didn't get a picture of them.

Rowen and Janet enjoyed almost front row seating for 

the Collingsworth Family concert on Saturday evening. (Emily and Elizabeth took tickets at the door, so they didn't get to sit up front.  Emily still got these good pictures.)

 The ladies singing "Fear Not Tomorrow"

The grandkids even sang.

The next day the Young Adult class had the special song

 and we had Caleb, Danette, and Jimmy over for Sunday dinner.  They brought leftover tamales from their food booth at the Homecoming Street Fest.

We had a Sisters' Meeting on Monday night at the church fellowship hall.  

 We had yummy food, fellowship, and a craft to do.

 The fellowship hall has been decorated in a race track theme for awhile.

The next week our friends, Sam and Hannah Kinnamon came to stay with us while attending a special Thursday-Saturday event at the Ark Encounter.

At the same time, our almost family Emily McKay came to spend her fall break from Kentucky Mountain Bible College with us.  She enjoyed going to classes at GBS and studying with the girls.  She and our Emily matched in an upsidedown sort of way.

 We enjoyed the time with Emily!

 Emily and Emily helped with the cleanup of the wedding rehearsal for Maria Stetler and Bryan Robledo on Friday evening, and then on Saturday, October 19, Emily M went with Janet to the wedding, which was performed by Dr. Mike Avery.

 Marc Sankey and his sister, Vonnie sang at the wedding.  They are Uncle and Aunt of the bride.

 Karilee was the flower girl.  She was such a good little girl, sitting quietly on the step during the ceremony.  On the way out, she distributed the rest of her leftover rose petals.  

It was a beautiful, God-honoring ceremony.

 

 Mr. and Mrs. Robledo

 A closer picture at the reception 

Janet was surprised to see some Kirks cousins at the wedding.  Stanley and Zola Maxine Hunter go to church in Ft. Scott, Kansas where Bryan is Youth Pastor.  Zola is Wanda Scoles's cousin.  So we had them come for dinner on Sunday after they came to church with us!

We also had Frank and Sherry Martinoli (in our current Care-n-Connect Group), Emily McKay,  Anthony Paulus and Jimmy.  Emily, Danette, and Caleb were gone on a SWSE day to a couple of churches.

That night we "pounded" our pastors with lots of groceries and other items!

At the end of the service honoring the pastors, everybody came up and hugged or shook hands with them all.  We love our pastoral team.

Andy, Sherilyn, Wilson, Marshall, Karilee, and Ellyson Stroud

Darrell and Regina Stetler

We are so blessed with wonderful shepherds! 

 On October 23, David and Christina Black, missionaries in Taiwan, were scheduled for Wednesday evening church.  The Stetlers had Retha Elger and us over for supper.  Retha babysat Christina when she was a young girl, and Janet knew her as a young teen.  Elizabeth did 4 weeks of her missions internship (2018) with them in Taiwan.  The Stetlers have known them forever.  So there was lively conversation during the yummy meal!

 We enjoyed the informative service after that.

A picture of Christina and the girls

Elizabeth and the Blacks

Two days later, we bailed out of work and school and took a road trip to Jonestown, PA!  We traveled through beautiful country in West Virginia and Maryland before reaching our destination. 

 The trees were just beautiful and pictures don't do it justice!

 We stopped and had a picnic lunch while we were still in West Virginia.

 

 It was the perfect week of the year for fall colors.

 

This trip was very close to our 36th anniversary, which was October 22.

We loved the beautiful trees we could view at this Maryland rest stop.

We were glad Elizabeth and Emily could go with us!

There was a small ping pong table where we stayed; we enjoyed playing.

Picnic table 

The other end of the picnic table room

We would have enjoyed staying there much longer!

The place where we ate downstairs.  It is also a music studio.

We got there too late in the evening for outside pictures.  So we took pictures in the morning before we took off exploring.  This is the Red Barn Retreat in Jonestown, Pa.

We drove to Lancaster and went to the Mennonite Information Center.  Rowen has Mennonites in his family history, so it was interesting to learn about them.

We did the tour of the accurately sized Biblical Tabernacle.  It was very interesting.

Our tour guide telling the story of Moses and the Israelites.

In the Holy Place

The High Priest could move up to the altar on a track.

We peeked in the window at the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant.

Our hosts, the Englands, were also at the Tabernacle tour!

We liked seeing covered bridges!

We ate at a Miller's Smorgasbord, an Amish restaurant, but we just ordered off the menu.  On Saturdays the Smorgasbord price is too high.  We knew we shouldn't eat enough quantity to make it worth the money!!

We went in an Amish Quilt store and looked at everything.  We didn't touch the quilts without white gloves, but Rowen did try on this handsome hat!

On a search for another covered bridge, we found this Old Mill with a water wheel.

We saw many Amish buggies.

We went to a meat shop to buy "puddins" for Aunt Becky, and Elizabeth got "shot" in this cute gazebo.

We admired the fine craftsmanship in this Amish Furniture Store.

We enjoyed this covered bridge up close and personal.

The Barn had three pianos, so there was no fussing over playing them.

We had rain on Saturday and Sunday.  This picture was Sunday when we were driving to church in Millmont, Pa.

Our friend, Brent Susan pastors Christ Community Church there.

We went to their home for dinner in Middleburg, Pa.

Emily with Kohen, Chanan, and Atarah

Our people with Brent, Alicia, Tirzah, Kohen, Chanan, Atarah, and baby Azariah is not in the picture.

But Azariah got in this picture!

We got home around 11 p.m. after a safe, relaxing trip.   

We had a prettier fall around here than we had expected after a very dry summer.  

We were happy to find out that we have a Burning Bush in our backyard!  We always loved them in Colorado and see them around here a lot.  It's a blessing we have one of our own!

Emily took this at GBS.

This is the pile of leaves Rowen and Janet gathered for the city to make into compost.  Since then almost that many have come down, but the rain has kept us from raking them.

Happy Fall!