Christmas Letter
Christmas 2008
Unfortunately, the winter weather really didn’t leave us until May. What a long season that was! Evan was glad when the warm weather finally rolled around so he could actually experience outside play time. He certainly loves to play outside, especially when it comes to playing with balls of all kinds, chasing after Moose, and swinging on the play set. With the warmer weather, we tackled our landscaping by putting in lots of donated hostas and irises, a few potted veggie plants, and a flower garden along the back of the house.
June was a crazy-busy time for us. We started off the month by taking a trip to Wisconsin to celebrate Jon’s dad’s retirement from the Racine Police Department. It was fun going back and visiting lots of friends and family we hadn’t seen in a while. The following weekend was Shana and Kyle’s wedding. We both enjoyed being a part of their special day—especially since they met walking down the isle together at our wedding! It turned out to be a beautiful day for a wedding, and a day that would change our lives forever. At the wedding reception, Jon ran into an old friend from high school and her husband. They had a great conversation about youth ministry, which prompted him to ask Jon’s permission to submit his name at their church by the end of the night. Honestly, we both thought it was nothing much to think about, but a week later, the church gave us a call to set up an interview.
We were back in the Saint Louis area two weeks later for my cousin Danielle’s wedding. Unbeknownst to our friends and family, we were also interviewing with Faith Lutheran Church in Oakville, MO, as they sought out God’s will for the right person for their youth ministry position. The interview was Friday afternoon. The church’s ministry philosophy, team-oriented staff, and genuine care and passion were apparent from the beginning. We pretty much knew after the interview that God was working in ways beyond our understanding. We left the interview and quickly headed off to the wedding rehearsal—Jon was preaching for the ceremony and Lani was doing all of the vocal music with her own accompaniment. Matt and Danielle’s wedding was also beautiful, but we were admittedly a bit distracted with the excitement of our second interview with the church on Sunday morning. By the time we were heading back to Minnesota, we were facing a big decision…we completely understood the complications of leaving a first call after being there only one year! It was a good thing we had a lot of time to talk since Evan was spending the entire month with his Grandma and Grandpa Tindall to avoid the three round-trips from MN to Saint Louis that month.
Did I mention that while we were in town for Matt and Danielle’s wedding that we had an announcement of our own? We’re expecting Baby Palmer #2 in the middle of February! We had a lot of fun working out a plan to tell our family. Lani made Evan a t-shirt that said, “I’m going to be a big brother!” We put it on him and enjoyed watching how long it took people to read his shirt, process its message, and understand what it said. J And then we posted a picture of Evan in the shirt on our website and on Facebook to announce it to everyone else.
We had one day to rest after returning from the wedding before we loaded up 13 youth and 4 adult leaders and headed back down to Saint Louis for our summer mission trip. We helped Pastor Randy (you’ll remember him as the officiating pastor at our wedding and at Evan’s baptism) and the Acts 1:8 Mission Society work on the restoration and renovation of The Rock (formerly known as St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, right off of 64/40 and Kingshighway in Saint Louis). We worked hard on several projects that week—ripping out a huge stump (by hand with only a little help from a chainsaw at the end), tuck pointing (that’s fixing the brick work on the outside of the church), laying and fixing tile floors, sanding, recycling wires and other metals, and several other miscellaneous projects that just needed to be done. In addition to a lot of hard work, the kids also got to enjoy some Saint Louis classics like the arch, the zoo, Grant’s Farm, the Loop, Forest Park, Fitz’s Restaurant, and a giant Pointersaurus pizza from Pointer’s Pizza in Clayton.
Shortly after we returned from the mission trip, we received the official call documents from Faith. We knew our decision was time-sensitive since so much of Jon’s work as a youth pastor revolves around the start of the school year, which was quickly approaching. I’ll spare you the details, but we prayed for God to make His will VERY obvious to us, and He did. So by the end of August, our house was on the market, our van was packed, and we were on our way to Saint Louis once again. (The short version of this story makes it seem like it was a pretty easy decision to make…but it was NOT. It was, quite possibly, the toughest decision of our lives!)
Fast forwarding to present day, our house is still on the market. We’re living with Lani’s parents in Red Bud (about 40 minutes away from the church) until our situation improves. We’re so grateful to have a place to stay—there’s no way we could afford our mortgage on top of a rent payment or another mortgage payment and double utilities! And Evan gets to spend a lot of quality time with his Grandpa and Grandma Tindall and Titi (Auntie Lora). While not having our own place is challenging and frustrating, God’s has so richly blessed us where we are now.
Jon is blessed to be on staff with total team-players. It is really such an incredible, supportive, creative, growing, and free environment—such a good fit for his personality! J The worship style at the church is very “modern” and free (Evan loves to “play his beats” along with the drums every Sunday morning!). Faith has worked so hard on creating a caring culture within the staff and congregation that it really does show! If we had to sum up in one word what makes them different, it would be this: Freedom. We really admire that one of their core values is RISK. And it is present in what they do from their homeless ministry to the topics they aren’t afraid to talk about on Sunday mornings. We also admire how much they value raising up the men of the church to become the leaders that God wants them to be for their families, how much emphasis they put on being in the Word and opening up your Bible, and how they don’t mince words when it comes to speaking the truth in love. We won’t talk forever about our new church home, but if you’d like to check it out more in-depth, you can visit their website at www.faithstl.org.
Lani is still doing some freelance work for Stephen Ministries, but has recently started her own photography business. So far, her clientele has consisted of family, friends, and church members, but that’s been enough to keep her busy! Jon’s early Christmas present to Lani this year was Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0, which is an amazing photo editing program that has already helped her do crazy things like remove flashes from glossy surfaces and switch heads from photo to photo. (To see some of her work, visit her photography blog at http://lmtphotography.wordpress.com or the family blog at www.jonandlani.blogspot.com .) But the majority of her time is still spent being a stay-at-home mom for Evan and taking care of herself and little Baby Girl. It’s quite a lot of work keeping up with a 2 year old who is constantly on the move and finding lots of trouble (especially since Lani’s in the last trimester of her pregnancy).
That’s right. Baby Girl. Due sometime in the middle of February. Lani thinks it will be close to the 16th, but her doctor thinks it will be closer to the 22nd. Seeing how Evan came out on his own over 10 days early and weighed in at 9 lbs 2 oz, we’re both thinking the earlier date will be more accurate. But time will tell. J With Evan, we decided to be surprised, but since most of this pregnancy has been spent in deliberation, commotion, and stress, we decided to find out the gender to help our “bonding” time with the little one…and Evan’s too. It’s really cute to hear him say “ter ter” for sister…He loves her so much already! He’s always giving Mommy’s tummy hugs and kisses and talking about his baby! J And although the news of a girl was quite the shock to us, it’s slowly sinking in as we prepare for the world of pink (and pray for minimal drama in our house in the years to come!)… We can’t wait to meet her in a few short months (less than 9 weeks to go)! She’s already showing us her strong personality—she’s quite the kicker who likes to rock and roll! J
And Evan. Right in the middle of the Terrible…ly Terrific Twos. He’s learning new words every day (although usually we’re the only ones who can understand his toddler-ese language). He loves to run around, have books read to him, play with his trucks, color, swing, push buttons of all kinds, watch Curious George, play the Wii with his daddy (no, you did not misread that!), but most of all, play his BEATS (those are his drums, in case you didn’t know…) J We are really enjoying this stage of his life—he certainly keeps us on our toes! He’s going to make a great big brother!
We continue to pray for God’s guidance through this thing called parenting (which some good friends of ours told us lasts until the kids are at least like 40…J) and for our house to sell. We give Him thanks for a crazy-yet-amazing year of seeing how He’s working in our lives. But especially as we write this letter, we give Him thanks for you, our friends and family, who continue to be there for us through our ups and downs. We pray that you also see His awesome power at work in your lives, even amidst the troubles of this world. God’s blessings to you! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! J
I read the whole thing when I got it in the mail, and the picture made it on the fridge my first day back home!