He was born to express the abundance of God's love, 

He lived to reveal the breadth of God's grace, 

He died to declare the depth of God's mercy, 

He rose to proclaim the promise of God's life. 

Christmas 2003

Dear Friends and Family,
  
Greetings from our new home in Cary, NC. It’s been a busy year, packed with events of traveling and moving our home from Illinois to North Carolina. We had thoughts of moving to a warmer climate for some time, but since Charlotte was born, we really saw the advantage of living closer to family. Since all of Caroline’s family are living in North Carolina, it became our first choice.

Craig’s sister Rachel got married in June. We visited her in Colorado for the wedding. It was a long drive (22 hours each way) but it was a wonderful wedding and Charlotte got to be the flower girl. Charlotte wasn’t quite walking yet, so her cousin Nathan pushed her down the aisle in a decorated stroller.

Charlotte gained a couple of cousins this year, too. Craig’s sister Angie adopted a baby boy, Christian James (CJ), who was born just before Christmas last year. Then Caroline’s sister had a baby girl, Kathryn, who was born a few days after Christmas. Suddenly, Charlotte was no longer the youngest kid in the family!

We put our home up for sale by owner in July. Just when we started to worry about the weather getting cold and the house market slowing down, God provided us a buyer in early September. It was a very smooth process; we sold our house to a recently married couple that really liked our crazy design in our loft and baby room. We were very glad to know that the murals on the walls were not going to be painted over.

As soon as we knew the house was sold, we drove down to NC to look for a house. Caroline’s sister graciously put us up for two weeks. We found a foreclosure house in good condition and under market value. We signed a contract for the new house and drove back to Illinois; it was time for packing and saying goodbye to our friends. It was much harder than we thought; we especially miss our Lakeland Church family. Their fellowship and friendship has been a great blessing in our life. Losing the closeness of friends and support in our life was both sad and scary.

November 1st was our moving date. Packing, which is never fun, was made much more difficult with a one year old around. Charlotte found it especially fun to pull things out of the box and drag all kind of packing material around. But Craig’s parents came to the rescue and helped us pack. Dealing with moving companies was a very stressful experience for us. We were trying to save money with a “we pack and they drive” company called “MoveX” which we will not recommend to anyone. Two days before the move, MoveX called us and told us they couldn’t arrange a truck for us. After much stress, we spent a lot more money but in the last minute we were able to get a full service moving company to provide the move. The move went easier than we expected since we did not have to do the moving ourselves.

On December 9th, Charlotte had a Febrile Seizure, which cause by a rapid rising fever. She’s doing fine now; she recovered in a week. The fever was caused by Roseola. Even though it was a very traumatic experience for us as first-time parents, it’s comforting to know that it’s common in the toddler years (4% of kids between 6mo – 5 yrs will at least have one) and most of the time is harmless. But this does mean that Charlotte is more prone to another Febrile Seizure, so we have to keep a close eye on her whenever she has a fever.

With this traumatic incident we were reminded that Charlotte is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalms 139:14). She is a wonderful creation of God that we got to enjoy for the past year and a half. In the moment when she went unconscious in our arms, we learned that no matter how much we love her, we are not in control of her life. But we are comforted to know that as precious as Charlotte is to us, she is much more precious to God. We’ve known her for a short time, but God is the one who “formed her inward parts and knit her together in the womb” (Psalms 139:13). We hope to enjoy Charlotte for a long time. But we know we need to trust that God has a wonderful plan for Charlotte and we pray that we can “train her in the way she should go” (Proverbs 22:6).

Craig, Caroline, & Charlotte

May Jesus – the source of joy we feel, the love we express and the hope we cherish – bless you at Christmas and always. 

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6) 

See more about our year and more at Bedward2000.