Atsma Christmas Letter 2017

Every year, I get out the Christmas cards, the stamps, and the envelopes and end up leaving them on a corner of the dining room table until the thought of mailing out those seasonal greetings is just a little ridiculous.  How much time do we have until Christmas?  A week and a half?  At this point, you might all get our cards at Epiphany.   However, we do think of you all, miss you, and read your Facebook updates and Christmas cards eagerly.  

We are all snugly battened down here in Grand Rapids.  The last week has thrown seven different types of snow at us: lake effect snow, light snow, "a break from the snow" in which snow is nevertheless falling, winter storm snow, pellet snow, snow misting, and that lovely snow I like to call snow-globe snow.  In spite of all the dire warnings about winter driving, we seem to be handling it all well as we look forward to Christmas.  I am discovering why we in North America insist on portraying Christmas with snow and icicles, even in places like California.  A frosty, snow-covered view really does create a sense of expectation and wonder.  

This month marks the end of our first semester here at Calvin Theological Seminary.   In July we sold our house, drove across the western half of the country, bought a house here and settled in to work and school.  We weren't quite sure what awaited us, but most of what we've discovered has been good.  We live in a delightful little neighborhood near our church and near several little shopping neighborhoods. The leaves are golden and crunchy in the autumn, something that hardly ever happened in Oregon.  

Seth is wrapping up his last week of a hectic semester.  He had to take five courses, including Introduction to Hebrew this semester, but he enjoyed his studies.  He kept saying that his biggest regret was that he didn't have the time to give all of his subjects the attention they deserved. He did his internship at Wedgwood Christian Services, a residential center for kids who have been through severe trauma.  That was a stretching experience for him because most of those kids not only lacked Christian upbringing, they also lacked those basic formative experiences that we use to explain God's love for us.   But he was encouraged by how eagerly the kids he worked with sought God.

I now have my Michigan teaching license, and I am living off the general shortage of substitute teachers in the area.  I've gotten to work at three or four different schools pretty consistently, and even run into an old school mate of mine.   Outside of work, I am still working on getting our house settled and adjusting to the various differences that Michigan throws at us.  I got to hearken back to my childhood by installing plastic over the windows this fall, and I'm still hunting for enough secondhand bookcases to justify unpacking all of our books.  I run the powerpoint at church once a month and volunteer with Boogaloo's GEMS group.

Boogaloo is halfway through her fourth grade year at Legacy Christian School.  We have her in another mixed grade classroom, and she is enjoying it immensely.  When people ask her how school is going, she answers, "Great" with enthusiasm.  She is also attending G.E.M.S.  for the first time and enjoying it very much.   She has her own desk now to make up for having a smaller room, and she is definitely enjoying the snow.  She is developing a real sense of drama and purpose which is at once entertaining and a little confusing. She is the one who keeps track of our sugar intake in this household.  Housekeeping and cooking are also beginning to catch her interest, which doesn't bother me a bit.

Max the mutt is still with us.  Once he gets his daily aspirin, he is almost as spry as he used to be, and  with or without his aspirin, he is just as hungry as he always was.  He enjoys the fact that we no longer have a fenced in yard, so we have to take him for several walks a day.  He also likes stealing the bread that the neighbor two doors down leaves out for the squirrels.  He sneaks over, sniffs out a piece of bread, surreptitiously bounces his way back to our yard with his tail wagging, buries the bread and then scoots back for more.  The neighbor says he could watch Max for hours.  We have held off on getting Boogaloo her promised pet because we aren't sure how Max would handle it, but one thing we look forward to next year is another, smaller dog or cat
.  

Our daily reality is a little surreal. Not that we're living through anything particularly exciting or abnormal,  but I have a sense of being here temporarily that I didn't have before God shook us out of Oregon.  I think Boogaloo feels the same way.  The other day, she was talking about when we go back to Oregon, remembering our big backyard and our fruit trees.  She wished we were there instead of here.  I had to tell her that we don't know when we'll be going back or where we'll end up, but that it would be someplace different than we were.  We won't be going back to that house specifically.  She took it pretty well.  However, it just highlights that we are now in the business of looking forward with all the adventure that that entails.    

So here's to the New Year.  May God keep you in his will even as you go forward into his love.