Byrne Family News – December 2008
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(Family - PDF Version)
Greetings
from the Byrne family! As December
begins, we can’t wait to start receiving pictures, cards and letters to
help us
catch up on what is happening in the lives of our faraway family and
friends. For those of you who feel the
same way, here is our news!
For
our family, the year 2008 began with great joy and
excitement as we celebrated the marriage of our daughter Laura to her
husband Jason. Their wedding took place
on January 13th as part of the Sunday morning worship
service at
Friendswood Friends Church. It was
simple, Christ-centered, and very beautiful.
The service included scripture readings by Jason and Laura’s
family and
friends of verses that were instrumental in their calling to minister
among the
poor. Andrea’s trumpet prelude and
recessional were amazing. Dozens of our
friends and family helped to make the reception a wonderful, joyful
celebration
by doing everything from helping to cook a meal for 250 people to
working to transform
the church gym into a beautiful, candlelit garden-like setting.
It was a wonderful day, most of all because
of Jason and Laura’s great joy in beginning their life together. Their plans are to move to Southeast Asia by next summer, where they will live in a slum community and minister to the poor. Laura hopes to use her skills as a physician to help people with medical needs, but their main desire is to share Christ’s love. For the next few months they will continue to live in the “downtown eastside” slum area of Vancouver, Canada. They are working with a team from their mission organization, “Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor” to minister there in Vancouver while also working to prepare the ministry team to begin the Southeast Asia work in 2009. Please pray for them as they prepare for this transition!
It
was wonderful to have Andrea with us for part of the summer
while she was on “home assignment” from her work with Evangelical
Friends
Mission in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She
had been praying about the possibility of moving to the U.S. for a
while to
attend seminary but instead decided to return to Aguascalientes and
continue in
ministry there while also studying for her Master of Arts in Global
Leadership
through Fuller Theological Seminary.
Their program allows her to complete most of her studies on the
mission
field. She uses the internet to
interact with professors and fellow students from all over the world,
submits
her assignments by email, and has two intensive sessions of several
weeks each
on the Fuller campus in California. So
far the classes have been very enjoyable and helpful for her. Along
with her
classes and ministry activities, Andrea continues to enjoy playing
trumpet with
the Aguascalientes Symphony Orchestra.
She recently joined them on a 5-day concert tour to Morelia,
Michoacan. Andrea has been dating a young
man named
Aristotoles for about a year. “Aris”
(pronounced AH-reece) is a law student who is also very involved in the
Friends
ministry in Aguascalientes. We have met
Aris briefly, but Andrea is excited for us to get to know him better on
a visit
next spring. He will graduate from law
school in June. By the way, her free Christmas Music
download is still available online at "Andrea's
Christmas Brass."
We
can’t believe that Sara is already a junior – her college
years seem to be flying by! It has been
fun to see Sara discover, develop and use her gifts in ministry.
She is great at working with kids, and
continues to give leadership to the “KIA” (Kids in Action) program at
Oklahoma
City Friends Church, which is about 20 minutes from her college campus
at
Southern Nazarene University. KIA has
grown from a handful of kids, mostly children of church attenders, to a
large,
racially diverse group of children from the community.
Many of the kids come from difficult family
situations, and working with them can be a real challenge.
Sara’s persistence, love and creativity help
her to find ways to reach out to them and make a difference in their
lives. Sara spent the first half of her
summer working as an intern in children’s ministry at Friendswood
Friends – a
great learning opportunity for her.
Then she spent several weeks in Mexico helping with VBS and
other
ministry projects at the Nueva Rosita and Agujita Friends
Churches.
She had a great time, improved her Spanish,
and learned some valuable lessons about ministry from the Mexican
Friends. Sara is feeling increasingly
drawn to some
kind of inner city ministry. She is
involved in a group at SNU that ministers to the homeless.
She also continues to play on the tennis
team. We were privileged again this
year to travel to Mobile to watch the team compete in the national
championships.
Our
work with the
Coalition for Hispanic Ministries continues to bring variety,
challenge,
excitement and fulfillment to our lives. It has been a busy year, with
the
usual full schedule of travel and local ministry, along with a few
surprises –
like Hurricane Ike! Through the joys
and the challenges we are so thankful for the amazing gift of knowing
Jesus. We are looking forward to some time
off as
we travel to Ohio to spend Christmas with our families.
We pray that your Christmas celebration will
be joyous and meaningful, and that 2009 will be a year full of blessing
for you
and your loved ones. Please let us know
what is happening in your world!
Love
in
Christ, David and Joyce Byrne
& family