2009 In Review

This year has been full of joys! The following is a list of highlights:

Eric - In his 7th year of pastoring Emmanuel Fellowship Church of Sweetwater, Eric is really having a great time serving the people here in our city. Not only is the church doing well, Eric has had many opportunities to speak in other venues in our region (many of them in the public school setting), which has been a big blessing! We've continued to see God move mightily in Sweetwater, with many people coming to know Jesus as their Savior this year. It's a good place to be!

Mindy - With the baby of the family now enrolled in Kindergarten, Mindy's job description at the church has expanded somewhat. She is still the Worship Pastor and Church Administrator, she just gets to spend more hours a week in the office making these areas run smoothly. With the added bonus of getting to homeschool Keegan this year, life is full, but good! She was planning a December trip to Brazil that got postponed to 2010, so we will keep you updated on that info as it draws closer!

Keegan- Our big guy turned 12 this year! He has been such a joy to us as he moves closer and closer to those teenage years-- we are loving being able to watch him mature. We have always known we were very interested in home schooling at least a portion of our kids' junior high years, so when school started again in the Fall, we enrolled Keegan in Connections Academy. This school is a state of Texas funded program based in Houston, but he does all of his work online from home. He's loved this schooling method so far, and we have really enjoyed the one-on-one time with him (although both of us have been a little stretched by relearning 6th grade math!). We are not sure at what point he will re-enter public school, but are grateful for this season at home. Beyond that, Keegan has enjoyed playing Little League again, as well as his last season of local soccer. He has also been playing drums for our church worship team as needed, and is excelling in that department.

Brandt - Entering fourth grade in Sweetwater means a new school campus - the big Sweetwater Intermediate School! Brandt turned 9 his first day there (he didn't seem to think going back to school was such a great birthday present), and has already blazed a trail of success by leading his school in Accelerated Reader points and placing in the UIL oral reading competition. Brandt loves to laugh, loves to read, and loves spending time with his brothers. A wonderful combination, really. He played baseball and was able to be on Keegan's soccer team this season. He has also been a leader in the children's ministry at our church, being willing again and again to pray for anyone in need. We love his heart for the Lord!

Caden- Being a second grader is the hardest thing ever, says Caden Luke. (This was brought on because they have the dreaded HOMEWORK!) Nonetheless, our little 7 year old has done great this year. He has a true gift for bringing laughter everywhere he goes, so life is never dull with C-Dog around. He's lost a lot of teeth this year, played baseball, and discovered he has a talent for acting. We're loving watching this guy grow!

Brenna- This princess entered Kindergarten this year, much to her delight and her mother's tears. She loves school, loves her teacher, and loves her friends-- so we'd say she's been a pretty happy little girl! Brenna was also baptized by her Daddy this year (what a joy) and loves to spend time singing her heart out to the Lord. She is looking forward to starting Dance because she has decided sports are for boys (yes, she really is that girly!) and wants nothing to do with them. So, all those tutus in her closet will soon be put to good use!

That's the von Atzigen house news for 2009! We pray God will bless you and yours in 2010!

Family Pics

Our friend Karyn Carbone took this. Check out her work at www.inbloomimages.com!

Mission Adventures

Eric and Keegan traveled to Europe for a 2 week adventure into the mission field with Randy Boyd of Prepare International this month. Keegan had a blast making friends in Poland and Croatia while his Daddy helped teach in Leadership Training Schools. It has always been a desire of ours for our kids to have a love for missions in their hearts and so we have done our best to take them with us when we can, pray with them at home for our missionary friends, and train them to give to missions with a portion of their money.

We have been overjoyed at the milestones that have happened in our family concerning taking the gospel to the nations-- Keegan learned to skip in a Prague subway, Brandt took his first steps in Mexico, and Caden feels he will one day preach in China. This year, the oldest two boys sat in on a church meeting where a friend who shares the gospel in the Middle East recounted the times he has watched his friends die for professing their love for Jesus. Keegan was moved to pray for this man, sharing that the Lord was covering him in armor and that the gospel would come forth from this precious man's lips like a sword of fire. That night, I overheard my two sons discussing strategies for winning the lost in the Middle East to Jesus. How amazing.

And now, Keegan can add to the list of nations he prays for Poland and Croatia. He has friends in both-- and saw first hand the work that is going on there for the Kingdom of God. And that, my friends, is priceless.

Milestone

This past Wednesday, our family passed a special milestone. Our fourth and final child was baptized by Daddy after asking Jesus into her heart to be her Savior. All four children have done this at an early age, and we have been amazed every time at their ability to understand Jesus' love for them, what He accomplished on the cross, and their need for Him to change their little hearts. Jesus knew what He was doing when He exhorted His disciples to have the faith of a child. And now, we pray our children will walk all the days of their lives with their hand in His.

Easter Sweetness

The boys still let Mom dress them for Easter! And Brenna knows she's the princess of the house, can't you tell?

Baseball Brothers

A Christmas Without Options

I wanted to share a story Eric wrote based on the facts and legends that surround St. Nicholas. He used it as an illustration in his sermon yesterday, and it was very powerful.

A Christmas Without Options
by Eric von Atzigen

For the old man’s daughter, it would be a life without options. She had not chosen which household she would be born into. She had not chosen how her father would live his life. She had not chosen slavery, nor prostitution, but it was the life that awaited her. Hers’ was a life without options.

“Oh God,” she would cry in the still hours of the night, “is there anyone who can save me?”

On the other side of the village, beside the warm glow of a crackling fire, a young man lay face down on the hard stone floor. His was a life without options. Born into a family of wealth and extravagance beyond the imagination of most, he was accustomed to privilege. He had lost his parents to the plague at an early age and had been required to mature quickly in order to manage the vast estate and resources of his family. Though he was now alone, the legacy of faith and righteousness his mother and father had instilled in him was a constant companion.

“Oh God,” the young man whispered into the cold, dark night, “All that I am is Yours. How can I serve the Christ child, the One who has saved me?”

It had been a brief three hundred years since the King of Glory had conquered death and brought hope to mankind, and the message of his gospel was alive, even in Patara, Lycia, at the Southern tip of Turkey. The message was living and it burned in the heart of this wealthy orphan.

And in the crisp air of this Turkish night, two prayers mingled together. Voices, like wisps of smoke, made their way to Heaven in a strange melody. Desperation and discontent danced. The need of each would be the answer to the other. Poverty would be met by provision, and both would discover the power of purpose.

Young Nicholas arose from his fireside prayer. Heaven had answered, and he knew what to do. A quick visit to the storehouse, and then to the stable, and he was off --- mounted on his white steed he blazed through the village under a canopy of starlight, a sack draped across his back. The sting of the cold night air was countered by the rush of blood that intoxicated him. His face was hot, his breath was short, his eyes watered as his horse rode on. Panic and joy formed two storm fronts in his heart and erupted in thunderclaps of laughter as he continued his ride.

She had no options, therefore he had no options. He nudged his stallion though the twist and turns of the muddy village streets as the weaver’s house came into view. The weaver was a good man, but not a wise man. He had raised his three daughters alone after the loss of his wife, and the fire four winters ago had left them with nothing and no opportunity to rebuild. He wept each night, not so much from the hunger as from having to watch his children wither from the effects of his poverty. And so he felt he had no option, he must sell his oldest in hopes of providing for the younger two.

He wept.
She wept.
And Nicholas rode, weeping and laughing.

The faint smoke of a smoldering fire could be seen rising through a tattered hole in the roof. Nicholas spurred on his mount, faster and faster. He could not help being heard, but he must not be seen. He was galloping now, feet planted in the stirrups, his back bent as he whispered praises to God in his horse’s listening ear.

They blazed past the fire-charred weaver’s home, and in one motion Nicholas heaved the bag over his shoulder and toward the hole in the roof where a chimney once stood. With a shout of “Christkindl,” or “Christ child” as we would understand it, he was off, still laughing, still crying, so much more alive than he had ever dreamed possible.

And the bag --- that bag filled with gold coins --- that bag would offer hope of a new life for a young woman hours away from the auction block. That bag must have sprouted wings, or been met by a winged messenger, for its path was too perfect. Its landing was too soft as it flew through the hole in the roof and settled quietly in the stocking of the young woman, the very stocking she had hung to dry by the fire that night.

Prayers of desperation changed the course of history that night, as they danced their way to heaven and brought life to the giver and the receiver.

For the young woman, the stocking of gold became her dowry. She became eligible to marry and marry she did, to a good and kind noble man, and the legacy of her descendents was changed forever.

The young woman had younger sisters, each of whom would cry out to the Lord and each of whom would receive a gift from Nicholas that would save their lives and alter their history.

And the weaver, he wept no more, for his daughters did not go to bed hungry.

As for Nicholas, he continued to live a life with out options. A life of radical obedience and unhindered generosity. And the heart pounding rush of giving a gift would continue to erupt in thunderous laughter. He laughed not only in giving, but in suffering, as he was tortured for his faith. His captors desired to see him renounce Jesus, but all they heard was the sound of laughter. He laughed as he confronted heresy in the leaders of his church. Some sought to deny the glorious divinity of King Jesus, but all they heard from him was the sound of laughter.

He learned to laugh from giving, and laughter became his gift and his strength for living. He would laugh in the face of friends or in the face of enemies, with shouts of “Christkindl,’ or “for the Christ child!”

And thus, through the course of history, some came to know him as Chris Kringle. Some came to know him as Saint Nicholas. Children in our lands have heard him called Santa Claus.

An orphan boy, whose heart found warmth in the fire of God. He had nowhere else to go --- he had no options.