But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;
for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord
for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord
(Luke 2:10-11 NASB)
So at that point I realized that I was getting so wrapped up in trying to rush to send out the cards and letters that they weren't really going to be that meaningful anyway, so I decided for this year I would write out our letter on our blog and leave it at that! So to all my faithful blog readers, I hope you will help us to pass the word, we did not intentionally leave anyone off our list this year, please send them here to our blog to read our letter!! Now on to the letter!!
2009 has been a whirlwind of sorts for us!! After Tommy's graduation we had decided to stay put in Wake Forest, NC, let Chase finish her 7th grade school year and see if we got any calls from the resumes that we had sent out! Tommy was working driving the sweeper truck and I was keeping Isabelle and we were still in seminary housing, so we really had no reason to leave!! January was good, North Carolina had a good snow, we celebrated Tommy's birthday, all in all it was great! I believe it was around February that we started feeling restless, it just so happened my brother had a house he had been unable to sell and he offered it to us for the same rent, actually less than we were paying at the seminary. This would put us back close to our boys and the rest of our family, so Tommy and I both prayed about it and we talked and since a few of the resumes we had sent out were in GA anyway we decided to go for it!! So we began to make arrangements to leave the end of February and move back to GA. It was also in February that Tommy and I realized how fast our little girl was growing up! Chase went to her very first school dance in February! This was a dance that Chase helped to organize for Pennies for Peace, Chase and her classmates helped to raise alot of money to help children in Afghanistan to go to school and have school supplies and such! We are really proud of her!! By March we had moved back to GA and had already received several calls and letters about Tommy's resumes, we had a few churches looking at him and we were so excited to see the Lord working in our lives! So as you can imagine March flew by then April, we celebrated Chase's 13th birthday on April 23rd!! I still can't believe our baby is a teenager! I have to say we have had many people with teenage girls warn us about this age and though we might have our moments we are finding this to be a special time with Chase, just like every stage has been, she is growing up to be such a wonderful young woman, she loves the Lord, and is eager to serve Him!! Tommy and I are just so thankful to be her parents!! We celebrated her birthday with a party at the house! Chase like many teenage girls could not decide on what kind of party she wanted to have, so I finally convinced her to trust me and we had a GREAT party!! We used all her favorite colors, we played games, and opened presents, we had a cupcake bar instead of a traditional cake and the girls loved it!! (That idea was thanks to my daughter in law, Hester) Chase's friends left that day saying it was the best party they had ever been too!! So Chase has started to trust me more!! LOL!
Between March and April, we celebrated Jacob, Hannah, Billy, and Chase's birthdays so that kept us pretty busy, not too mention Billy and Jacob started T-ball this year and the nice part for Granddaddy and Mimi was that they were both on the same team!! :) In between all this fun family time that we were having we had started talks with Luthersville Baptist Church. Before we left for Tommy to attend college at Southeastern we lived in Newnan, and Luthersville is only about 15 minutes outside of Newnan, so we were excited about the opportunity to be able to be back home! As some of you may know the interview process can be long and drawn out, we actually filled out paperwork for them back before we ever left Wake Forest, so we weren't really sure if we were still a candidate or not!! Anyway, May brought us to Luthersville, Tommy preached at our home church, Northside Baptist Church, in Newnan, for the Pastor Search Committee of Luthersville Baptist. The committee then presented Tommy to Luthersville Baptist Church as their recommendation to become their new Pastor!! He preached for the church on Mother's day and as you all know the rest is history!! Tommy was indeed voted in as Pastor at Luthersville Baptist Church in Luthersville, GA. He officially started June 1st and we turned around and it's Christmas!!! Seriously though, it seems like this whole process was just taking place yesterday and here it is 6 almost 7 months later!! I will try and sum up June thru December for you!! June is a faint memory, we celebrated my birthday, and Tommy began his new responsibilties as Pastor, that was also a time of getting to know everyone and making some dear friendships! July was a very special month in the Worthey family this year!! Nathan and Hester told us we would be having a new granddaughter due March 4th! This makes 6 grandchildren for Tommy and I now! In August Chase started 8th grade, she also became a member of the Pep Squad this year, she has done a great job cheering on the football team, their team was undefeated! Unfortunately, they lost the championship game!! :( She will start next month cheering the boys and girls basketball teams to victory!! September brought several birthday celebrations starting with our two youngest grand kids, Kaleb celebrated his 2nd birthday on the 3rd and Kinley celebrated her 2nd birthday on the 11th. One of the best things for me this year has been getting back in touch with my best friend Michelle, we have been friends since we were like 6, but we moved around alot, but after high school we really became close friends, more like sisters, anyway for some reason we drifted apart a few years ago and although we saw each other occasionally it just didn't seem the same...I guess it was around the beginning of September I got a text from her, and we started talking and it was as if no time had pasted, I am so thankful the Lord has brought Michelle back into my life, and not only her but her kids as well! Chafin is married now waiting on her husband to come home from Iraq and Michelle's two boys are living with their dad, so I don't get to see them as often as I would like too, but Mary Caitlin came over September 25th and spent the night with us to go to the Auburn game with Chase and I...Chase and some others from her pep squad were invited to the Cheer America event at the Auburn game and were able to go out and cheer with the Auburn cheerleaders, it was quite an experience!! Anyway, we decided from that point on to just keep Mary Caitlin!! We let her go home on occasion but only when Michelle forces us!! As you can probably tell from our pictures and blogs Mary has become a big part of our lives and we love it!! Chase and Mary have become like sisters and our family has never been the same!! LOL!! October was a special month as well, though we are so very grateful to my brother and his generosity for allowing us to live in his house, even when we couldn't afford to pay him rent!! (As a side note because of my brothers generosity the Lord provided a buyer for his house, just days after we moved out!) We wanted to find a home of our own! And like always the Lord has been so faithful to provide for us in every step of our journey!! We have been obedient and the Lord has truly blessed us!! Tommy and I closed on our new home in October, we are still settling in, finding a place for everything, but we love it here!! I also started keeping baby Matthew this month, he was just 8 weeks old when I started keeping him, he is such a joy to have at the house, even Tommy can't keep his mind totally on studying when Matthew is here, he has to come and play with us!! It's so much fun having a baby in the house even if it's only 8 hours a day!! November will always be a special month for Tommy and I, this year we celebrated 15 years of wedded bliss!! This has been quite a year for us!! Tommy has experienced alot of firsts this year! He is pastoring his first church, and if it's the Lord's will maybe his only church!! Unfortunately, he officiated over his first funeral, and has had 5 more since then...the one comforting part for Tommy has been that all had made professions of faith, so that made his job easier to be able to comfort the families! As many of you know our oldest granddaughter, Hannah Grace accepted Jesus as her Savior this year and Tommy was so excited at the thought of her being his first to baptize, but because of them being in Texas they haven't been able to come here and we haven't made it out there yet! Since then we have had some young people at our church who have been saved as well, so Tommy was able to go into the baptismal pool for the first time just a few weeks ago on December 13th and baptize 4 new believers!! He was so excited!! I haven't blogged about that yet, but I will!! Many people have asked us how things are going at the church, we can't even begin to describe all the wonderful things the Lord is doing at LBC. We have had several families to join, as I just shared we have baptized 4 new believers, we voted 2 weeks ago to bring on a part time Student minister, and we vote next week for a new Music minister. Please continue to pray for Tommy as he seeks the Lord's leadership in all he does and remember to pray for our family as we support Tommy and serve the Lord along side him at LBC!
I will end the letter this year with some great news for our family that we just found out a few weeks ago!! Our son Matthew and his family will be moving to Wilmington, NC. Matthew is in the US Coast Guard and has been stationed in Texas, it hasn't been easy to visit them because they are 3 hours away from the nearest airport that Delta flys into, so we have to plan trips very carefully!! But because of Matthew's outstanding record in the Coast Guard, they have approached him and asked him to come to Wilmington and serve at this station and run their galley, though this is not a raise in pay or rank at this time, Matthew will be doing the job of a First Class!! We are so proud of all Matthew has accomplished and we are so excited to have him, Sarah, Hannah, and Kaleb closer to home, now they will only be 20 minutes from the airport or if we did have to drive, it's only a 7 hour drive!! And hopefully when they come through Atlanta on their way....Granddaddy will get to baptize Hannah!!
Merry Christmas Everyone!!
Love to All,
The Worthey's
Tommy, Heidi, Chase, (and Mary Caitlin)
1 comment:
A beautiful letter! I loved reading it!!!
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