THANK YOU...

As both NHA and Awana are wrapping up this week, I want to express my gratitude to all who have touched my life this year. My Gateway family. Your unstoppable quest to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this community is an inspiration. You have proven to be incredibly loyal and committed and it is an honor to be counted among you. My friends in leadership at The Crossing. Your generosity very literally facilitates some of the best things in my life and I owe you a debt I could never repay. Thank you for allowing your building to be a blessing to so many outside your church body. My friends at River City Baptist. You put the ‘fun’ in fundamentalist. I applaud your efforts and all the work you do in this community. Your generosity has allowed NHA to grow and your involvement helps it to thrive. The leadership and instructors at NHA. You have taken the vision and built it into something that far exceeds my dreams. God has blessed our efforts. I am perpetually in awe. More than the knowledge you impart, I value the influence you have on our students and the positive experience you provide for them. I think that will be the greater impact and I couldn’t be more confident in the team God has assembled to make that happen. Our NHA & Awana families. What an honor that you would choose us. I know there is nothing more important to you than your children and few things give me greater joy than having a part in their childhood. Our first class of preschoolers is graduating from high school this year and I am so proud of the many young adults who were once ‘my kids.’ Watching them grow up is an incredible privilege and I don’t take your trust and support lightly. My spiritual mentors. Your guidance has effected an incremental but steady growth that somehow adds up to a difference that is more than the sum of its parts. It is bad math but good change and your insight has been instrumental each step of the way. My angel. That isn’t tarnish on your halo, it is a priceless patina that only time and weather can forge. You are my tangible reminder that there is a God. You crush all the stereotypes including that of angels. My village. I could not have survived without the indispensable friends that have come alongside me through this stage of life. You have provided a safe place for my children to grow up, invested countless hours in the success of NHA and Awana, and been the support system that keeps me sane. You are an incredible blessing! My lifelong friends. Unconditional love is a rare and precious gift. I am rich in the things that matter most because of the wealth of friends who have proven they are in it for the long haul. Thirty years and just getting started. I have no doubt that we will finish strong. My family. My four incredibly unique and amazing children from whom I have learned the most important lessons of my life. My parents who have supported me in every way from the day I was born to the present. My husband who has been there through 30 years of ups and downs and still manages to make me laugh. I am grateful for each of you today and everyday. I am blessed beyond measure. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory!” Merry Christmas!