Christmas Letter 2006

“The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps.”
- Proverbs 16:9

Friends and Family,

(You can see a slideshow of pictures from many of these events on our youtube page, link on the right ->)

2005’s Christmas letter blew up on the runway so we’re hoping for better results this time ☺. The Lord has continued to bless us in our fourth year of marriage. The majority of our time has been filled with the usual. Dawn finished up her last semester at UNK in December. I have one more semester left. We are planning to officially graduate in May. Dawn will have a Bachelor’s Degree in Organizational Communication and Theatre. I will have a Bachelor’s in English and Philosophy with a minor in History. We have both been working at Herberger’s. I unload the trucks and Dawn puts merchandise on the sales floor. It is nice to see each other during the workday.
When we’re not doing that, we like to spend time with our friends. We took a trip to the G. K. Chesterton Conference in Minnesota with Tory and Annie this June. We had a great Fourth of July celebration with our friends in Kearney. We put on a four family garage sale. In October we drove all the way to Florida to go to Rob and Tiffany (Nix) Stanton’s wedding and had a great time! Of course we made it back to McCook a few times to enjoy relaxing with family and play with our nieces and nephew.
For those of you who didn’t know already, there is a third member of our family now. We adopted a puppy named Zoya last summer. When we can afford health insurance we’d like to have real kids, but until then Zoya will more than suffice. She’s worked her way into the hearts of our family too. Her puppy-dog eyes have secured many a cookie from Grandpa Petty and a few spoonfuls of ice cream from Great Grandma Salyer. She had even licked peanut-butter off a certain sibling’s feet.
We continue to be involved at Trinity Presbyterian Church here in Kearney. We help with music and we have been leading the middle school group this fall. We have been studying biblical worship and I am the reigning Chubby Bunny champion. We also got a chance to sponsor the high school group’s trip to Vedawou, WY for some rock-climbing and repelling.
Dawn has been manipulating her appearance a lot lately. She has been doing a lot of make-up and costume design in school. Aside from acting in a few plays herself, she directed a one-act (I was one of her actors), she designed the costumes for a play this fall, and she has been enjoying working in the Theatre’s costume shop. Last month she buzzed her beautiful hair to donate it to Locks-of-Love. She looks cute and she shaved 15 minutes off her getting-ready-in-the-morning time.
I’ve been spending most of my free time studying theology when I should be doing homework. I’ve also really gotten into watching the UFC, which is a combination of wrestling, grappling, boxing, and martial arts. Sometimes Dawn lets me play Xbox when I get all my homework done. My real gaming passion however, is Settlers of Catan - a board game somewhere between Monopoly and Risk. Sometimes Dawn even lets me win.
We’ve been to Missouri twice in the last three months. Most recently I was able to read a paper on Plato (not to be confused with Play-dough) at Truman State University in Kirksville for an undergraduate conference on philosophy and religion. Prior to that we went to St. Louis so that we could visit Covenant Theological Seminary. If God continues to open the doors, I will be pursuing a Master of Divinity degree there starting in the summer of 2007. I have already been accepted and we are currently waiting to see if we will be getting any scholarships or other financial aid. I am hoping to complete the degree in three years. Dawn is planning to work full time so that I can focus on school but she is hoping to take classes as well. The seminary allows spouses to go for free and we would like to take advantage of that opportunity if we have enough income to allow for it. Please be in prayer that we would be sensitive to God’s calling and that he would provide the funds needed to attend the school and live in the city. This will be a big change for us but we are trusting God and seeking his will.
Of course I am leaving a lot of things out but you’re probably bored of hearing about us and I am tired of writing about us. Looking forward to the next time we meet. You are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Merry Christmas,
Dave and Dawn