Herein lies the Christmas card-turned-letter-turned-email that I am sharing with our family and friends this year:
Merry Christmas,
friends!!
I’ve had “order
Christmas cards” on my list for a few weeks now... and since that
didn’t get done, it turned into “write Christmas letter” ...
and now with Christmas a few days away, it’s looking a little more
like “Here’s your Happy Holiday Email!” We have so many dear
friends and family spread out over so many states that I really do
want to keep in touch; we’re just frankly pretty bad at it. :)
But that doesn’t mean we do not love or miss you any less!
2016 has been a good
year for our family over all. Here are a few highlights:
Ben – still
loves working bi-vocationally. Monday-Thursday he drives to
Charlotte to work at Carroll Financial with our good friend (and
“South Carolina Dad”), Mike Jette. Mike is a financial planner,
and Ben is on his team. Ben has passed his Series 7 and 66 tests (if
anyone knows what that means!) and is on his second course (out of
seven) in order to be a CFP (Certified Financial Planner.) So he
works with numbers and spreadsheets by day, writes sermons and
administrates church “business” by night/weekend, and studies
thick books about math on the side... if you know Ben, you know this
is right up his alley. He’s still the “fun parent” who plays
and wrestles, and he’s got big fans in three little people at home!
Taking Abby on a birthday date last January
Bedtime snuggles with Dad
Janelle –
Spring 2015 through spring of 2016 was probably the busiest I’ve
ever been in my life, mostly because of the adoption paperwork and
fundraisers that I added onto my pile. (More about the adoption in a
bit.) Once our dossier was submitted early this past year, and our
HUGE Both Hands fundraiser finished in March, and our homeschool
co-op/schoolwork was done early April, I suddenly was like, “What
in the world do I do with my life now??” It felt like I should
still be running 100 mph, and my body let me know it! I spent over a
month feeling sick as all the stress decided to work its way out. So
two things I learned and have finally put into practice the remainder
of the year: 1) I need time away from my kids, and I shouldn’t feel
guilty about that! and 2) My body needs to exercise! We reworked
our schedule, and I have thoroughly enjoyed going to the Y all by
myself a few days a week. It keeps me happy, and we all know that a
happy mama makes for a happier household. :) Besides all that, I
still truly love homeschooling our kids (and I still like my kids
too... most of the time!) ;) Our Classical Conversations co-op is a
huge blessing to me, and I just love learning along with my children.
Homeschooling is one of those topics I could talk about forever....
so I’ll stop now.
Seeing "The Nutcracker" with Abby
Micah – is
in the 4th grade. He turned 10 this October and thinks he
is going on 30. :) He is a true “oldest child.” He remains the
most social of my children and wants to be with people all the time,
never missing out on anything fun. In many ways, he is just a
smaller version of his father... He makes charts and spreadsheets
and keeps statistics of his basketball shots. He thinks up business
plans, and figures out how much money he needs to save now to retire
early. (I kid you not.) He asked me to buy him a book on Algebra so
he can “look ahead.” (He’s already working a year ahead in
math, and that’s the one subject I never have to teach him – he
looks over the lesson and just gets it.) I’ve often found he and
Ben laying in his bed before bedtime discussing such interesting
topics as stocks and bonds. This year, he also started the writing
and grammar-intensive portion of his homeschool that I have been
dreading because I thought his math-wired-brain would hate it... but
he has actually risen to the occasion and likes it! He’s writing
papers and parsing sentences like a champ, and I’m so pleased with
his work ethic. He still loves Star Wars and all things
sports-related. Much to Ben’s chagrin, he has become a Steelers
fan. (That’s his Maryland cousins rubbing off on him... he’s
come to the dark side!) He’ll be playing basketball at the Y again
this winter, and his hero is Stephen Curry. Micah has a big heart to
do what is right and is a champion of justice, and I know the Lord
will use those qualities to do a lot of good in this world.
Looking like a sharp-dressed man for a wedding
Caleb – is
in 1st grade and turned 7 in September. How does one
describe Caleb exactly? He marches to the beat of his own drum for
sure. He has typical 7-year-old-boy humor, so anything is funny if
it has the word “fart” in it. He has an irrational fear of
balloons for some unknown reason. He spends most of his spare time
coming up with elaborate Lego creations or drawing out ideas to build
in Minecraft. He loves to be around people too, but usually retreats
at some point to get his alone time. He is also a full fan of Star
Wars and quotes movie lines on a regular basis. He is usually the
first of all our kids to offer to pray for someone. He talks a lot
about our Haiti kids, and wonders out loud if they are hungry or feel
sad. When he prays for them, he usually asks God to give them a hug
since we aren’t there to do it. His sensitive heart has struggled
with not having a “best friend” since moving to South Carolina,
but we’re doing a better job about getting him around some boys his
own age (not just Micah’s friends), and he’s loving that. He’s
pretty sure he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.
Sharp-dressed man number 2
Abby – will
be five in just a few weeks! I don’t know if it’s because she’s
our only girl or because she’s the baby of the family, but she
still seems pretty adorable to all of us, and she’s the princess of
the family for sure. With the exception of her Dad and grandpas, she
would prefer that the entire grown male population be wiped off the
planet (or at least not acknowledge her existence.) Ben hopes it
stays that way. She has an amazing imagination and everything she
plays with (dolls, pipe cleaners, a piece of trash from the ground)
takes on a personality complete with dramatic voices. She loves to
color, snuggle (best snuggler in the family by far!), and play with
the neighborhood cat, Mojo (“Jo Jo” as she calls him.) Although
she’s not officially in kindergarten yet, this is her first year
joining in a classroom at Classical Conversations and she LOVES the
songs and memory work. Most days, she and Caleb alternate between
being best buddies, worst enemies, and partners in crime.
Adoption news
– As most of you know, we began the process last year of adopting
children from Haiti. We have requested two children ages five and
under, and although we could end up with just one, chances are we
will get two since we are willing to accept two. (Yes, they will be
siblings since in Haiti you can only adopt more than one child at a
time if they are biological siblings. No, we do not know who they
are yet. Under the Hague convention, you can no longer request a
particular child – or at least it’s 1000 times more difficult!)
It took nearly a year to complete our home study and dossier
information. I tell you what, the adoption process is NO JOKE! It’s
a good thing we are requesting two kids at once because I don’t
think I could talk myself into going through all this work again for
a second go round. Our dossier was submitted to Haiti in March of
this year, and we just did our one-year updates of our home study and
immigration approval. Unfortunately, we will probably have to do the
updates AT LEAST two more times since our expected timeline for a
referral (according to the current rate of forward motion) is March
2018. But that’s okay; in the event that we DO get a five year
old, I would prefer Abby to be closer to 7 before we bring our
Haitian kids home.
For us, adoption
also comes with a lot of fundraising and grant-applying. We’re
willing to put everything we have into it, but the cost of adopting
two kids from Haiti is almost definitely going to be over $50,000.
If I wasn’t 100% sure this is specifically what the Lord has asked
our family to do, I would have said “No way!” a long time ago
just because of the price tag. But He always pays His bills. :)
We’ve received grants from both Lifesong for Orphans and Show Hope,
and we’ve had a couple of great fundraisers this year (a HUGE
garage sale with lots of help from friends, an on-going coffee
fundraiser through Gobena coffee, and our Both Hands fundraiser.) I
could write paragraph upon paragraph about our Both Hands fundraiser
alone in which we had about 50 people working together to fix up a
widow’s house here in Rock Hill. It was simply amazing and
God-ordained, and I cried lots of tears of joy as I saw so many
people being the hands and feet of Jesus to not only us, but also to
Ms. Nat, the widow we helped. To date, we have raised over $20,000
through this fundraiser. It was a doozy to organize and pull off,
but so, so worth it!
Some of the dear friends who helped at our Both Hands project
Vineyard Church
of Rock Hill - It’s hard to believe that it’s been over
three years since we moved to Rock Hill, SC, to plant a church... and
our church has been holding Sunday morning services for almost two
years. I was flipping through an old journal the other day, and
found the first entry where I prayed specifically about Rock Hill as
we began to discern that this might be the town where the Lord was
calling us. The passage I had read that day was Joshua 24:11, “So
I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not
build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves
that you did not plant...” and it struck me how much that verse has
applied to us in these first couple years of church planting. We
truly have experienced a “Vineyard” being planted that we
ourselves have not had to toil and work for. It feels like the Lord
simply had people ready and waiting for us with a similar vision and
heart, and we haven’t had to run ourselves into the ground trying
to get started. We are past the “honeymoon” stage of having a
new church, but despite all the “horror stories” we’ve heard,
our team is still together (AND we still like each other! At least as
far as I know) :) and no one wants to throw in the towel. We were
able to tell our outside financial supporters that they could stop
giving a few months early because we became self-sustaining earlier
than we anticipated. The past two years have really been an
experiment in many ways... is it possible to have a church that has
practically no programs and no “machine” to run? Could people be
inspired to seek out community with each other even if there aren’t
pre-manufactured “community groups”? Can we encourage others to
take ownership of their own discipleship rather than depending on
church staff or church-run programs to feed them? Can we have a
church simple enough and Spirit-led enough that folks don’t burn
out from doing too much and we don’t need full-time staff or a
building and everyone truly does “get to play” and we can give
away most of our money to things close to the Father’s heart?
Well, the experiment still continues, and we are far from having all
the answers to those questions, but we have found a lot of joy in the
process. We feel like we are exactly where God wants us to be at the
moment, and we want to stay sensitive to whatever He wants us to do.
Surprise, surprise,
this email has turned out much longer than I originally intended!
Overall, I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to each of you and to
let you know that we love and miss those of you who live far away
from us! I pray your holiday season is blessed with the presence of
Jesus and that your new year is a fresh new start in all good ways.
Love,
Janelle for all the
Gansons (Ben, Micah, Caleb, and Abby)
A few links:
About our Both Hands
project: https://bothhands.org/project/ganson-236
Our Gobena coffee
fundraiser: http://www.gobena.org/stories/ganson-adoption-fund/
Vineyard Church of
Rock Hill: http://rockhillvineyard.org/
Our “official
blog” I never update anymore but probably will someday:
http://gansonfive.blogspot.com/
The blog I
OCCASIONALLY update but is purely a scrapbook for our family and has
nothing of substance except pictures of the kids and a list of what
we’ve been doing as a family:
http://gansonfamilyscrapbook.blogspot.com/