What a year it has been for us! God has certainly filled
it with many blessings. There were many changes and adjustments to be made in
2016, some easier than others, but God has been good through it all. We truly
feel that we have experienced the wonders of God’s love as we have started our
own journey of love in marriage this year. We hope and pray that God has been
good to you as well in 2016 and continues to be as we enter into this New Year!
As you know, we got married on March 19th. We
were thrilled that many of our family members from both sides were able to make
the trip to New York to celebrate our big day with us. Even my (Lindsey) cousin
and his wife who live in Laos and had just made it to the States a few days
before showed up and surprised us! The day was a whirlwind of love, friendship,
and happiness but we were blessed by each other and everyone who made our
wedding so beautiful. We left from our wedding and immediately drove down to
Baltimore (stopping at Burger King on the way so we could actually eat
something!) We stayed the night in the Hyatt Regency on the inner harbor and
then boarded our cruise ship the next morning, spending ten days on a Western
Caribbean cruise over the course of our spring break. We visited St. Thomas,
St. Kitts, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had a great time! Two of the other
three couples at our table got married on the same day as us! We had a blast
connecting with them at meals. Our honeymoon was a wonderful getaway before
heading back to mid-semester reality! We came back from honeymoon and dove
right into getting moved, setting up the apartment with all of our stuff, and
catching up on school work.
Lindsey
graduated from Davis College on May 7th with her bachelors of
religious education in teaching English as a second language and Christian
counseling. Through the summer she continued her work on a full time basis with
Child Evangelism Fellowship of Broome County (where she had been working part
time through school) as the Summer Ministries Coordinator. She was in charge of
scheduling 5-Day Club programs for kids in the area and helping teens to lead
those clubs. She also started working for our church as the Ministry Assistant
in July several hours a week. Once the summer ended she went back to working
for CEF part time, increased her hours at the church, and also picked her
morning babysitting job back up. She is definitely busy but enjoys all three
jobs very much.
Patrick
is in his third year at Davis College getting his bachelors of religious
education in pastoral studies. Patrick worked as the evening and weekend chef
for the Davis kitchen until May but then went back to working at Panera full
time for the summer. Between work and homework he stays busy volunteering at
our church. Most recently, he has been helping our church to begin a Christian
recovery program for the church’s community. It’s still in the beginning stages
but he is excited to be a part of it as it is something he is very passionate
about. In November, our pastor gave him the opportunity to preach his first
sermon in service. He did great for his first sermon and looks forward to being
able to continue to sharpen his preaching skills and getting practice for the
future.
We
were able to spend three weeks travelling in May. We spent one week visiting
Patrick’s family in Wilmington, NC, one week visiting Lindsey’s family in
Pittsburgh and having a wedding reception there, and then travelling to
Nebraska to visit Lindsey’s extended family and attend to her cousin’s wedding.
We were also able to take several weekends and day trips exploring New York in
places like Syracuse, the Finger Lakes, and Niagara Falls. We are blessed to
have flexible jobs that allow us to get away from it all and spend some quality
time with each other once in a while!
2016
has been a year of blessing! We pray that you have a wonderful Christmas to
wrap the year up and a wonderful year of similar blessings in 2017. Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year!
-The Yarboros-
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