Merry Christmas from the Norwood Family!
2007 has been a wonderful year for our family, and we are thankful to God for all His blessings and provision!
We’ve continued to grow as a family this year - - Rachel and Aaron were married on October 6th and the wedding picture below is a rare commodity: one picture with all of our family present at once! From left to right:
Christina and Daniel, are holding granddaughter Elena (3) and Adelae (5) up front. They love living in San Diego where Daniel is a product manager for Quest Software. His business took him to Europe for 3 weeks, and Christina was blessed to join him for the final week in Paris! (Sweet!)
Jonathan (10) is our big-time Karate Kid, with an advanced blue belt on his way to black belt. He also is learning to play the piano and guitar when he’s not out in the neighborhood with his buds playing football.
Christopher (14) is also in karate, and is learning to play the bass guitar. He just earned the rank of Star in Boy Scouts. He and Eric went to Philmont Scout Ranch in the high country mountains of New Mexico in June where they backpacked 80 miles in 10 days.
Eric has been staying active by taking karate lessons with the boys for the last two years. Maybe his body will hold out long enough to be a black belt someday, too! His work is always full of challenges and opportunities to see the Grace of God in action!
Rachel and Aaron were married in Atlanta in our brand new church building, The Bridge Church of Atlanta - - and what an absolutely wonderful time we had as a family! They honeymooned in Maui for a week, and they bought and fixed up a home in Braselton, Georgia just north of Atlanta. They both work in Gainesville, 20 minutes from their home. Aaron is a graphic designer for a regional advertising agency and Rachel is an office manager for an insurance company. Rachel graduated with Honors from Kennesaw State University in May (after carrying 18 credit hours in the last semester)!
Nancy had a lot on her hands in 2007 - - home schooling her boys, helping Rachel plan a wedding, making gorgeous jewelry in her little playroom in the basement, and researching places to invest in a “second - and - future-retirement” home. We purchased a home on 7 acres of mountain-top orchard property in San Diego this fall, with plans to offer it as a vacation rental to friends and family. The very day after negotiating the offer on the property San Diego County experienced the largest wildfires in its history. Thankfully neither our property nor Daniel and Christina’s home were affected.
Carly and David are enjoying married life in Canton, Ga, on the north west side of Atlanta. David works as an information technology manager for a local hospital, and Carly just finished her degree in Communications. Their Christian band, Helios, continues to gain notoriety, and weekends find them either traveling with the band across the Southeast or David playing guitar at Northpoint Community Church.
Stephen (17) graduated from home school this May and began classes at Georgia State University in the fall. Singing continues to be his passion. He produced a demo CD to begin to compete in regional and national competitions. He and his brother David performed as part of the wedding, as did Rachel.
We’ve been married for 31 years, hard to believe for some who said “it’ll never last!” As we reflect upon where we’ve been and how our lives have unfolded, we are truly grateful for what God has done. Those of you who have known us for years have heard us say many times that Jesus Christ changed our lives 31 years ago. It’s become somewhat trite these days to talk about “being born again” (especially for celebrities and felons doing time!) But our convictions about what we believe are increasingly validated in two ways: our personal experience of the reliability of the Scriptures and of knowing the presence of God in our daily lives. All we have in our lives - - family, friends, the needs and the desires of our hearts - - come from the hand of the One True God who sent His Son to be Savior, Lord and Friend to any one who will ask it of him.
As we send this Christmas letter, we pray for you to experience, if even for the first time, the true Joy of new life in Jesus this Christmas!