We had an exceptionally busy year in 2003. In March, we headed south to Georgia to visit Becky's family. Becky's sister Carla (now 30) has disabling cerebral palsy and was still living at home. She has trouble walking, cannot drive, has difficulty staying focused on big tasks and is sometimes slow to learn new things. In spite of these handicaps, Carla made it through high school and college and graduated with a double major in Spanish and Deaf Education. After college, the whole world seemed ahead of her, but after she moved back home she couldn't find satisfying work or regular transportation (other than Mom & Dad) and went from excitement to depression.

Sensing that the light at the end of Carla's tunnel was getting dim, we decided to ask her if she wanted a fresh start in Pennsylvania. We offered her our Lansdale condo as a place to live as well as financial support. Although our condo was small for the five of us, we hadn't been planning to buy anything bigger soon. So we decided to just go ahead and invite Carla to come up and live with us. We trusted that God would provide a new house for us in the right time and place.

Carla accepted our offer to move to PA and she moved in with us at the beginning of April. Two months later, we settled on our new house in Telford and Carla stayed in our condo - finally in her own place. We wanted to make sure that Carla got the positive affirmation that she needs, so we arranged for her to volunteer at our church office and also as an English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor for a total of about 20 hours per week. We give her a monthly stipend and she pays all her own bills. We found a great electric powered three-wheeled bike that she uses to get around town for groceries, the bank, etc. She gets rides from friends and neighbors for places that are too far away for the bike or during bad weather.

We are slowly working to get health care coverage, disability transportation and other social services that are available to Carla, but we are trying to be patient to let her learn her way around Lansdale, figure out all the details of having her own place, get into cooking, cleaning, laundry routines and help her become more organized and settled into the condo. It's not going as fast as some people expected, but we are 110% satisfied and feel she has already made great strides.

As each piece of the puzzle fits into place and Carla becomes more and more confident with her own daily living and housekeeping, we will help her find paying work that matches up well with her skill set. We prefer to continue supporting her financially than have her stuck in a stressful, draining job. She needs every ounce of energy just to get around and keep herself and her apartment in shape. We want to be sure she gets a job that's uplifting and affirming.

Our new house is a cute three bedroom place at the end of a cul-de-sac. There are six other families with young kids nearby and our children love to play with the neighbor kids when they're out. Of course, all the new friends also mean the inevitable childhood interpersonal conflicts that we parents cherish as character building experiences for our kids. We're trying to teach our kids that they only have control over their own response and that it should be loving not revengeful.

Our work schedules have basically stayed the same - both Eric and Becky working about 20 hours per week. Becky is still at Merck, but will start 2004 in a slightly different role. Eric is still doing computer programming while waiting for some decisions to be made about TargetSpeed. We each appreciate being able to help around the house and watch the kids grow up. It's sometimes stressful wondering where the money will come from to pay for our new house (and our old one) plus all of Carla's expenses and our own right now, but God keeps providing.

We are still involved at BranchCreek Community Church in Harleysville, PA. Becky has joined the leadership team for Women's Ministry and Eric has a small role on the Information Technology team. We also continue to help out on the Young Marrieds’ Ministry core group, which we both find very rewarding.

Daniel is almost five and will be starting kindergarten next fall. Lauren is three and loves to play with one year old Natalie. We're glad that Lauren's splitting her time between Daniel and Natalie so that she won’t be so lonely when Daniel starts school. Daniel and Lauren still enjoy puzzles and games plus their daily dose of computer time. And in case we didn't mention it to you over the holidays, we are looking forward to our fourth baby at the end of June next year.

God has so richly blessed us that we can hardly believe it! A wonderful fulfilling marriage, good jobs, healthy children, a beautiful new house and the hope that Jesus is always with us. What could be more joyous?