The Son of God descended miraculously from heaven, yet without abandoning heaven; was pleased to be conceived miraculously in the Virgin’s womb, to live on the earth, and hang upon the cross, and yet always filled the world as from the beginning”
-John Calvin in the “Institutes of the Christian Religion” book II, XIII, 4.
Dear Family and Friends:
We would like to wish all of you a very merry Christmas filled with joy, hope, and peace.
As we draw near to the closing of 2010, we feel that this year flew by so quickly that we often wondered where it had gone. 2010 was a challenging year for us with some losses and barely any gain; however, we thank the good Lord for his sustaining love and his many blessings despite all of the losses.
OK. Not all losses are bad. Early in February my doctor’s office called with some not-so-good news. My annual physical check up showed a high blood sugar level and high cholesterol. The consequences of neglected exercise? Perhaps. We bought a treadmill and I’m glad to say that it is a worthwhile investment. I’ve been spending about half an hour almost daily on it, early in the morning with no man-made music and no TV around, just my treadmill and me. Thirty minutes of torture time, 2.75 miles daily has brought my blood sugar level down back to normal. I also shed 30 pounds and am able to maintain it, too. 🙂
In Summer my parents and sister came to visit and we had great times together. We also had a chance to travel to Sedona, Arizona and the Grand Canyon, and spent a couple of nights in Las Vegas on the way there. Click here for the pictures. I also completed my term serving as deacon at church last Summer.
At the start of the 2010-11 school year I was presented with multiple challenges at work. The first challenge was the new students information systems. With very little training I was expected to hit the ground running so to speak. After some long days and lots of trials and errors I was able to navigate myself through the new systems to get the job done, and there’re still a lot of things to learn. The second challenge came when I loss a person in our department after he was offered another position and his position was not filled due to the tight budget situation. He left at the busy time and I had to assume parts of his responsibilities. The third challenge came financially when we had to take a few furlough days due to the state’s budget situation. Next year can be worse and more dire, though.
On September 12 we loss Duke. We were not sure of the cause of his death; however, we knew that he was battling with something in the last 2 weeks of his life. In the morning of his death, with tears in her eyes Tryphena said to him, “Duke, I will make four cup cakes on your birthday. One for you, one for papa, one for mama, and one for me. And I will put chicken inside” [He would have been 11 on October 16]. I skipped church that morning so that I could be with him. His condition kept getting worse, and finally he drew his last breath a few minutes after noon. He waited just long enough for Indra and Tryphena to come home from church. We will forever miss you, Duke!
This year Indra also had some tough time dealing with health issues. We just think that after 40 some years our bodies start to fall apart.
Tryphena is in her 2nd year of preschool at Fresno Montessori. She writes and reads simple words. She also continues with her piano lesson and had given two recitals this year. Starting last month she was also enrolled in a weekly Chinese class.
2010 proved to be a challenging year, and we don’t expect to see the situation to get much better next year. On the other hand I expect it to be more dismal- economically, politically, socially, and culturally. From human perspective we would lose heart. Everything seems to be broken! We are broke in every thing, but praise be to God that the Incarnate God had come to deal with our greatest problem, SIN. For us and for our salvation the Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, very God of very God put on humanity and became very man of very man; He descended from Heaven so that through him we can ascend to Heaven.
Merry Christmas!
