Hey all,
Hope you all are doing well and had a special Christmas with your families. We really enjoyed our Christmas and have so much to be thankful for.
I'm attaching our family newsletter below. Emily wrote it this year.
Hello Everybody!
Emily here. For some reason my family asked me to write our Christmas letter this year - I have no idea why, since I can’t write worth beans, but I’ll give it a shot.
I guess I’ll start in January. On January 17, Lucy Elizabeth Jost was born to Jonathan and Sharla. She was born 7 weeks premature, so she had to stay in the Lethbridge hospital for about 4 weeks. We are so thankful to the Lord that she is perfectly healthy! She is the most beautiful bright eyed thing you will ever see and we all adore her to pieces! We also recorded our new CD “Trust in the Lord” in February. The Roby family came up and set up their equipment at Jesse and Heidi’s. We did it in two weeks, it was a really great learning experience and once again we are very grateful for Roby’s being willing to come and sacrifice that time to help us out!
April\May we went on a six week tour through SK, MB, Ontario and Michigan, doing 21 concerts. Once again, God was so faithful to protect and provide for us. We met a lot of really neat people and it was so cool to see God working in the lives of other fellow human beings. Jesse and Heidi also came with us.
In June, after being home for 2 weddings and the planting of our garden, we went on a three week tour down to Colorado. Made a lot of new friends and were always being reminded of Gods love and mercy...such as the time after one of our concerts (in Nebraska) when dad and some of the men from the church went out to look at the tire on our trailer. Dad had noticed something was wrong with it after we got there. They jacked up the trailer to take a look at it and when they lifted up the trailer the tire fell right off! There was no way we should have made it safely to that church. The tire technically should have fallen off long before that. God is so worthy to be trusted!
July we were able to have some of our good friends the Hounsomes out for a couple of weeks and they helped with the huge task of picking up all the bales that my brother Jonathan cut/baled.
Our summer was very full with filming Joel’s movie “Little Jake and Harry”. A lot of fun and a lot of work! We were very grateful to have the help of Luke Collin, JD and Audrey King and Shayne Hounsome. I won’t bore you with details...however if you would like to watch the movie you can find it at: www.littlejakeandharry.com :)
In September, we were able to go to a family camp in B.C. which my dad and Jesse spoke, and our family sang. It was a lot of fun and awesome to get together with some other big families and fellow believers! It was a hard time for Hannah-Grace as she fell out of her top bunk bed at 3 am. onto a cement floor! She suffered a broken collar-bone and concussion. This was the first broken bone in our family, if you can believe it!
Fall was busy with school, music and other home finishing/renovation projects.
Dad continues to be an awesome leader for our family. He is such a servant and an amazing example to us kids of trusting the Lord. I couldn’t ask for a better dad! I am so grateful for a loving dad who will listen to me when I need to talk. He is an incredible and loving husband to Mom. He is still driving school bus and busy working in the shop and around our acreage, is getting pretty good on the dobro and is pretty much amazing on the guitar.
Mom is amazing. She is such an incredible mom and wife and serves her family no matter how she is feeling. She is such an encouragement to anyone she comes in contact with! She is still writing fantastic songs. In fact, she has been on a bit of a roll lately and has written about five in a month’s time. I don’t know how she does it. Mom is one of my best friends and is such a godly role model for me to follow. I am so thankful to be able to talk with her about anything and she always has words of wisdom for me.
It’s been awesome to see God open doors for
Jesse and Heidi for ministry. I have so much respect for them and their commitment to seeking God’s kingdom first. Jesse has also been leading an Apologetics Bible study at their place every week that we all really enjoy attending. He does an excellent job of leading it. Heidi also wrote a very powerful book this last year and it been great to see God use that. John-Michael is almost two and is a very adorable little guy. We always love it when we get to babysit him.
Jonathan and Sharla have such servants’ hearts. Jonathan has a handyman business which God has really been blessing. I really admire his and Sharla’s generosity and diligence. They are both incredibly hard workers. Sharla is a really super mom to Lucy. She is such a gorgeous, happy little doll! Jonathan and Sharla also make beautiful music together!
Josiah (21) is still quite single. He is busy with his graphic design business, “Siah Design”. God has really blessed it. He has even had to turn down work he has been so busy. He does logos and websites but mostly logos. He is very creative and wants to honor God with all his work. Josiah is incredibly patient with all his siblings. I think I should get a lot of the credit for that though... I build a lot of character in my family. All of us really look up to him and we couldn’t ask for a more loving and godly older brother. He has also gotten very good on the electric bass and stand up bass. Yeah, all in all Josiah is pretty cool, and whoever gets him is getting one cherry pie of a guy. I am most definitely not advertising though. I don’t want him to leave anytime soon.
Joel (19) has been very busy with his film this year. He has been doing a lot of studying on the art of film making and is passionate about making films that will honor and glorify God. He still has dark wavy hair and a charming sense of humour. Joel is constantly making me laugh. He has become our group’s soundman and I must say he does a pretty good job of it. He has really good ear for it. So you are probably wondering why he isn’t up front with the rest of the family? Joel’s response to that is that he has way too many other talents to pursue. Ha...ha...
Well, the only drawback to writing the family’s Christmas letter is that you don’t really get to brag about yourself. Well, I suppose I could....but I won’t. I am in my last year of high school (Whoopie!) and really enjoy singing and doing music with my family. I also really enjoyed getting to act in “Little Jake and Harry”. It was difficult acting someone so very, very far from my character, but was a lot of fun. :)
Jeremiah (15) keeps busy with school, music and woodworking. He plays the guitar and is getting pretty decent on it. He is also really maturing and growing into quite the young man. He is getting pretty tall, loves any kind of sport and is very athletic.
Joseph(13) is a little book worm! I guess I shouldn’t call him little though since he is now taller than me.... which really isn’t that hard. He is a very loving and responsible older brother and uncle and really has a desire to please God. He is John-Michael’s favorite. Joey also continues to be a little smarty pants and has the most abstract sense of humor....Bless his heart.
Joshua(11) is a very hard worker and is a huge help to dad. He is always generous and thoughtful.
Amy-Joy (9) is such a spunky girl. She loves reading, sports and has a beautiful singing voice. She also just started knitting and crocheting. She loves being an aunt and helping mom in the kitchen.
Hannah-Grace (7) is our little drama queen. But has such a sweet and gentle spirit and is so loving. She keeps us all laughing with her great sense of humor. Hannah is also an amazing little artist...I wish I could draw like her...even my stick men are pathetic.
Judah (5) is very mature for his age (most of the time) and is Josiah’s little buddy. He loves being an uncle and does a great job of it. He is constantly asking questions and is very smart.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and God bless you all as you continue to seek after Him! He is so trustworthy and faithful!
In Christ,
Emily Hope
Mom, Emz and Amy singing "Daddies Love Your Little Girls"
Judah singing :)
On Saturday night we went out for Chinese with the Lipp family. Good times.
We left the Durstons on Wednesday morning and left for Langenburg, SK where we had a concert there that evening. We had it at the Langenburg community hall and it went really well. Afterwards we were all billeted out separate ways. Joel and myself stayed with a young man by the name of Dwight Mehrer. It was a real blessing to hang out with him. He really has a heart for the Lord and we really enjoyed visiting with him. We stayed an extra day in the Langenburg area so we had lots of time to visit. On Thursday, our family went bowling with Dwight and some other friends in the area (Yankes).
Thursday evening, Darwin and Cathy MacKenzie took us out for Chinese, which was a real treat.
