From our FAMILY to YOURS: “MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Tonight we
celebrate the truth of the Coming of the KING in Bethlehem! We recognize the
gift of our Savior born this night! We hear the words from Isaiah 9:6-7 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given and the
government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful,
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7 Of
the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will
reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with
justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
This is also a time to celebrate what the Lord has done, is
doing and will do! This year has brought a great amount of wonderful gifts to
our Cross and Resurrection Family. As we strive to be A FAMILY FOR YOU! BELONG,
BELIEVE, BECOME! We recognize that the Lord is building us to be who HE wants
us to BE…
Our Church Family has many things to be thankful for on this
Christmas Eve. First, the new Fellowship Hall has added a tremendous blessing
to our programs! Second, the New Kitchen is a huge improvement. The sign is
wonderful! New things are happening and the Lord is blessing us! We have the
work by all of our GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS: our Elders, Church Council, Trustees,
Sunday School/Confirmation teachers, Nursery Workers, 12:15 Sunday Bible Study
Leaders, Prayer Teams, Healing Ministry leaders /volunteers, Soaking Prayer
Team, Youth/College Ministry leaders, cleaners/kitchen volunteers, Altar Guild
workers, Lectors, Acolytes, Ushers, Children Sermon presenters, Worship Team
members, Greeters, AVL Volunteers, Ann Street Music Room Team, Lunch providers,
ESL Teachers, Ladies Retreat Leaders, Homeless Shelter week helpers, Care
givers for our sick and homebound, UPWARD Camp coaches & volunteers, Bible Study
Leaders (Laura for the Women’s Study and Steve for the Men’s Breakfast), ALIVE!
Lenawee County Site small group Leaders and volunteers etc… (I did not try to
name everyone, lest I miss someone, although I believe I could as I pray for
you all and am SO very thankful for your faithful service!) For our Staff:
Vicar Paul has started the Specific Ministry Pastor program and has now, with
Jet taking the admin work, thrown himself into the Family and College Ministry
area. This is a huge task when you consider that the responsibilities of the job
are full time (50-60 hours) plus his SMP (15-20 hrs), plus family with a new
baby girl arriving in March, plus Upward etc… Johannes has gone part time
working here as well as at Superior Text. He serves faithfully with our Worship
Teams, AVL, Ann Street, IT, etc… We had a transition happen when Johannes went
part time and Paul started SMP we brought on Jet Whiting as our Administrator.
This meant we restructured and replaced my assistant Deaconess Joanne with Jet.
We are so thankful for Joanne’s faithful service and are VERY thankful that she
continues to serve as a faithful volunteer mentioned in the list above. We are
thankful for Norma Polk as our intern with the EIIT Deaconess program. She is
taking a few months off, but I hope we will see her finish the program. We are
so thankful for Beth and Dave Marshall, our Family Life Ministers for their wonderful
service. Thanks to Joe Kosel who is setting up the Prayer Team. We are thankful
to Jim Ross and Marsha, Rosemary Fry and others who help us with healing
ministry. This means so much to me as I am a thankful receiver of miraculous
healing. With the Family of Christ nights on Wednesdays, we are thankful for
the work that is done with the studies and the ESL class led by Carol Hart and
the volunteers. Thanks so much!
The Lord has been guiding us to change things this year. We
have had a good year including: 1
Confirmation, 2 weddings from C&R, (others who were students) 5 new
members, 0 transfers out, and 7 baptisms. We
had a full year with many additions to the family, not included in these stats.
We were blessed with many new additions to our worship services and other
activities! We have a new confirmation class that is large for us. The
Christmas Pageant has the largest cast yet and we continue to see growth in our
Sunday School Classes! We are seeing growth as a church family and we are so
thankful for all the servant leaders! We will have our first Huddle for our
Servant Leaders group on Feb 8th and 9th. May God richly
bless us as we move forward aligning our will with HIS WILL! We have really exciting opportunities before
us in the next few years!
We continue to pray for our Lord’s will in the work HE is
doing at ALIVE! Our site in Lenawee County. We meet at least once a month. This
changed in the summer when we went away from every Sunday services to
emphasizing the desire to be a missional community: putting our time and energy
into small group studies and service. We go out monthly to have a time together
called MASS: Motivation, Accountability, Sacrament & Sharing. Please pray
for the Lord to show us what HE wants us to do with these faithful servants who
want to impact their county.
On our personal family side of things we are very thankful
for the support, prayers and love we receive from our church family! We are so
thankful to be serving at Cross and Resurrection. I was telling someone at
Rotary that I think I was born to serve here! I have loved serving the Lord in
the harvest fields as a youth pastor around Camrose, then a Vicar in Dryden, ON
and my first Call in Saskatchewan and then in British Columbia! There has
always been amazing faithful servants and loving people of God in these
parishes. I just always wanted to be able to share my Spiritual gifts in an
environment where all of us ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WE ARE COVENANT PEOPLE: (our Father has given us our identity and we
are obedient because of who we are) and WE EXPECT THE KINGDOM: (we know our
King has come and HE gives us HIS authority to EXPECT signs and wonders as we
walk by HIS POWER!) At Cross and Res I feel completely free to exercise the “Charismata”
or “manifestation gifts” of 1 Cor. 12! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING A SAFE AND
FAITH FILLED FAMILY FOR US!
We also have gone through exciting and challenging
experiences this year. We rejoiced as our NEW grandson JOSIAH JOSHUA BRUDI was
born on my birthday, Sept 3! We had a great time at Lake Charlevoix with Bruce
and then in St. Ignace after Josiah was born. We just celebrated our first
grandson LEVI’s first birthday in November! What an amazing boy, I got to
babysit him in Sept when I went to Alberta and BC. This was a joy filled time
but also sad since I left the Bible School Board of Directors on which I had
served for over 15 years! But I am helping with SEND North America in Indiana,
so I am just changing to a closer opportunity to serve. I taught there this
year and will in 2013. Patrick Tincher and Peter Comella are the students from
Cross & Res, so we hope to have a SEND Unit here at EMU in the future.
We have had other losses this year as we lost a member of
our family, Peter Campbell, in October. Laura, BEN and I were at the Pastor’s
Conference on Mackinaw Island so this was a traumatic experience for everyone
as Josh found him and we were away! Thank you to all who served us in this time
of loss! We expect it to take this next year, as we go through all of the
family events without him for us to get back to a sort of normal.
Timothy, Meagan and Levi are doing well in Golden, BC. Josh,
Sarah and Josiah are going to be around for at least the next 4 years as we rejoice,
that even though Josh was accepted at 3 Dental Schools as of now, he is going
to go to Detroit Mercy. Sarah will still teach Music for Young Children in our
house. Annaliese continues to be busy with music, home school coop and she had
a great mission trip to Costa Rica. Annaliese has finished her driver’s
education and in the spring she will be able to drive herself and Bethany to
music lessons, Bright lights and IFire, as well as run errands. Bethany and
Hannah are busy with school, community band, as well as many other activities.
Hannah just started to take gymnastic classes. Charity, Trinity and Mercy are
doing well, with them all having birthdays around Christmas, we are going to be
doing a lot of skating and celebrating! Charity, Trinity and Jeremiah are in
Music for Young Children. Charity is in Art Class and the older girls help with
MOPS at St. Luke. The boys: Jeremiah and BEN are growing fast. Jeremiah and the
younger girls got to go hunting with Josh, this made them very happy. BEN is
crazy about any type of ball that he can throw. The girls are busy sewing and
Jeremiah is enjoying lego and play mobil. It is a very busy time at Christmas.
We were so proud to have all of the children from Sarah to BEN and Josiah in
the Christmas Pageant yesterday. Josiah was Baby Jesus! Laura and I are so BLESSED!
Thanks again for your prayers, help, support and encouragement! We truly love
serving our Lord at Cross and Resurrection!
From both our Church Family and the Schindel Family to all of you: “A
VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A BLESSED HAPPY NEW YEAR!!”
As the Angels declared outside of Bethlehem so long ago: “Let
us Celebrate the Savior of ALL and be reconciled to God!!” Luke 2:8 And there were shepherds living out in the
fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord
appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were
terrified. 10 But
the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been
born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a
baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”13 Suddenly
a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and
saying,14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men
on whom his favor rests.”
Please join us to Celebrate the 12th Day of
Christmas and Epiphany Eve for a skating party at Burr Park on Packard Road in
Ann Arbor, 12 noon on Saturday Jan. 5!
Love in Christ, the true reason for CHRISTmas,
Pastor Bryan, Laura and Family
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