Merry Christmas from Our Home to Yours

This is our 2006 Christmas card & year in review:



Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas to you all! This past year has included so much change and transition for our new family. After our wedding on January 7, which we were so delighted to share with many of you, we moved to Louisville, Kentucky for Kevin to pursue a masters degree at Southern Seminary. His degree is tailored toward international church planting, and our hope is to be able to move overseas for a two-year term in 2008. He has now finished two semesters and is enjoying his class work and the professors tremendously. Kevin also works part-time at a fondue restaurant called the Melting Pot. I am currently working as a legal assistant at a personal injury law firm. This is by far the most interesting job I've ever had, and between Kevin's job and my own, we have plenty of interesting stories to share at the dinner table.

Outside of work and school, we are so blessed to be a part of a wonderful church home at Clifton Baptist Church. Our church is so faithful to the exposition to the Scriptures, and we are thankful for the teaching we receive each week. This group of people has quickly become our second family, and the relationships we have built here have made our transition away from home much easier. Our pastor and his family were even gracious enough to invite us to share Thanksgiving with them!

2006 has been the year of weddings for both the Peek and the Corbin families. Besides our own wedding to kick off the year, Kevin's sister Shannon was married in May and my brother Mark was married in October. We were thankful to be able to join our families in Texas for these two celebrations. Kevin's twin brother Chris will be married on December 16, so we will be headed up to Spokane, Washington very soon. Now that all the family weddings are over and done with, our families will have to come up with another excuse to get together.

We do hope that you have a God-centered, Christ-exalting Christmas. How amazing it is that the fullness of God was actually born into earth as the little baby Jesus so that He could grow up to take the punishment that we deserve for our sin and failure to love God rightly! May we delight in God’s heart for Himself and for us as the true heart of Christmas! We love you and are thankful for you!

Though He was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ~Philippians 2:6-11

Mr. & Mrs. Christopher Peek

Our family has grown yet again! We headed up to the great northwest last Thursday to enjoy the beauty of marriage between Mr. Christopher Peek and Ms. Sarah Comfort. We woke up bright and early to catch our 7 AM flight to Spokane, Washington where we spent the day helping out with last minute preparations for the wedding. Chris & Sarah truly have a wonderful community & group of friends, with whom Kevin & I both had a wonderful time hanging out and getting to know. There were so many opportunities to serve Chris & Sarah that day and the next, and many of my prayers were answered as the Lord continued to give me a heart to be observant for needs that I could meet and ways I could serve. My dear husband was such a servant as well, and it made me proud to be his wife to watch him help his brother in so many ways. With the three hour time change though, the day seemed forever long but a blessing nonetheless.

Friday the rest of the family arrived, and it was rehearsal and rehearsal dinner extravaganza. Chris & Sarah even carved an evening out of their wedding weekend for our family Christmas celebration at our hotel. We didn't have mom's cinnamon rolls or Settlers of Catan, but apparently our festivities were festive enough and a little bit too loud for the other hotel guests, as we were interrupted by the late-night security guard.

Saturday was the big day! Our dear friend Matthew Savage performed the marriage ceremony, and, unlike other Peek weddings of the past, he successfully invited the audience to be seated as the ceremony began. I was most encouraged by Chris & Sarah's intentionality to put Christ at the center of their wedding. Their vows were thoughtfully written to detail their loyalty to their God-given roles to one another as head and helpmate. Sarah couldn't help but to put a quirky twist at the end of her vows to Chris: "And I'm so darn excited to be your wife!"

Chris & Sarah had asked Kevin & I to be their escorts from the wedding chapel to the hotel. This proved to be lots of fun even after we dropped them off at the hotel. The car we were driving still had the JUST MARRIED sign on it, so we continued to receive honks and waves. Who was I to crush the enthusiasm of our excited bypassers? So of course I waved and grinned and carried on just like a giddy new bride would do!

We were truly glad to be a part of this joyful weekend. May Christ continued to be glorified in your new home, Mr. & Mrs. Peek! We love you both!

Work Perks & U of L Basketball

So one of the bonuses of my job is the perks that our partners give us. As if it weren't entertaining enough to spend day in and day out at the office, our partners bought season tickets for the office to the University of Louisville basketball games. They told us the seats were pretty good but I had no idea that this is where we'd be sitting:















Every person in the office gets to go to two games. My sweet friend Helen McDonald (another Aggie grad!) went with me to this particular game, as my poor husband had to work. We had such a fun time, except the view made it a little difficult to follow the game:

Post Offices & Passports

So I talked to my sweet mother last night. She was telling me about her day, which included a visit to post office. Very nonchalantly, mama added the she picked up an application for a passport. I asked her she was planning on going, though I just assumed she and daddy were planning a trip to Europe over Christmas break (which would be a shock in itself). "Well, of course," she said. "It's for when I go visit you when you move overseas." Even though we're not going to be leaving for at least another year and a half, I was so blessed that my mom would think ahead so naturally. So thanks for loving me so specifically, mama!

I can go ahead an update everyone on our Thanksgiving holiday as well. Since we were so far from home, our pastor and his family invited us to join them. They really are a neat family, and it was such a pleasure to get to be a part of their traditions. Plus the weather recently has been just like Texas (but it's supposed to snow tomorrow). Though Kevin missed his mama's cinnamon rolls and Shannon's dog show, our first Thanksgiving away from home was quite enjoyable.

Kevin has survived his second full semester of school. He finished his last two finals today. I am so proud of my studious husband. When I watch how hard he works at school, I am reminded of how he is striving to move our family forward into the next phase of life.

So that's an update on our crazy KY life!