Greetings to you all!

It’s time once again for our annual Christmas letter. I hate following the crowd on this one, but there are so many that are so busy; this is pretty much the only time of year we’re able to connect!

Life for the Kuiper clan this year has been anything but easy. We’ve tried to think of it more as an “adventure” of sorts—always looking to see what God was going to do next (though most of the time we really couldn’t see). In January, we closed the door on our condo in Colorado Springs, started up the moving van and headed to Denver to live with my parents. We were sad to leave, but we knew that we had to do it. Between then and now we’ve been through a miscarriage in June at 9 weeks, two job losses for Ben within a month of each other, almost three months without health insurance, as well as some other major financial setbacks. Now I stand here twelve months later in awe of God’s sovereignty and grace. Right in the middle of everything, when we had pretty much been stripped of everything we had, God began to show us the promises He had in store for us—promises of blessing and restoration. We had nothing else, so we held on for dear life and let Him work out His plan. At the end of October, after a rather slow and discouraging period of unemployment, Ben was offered a 1-year contract-to-hire position with Barclays Bank—get this—IN COLORADO SPRINGS!!! Barclays is one of Britain’s largest banks, and is the 4th largest bank in the world! They have an office of about 400 people in Colorado Springs, and they’ve contracted him to do maintenance programming on some of their systems (which is what he did for a year an a half before the lay-offs). Looks like the days of working for tiny start-up companies just might be over! And since the contracting firm who hired him is paying mileage, the 120 mile a day round trip won’t have any impact on our budget—talk about a blessing! And if God wills, we’ll be moving back to Colorado Springs sometime at the end of next year!

Otherwise, we’ve all been doing well. Adriana turned two years old on December 2nd, though her “terrible two’s” started sometime this summer. She loves to count to ten, sing her ABCs and read books with Daddy. She also enjoys trying to ride Rosie like a horse, but we try to discourage that. She’s definitely a challenge, but her sweet smile and loving spirit make it all worth it.

I’ve been keeping busy trying to make our little space in the basement look somewhat like home. And when I’m not cleaning, doing laundry or chasing after Adri, I’m in front of my MacBook working on my latest addiction—digital scrapbooking! It’s less expensive than traditional scrapping, and MUCH lessmessy—I’m ALL for that! I even designed our Christmas cards this year! Hopefully soon I’ll be ableto post some of my pages on my blog or our website.

I leave you all with this verse from Zephaniah. Someone prayed this verse over Ben and I earlier this year and it was a great encouragement. It is our prayer and blessing for each one of you.

The LORD your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."

Zephaniah 3:17

Love to all,
Ben, Brandi & Adriana