CHRISTMAS 2009

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Friends and Family,

It has been a busy, yet rewarding year in the Winner home!  We have seen the hand of the Lord at every step and continue to praise Him for the many blessings in our lives. Among the blessings of 2009, we welcomed two new members to our family.  Our newest niece, Lyndsey Lynn, will be 1 year old in February.  She is growing leaps and bounds and LOVES spending time with her cousins, aunties and uncles, especially while mommy is at school.  Just two months ago we also welcomed our new nephew, Jaycob Dale Winner into the world!  Jordyn and Danyela, the two nieces we love to pieces, are growing into the most beautiful young ladies and we are so proud of them.

Sydney and Lily are turning out to be as smart and elegant as their mommy, and as silly and good looking as their daddy!  They both took swimming lessons this year and love their dance classes.  They are quickly becoming close friends with each other and spend much time playing games on the computer, doing art, and destroying… I mean, “playing” in the playroom together.

Sydney is in first grade and loves everything about school.  She loves to read and is very good at it.  School comes very easy to Syd, and we love watching her learn more every day… soon she will know more than her mom and dad!  Art is by far Sydney’s greatest passion.  She spends hours each week, and sometimes each day, creating.  Whether drawing, coloring, cutting and pasting paper, writing songs or poetry, or painting, Sydney has a natural gift to make anything beautiful.  She recently won first prize in the literature division of her school’s PTA art competition.  You can view the video she and daddy created to accompany the poem HERE.  Through hers and daddy’s efforts, Sydney is becoming a fast YouTube star with the rap and other videos she’s been making since she was 3.  The videos she is currently featured in total over 1 million hits on YouTube!

Lily is by far the smartest, most crafty little girl we have ever met.  You can tell she up to something just by looking in her eyes!  She is constantly trying to learn everything and anything people will teach her.  Sydney can’t do her homework without Lily wanting to come right along side her to learn.  Needless to say, her first half year of preschool has been right up her alley!  She can already read a little bit, and is more well-spoken than most high schoolers!  One of her favorite things to do is to count… and count, and count, and count!  With her big personality, it is no surprise that Lily is making new friends at church and preschool.  She has worked on two of her own videos with daddy that are receiving rave reviews online.  Her potty rap has helped the children of many of our friends and others around the world to have as much potty success!  Her newest video features a message to Santa… you won’t be surprised at the boldness of our little Lily!

We couldn’t be more proud of what wonderful and loving little girls Sydney and Lily are becoming, and we can’t wait to see what God will do in their lives as they grow in His Grace!

In addition to being a wonderful mother and amazing wife, Jennifer has been very active in the girls’ schools and at church.  She is the room parent in Sydney’s class and occasionally volunteers in Lily’s class.  At church Jennifer continues to play keyboard on the worship team, she teaches a women’s study, leads a mom’s group, coordinates a scrapbooking event monthly as well as all of the other duties of being a pastor’s wife.  Jennifer is enjoying catching up with old friends on Facebook and has enjoyed reuniting with friends from Malone over the summer.  She does not hide her obsession with Facebook’s “Farmville” application, and sometimes reveals an unexpected competitive nature when she achieves greater digital-farming success than her online peers!

Mark is still the preaching pastor at Cornerstone Friends Church, and is loving every minute of it.  In addition to filling the pulpit on a weekly basis, he is active in many other ministry endeavors, including participating on the steering team of Unity in Northeast Ohio (UNO), a multi-faceted ecumenical movement with over 50 local churches in participation.  His side business doing web, graphic and video design has been more active than we ever imagined and has become a great creative outlet for him.  Perhaps the most exciting addition to Mark’s schedule has been the completion of his first semester at George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland, Oregon.  It is a hybrid program, where he interacts online for most of the time and travels to Portland 8 days per semester.  This has been by far the most rewarding of his educational experiences, and he is actually logging A’s for the first time… maybe Sydney and Lily’s educational prowess is rubbing off on their dad!

We value the relationships we are in with our friends and family.  Please know that we count you among the people who help to make us the people we are.  We have felt many of your prayers over the past year, and have offered prayers up for many of you as well.  We would love to catch up with each of you in 2010, and welcome any opportunity you may have to pay us a visit, chat online or even spend a few minutes on the phone.

Our prayer this Christmas is that Immanuel, which means “God with us”, would be with you and your family.  May God’s richest blessing fall upon you as we celebrate the birth of His son!

Love,
Mark, Jennifer, Sydney and Lily