Dear Friends,

It’s time for another update from the Augustine family. A lot has happened in the last year (as is bound to be the case when you have little children), so here we go.

Last January and February were cold ones for us. Not because the weather was frightful (we’ve seen much worse), but the house we lived in was hard to keep warm. It was a beautiful house with lots of character. (And I purposely didn’t put that in quotes.) It was once a stage coach stop and post office. We loved the openness of the downstairs area and the big front yard for the kids to play in. But we were still paying rent money that was just going out every month with no return.

So, in September we closed on a house of our own. It’s on the corner of two county roads so there is a lot of traffic and the yard is very small (especially with the new wood furnace and all the wood fuel). But it’s ours.

It was a two bedroom but we renovated the half story attic area into a bedroom that runs the length of the house. Devan and Karissa now share the biggest bedroom in the place. We also made the three-season porch into a four-season front room. With all the windows wrapping around it and the soft glow of lamps make it a really peaceful place to play games, read, write, etc.

We’re also in the process of trying to buy the acre next door to our place. It has the old two room school house on it as well as a small shed for the animals when the kids came to school. A 4-H group owned it and didn’t even know it was theirs. Hopefully it will soon be ours. You can pray about that.

Attached to the house is a small country store. It closed about 10 or 12 years ago, but the people in the area miss it and have been asking if we’re going to open it up again. So… we are.

Our goal is to open by the end of the first week in January. We want to do so without going into debt so we’re scrambling to save money and buy products. My brother and sister-in-law generously gave me their Mustang convertible as a birthday gift (thanks guys). That way I could sell it and buy a new computer. Now that Pentium 4s have come out we should be able to get a P2 or P3 for really cheap and still have money left to stock some items in the store.

I’m still working at the factory so Paula will be doing most of the store stuff. I’ll be around in the later mornings to watch the kids but she’ll have the bulk of the load. That’s ok though. She’s the business person of the family anyway.

In the meantime I’m trying to supply money for the startup. I’ve been working every minute of overtime I can to make extra money. I’ve worked at the furniture company down the road as part-time help. I’ve also been trying to get some of my writing sold (something I’d like to do more of). No luck on that thus far, but I’ll keep trying. We’re also trying to save money on anything we can which means no luxuries like Direct TV because that’s $35-50 a month and that kind of money will buy a lot of things from the wholesale catalogs.

At any rate, in April we’ll open the store with a small stock of convenience items and some hardware. In one aisle we’ll have a coffee shop for the farmers in the area to get together and chat. From there we want to expand into a lot of natural and organic foods, maybe some craft stuff, and possibly some Amish items (the Amish community in Taylor begins just a mile down the road).

Enough of the house, though that has been the biggest event of the year for us.

I’ve been working at Fleetguard Nelson in the industrial park since the end of January. It’s obviously not what I want to do for the rest of my life but it pays the bills and pays them well enough that my wife doesn’t have to work.

I’ve also started youth ministering part-time with Community Christian Church in Sparta. That’s only 30 miles away and I worked with the kids before when Rendezvous was active. I’ll be doing monthly events for them and I’ve been teaching the high school Sunday school class. I’ve really enjoyed ministering to youth again. It’s been refreshing.

Paula had a big garden last summer, but that turned out to be a task that was just too much because of another of Paula’s accomplishments this year… giving birth to our fourth child. Things have been hard for Paula having four young children to take care of, but they are a delight we can’t imagine living without.

Of late, Paula’s been getting ready to run the store. She’s been learning more accounting, checking out suppliers, doing some work on the building itself. She’s quite the business owner. It delights me to see the twinkle in her eyes when she talks about the store. She’s excited and will be getting more excited as the next couple months go by and things start falling into place.

Devan will be seven at the end of January. This year the McNulty family Christmas party was held at Dad and Mom’s church in Black River. I found myself standing by the window of the nursery watching the little ones play and thinking that it seems like a few short months ago I was watching a little boy put together puzzles in that very nursery. At that time I was wondering if I could ever be a real father to him. I fell in love with that little boy. Now I see him rapidly developing into a young man.

This year Devan decided to make his own Christmas presents for his sisters. It has been fun watching him build a box for Erin and a shelf for Karissa. I tried to keep my hands out of his projects as much as possible (aside from doing all the cutting). Their a little bit crooked, but it was fun seeing him learn how to work with wood. His nailing skills developed nicely over the course of building the projects. Now he can really drive a nail!

He’s doing well in his schooling. I would have never guessed that a child his age would be able to handle the math he’s doing. He’s far past adding and subtracting. Now he’s problem solving and multiplying. His age is first grade level, but I don’t remember multiplying prior to third grade. In any case, I’m very proud of the progress he’s making. It’s fascinating to hear him thinking aloud from the back seat of the car. "Dad, when you’re 65 I’ll be… um… 41."

Karissa likes joining Devan for his school work. That’s pretty typical of homeschooled kids. She’s only three and a half, but asked Paula one day at reading time if she could learn to read. We decided if she was old enough to ask she was ready to learn. So, Karissa has been working on phonetics. She knows the sound a D makes as well as K, T, and R.

Karissa is the quiet one of the group. Her Uncle Chad and Aunt Mitzi love her meek little voice and there are often times we find her playing by herself upstairs or in the front room.

Erin is now two years old. Her birthday on December 14^th made for a lot of present opening as we went directly into Christmas afterward. She’s begun to talk a lot and likes to color. She’s the most polite of all our children. She doesn’t have to be reminded of her "please" and "thank you" and she always says she’s sorry when she accidently hurts someone. In fact, she says "sorry" when someone else accidentally hurts her. It’s kind of comical hearing her apologize through a cry of pain. "Waaa…I’m sorry… aaaah!"

Erin loves to sing. Inevitably on a trip in the car we’ll hear a high-pitched melody coming from the back seat. She loves to sing "Jesus Loves Me," "Away in a Manger," "Input, Output," "Servant of All," "The ABC song (of course)," and "Twinkle, Twinkle." The other day at worship one of the songs was "Jesus Loves Me." She sang her heart out and when the song had finished and the music gone silent she piped out, "Now let’s sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle."

Brianna was born on June 10^th. She now has two teeth, a beautiful smile, and can say "Da, Da" and "Ma, Ma." Her older siblings love her very much. One of my favorite things in the whole world is to come through the door, see her little arms and legs start flailing in excitement, and hear that little "Da, Da." It makes me wonder at this Christmas time how Joseph ever came to grips with the idea that the omnipotent God could make himself so helpless, relying on he and Mary for everything.

Our year ahead is filled with goals. We look forward to having our own business. We are excited about seeing another year of development in our precious children. We’re anticipating growing closer to our God and understanding him better as well as helping others to do the same. We expect 2001 to be the best year of our lives… thus far.

May God bless your year ahead and may 2001 be the best year of your lives as well. Most of all, remember that, though we are far away, our hearts are with you and wish you all the joy your hearts can possibly stand.

In God’s Love,

J.R., Paula, Devan, Karissa, Erin, and Brianna