(This is our Christmas letter for the year. We mailed it to as many of our family and friends as we could. We are also posting it here for those of you that we missed. For those of you that follow my blog regularly, very little of this will be new information. But, read on anyhow! Christmas cheer!)

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from Tennessee! We are so humbled and grateful to have this opportunity to celebrate with you another year full of God’s grace and mercy in our lives. He had been faithful to supply our every need this year, and for that we give Him thanks and praise!

January marked the end of Ryan’s time with Just1Word and the beginning of the long road of starting a design business of his own (a long-term goal we had no idea we’d have the opportunity to pursue so quickly). Uber Design + Marketing has been in full swing for nearly 12 months now, and Ryan has done a tremendous job of getting the business up and running. He has served in the capacities of human resources, accounting, art director, project management, marketing and senior designer all in one, and is really getting the hang of it (although someday we’d love to hire other people to help out with some of those things).

Operating a household on a freelance budget has taken some adjusting, mostly because of how sporadic it is. There are no bi-weekly paychecks or company benefits packages – it’s been up to us to work all of that out on our own. The scariest, yet most beautiful part of it all is that we are literally depending on God daily to provide for our family. While Ryan may have several projects one week, there may not be any other projects on his calendar beyond the weekend. God has been faithful to supply Ryan with work, sometimes just enough to get us by, popping up out of nowhere, and sometimes more work than one man can accomplish. It has been a great exercise in trusting God, and He has never failed us yet!

In April, God granted us the immeasurable blessing of gazing upon the face of our sweet baby girl Evie Grace. We didn’t get long to be with her, and we wish so badly we could be writing something much different about our sweet daughter in this Christmas letter. But, we count it a tremendous privilege to have been a part of her short life and to have a little piece of ourselves in glory even now. We are forever changed.

Evie’s short life has already afforded us the opportunity to come into contact with people we otherwise would not have known and to share the Gospel hope with them. God has shown us a foretaste of heaven this year in the way he has surrounded us with the body of Christ, meeting our practical needs of meals and such, as well as relational needs of encouragement and friendship. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to those of you who have mourned with us, prayed for us, and walked along side of us. We are grateful beyond words for your support.

Oliver just turned two in October, and the cute, fumbly little baby we had last Christmas is becoming a sweet, interesting, charismatic little boy! He cracks us up and brings us to our knees just about every day and we love it! He is such a precious gift and we are grateful and humbled to be his parents.

God has given us many different interests and talents to pursue this year as well and it has been fun to involve ourselves in such varied activities. This fall Ryan had the opportunity to teach as an adjunct professor at O’More College of Design in Franklin. Beginning in August, Raechel has begun studying to become a certified birth doula and is currently a Labor Support Professional (Raechel Myers, LSP!!). She’s already attended a handful of births and is very passionate and excited about the opportunities she’s being given and the women that she’s helping. Raechel has also taken a position at Parish as the Nursery Coordinator, which keeps her busy for about 5-10 hours a week. But, one of our most exciting interests this year has been our new attention to rock climbing at the indoor crag here in town. It’s been fun for us to do as a couple and it’s a great way to be active and compete on a more level playing field.

Friends, this is a year worth celebrating! And, more importantly, this is a season worthy of celebration! God has come to Earth and is alive and working in our lives. He has been faithful to his promise in Philippians 4:19, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”. This Christmas we celebrate that God has supplied our greatest need through the birth of his Son, Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God, the gospel is true!

Grace & Peace,

Ryan, Raechel & Oliver Myers