Steve and Laura's family letter January 2025
Steve & Laura Spinella
If you sent us a letter or card, we promise we’ve read it. If you haven’t, well, this is proof that it’s never too late! This is for you! I hope we’ve included something of interest to you.
Laura and I are now solidly into the grandparenting era with
five from 0 to 6. I’m not sure if that keeps us young or shows our age. I can
definitely see it both ways, but some of you know which we notice more 😊.
We have now lived in Colorado for 14 years straight, and we have both now lived
in Colorado a total length of time longer than anywhere else. Joey and Laura
are in Arvada, Colorado with Corrie (11 mo) and Cedar (almost 4,) while John
and Sarah (Forcey) live around the corner from us with Martha (92) and Evangeline
6, Isaiah 3, and Elijah 1. Robert is here too! If you’re trying to figure out
the family photo, Laura and Joey are the couple diagonally bracketing the
frame.
We visited some scenic places last year, all with friends and family, mainly in Colorado. We are still associated with the Paraclete Mission Group and fortunately our biannual retreat near Asheville, NC happened before the flooding.
I’m convinced that senior years, for many of us anyway, increasingly involve being alongside, accepting others’ choices, and releasing things we once held more tightly. That is not an easy task, and it may require everything we’ve learned and experienced this far, even if no one notices!
Are you wondering how long we’ll continue in ministry with Paraclete Mission Group? So are we! Since we are now very much part time/volunteer, there is always room for more ministry, but we are also making room for a lot of other things, especially elder care and grandparenting.
It turns out I love adventure more than Laura does, so we try to find a balance. My prostate cancer is currently under management and Laura is recovering from a first shoulder surgery and anticipating a second. The tendons being repaired likely go back to our early days in Taiwan when Laura was just turning 40 so it’s been a long journey for her. These are NOT the adventures I was looking for.
We did get ebikes
this year, but we didn’t sell our other bikes. (We just ride them less!) We
also continued to repair our old (1999) RV, which we got during COVID. It turns
out we can take a lot of things with us when we travel in the RV, but we don’t
go very far or fast. It also turns out that our grandkids think the RV is very
cool. They also like the jumping mattress that Steve keeps in his office and
pulls out for special occasions of the jumping variety, along with a desktop
which makes an impromptu slide for both preschoolers and stuffed animals.
This year has dawned with a new government in our host country, and it is in fact neither the best of times nor the worst of times, or perhaps it is both at the same time. (Host country is an allusion to our history as international ministry workers, who identify with various countries, including the one where they currently reside. The times phrasing is a literary allusion to a line from Charles Dickens. https://www.historythroughfiction.com/blog/a-tale-of-two-cities Extra credit if you caught both!)
We wish you peace, brought about by faith, hope, and love, in whatever times you are passing through, and pray for the same for ourselves in whatever is yet to come.
With love that didn’t start with us, Steve and Laura
