Merry Christmas newsletter '09

Merry Christmas ‘09

Another year has come and gone and here we are at the end of 2009. It has been another busy year for us, a year in which we have seen God’s faithfulness! We are still pastoring in Zephyrhills Fl, but not Branchborough Assembly of God…now Jon pastors Grace Church (new name-same location) We love the name change. It reflects the spirit of the church and the message God has given Jon, the grace of God. This year we bought a church bus and have started a bus ministry. God has also sent us a children’s pastor and a youth pastor! What a blessing! We have also added some new families to our church this year. It’s been a good year.

Jon finally received his transfer from Lake Correctional in Clermont, a hour’s drive away, to Zephyrhills Correctional. He is blessed to work with some staff he has worked with before. ZCI is a great prison and a very unique as it has a hospice wing, as well as chronically ill inmates and ones who are dealing with mental health issues. He has a Sunday morning service that averages about 70 inmates. He is thrilled to be there! And thrilled to be free from a 2 hour daily commute!!
Jon and I celebrated our 20th anniversary this past October 12th! WOW-so glad we’ve had each other to go through life with. Our whole meting/dating/eloping is a crazy story but God knew what He was doing, putting the two of us together! We didn’t really get to do any big trip but maybe next summer!

In other news…Stephen is now in 8th grade and back at Zephyrhills Christian Academy. He is doing GREAT and is gearing up for basketball season. We’ve been really pleased with his grades, he’s keeping an A-B average in everything and really putting a lot of effort into everything. Knowing that high school is coming up next year, he is very motivated. He’d like to be dual enrolled for 11th and 12th grade in the community college and he knows he has to hit the ground running to be able to meet that goal! He also wants to get a job now that he is 14 yrs old so he’ll be looking after basketball season. Also he had a great summer, he went to youth camp two times with two different sets of friends.

Shad is now 6 yrs old and in kindergarten at Zephyrhills Christian, where he is making straight A’s, keeping an average of 95 and above. He loves school and hates to miss a day! We thought he’d do good but it is amazing how well he is doing. Shad got glasses this year. He looks like a little professor when he remembers to wear them. He is so outgoing, all the kids at school know him, from the minute he gets out of the van, he’s yelling “hi” to someone.

Sam ,5 yrs old, is also in kindergarten, but on a home bound program through the school system. His teachers come out to the home four days a week and work with him. Sam has had another challenging year, what’s new? This year we found out he has kenotic hypoglycemia, so severe it caused him to have a terrible seizure in May and has put him in the hospital almost every month since then. We have began to have to check his blood sugars and in order to keep them up he has recently been given CORNSTARCH-crazy huh? But it works! We put it in his bottle of Pedisure and it keeps his sugar stable Thank God!!! The doctor feels he will out grow it but at this point he is still so tiny. He is the size of a 2 ½ year old and he hasn’t grown much in the past 2 years. For our Xmas picture, he is wearing the same pair of jeans he wore 2 yrs ago…24 month size. Part of Peter’s Anomaly is short statue but he seems to be smaller than most kids with it. He is our little baby boy and we adore our midget Also this year in August, we learned that the retina in his left eye has totally detached causing him to be black blind in that eye. That was hard for us to hear as we have fought SO hard for that little eye and the little bit of sight he had in it. With a child that has such a small amount of sight, you fight for everything! However his right eye has done well and he gets around so good with it. Almost every day he does something to amaze us, something we wouldn’t have thought he could do This year we also learned that he is deaf in his left ear and has some hearing loss in his right. He will be having some more tests to determine exactly how bad it is. We probably won’t be able to do hearing aids, even if they’d work, cause Sam can’t stand anything touching his head. The reason we are doing the testing is just to see how bad it is and if it’s something that could get worse.
Just recently we were told he may have Tardive Dyskinesia, a form of Parkinson’s that was caused by taking REGLAN for his reflux when he was younger. He has uncontrollable movements that are not neurological seizures so this may be the complex answer to that. There is nothing that can be done for him but it shouldn’t get any worse. We hate that a medicine could have caused this!

So you may wonder why we are happy and thankful after the year we’ve had…we know why…we serve a faithful God who is with us through it all. Having a child with health issues, opens us to a world of families/children that we didn’t really know existed, and it makes us cherish each moment! We love the normal times when they come and we trust God when those harder times hit. No matter what we realize this world is not our home, we’re only passing through and it’s gonna be alright…one day everything is gonna be alright. Living our life in the light of eternity makes it easier to accept the rough spots…”cause there is coming a day, when no heartaches will come, no more clouds in the sky, no more tears will dim the eye, all is peace forever more on that happy golden shore, what a day, glorious day, that will be, What a day that will be, when my Jesus I shall see…” We look forward to that day!

We hope each of you will have a wonderful Christmas and a great 2010! We love hearing from each of you. This year we have discovered FACEBOOK and love how that keeps us connected with friends all over the world. You can reach both of us on FB but Jon doesn’t keep up with it as much as I do You can also email us at theclanton5@aol.com . I have also started a blog that you are welcomed to read my blog address is www.myreallifebyyvonne.blogspot.com/ I love writing on it but be warned that sometimes it’s a bit raw. You can also check out the website I have for Peter’s anomaly (what Sam has) It’s not really complete but I have people from all over the world contacting me regarding it www.petersanomaly.com and last but not least, the church’s website is www.gracechurchofzephryhills.org . You can listen to Jon’s sermons weekly on there. And of course our home number is 352 567 6208. Hope to hear from you all this year!

Merry Christmas from the Clanton Family