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Merry Christmas! If this is your first visit to our website, please look around. We have posted notes and pictures from our trip to Swaziland, Africa that will bless you.
What can we say about 2008? What a year!
Dan continues to work as a Field Consultant for the Marwaha Group overseeing 36 Subway restaurants. EAT FRESH! This keeps him hopping all over the greater Bakersfield area. He has also helped to plan the Franchisee Rally for the third year in a row. At this event, many awards were given to Franchisees throughout Southern California, but most of them were operators that Dan advises. His team also won Development Agent of the Year, a national award from Subway Corporate. He works very hard showing other people how to make more money so we are very eager to take on a franchise of our own. We often talk about how Dan’s Subway consulting experience and Brittney’s management and sales experience in the weight loss industry have prepared us for business ownership. Our prayer is that God will give us that opportunity in the next year or two. For now, however, we will have to be patient. Dan has also taken on about 8 guitar students which gives him the opportunity to share his gift while strumming up some date night money. And, if you haven’t heard the new CD from The Boasting Weak go to http://www.theboastingweak.com/. This is a band that Dan has been playing guitar in.
Brittney went full-time earlier this year at RiverLakes Community Church where she has been the Assistant Director of Service Ministries for almost 2 years. The extra money has certainly been a big blessing. She now oversees: Baptism, Communion, Funerals, Bereavement Care, Weddings, Holiday Decorating, Hospitality, Kitchens, Library, Room Reservations, Church Calendar, Event Planning, and the Christmas Remembrance Service. Phew! It makes for busy weeks and often busy weekends, but it is so rewarding.
This year has been eventful on the family front as well. Thank you to everyone who has been holding our nephew Jaxen and Dan's sister up in prayer. Jaxen continues to have hurdles to jump over with his health and development. Thanks to his amazing, tenatious parents, he seems to be making progress. Thank the Lord that he was born a happy, loving child. He rebounds quickly and Mommy and Daddy can make him infectiously giggle even moments after a procedure. What a trooper! Please pray for his continued progress, for excellent doctors and therapists, and for Heather and Jeff who need God's strength and peace.
Dallas continues her battle with Burkitt's Lymphoma. She is being treated at UCLA Santa Monica at varying intervals, coming home to Bakersfield when taking a break from chemotherapy. It has been trying for her and, of course, for Brenda (Dan's mom) who is her primary caregiver. This is obviously not something anyone expected to deal with in an 18 year old who recently graduated high school and is newly married. She has certianly fast-forwarded in maturity and maintains a hopeful attitude. Our prayer is that she will finish treatment early this Spring and this will all seem like just a bad dream. Please continue to lift her up in prayer as well.
We continue to lead a Small Group Bible study on Monday evenings for about a dozen people around our age. It has been so amazing to see the way the group has grown in the Lord over the last 2 years. We can honestly say it has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God. Our group recently got involved with Here’s Life Inner City and our own church to put together “Boxes of Love.” These boxes are filled with everything a family needs to have a holiday meal (i.e. ham, stuffing, yams, etc.). They are distributed to needy families throughout our community. We thought we were being such faith-filled leaders to challenge our group to come up with what we were calling a “crazy amount of boxes.” We threw out a number- 40 boxes! “Let’s feed 40 families this Thanksgiving just from our little Bible study of poor 20-somethings,” we said. Well, the email went around….”50,” they said….”60,” another bid….”80!” Oh crap! We wanted to challenge them, not set them up for failure. We decided to trust the Lord to provide for His people. Our final bid was 80 boxes because according to the group, “80 boxes is something we can’t do on our own, but GOD CAN.” So, we started the GOD CAN. It is literally a can for God to fill with money through his people. We spread the word, prayed, and contributed funds as the Lord led…………………102 boxes were assembled and delivered from our group! Beyond that, RiverLakes did 936 boxes total including ours, almost 3 times the amount the church came up with last year. It is clear that God is at work and we have to get out of the way! (By the way, the GOD CAN has since gone on to help finance a Christmas party for orphans and widows in Swaziland. God is good.)
Speaking of Swaziland, we continue to be affected by what we saw and experienced there. I will let you read the previous blog to find out more about our trip this last August, but suffice it to say that not a day goes by that we don’t talk about what God is doing there and how we can help. We continue to long for our friends there. Our dreams are infused with the faces of the babies no one is kissing goodnight and the sweet old widows for whom no one is caring. Our hope is that we will be headed back sometime in 2009, though potentially with a better airline. (Who serves Liverwurst for breakfast? Bleh!)
This March, we will be heading to Israel. What an adventure! We have never been the couple that dreams of Paris or Hawaii. As long as we’ve been together, the only trips we’ve talked about are Africa and Israel. How sweet God is to give us these opportunities! We will be leading worship for our church group of about 60 people. What do you sing in the Garden of Gethsemane? Seriously, any suggestions?
Of course, this just skims 2008 in the Bingham house. We hope that you have a very Merry Christmas! This blog is a new thing for us and we plan to update it regularly (not just once a year), so subscribe to it (scroll to the bottom of the page) or just check back regularly. We love you all and hope to see you soon.
"Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the World!" John 1:29b
What can we say about 2008? What a year!
Dan continues to work as a Field Consultant for the Marwaha Group overseeing 36 Subway restaurants. EAT FRESH! This keeps him hopping all over the greater Bakersfield area. He has also helped to plan the Franchisee Rally for the third year in a row. At this event, many awards were given to Franchisees throughout Southern California, but most of them were operators that Dan advises. His team also won Development Agent of the Year, a national award from Subway Corporate. He works very hard showing other people how to make more money so we are very eager to take on a franchise of our own. We often talk about how Dan’s Subway consulting experience and Brittney’s management and sales experience in the weight loss industry have prepared us for business ownership. Our prayer is that God will give us that opportunity in the next year or two. For now, however, we will have to be patient. Dan has also taken on about 8 guitar students which gives him the opportunity to share his gift while strumming up some date night money. And, if you haven’t heard the new CD from The Boasting Weak go to http://www.theboastingweak.com/. This is a band that Dan has been playing guitar in.
Brittney went full-time earlier this year at RiverLakes Community Church where she has been the Assistant Director of Service Ministries for almost 2 years. The extra money has certainly been a big blessing. She now oversees: Baptism, Communion, Funerals, Bereavement Care, Weddings, Holiday Decorating, Hospitality, Kitchens, Library, Room Reservations, Church Calendar, Event Planning, and the Christmas Remembrance Service. Phew! It makes for busy weeks and often busy weekends, but it is so rewarding.
This year has been eventful on the family front as well. Thank you to everyone who has been holding our nephew Jaxen and Dan's sister up in prayer. Jaxen continues to have hurdles to jump over with his health and development. Thanks to his amazing, tenatious parents, he seems to be making progress. Thank the Lord that he was born a happy, loving child. He rebounds quickly and Mommy and Daddy can make him infectiously giggle even moments after a procedure. What a trooper! Please pray for his continued progress, for excellent doctors and therapists, and for Heather and Jeff who need God's strength and peace.
Dallas continues her battle with Burkitt's Lymphoma. She is being treated at UCLA Santa Monica at varying intervals, coming home to Bakersfield when taking a break from chemotherapy. It has been trying for her and, of course, for Brenda (Dan's mom) who is her primary caregiver. This is obviously not something anyone expected to deal with in an 18 year old who recently graduated high school and is newly married. She has certianly fast-forwarded in maturity and maintains a hopeful attitude. Our prayer is that she will finish treatment early this Spring and this will all seem like just a bad dream. Please continue to lift her up in prayer as well.
We continue to lead a Small Group Bible study on Monday evenings for about a dozen people around our age. It has been so amazing to see the way the group has grown in the Lord over the last 2 years. We can honestly say it has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God. Our group recently got involved with Here’s Life Inner City and our own church to put together “Boxes of Love.” These boxes are filled with everything a family needs to have a holiday meal (i.e. ham, stuffing, yams, etc.). They are distributed to needy families throughout our community. We thought we were being such faith-filled leaders to challenge our group to come up with what we were calling a “crazy amount of boxes.” We threw out a number- 40 boxes! “Let’s feed 40 families this Thanksgiving just from our little Bible study of poor 20-somethings,” we said. Well, the email went around….”50,” they said….”60,” another bid….”80!” Oh crap! We wanted to challenge them, not set them up for failure. We decided to trust the Lord to provide for His people. Our final bid was 80 boxes because according to the group, “80 boxes is something we can’t do on our own, but GOD CAN.” So, we started the GOD CAN. It is literally a can for God to fill with money through his people. We spread the word, prayed, and contributed funds as the Lord led…………………102 boxes were assembled and delivered from our group! Beyond that, RiverLakes did 936 boxes total including ours, almost 3 times the amount the church came up with last year. It is clear that God is at work and we have to get out of the way! (By the way, the GOD CAN has since gone on to help finance a Christmas party for orphans and widows in Swaziland. God is good.)
Speaking of Swaziland, we continue to be affected by what we saw and experienced there. I will let you read the previous blog to find out more about our trip this last August, but suffice it to say that not a day goes by that we don’t talk about what God is doing there and how we can help. We continue to long for our friends there. Our dreams are infused with the faces of the babies no one is kissing goodnight and the sweet old widows for whom no one is caring. Our hope is that we will be headed back sometime in 2009, though potentially with a better airline. (Who serves Liverwurst for breakfast? Bleh!)
This March, we will be heading to Israel. What an adventure! We have never been the couple that dreams of Paris or Hawaii. As long as we’ve been together, the only trips we’ve talked about are Africa and Israel. How sweet God is to give us these opportunities! We will be leading worship for our church group of about 60 people. What do you sing in the Garden of Gethsemane? Seriously, any suggestions?
Of course, this just skims 2008 in the Bingham house. We hope that you have a very Merry Christmas! This blog is a new thing for us and we plan to update it regularly (not just once a year), so subscribe to it (scroll to the bottom of the page) or just check back regularly. We love you all and hope to see you soon.
"Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the World!" John 1:29b
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