New Year. New Start. Same Spouse.

I made a beef stew for a big family event over the holidays.  It was a big hit.  A simple stew!  Later it struck me: marriage is a lot like a beef stew.  It doesn’t have to be complicated.  And the better the ingredients – the better the end result. 

So this year, may we encourage you to put the best ingredients into your marriage?  Simple ones like time.  Attention.  Intention.  Romance.  Sex.  Laughter.  Gratitude.  Celebration. 

At the beginning of every year, Neil and I have a “State of the Union” weekend where we review the past year and look forward to the next.  We talk about the joys, challenges and disappointments of the year past and set some goals, make some plans and dream forward into the new year.   We started doing it about 15 years ago after a particularly troubled time in our marriage.   In fact, it was the roughest season we’d ever experienced.  We found ourselves frosty roommates rather than the passionate friends and lovers we’d always been to each other.  We couldn’t believe we’d allowed ourselves to get so far off track.  A weekend retreat helped us get honest and slowly start making our way back.   We realized our marriage had become the victim of benign neglect.  We’d been trying to keep a marriage alive on scraps.  Scraps of time, scraps of attention, scraps of energy.   Cheap ingredients.  We agreed we wanted more than that.  So now we get away once a year – for a day, a weekend, and this year, for a week - to take stock, to plan and to make sure we’re putting the very best ingredients in our 33 year “stew”.  We leave on Sunday!

We use different tools to guide our conversation.  This year we’ll be using a guide I found on a blog site (simplemom.net) I visit occasionally and highly recommend. You can download the Goal-Setting Guide for 2012 here: http://powertochange.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/goal-setting-questions-for-2012.pdf

It might help provide a process and some great questions for you and your spouse to talk through.

Some suggestions: 

1.     You don’t have to answer all the questions. Start with one or 2 that matter most to you. 

2.     Don’t get too caught up in measurable outcomes and benchmarks and implementation evaluation and all that stuff. You’re not a corporation.

3.     It’s not about the list.  It’s about life.

4.     Remember you’re on the same team.

5.     When all the goals aren’t met – and they won’t be, let’s just be honest - give each other lots of grace. 

And cover it all with a big helping of prayer.  That’s the best ingredient of all. 

Bon Appetit!

Neil and Sharol Josephson are the Directors of FamilyLife Canada

Happy New Year!

Hi dear friends,

We hope this finds you enjoying a great 2012.  All 12 days of it!  One of our new year's resolutions is to stay in better communication with you - our ministry team of prayer and financial supporters.  But first an apology.  We missed the opportunity to connect with all of you over Christmas and are very sorry about that.   We got a little swamped with year end fundraising for FamilyLife and by our own family life (3 different Christmases with 3 different groups of family members and multiple house guests over 3 weeks :)) but want you to know you were never far from our thoughts and daily in our prayers.  We know it was a difficult Christmas for some of you who lost dear family members last year and we prayed especially for you - that you would experience the peace and joy of Emmanuel - God with us - even in your sadness.

When we look back on 2011 and all the blessings of the year, you were 2nd on the list - right after our family.  Your generosity, your prayers, your faith in us and your notes, emails and cards were such an encouragement!  It was a tough year for us, I'll be honest.  It was a year of learning, trusting, relying and releasing - learning about a new ministry, trusting God in deeper ways than ever before, relying on friends for our daily support, and releasing our pride and need to control (especially for me - Sharol).   It's been hard and humbling but we can honestly say that we have never been more convinced of God's kindness and the kindness of His people than we are today.

There was lots of fun and celebration in the past year as well - mostly surrounding our children and grandson.  Ben and Jennifer continue to be generous in sharing Cooper with us and we get to see him at least once a week, more when we're not traveling.  We were all together in December at Brady and Liz's new home in downtown Vancouver when he took his first few steps - a family highlight that of course Neil shared on Facebook!   Our children continue to make us proud and keep us humble at the same time.  They've turned out so well - in spite of us!  The verse that often comes to mind when I'm with them is one from the Psalms "What you made, you made so well." 

There were ministry highlights.  Neil and I spoke to over 3500 people last year - conferences, family camps, seminars, retreats - and had the privilege of seeing some amazing miracles happen before our eyes.  We launched a national network called HomeBuilders for people - like you - who are actively involved in marriage and family ministry in your neighborhoods, churches and communities, piloted a new workshop for couples in the first 5 years of marriage, began development of a financial tool/manual for families, re-shaped our team for growth and expansion and halted the financial slide of FamilyLife Canada.   It was an exhausting, but rewarding, year.

And now, as we look ahead to the new year we have some exciting opportunities.  We are launching FamilyLife into Quebec (Canada's French-speaking province) and developing the ministry to First Nations (our American Indian people groups for those of you from the U.S.) families.  We have teams going to India, China and likely Haiti to train pastors and leaders who want to develop FamilyLife ministries.  We are hosting our first ever Investor marriage retreat (a small event with a big ask!) and we are adding several conferences across the country.   We have added staff, recruited new speakers and are re-vamping the curriculum for our weekend conference.  We have also joined forces with Faith at Home (parenting ministry) here in Canada and partnered with Successful Step-Parenting (Ron Deal)  in the U.S.  As well, Neil and I have been asked to lead a marriage event for government leaders and their spouses in Ottawa (our nation's capital).  Lots to pray about!

May we also make two personal prayer requests?

1.  Our personal support-raising has been dragging on and we are praying that God would allow us to become fully funded within the next 3 months.  We need about $800/month to get there.  Please join us in praying about that. (Thank you for your help in getting us this far!)

2.  We are finding ourselves very hungry for Christian community.  We travel so much that we haven't been able to really plug into a local church (though we attend every week we're home) and haven't found a small group in our area.  We miss our spiritual friendships and nourishment from Bayside and haven't been able to fill that hole here yet. 

Thank you.  And please email us with your prayer requests.  We consider it a privilege to come before God on your behalf.
neil@familylifecanada.com
sharol@familylifecanada.com

Two more things....

We want to extend an offer to you - as our supporters - to attend a Weekend to Remember conference (in Canada)  for a special rate of $99/weekend.  It's a savings of $200 but it doesn't include your room or meals.  We are speaking at all the conferences this year so we'd get to see you!  Just use this link and use the password "support"  to register at the special rate.
http://powertochange.com/familylife/events/weekend-to-remember/familylife-supporters


Also, we will start sending you our monthly HomeBuilder e-newsletter.  It has articles, links, downloadable resources and videos that we think are helpful to growing Godly marriages and families.   And some of our staff's favorite funny videos.  You may unsubscribe at any time.   Here's a link to the January edition.
http://familylifecanada.powertochange.org/Announcements/enewsletter_hb_3.html

Here's our travel schedule over the next few weeks:
Jan. 27 - 28         BreakForth - Edmonton (Neil)
                            Thriving Women's Conference - Granite Bay, CA (Sharol)
Feb. 10 - 12         Weekend to Remember conference Niagara Falls
Feb. 17 - 19         Weekend to Remember conference Victoria
Feb. 25                A Day Together - Ontario
Feb. 27 - Mar 2   in Ontario - Quebec (donor appointments, recruiting and orienting new staff)

Sorry about the long note.  They won't always be so long.  In fact, that's one of the reasons we're going to a blog format so we can send you little updates more frequently...not the long tomes we've been sending!

One of my favorite verses:   
    "The generous will prosper.  Those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed."  Proverbs  11:25   

You have refreshed us more than you will know.  We claim this promise on your behalf.  May you be refreshed and may God allow you, your marriage, your family, your work and your ministry to prosper in 2012. 

Gratefully,

Neil and Sharol