Merry Christmas from the ever-growing Eades family!

    The Lord has truly blessed us this year amid the turmoil of world and local events. First, as you can see the Lord expanded our family by 2. Stewart William and Stephanie Rose were born on November the 19^th, the same date we experienced a miscarriage 3 years ago. I was also thankful to have a boy and a girl so I would not have to be confused my whole life. (I’m confused enough with 8 kids now anyway!) Mom and the babies are doing well, although handling twins is quite a different “ballgame.”

    The kids are very excited about a new brother and sister. They have all been a great help to Mom in caring for the babies, and keeping the house from falling apart. I am thankful for each of them and the blessing they have been to Bev and I. All the kids continue to grow in their faith and do their best to be obedient to Mom and Dad.

    It is going to be difficult to summarize this year’s events – one, because I don’t have the time to write too much, and two, so much has happened this past year, so I’ll attempt to highlight what I can. I’ll start with me so I can quickly move on to other more important ones. It has been a good year. I’ve really enjoyed all three of my jobs (concurrently) as Chief of Safety, IG, and Instructor WSO in the B-1B. I feel like a detective always investigating an incident, mishap or disagreement. I’ve felt quite happy with my findings in each investigation, but I’ve had difficulty with all the paperwork, messaging and filing (as I am my own secretary as well). I hope to hang with Safety another year and possibly tackle some other leadership role in the future, but now that I have 20 years in, it will be difficult to stay much longer.

    I continue to enjoy working with kids in the AWANA Bible Club, meeting with my prayer partner Rowan (for the 12^th year), and completing some Mailbox Club courses in Spanish. I am studying Spanish with the three older girls for the second year now. Rebekah is starting to out perform me on the Spanish exams too. I am able to enjoy basketball, baseball and fishing at times with each of the kids minus the newborns. They get “snuggles” with Dad.

    P.S. It looks as if, the DoD and the AF are going to take the B-1B away from my unit and give us the KC-135R this next year. The AF also tried to absorb our unit into the active duty AF as well. Thankfully, that did not happen. The Kansas Air National Guard is the finest organization I’ve ever been associated with. It is not perfect, but the people are great and subsequently the jets are the best in the AF. Unfortunately, politics get in the way. Our unit has various folks supporting the war effort, but our B-1B’s –not yet or at least “not so fast”. I really don’t know what the future holds in this regard. Our church has also been quite centered around prayer support for the Martin and Gracia Burnham, missionaries who were taken captive by terrorists in the Philippines some 6 months ago. His parents and their children attend our church. Rebekah has been particularly prayerful for both Martin and Gracia as Martin flew her around the Philippines on her mission’s trip in April 2000.

    Rebekah is a senior this year and making plans to attend Pensacola Christian College (PCC) next fall. Kristine hopes to follow Rebekah to PCC the year after. Both have been accepted to attend at this point. Rebekah received her driver’s license and has been a big help shuttling the rest of the family around especially since the birth of Stewart and Stephanie. She told me she thinks she wants to be home during summer breaks just to be with brothers and sisters. She got her first taste of a “big league” test taking the ACT exam last week.

    Kristine is another of our big helpers. Her big thing this year was attending Music Camp at PCC this summer. She learned a lot about other facets of music she had no idea of before. She very much enjoyed singing in the Choir at PCC. She continues with piano and violin lessons weekly. She as well as the other members of the family play a big part in our church, participating in choir, AWANA, nursery, leading or playing music, helping in Children’s church and occasionally teaching Sunday School or AWANA council time (Rebekah). Kristine continues to be the most compassionate and caring one I know. She always thinks of others first.

    Kimberly is a freshman. Her abilities on the piano and organ have grown tremendously this past year. She plays with such expression; it is a joy to listen to. She continues to be avid reader and gets up early to get all her schoolwork finished before lunch. The twins have made this goal a little harder to accomplish. The past month she has been the resident cook. Prior to this, she watched Rebekah put together meals for the family as part of her home economics course, but now we can’t keep her out of the kitchen. Whoever my girls marry will not go hungry.

    Bethany is 10. She is also an avid reader. She and Kimberly often disappear to their room to read books and/or listen to music for hours. Her younger brother James, doesn’t let her go too long because he considers Bethany his number one playmate. She is a very big help watching over James and Lillian, and now the twins as well. Her duty many times is to sit and read to both James and Lillian. But they all enjoy it. Bethany is by far my most avid sportsman too. She loves baseball and basketball and fishing with Dad. At times she reels in bigger bass than Dad.

    James is 7 and full of life. He is always in the middle of everything and trying to do everything too. If I can’t find him, he is either tinkering with his tools, riding his sister’s 26 inch bicycle, climbing a tree, or getting into things he’s been told to stay out of. If you look up “energy” in your dictionary, you’ll see a picture of him. He is very excited about having a new brother and sister too. Dad’s quite proud of this big boy too. He has wanted to jump into family devotions and now that his reading has improved significantly, Dad lets him tackle 80% of it himself. He also suggested that he, Bethany, and Dad should pray prior to starting a day of fishing. It impressed me so much, I thought the day was a success before it started.

    Lillian is our cute 4 years old. She is also full of life and fun. She just gleams so! She and James are good friends too. James will let her play with his tools too (Scary!), but mostly they like to play cars, legos, and empty the bookshelves of books. The basement sometimes becomes a sight to behold…NOT! Lillian moved into the big girls room with the arrival of the twins. So Rebekah pretty much gets her ready for bed each night.

    Our twins, Stewart and Stephanie, are nearly a month old now and are truly a joy despite the lack of sleep and the constant attention they require. I cannot think of a higher calling than raising kids to serve the Lord. It is better than fishing. From the start the two were very different. It will be fun to watch them interact and grow together.

    I’ll finish with Mom. “OVERWHELMED” is the term of the day. We didn’t find out about twins till about 6 months, although Lillian was praying for the “babies” all along. Up to that point Bev had been seeing a midwife for her care. With twins however, we were forced back into the hospital world, but the preparation beforehand made the hospital stay a pleasant experience nonetheless. Bev had to have a C-section because Stewart was breach (normal practice these days with twins). Bev wasn’t too thrilled about the idea, but once she realized there was no other way, she said “let’s have those babies”. They came at 5 minutes and 3 minutes before midnight on the 19^th of November. She very much wanted this to be the final healing of her miscarriage that happened 3 years ago to the date. Mom is currently a busy camper and very weary, but she cherishes the gifts she’s received. She assigns the kids some of the housework as she continues to lead the charge with the responsibilities of home schooling.

    We love you all very much and thank you for writing us back. It is so wonderful to see what God is doing in each of your lives. We are praying you have a Merry Christmas and  a blessed New Year.

    Love in Christ, Bill, Bev, Rebekah, Kristine, Kimberly, Bethany, James, Lillian, Stewart, and Stephanie Eades