We hope 2014 has been a good year for you. It has been an interesting year for us. We started the year with three teenagers, added a fourth, and then returned to three as Christian is now 20! Carl, Bethany and Christian (as a mentor) competed in two FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) regionals in the spring in South Carolina and North Carolina. They also competed in two other FRC events this fall as well as participate in the Cary Christmas parade with their robots. We traveled a few times this year for visits with friends, family and schools. In April we traveled to the Midwest making a couple of college visits, checking out the FRC Championships, and visiting Dan’s sister’s family. In May we traveled to Washington, DC for another college visit and also went to the Marine Corps Museum. In July we visited adoption friends. In September Dan and Leslie-Jean went to the coast for a day to see a lot of Colglazier relatives.
Christian
is in his second year at Wake Technical Community College. He is working on finishing up an associate’s
degree there before transferring to a four-year school. Christian has become a very good programmer. He developed two Android apps this year: one
that can control an FRC robot and another that helps scout other robots and can
predict match outcomes. Christian’s
expertise in making Lego brick films was highlighted in a book by Sarah Herman
entitled Brick Flicks. In it he is quoted about lighting, camera
movement, inspiration, and working with Carl.
Pictures of two of his sets appear in the book, and he is an entry in
the index.
Carl
has had a very busy year with the addition of college and scholarship applications
to his other activities. He became an
Eagle Scout in January. Carl
participated in mock trial this year as the defendant when on defense and as an
attorney when on prosecution. He and his
team were well prepared and did an excellent job. Carl’s StudentCam documentary “Due Process”
won third prize high school this year.
He was honored for it with a visit by the C-SPAN bus and an award
presentation. Carl’s documentary on the
history of Cary was awarded a Paul Green Multimedia Award presented by the
North Carolina Society of Historians.
Bethany
has started taking dual enrollment classes at Durham Technical Community
College and has done quite well. She has
been very active in Venturing, was elected her crew’s president, and earned the
Venturing Bronze Award. Bethany has also
been active with her FRC team as business lead.
Miriam
has become quite a good dancer. She is
part of her studio’s company and has enjoyed the extra challenge and
performances that has offered her. In
June Miriam performed en pointe for the first time as Tinker Bell in her
studio’s production of Peter Pan.
Leslie-Jean
had another busy year homeschooling and being on the committee of the
homeschool co-op we participate in.
After more than 30 years with IBM, Dan now works for Lenovo. He is still doing performance design guidance
for Intel servers with basically the same people as the entire group was sold
by IBM to Lenovo. Dan now works in a
much nicer building with a shorter commute and likes working for Lenovo so
far. He also got to retire from IBM.
With
Dan’s move to Lenovo from IBM, some things changed and others did not. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, let us
consider what changed and what did not at the first Christmas. What is it that we are really celebrating? God makes it clear in the Bible that He does
not change. Malachi 3:6 states, “I the
Lord do not change.” God did not change
at Christmas, so what did? There were
many prophecies about the birth of the Messiah.
At Christmas these changed from promised to fulfilled. Matthew 2: 22-23 tells us, “All this took
place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will
be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel –
which means, “God with us.” This passage
also points out another change that occurred at Christmas: God was now with us
as a man dwelling among us. Philippians
2:5-7 says, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who,
being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being
made in human likeness.” This is the
miracle of Christmas that we celebrate: God becoming a man and dwelling among
us! Amazingly he did not come to rule
over us but came instead as a servant.
This was the beginning of his sinless life which qualified him to be our
perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross years later. Philippians 2:8 goes on to say, “And being
found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death –
even death on the cross!” Three days later
Christ arose from the grave overcoming death so that we will someday go to be
with Him in heaven. This all started at
Christmas with the birth of Jesus – Immanuel – God with us! This Christmas let us thank God for the
greatest present ever: His Son born a man to dwell among us, become our perfect
sacrifice, and be our forerunner to eternal life with Him! May 2015 bring God’s blessings to you and
yours.
