Year end 2009 and Happy 2010

Happy New Year 2010!

We hope everyone is doing well and that you have had a joyful Christmas or Hanukkah. Another year has just flown by. We have had some big things happen this year. We’ve been in our new home now for a little over a year. We’ve been very happy with the move.

In June Mark married Alli Bryan in Dallas. It was a beautiful wedding and reception. They lived in NYC this summer where Mark had a summer job and then moved to Dallas where Alli is in med school and Mark is doing contract work in motion graphics and broadcast design. You can see what he has been up to by going to his web site: http://marknlopez.com, also, their “family blog” is http://alliandmark.blogspot.com.

At the end of last year Dell had a large reorganization that affected the part of the company that Al worked in. He decided to take the package offered to executives. He was asked to stay on for 6 months to complete a smooth transition of his organization and he left in August. Since then as he considers and explores his options he has had time to really get more involved in the neighborhood / community. It is great to see how God’s timing had allowed us to downsize our home and have all our kids married off and then have the restructure at Dell take place. We’re sure that something will develop that will enable some organization to benefit from his experience and energy.

Judy continues to teach the Bible to kids twice a week and has plans on starting up a craft ministry with the teenage mothers who attend the high school here. (Right now there are over 30.) Al has been very busy learning about the low income housing rules in order to help people be able to afford a place to live. He is also working with a struggling non-profit Community Housing Development Organization to help them get back on track.

In October Britt and Greg had their third child, Bryce. He is just a doll and his sisters adore him. To see more about them you can go to Britt’s great blog: http://gregandbrittany.blogspot.com/

Justin and Sally are expecting their 2nd child around March 5th. Justin is working with the church as the executive director of For the City. You can see what he does at http://forthecity.org/ and http://vimeo.com/8078438/ . (Which is the message from the church on Dec. 6th was a video that has Justin talking about 15 minutes into it about what he is doing. Also, E. M Taylor, lady that talks about the neighborhood history lives down the street from us.) You can also see more on their family at their blog: http://salandj.blogspot.com. (Believe me it is worth looking up just to see Justin and Annie as Oompa Loompas and Sally as a pregnant Dora the Explorer.)

We have been learning lots about serving in this neighborhood. We are learning more and more about how to help folks beyond charity and toward development – community, family, spiritually, etc…
We’ve worked with some homeless families, and with a family who’s home burned down and is staying in our duplex while their home is being rebuilt by others who help people in need. Of course, this family has had to continue paying their mortgage payment (on their burned down home) since they didn’t want to foreclose and end up with bad credit. They are a wonderful, hard working family.
The neighborhood has a great assortment of people. We have lots of ice cream trucks that drive around playing their music. The neighbors do a lot of grilling and most of them grill in their front yard so there are some great smells and it is a great way to meet your neighbors. We love the smells and sounds in this neighborhood.
We do a lot with our church community group that meets in our home. We help put on dinners at the middle school in order to have families get involved in the literacy nights, orchestra recitals, math night, nutrition night, etc.
We have adopted a teacher and her classroom from the high school in the neighborhood. The school is really struggling with achieving acceptable academic performance, but we are trying to help this young teacher with some moral and tangible support. We supplied some student supplies that the school doesn’t supply and the kids’ parents can’t afford when school started. We had a dinner at our home with about 18 of her kids where we did a Christmas craft and played games. The kids were all great and at the end of the night the teacher told us that the kids wondered if it would be ok if they just spent the night. One of the girls who looked like she was having a bad time came up to Judy at the end of the night and gave her a hug and said it was the best time she has ever had. The teacher also sent us an email saying how the kids had told her what a good time they had. Most of these kids come from troubled homes with gangs in the street.
We help out with rides especially for one family who has 4 kids but no car and one of the kids goes to a charter school that doesn’t have a bus.
We had a “National night out” dinner at our house where neighbors are supposed to go around and meet the neighbors by going to the homes that have these dinners. That may take another year for neighbors to accept us a little more. We had some come but not too many.
We have attended many neighborhood meetings that are trying to improve the environment of the neighborhood. Everyone just wants a safe, clean place to bring up their families. This place has a ways to go but we see progress being made.

Our family was able to be together on Thanksgiving in Raleigh. That was a special time with all the grandkids!

Well, this should give you an idea of what we’ve been up to this year. We thank God for all His blessings of forgiveness, love, mercy and grace which is the motivation for the work we do, and we thank Him for you, our friends and family. Write us: jude.lopez@yahoo.com.

With much love, Judy and Al