Dear Friends and Family,

“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. . .” So said Martin Luther many years ago, and so say we at this Christmas time of 2012.

We share a few “shapshots” for the year 2012.

-Ron completed the manuscript of the biography on Ron Dunn that he had been working on for many months and it has been accepted for publication by Broadman & Holman. The publisher says that the book, entitled Ron Dunn: His Life and Mission will be readied by the editors for our final review before the end of December; then ready for the printer sometime in March of next year. We are not certain of the release date but they have told us that they will do a special “push” at the SBC convention to be held in Houston in June.

-Ron has been asked by the family of Avery Willis to write his biography. He has agreed to undertake this as his next writing project and has begun collecting material. Please pray for God’s special enabling for this work. Avery was greatly used of the Lord in many different ways, and the impact of his life continues to have a major influence on many people.

-We were thankful to have some ministry opportunities in various places throughout the year. Because of the time-consuming aspect of the book-writing projects, we are not doing as much traveling as in former years, and so we are having the luxury of spending more time at home. Kind of nice!

-Toward the end of June we once again put our house on the market, with the goal of making a move to be near Jeff, Jessica, Ethan and Evan in Texas. We have had several “lookers” who made nice comments about our home, but so far no offers. We know that the matter is in God’s hands, including the timing. And that’s a good thing! By way of example:

– THE TRIP! Well, not taking a trip, but being tripped – it happened July 18th. Cleaning up in the kitchen after supper we managed to tangle ourselves, resulting in Patricia tripping over Ron’s foot and having a hard fall on the tile floor. To shorten the story, her left elbow caught the weight –a bad break, 2 broken bones. All this meant surgery July 30th, with the insertion of a plate and 8 screws and she is still in therapy. Progress has been slow, but progress IS being made. We are thankful for a skillful surgeon and for a therapist who is a specialist for these types of injuries. Patricia is doing some piano playing now, and we were able to keep a couple of ministry commitments recently. At present we are preparing a Christmas program for the Bayside Community Church in Tampa, FL for Sunday morning, December 23. We would appreciate your prayer support for this, and also for our scheduled flights to Tampa and then to D/FW to spend Christmas with family.

God bless you during this Christmas season and in the New Year! With love,

Ron & Patricia