December 18, 2000

Dear Ones,

We thank God for each of you and the part you play in our lives.

This year has flown by (with the exception of the last month as we waited to get a president!) and with it came blessings and heartaches. It has been a most difficult year for us and we look forward to the coming year as a fresh start to better days.

We thank the Lord for allowing us to move into a wonderful big house in the mountains this Spring (please note our new address above). The children have enjoyed having extra space to run around and they are excited about having snow (maybe we'll have a "white Christmas"). We are very grateful to Tim's parents who God used to help us get into this house, which otherwise would not have been possible.

In late April, my 78-year-old mom started living with us. A month later, she went to visit my sister in Utah for a couple weeks while we moved, but after only a few days' visit, she was hospitalized with pneumonia. She suffered a stroke, but surprised everybody by how well she recovered. After a few weeks, she was released from the hospital, but she ended up dying at my sister's house. A most difficult time for us all. I know she's better off, but it is still hard to accept her death and division between my sisters and myself (but that's a whole other story)!

Our August trip to St. Louis for a pro-life gathering was the highlight of our year. Micah (almost 11), Amy (almost 13), and Andrew (almost 15) were all baptized by Flip Benham (the pastor who also baptized Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade). Andrew also made a commitment to serve God by carrying on His work in the pro-life area. (We anticipate that among the highlights of 2001 will be the week we will spend in Wichita, Kansas, in July. It will be the ten year renewal of the 1991 "Summer of Mercy," which was an awesome blessing to our family, our ministry and our nation. It would be wonderful if you could join us in Wichita! I know that you would be blessed by it.)

Our children are our greatest blessings and I am amazed that God has allowed us to be the parents of all these "arrows" (number 9 is due in February). Micah, Matthew (9), Jacob (7), and Joseph (5) had the privilege of participating in a Christmas program at our church, with Matthew playing Joseph and singing a duet with Mary. We were proud of them. Caleb (3 ½) is our little ray of sunshine (he still has reddish blonde hair) and Christian (18 months) is the center of attention around our house (pray that he handles the new baby all right).

Tim and I were able to join the adult choir at our church, and Tim sang a solo, "Little Yeshua," in the adult choir's Christmas program. He brought many to tears as he truly made you realize how Joseph must have felt when he held God's son.

Tim has been continuing to juggle all his different responsibilities which includes our various websites (some of which are already receiving high ratings from internet search engines). His newest project involves reporting stories of babies being saved from abortion around the country (www.VoiceForLife.net). Hopefully it will soon grow into a national radio program. Tim is also struggling to find new ways to meet our family's financial needs, such as creating websites for various businesses. (When the year began we thought we were well on our way to raising enough financial support so that we could concentrate on ministry, but instead our personal support has been declining.)

We are still leading LifeSavers Ministries and running the LifeHouse, but this year has been extremely difficult for us financially and organizationally, but God still works and close to 200 babies are alive today who otherwise would have been aborted!

Let us not forget that Jesus became Jesus at the moment of conception (this is the theme of the Christmas song we wrote, which is on our family website at Palmquists.glorifyJesus.com). Merry Christmas and may God bless you and your family (and George W. Bush, may he be a voice for the unborn)!

In His service for Life,

Terri Palmquist

(for Tim, Andrew, Amy, Micah, Matthew, Jacob, Joseph, Caleb, Christian, and blessing #9)