Pursuing Veritas

Merry Christmas Friends and Family,

We hope this missive finds you well, warm, and enjoying many festivities celebrating the birth of our King Jesus! After a year’s hiatus (more on that below), we return to our (admittedly, millennial) tradition of the digital Christmas letter.

We missed sending a letter last year because, well, 2022 was interesting. After spending the early months of the year attempting to buy a house (with 27 rejected offers), we decided to build our own home on land south of St. Louis. Some HOA and permitting issues proved a bit tricky, but we were able to break ground in mid-November of 2022.

Where were we living while we built our house, you might ask? Why, in our 29-foot camper that was parked on our property, of course. Fortunately, thanks to the help of some tremendous friends and family, we were able to move into our home by early June. We are so very thankful to be in our house and able to enjoy a slightly less hectic season of life.

Our family has experienced many other joys this year. We were overjoyed to help Jake’s mom and dad move to St. Louis this summer and are glad we get to spend more time with them on the regular. August and September saw us celebrate sister Mary’s wedding and a family reunion in Branson, respectively. It’s been a year of gratefulness.

And now, some individual updates.

Judah turned four this year and spends his days as a preschooler. He continues to love everything dinosaurs, with some of this year’s highlights including playing with dinosaurs, visiting dinosaur museums, watching shows about dinosaurs, and frequently impersonating dinosaurs. Judah has also become quite the purveyor of Legos and is often up at all hours of the morning to play with them. He’s increasingly active and adventurous, which resulted in only one trip to the ER this past year.

First-grader Bree is now seven and excels at school, proudly reading anything she can find and dazzling us with her math skills. She enjoys spending her free time playing Minecraft, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Battlefield (not that her dad introduced her to any of those things this year), and frequently builds Legos and forts in the woods. She’s an awesome big sister who loves to help with cooking and projects around the homestead. Bree also learned to swim this year, which came in handy whenever she tried to get mom and dad to take her to her grandparent’s pool.

In addition to homeschooling Bree and Judah this school year, Hayley continues to make scrub caps on Etsy, as she has for the past nine years. She dominates at pretty much every American Fuzzy Lop rabbit show she attends and is looking forward to (re)adding ducks to her pet collection this spring. She stays more than busy with a book club, craft nights, serving in numerous capacities at Arise, and visiting local sushi restaurants on date night.

Jacob is proud of the fact that he only shot himself once with a nail gun while building the house (it was only a flesh wound). He continues to serve as lead pastor at Arise Church in Fenton and was able to publish his first book this year, which talks about encountering the story of the Bible. Jake’s downtime is often filled with clearing brush, chopping wood, or playing on his tractor.

Finally, in the spirit of Jolabokaflod, the Icelandic tradition of giving books and chocolate for Christmas, we wanted to leave you with a couple of book recommendations for this new year. Judah’s favorite book from this year was Harold and the Purple Crayon. Bree recommends The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Hayley’s favorite read this year was A Soul As Cold as Frost. And Jacob (whose annual list of books is coming soon) encourages you to check out How to Inhabit Time. And with that, we wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a blessed 2024!

Grace and Peace,

Jacob, Hayley, Bree, and Judah Prahlow