January 2021
WELCOME
Happy New Year from our Vigil family to yours!
December was very special for us as we were able to spend the Advent season with our families as we prepared for the coming of our Savior. What a gift that we were eager to unwrap! We continued to soak it in as Christmas approached and we shut down our home offices through Christmas and the New Year.
In that time our Savior was born, and a new vigil baby was born! Since Corrie was on maternity leave and is our newsletter editor, we decided to save all the newsy stuff for February and do a holiday recap instead! This issue of The Vigil Project Newsletter is more like our family Christmas letter to you (and we’ll just pretend it got stuck in the mail for 3-4 weeks and that’s why you're just receiving it 😂). Enjoy!
GREG & LIZZY
I'll forever remember this one as the “Christmas of questions”! Molly turned four in November, and her mind was wide awake to all the details of the changing seasons and the traditions practiced in Advent and Christmas. She must have asked at least a thousand questions about our Faith, Jesus, the Holy Family...and Santa—how he gets down the chimney, and how we could be sure he would receive her letter :) What a gift it was for Lizzy and I to see both of our kiddos becoming aware of the reality of the Incarnation!
ANDREA THOMAS
Hi friends! Truth be told, I didn't take many photos this Christmas (I know, guys, I'm an older millennial). So my sis (Lissa) and my niece (Gracie) are the two winners for the Vigil newsletter! Gracie absolutely lit up the town while she was here. The joy of littles, I can't even begin to say! My fam and I ate way too much food, laughed a lot, watched Hallmark movies, and... Cincinnati even gave us a white Christmas. As much as being off the road this year with the Vigil crew was a bummer, it was honestly a huge blessing to be with my family entering into Advent and Christmas in a new way. God is so good! It was a beautiful Christmas!
JOHN FINCH
It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to spend the weeks leading up to Christmas at home. I’m sincerely grateful for the unexpected blessings of this past year, like so much time off the road spent with family and friends. My fiancée, Molly and I joined my family for a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains which included hiking, renting a cabin and making friends with flying squirrels in the cabin. Overall we enjoyed the time together with my family. In other news...I can’t believe I get to marry this girl in a couple weeks!
SHAWN WILLIAMS
Christmas was the absolute best this year! We spent Christmas Day (and the week before) in St. Louis with my family (see our epic Gingerbread house!) and hosted my wife’s family in Nashville for the week after Christmas until New Year. It was such a blessing to have such a long time off to rest, eat, laugh, and watch a few Christmas movies!! Our last Christmas of Kai being the only grandson… in 2021, he will be one of 4 (my younger brother is expecting twins and we are expecting baby boy #2 in March). Our beautiful family is growing quite quickly.
CORRIE MARIE
What a blessing this whole season was this year! We welcomed David “Asher” the day before the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (can you say vigil baby?!). It was such a blessing to receive this gift in the earlier days of December and to be forced to slow down as a family. Not only were we then able to welcome Asher with joy, but we had a particular awareness this year of receiving Jesus with expectation and joy. The last six weeks have blown by now but I think I will always remember this Christmas season with a particular fondness. I love me a December baby!
MICHAELA FLYNN
My fiancé, Grayson and I road tripped from our school, Ave Maria University in Florida, to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We participated in the Rite of Betrothal, which was a beautiful opportunity to enter more deeply into this season of engagement, and were surrounded by family and friends (and great food!) the whole Advent and Christmas season. I was able to graduate from AMU early, and so finished out my last semester and was blessed to have been offered a teaching position back in Michigan! I have since moved back home and am teaching middle school ELA and Social Studies while planning our wedding. Accepting this position meant having to step away from my work with The Vigil Project. I wanted to take this opportunity to say how lovely it was to meet and talk with you all, and to have participated in this wonderful ministry with the amazing people of the Vigil Project!
FROM THE TEAM
Thank you for being here!
We are so blessed by each and every one of you and want to take this opportunity to say thank you for journeying with us. This year will bring forth many new and exciting things! The joy we feel and the responsibility we have to bring beauty to the world is what drives us to continually come together, to pray, to create and to be a family. Thank you for being a part of the Vigil family and we look forward to bringing you exciting new content in this 2021 year.
God bless,
The Vigil Team
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