2022 Melton Newsletter

The Year in Bullets!

  • Christ the King moved into its new church building in January. (No more packing the Melton van and trailer and setting up and tearing down every Sunday!)
  • Vandi learned was pregnant in March, and was terribly sick most of the year.
  • The lease on our house ended in early May and we spent 5 whole months bouncing around from host family to host family. (We changed houses 13 times in 5 months..)
  • While Tony and the boys packed all our things into a storage locker, Vandi and the girls spent a whole month in Missouri with Bampa and Nana.
  • We traveled a lot during the summer (since we were homeless) and went to Michigan, Connecticut, Washington D.C., and spent some time in N. Georgia in the mountains.
  • Two more full-time staff came on at the church in September, so Tony is able to have a much more balanced life.
  • We moved into our home in October.
  • Clementine Hope was born on November 1!
  • Oma (Karen) Bierman, Vandi’s grandmother, moved into our home on December 13th.

Thanksgivings

First, we are thankful that Clementine was born safely at home, and that Vandi is now healthy. As many of you know, Vandi suffers from HG when she is pregnant, and this pregnancy was no exception. But while having a newborn is exhausting, our hearts are rejoicing over this sweet gift. After so many months of seeing Vandi miserable, it is a huge thanksgiving to see her so happy holding a baby!
Second, we are thankful for our new home. As you may remember from last year’s newsletter, we bought the house as “nearly condemned”. But after 6 months of work on financing, and then another 10 months on a full “gut-n-strip” remodel, it is essentially a new home. It has 5 bedrooms, a greenhouse, a shed, an acre lot, and an attached baseball field that is owned by a church that’s next door. Our church, and the kids’ school (they share a building) is 45 seconds away. We have perhaps the most “local life” of anyone we know, and we are so thankful for that, too.
Third, we are thankful for Grandparents! Bampa and Nana (Tony’s parents) have been a constant support during this difficult year. They even let Vandi and the girls stay with them for a whole month while Tony and the boys packed up the house. We would be nowhere good without them. Pop and GG continue to be our family’s biggest cheerleaders. Pop’s health took a turn for the worst this year, and that has been a tough thing for the kids to process. We are thankful for every FaceTime call we get with them! This month, Vandi’s grandmother moved from Kansas to live with us. Opa died in February of 2020, and she is still adjusting life as a widow. But she has already been a blessing to us. She reads with the girls, plays board games with the boys, helps with the dishes, and holds the baby.
Fourth, we are thankful for our “Hosting Heroes”. When the lease ran out, there was a gap in housing. We couldn’t afford to move into a temporary place and pay rent+mortgage, especially when we didn’t know when the house would be finished. So, we asked our parish for help. And help they did! The Adams and the Masseys hosted us for over two weeks each. The Thompsons hosted us for nearly two months! The Dukes hosted us in Connecticut for 10 days. And the McCoys let us stay in their cabin for nearly two weeks. (More on the last two in the “Adventure” section) These families loved us sacrificially in a time of need. We are forever indebted to them.
Fifth, we are thankful for Christ the King Anglican Church. We could’ve never dreamt what the Lord had planned for this church plant. Since launching 3 days after COVID hit in March 2020, it has been like lassoing a tornado. We’ve never felt like we have a handle on it! To see people find a deep and joyful place in the Kingdom of God, and to be so close to the action of what the Spirit is doing…it will go down as one of the great pleasures of our lives. There is a lot to tell about the church, and this isn’t the place. But, if you want to hear a total recap of 2022 and the plans for 2023, then you can watch Tony’s “End of Year Vicar’s Report.”
Sixth and finally, we are thankful for “Friends in the Work”. The story of 2022 would not be complete without a reference to what we’ve termed the “Staff Gap”. In March of 2021, Tony knew he needed to bring on more people to help with CTK. It was growing quickly, and the needs were growing with it! So, we posted two full-time job openings, and we asked the Hughes and the Barkalows to help us fill the gap until we found the right full-time people. But, it was 18 MONTHS before we had another full-time person at the church! It was a long, arduous season for Tony. In the Fall of 2022, the Amarals and the Holleys arrived in Georgia, and having full-time co-laborers in the Work has been one of the biggest game-changers of 2022. Since September, we’ve experienced one of our most balanced seasons ever in the ministry, and we praise God for that!

Adventures

One of the highlights of the year was the two weeks in June that we spent in Rabun County in the north Georgia mountains at the McCoy’s cabin. We spent the days fishing in the pond, swimming in waterfalls, hiking Tellulah Gorge!, reading on the porch, and catching our breath.
In July, we took a road trip to the Northeast to visit our seminary friends, the Dukes. We stayed on the campus of a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate, which we accidentally left Rosie locked in. She ran nearly a mile through the woods to find us again! On the way back to GA, we stopped in Washington D.C.

Family Life

We are readjusting to Home Life. For SIX months of 2022, we were either not all in the same house, or not in our own house. Even though our community did an amazing job of filling in the gaps of our helter-skelter year, the hardest part was the irregularity of it all. Now that we have home and health, we try to reclaim our family home culture bit by bit. Of course, nothing seems to center a home like infants and the elderly. Between Clementine and Oma, we have a strong gravitational center here in Fair Oaks. We hope that 2023 will be a very boring year.

Children

Samuel is 11 years old and is in 6th grade. His favorite things are nuzzling Clementine, doing chores for extra money, teasing/playing with his siblings, and playing football and trombone. He is playing basketball for Stonehaven’s MS team this year. He and Beckett took over the greenhouse this Fall, setting up their boy fort with weapons, torches, etc. They spray painted “NO GIRLS” on the outside! Like a true oldest, he is the first to volunteer spending time with Dad and Mom, asking to come early with Tony to set up on Sundays. He listens carefully during family prayer and has deep thoughts about the Bible. We are proud of our Sam!
Beckett is 9 years old and is in 4th grade. He is good at everything he tries, and has become very sweet toward his three little sisters. A typical 2nd-born, he often resides in the background, finding his interests (Pokemon cards, whittling, and making picture books), and enjoying his friends (he is very social and gets along with everyone). He had a very successful season in Cross-Country, placing several times. Now he is playing basketball for Upward. He wants to try soccer next season, which he plays everyday in the school yard with his friends. In addition to the greenhouse fort, Beckett is also excited about a loft in their room with a secret passageway through the ceiling of the closet.
Rosie is 7 years old and is in 1st grade. She is the most social of all the kids and has friends in all the grades at Stonehaven. She reads and draws constantly. She is still her same sensitive, messy, motherly, feminine self, but this year she took on a tom-boyish streak when Vandi bought her a pair of overalls and a Carhartt jacket. She wears her overalls every day after school and goes outside to play with Olive. She is playing basketball with Upward, and practices on our hoop out back. Her big highlight for the year was that she got to be with Vandi throughout Clementine’s birth. She did so well!
Olive turns 3 this week! She is our little firecracker, always making jokes, getting into things, and blinking those big, blue-green eyes at her daddy (who she thinks is Mr. Clean). Olive has the benefit of having local godparents, and they have shown her so much love. Talking came late, but it is here for sure. She loves changing dresses several times throughout the day, and kissing on her little sister.

Looking Ahead

2023 will be a year of the home. We hope to put up a fence in the backyard to keep in Poppy. Sam and Beckett want to invest in chickens and goats and dogs for future money making ventures. We’ll see.. There are still a few projects in the home that need to be finished, but the real work is figuring out how to actually live in a home. While we have lived in many places, they have all been temporary. We’ve never felt a congruence between place, space, and mission. We feel that here and plan to stay indefinitely, letting our hopes gain the patina of stability. We hope to make a habit of biking to school/work everyday, of making good friends with our neighbors (Gallagher is SUCH a blessing!), and of continuing the humble, local work of pastoring the community at Christ the King.

Of course, our family grew from 6 to 8 in the month of November with the addition of Clementine and Oma. We’ll spend 2023 figuring out how to navigate the challenges of having a newborn and a great-grandparent in the same house. We’d appreciate your prayers for that process.