Sculley Family 2017

“Jesus said: . . . The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy . . . Love others as well as you love yourself.” (Mark 12:29 – 31, The Message)

Dear loved ones,

Firstly, we apologize for the long gap between our “annual” letters 😊 We’re thankful for each of you in our lives and hope to connect with you again soon, ideally, in person, or perhaps via email / txt / sms / Facebook / Skype / Instagram / Twitter / smoke signals . . .

This year has been eventful, as are all years, and we certainly don’t want to give the impression that life is smooth sailing (“life is hard, God is good, let’s dance!”), but since our “kids” are all pretty much grown up now, each one will want to tell most of their own stories themselves. So, for your reading pleasure, I’ve crafted this word puzzle that you’ll have to solve to find out a few random facts. Here’s how you play. Read the questions below and decide which member of the Sculley family it applies to. Fill in that person’s assigned letter in the corresponding blank. If you correctly solve all 16 questions, the secret message will make sense. If not, well, that’s ok, too. Are you ready? (Hint: there are two for each Sculley)

Cascade – C
Esther – E
Jonathan – T
Karen – R
Karis – S
Michael – M
Paul – L
Peter – Y

___ ___ ___ R ___
1 – – 2 – – 3 – – – – 4

___ H R I S ___ M A ___
5 – – – – – – 6 – – – – 7

F ___ O ___
– – 8 – – 9

___ H ___
10 – – – 11

___ ___ U ___ ___ E ___ S !
12 – – 13 – – – 14 – 15 – – 16

Now for the questions:
1. Who served as elected vice president and later as president of a club?
2. Whose approach can be identified by metallic jingling sounds?
3. Who got their first speeding ticket this past year?
4. Who slept outside a monastery?
5. Who slept inside a monastery?
6. Who authored a paper published in an academic journal established in 1954?
7. Who is learning to speak French?
8. Who often uses the AllTrails app to find new hiking trails?
9. Whose job resulted in them rising before 5am each day?
10. Who regularly walks to the grocery store and rides Uber home?
11. Who served on a leadership council for two consecutive years?
12. Who spent a week at the Georgia State Capitol?
13. Who walked over 2000km in one year?
14. Who escaped unharmed (thank God) even though the car was totaled?
15. Who lost over 30 pounds by doing almost daily walking workouts?
16. Who rafted down a river on the border of Bosnia-and-Herzogovina and Montenegro?

Meanwhile, here’s the “big picture” of what each of us is up to these days (those who know us well may wonder about our “bonus kids” which is what we love to call those who are closer-than-the-average-friend, but those stories are for our kids to tell if and when they choose to 🙂

Paul is on an extended sabbatical while focusing on supporting each one in our family (mentoring, advice, wisdom, practical help), studying Microsoft database management, managing our long-term investments, and overseeing the finances and logistics for our church. Paul and Karen together serve on the leadership team for Liberty Vineyard Church, study seminary courses with Vineyard Institute, and greatly enjoy working out together. Paul enjoys planning and helping with travel adventure logistics & bargain hunting for us all.

Karen is in her 22nd year of teaching Sculley Academy, in addition to teaching high school classes at Eastside Academic Studies (Movies That Make You Think, Philosophy, Personal Finance), providing piano accompaniment for choir & musical productions at Creative Hearts, and finding great movies for the movie nights for teens & adults that we host in our home. She enjoys spending quality time each day with Paul, supporting / connecting with each of our kids as often as possible, walking, knitting, doing challenging jigsaw puzzles, as well as serving people of all ages and stages near and far via encouragement, prayer, listening, wisdom, hospitality, and friendship.

Peter completed his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech and worked for a Dutch engineering firm in the field of warehouse control systems (doing projects in Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina, and Michigan for firms including American Outfitters, LIDL, and Amazon). He’s now on a new international adventure including remote software and app development, travel, and cooking.

Jonathan is continuing his Ph.D. studies in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech (gaining his Master’s degree along the way) and works as a Research Assistant. He enjoys showing hospitality in his apartment and hosting crowd-sourced computer programming contests for clients such as NASA, mining companies, and HP. He’s been known to teach classes when his professor is away and cooking up delicious international dishes. Jonathan also supplied all of us with great solar eclipse glasses back in August!

Michael is a senior at Toccoa Falls College studying Philosophy and beginning to look at post-graduate employment and study possibilities. He reads and writes voraciously, serves on two leadership teams on campus, and on Friday evenings travels with a team to Little Five Points in Atlanta to serve the homeless by having conversations, listening, praying, and sharing food and practical assistance as needed. He spent the summer working at a local warehouse.

Cascade has transferred from Liberty University (where she was studying pre-Med) to Georgia Tech, now majoring in Chemical Engineering / Chemistry (with a minor in German). She spent the summer serving refugees in Germany, walking across Spain again, and enjoying the beauty of a wide variety of people and places. She has spent the last few months working as a barista / waitress / high school tutor / math & physics grader, and enjoys connecting with friends & family, reading, hiking, creating photo albums, journaling, sewing, knitting, and leading worship at church.

Esther is in 12th grade at Sculley Academy and looking forward to graduating from high school in May. She takes classes at Creative Hearts (choir / drama) and Eastside Academic Studies (Spanish / Movies that make you think / Personal Finance). She has enjoyed serving on the leadership council at EAS in planning and coordinating activities throughout the year. She spent three weeks at camp this past summer and went on two mission trips this year: serving kids in Appalachia and gleaning produce in south Georgia. Esther plays guitar in our church worship team most Sundays and also helps at a weekly kids’ club during a women’s Bible study.

Karis is in 11th grade at Sculley Academy. She enjoys taking a Personal Finance class at Eastside Academic Studies and working several shifts a week at our local Chick-fil-a restaurant. She spent three weeks at camp in the summer doing leadership training, drama, and criminal justice. A highlight of her year was spending a week at TeenPact, a Christian leadership school with an emphasis on political process and influencing the culture, and she looks forward to doing that again next year.

Enough about us. How are you? We value relationships; we value our relationship with you! Face-to-face is best, and we’d love to see you this year, and sincerely enjoy unexpected visitors, so come visit!

God bless you each,
Paul, Karen, Peter, Jonathan, Michael, Cascade, Esther, Karis

“And now may God, who gives us his peace, be with you all.” (Romans 15:33, NLT)

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