Tag: christmas card

Merry Christmas 2015

2015 Christmas Card front

Hello dear family and friends!

2015 was quite a time of healing, changes and growth for our family. Being a part of a new church plant (Doxa), shepherding our children, watching Timothy and Grace’s friendship develop, and growing in our marriage have all been challenging blessings in our year.

For Andrew, fatherhood has been increasingly enjoyable as the kids have grown and have more fun with him. He continues to serve in Sunday School and other areas as needs arise within our church family. He also coached Timothy’s PeeWee soccer team this fall. Workwise, he spent another year at Groupon, expanding in his role to build additional teams in Seattle and NYC to work on the “Things To Do” business.

Jenny’s highlights include starting to home school, teaching older kids in Sunday School, serving and learning in Bible study, and growing in hospitality while we’ve sought Jesus’ healing for our losses. I’m grateful for this stage of our family while I can serve at home, even as I stumble along most days. We’re excited to welcome Baby Mary Anne soon, and welcome your prayers for this new chapter.

Timothy continues to be an affectionate, generous and sensitive big brother/son in our family. His year’s highlights include trips we took, watching his sisters grow, and many adventures with Papa. We’ve discovered he is a voracious and focused little learner. He cracks us up with his comedy and keeps us busy with his questions about everything. He currently enjoys games, puzzles, books, spelling/writing, singing, and all sorts of vehicles. He also likes being an Awana Cubbie this year and doing school at home with Mama.

Grace’s spunky little personality continues to emerge and she is a delight to us. This year she began walking, talking a lot, eating up a storm (not infrequently out-eating big brother!), exerting her increasing independence, and keeps melting our hearts with her humor and cute antics. She loves family time, imaginative play, and giving many hugs & kisses. Grace is also quite the accessorizing little lady and can often be found lugging around containers and bags filled with goodies.

We’re thankful for you, and pray this greeting finds you looking towards the One who can provide you with ultimate hope this season and in the future. Merry Christmas and Happy 2016 to you!

Andrew, Jenny, Timothy (3 1/2), Grace (22 months), and baby Mary

Merry Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014 Front

We hope this greeting finds you safe and well. 2014 proved to be an emotional rollercoaster for our family. In addition to celebrating life and milestones with the birth of Grace, our fifth wedding anniversary, and various firsts as a family of four, we also endured loss. Our hearts have been stricken with much heaviness with news stories, distress in our church family, and losing a child. As it does for us, we hope this Christmas season also causes you to reflect, wonder, and anticipate the Good News.

Andrew – This year, I made another career change and left Amazon in May. I joined Groupon to build and manage an engineering team to work on a new mobile app for travel. While we seek the Lord in our church home situation, I continue to serve with technology needs and children’s ministry. We lost Stewie rabbit this year, but 11 years was a good run for that soft brown bunny. As I grow in fatherhood, I enjoy my adventures with our growing little guy and adore my precious baby girl.

Jenny – I had a full year with getting used to caring for two little ones and learning to fight for joy in the Lord. We lost our third baby in September and it’s been difficult to work through. I’m thankful for how God has been immensely gracious with me, though. Questions linger, but I’m learning to trust his sovereignty, purposes, and find comfort in truth. Part of the redemption in this is that I have much more compassion for others’ hurts and have renewed hope in the resurrection of Christ.

Timothy had a big year of growing, playing, and learning. He loves music, water, books, vehicles, balls and so many foods. He dotes on his baby sister and loves doing things together with Grace. Some of his favorite songs are hymns and he belts them loudly. Taking after Andrew, he’s a bit of a clown as he often tries to make people laugh. His Cantonese and English both surprise and crack us up often, too. Timothy’s self-proclaimed favorite color is blue and he enjoys being around lots of people, but especially our family.

Grace has been an immense blessing to us and we so enjoy seeing glimpses of her personality distinctions come out as she grows and explores. She is very sweet and social so far, and overall a mellow little girl. Though small, she is strong and can hold her own among the bigger kids. We find her often plunking on the baby piano by herself, or playing quietly with books and toys. Grace enjoys her BSF class and has taken to new foods well so far. She is affectionate towards our family and has special smiles and giggles for her Papa and brother.

As we move forward, we are thankful for opportunities to grow in faith, regularly open our home to invest in others, contribute to building a church plant, and continue to shepherd our children. May you find hope in 2015 as well.

Merry Christmas 2013

postcard-5inx7in-h-front

Merry Christmas, family and friends!

2013 brought our family many blessings for which we’re grateful.

Andrew continues to do well on the Instant Video team at Amazon. It’s also been a joy for him to serve our church by using his technology gifts to improve processes and create valuable tools to use in building God’s kingdom. Andrew and Jenny both enjoy serving in the kids’ classes at church on Sundays as well.

Jenny is continuing to enjoy and be refined through her roles at home. She loves caring for Timothy and experiencing so many of his early milestones. She also hosts and co-leads a women’s weekly Bible study. It’s wonderful to have our home filled with all generations of women hungry to learn from Scripture, along with many busy babies and toddlers.

Timothy had quite the year with learning to talk, play, walk, dance and much more! We love seeing his sweet little personality continue to emerge and appreciate seeing him help out around the house with chores. He continues to bring many smiles and laughs to family, friends, and folks we encounter while out and about. His favorite activities include enjoying books, being affectionate with his stuffed animals, exploring outdoors and eating lots of food. Stewie (our 9 year-old rabbit) seems somewhat acclimated to friendly Timothy and doesn’t appear to mind all the attention and petting too much, especially since they’re accompanied by fresh produce treats.

We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary and continue to learn much about God’s intent for marriage. Our little family took a few trips this year for weddings and had fun making some memories. We experienced the beautiful island of Maui in March and Timothy seemed to relish his first taste of the tropics. Another trip to Toronto allowed Timothy to meet much of the extended Ma family. We are saddened to have lost Andrew’s Grandma Ma in November, but are thankful that Timothy got to meet his Great Grandma Ma in April.

Looking into 2014, we’re very excited to meet our second child (first daughter!) Grace Elizabeth in February. Timothy seems pleased to be a big brother and already hugs and kisses his little sister while she’s still in Jenny. We are thrilled to welcome a baby girl into our growing family and welcome your prayers for us as we learn to raise a daughter.

With lots of love, Andrew, Jenny, Timothy (1½ years) and Grace (coming soon)

Merry Christmas 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

What a blessed year our little family has had! We are grateful for your place in our lives and hope that this season finds you thankful for the blessings in your life as well. Highlights this year include celebrating our third wedding anniversary, finding a great church home and welcoming our first son – Timothy Ian Ma – into the family. What a full year it’s been! We are thankful for the gospel-centered preaching, teaching and community found in our church home of Mars Hill Bellevue. We are incredibly blessed to serve and contribute to the work God is doing at Mars Hill. Our hearts are challenged and we are growing in our walks with Jesus. In parenthood, we have enjoyed learning the ropes and loving on our little boy so far! 🙂 We are excited and so humbled to have the new responsibility of raising and teaching Timothy in the years to come about God’s goodness and his incredible grace for us. This year, we’ve posted more regularly on our family blog at www.ajmas.com. Please feel free to subscribe for more regular updates.

The first half of the year brought some work trips for both of us. One of Jenny’s trips was out to Baltimore so we took the time to revisit one of the spots we went to on our honeymoon. In the spring, Andrew also visited Israel on a recruiting trip. Though unexpected, it was an neat opportunity for him to visit some biblically significant landmarks. Andrew continues to enjoy his work at Amazon.com on the Instant Video team and is doing well there. This year, he has also taken on a fun project of doing part-time mobile phone app development for a small company in Seattle. It’s been fulfilling for him to learn some different technology and use his gifting to work on an church app platform used by hundreds of churches. Jenny left her role in Sales Operations at Apex Learning in February to manage our kitchen remodel project and further prepare our home for the big change in our family. She is enjoying this new season of working at home in raising Timothy and growing as a wife and homemaker.

This summer, we sadly said goodbye to sweet Sammy rabbit. After battling with several eye infections, she couldn’t fully recover so we, along with her buddy Stewie, had to bid her farewell in late August. Stewie appears to be getting along okay, but seems quite lonely at times. He is over 8 years old and still makes us laugh with his funny bunny quirks.

Our family continues to be very grateful for God’s overly abundant provision for us in this season. We are glad to be celebrating our fourth Christmas together as husband and wife, and are hopeful as reflect this Advent season on what Christ’s coming means for our lives and purpose. Our family hopes you are able to reflect on and enjoy the season with family and dear friends, and look forward to what 2013 may hold. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!

With love,
The Mas – Andrew, Jenny & Timothy (6 months)

Merry Christmas 2011

Greetings, family & friends!

As temperatures are freezing here in Seattle, we hope that wherever you are, you’re warm and healthy. 2011 brings us into  our 3rd year of marriage. This year has brought numerous blessings and experiences to grow us. We continue to be thankful for the friendship and support of many of you.

A significant change in our family this year was Andrew’s departure from Microsoft to join Amazon.com in September. He is currently working on the video application for the Kindle Fire. It has been a good fit for him so far and he is eager to learn more and contribute to the technology at Amazon. Jenny has enjoyed working at Apex Learning for over a year in her role in sales operations for the East coast teams. With both of us now working in Seattle, frequent lunch dates are a welcome treat during the week!

We participated again this fall on a medical mission to the northern part of Vietnam and it was a stretching journey for both of us. While the travel and clinic days were tiring, it was rewarding and humbling to be a part of the mighty work God is doing that country. We were encouraged to know though we were limited with the health care we could extend, we helped strengthen the Vietnamese church’s presence and favor in the areas of the country where we worked. We both served in the optometry clinic again and this time was especially neat for us because we saw Andrew’s gifting in the way of building software come to fruition in the mission field. Earlier in the year, he took on the task of completing rewriting the software used for managing the glasses inventory. The whole process from adding, to sorting, packing and distributing has become more efficient and sustainable for future trips. Andrew was blessed to use his gifting to help the team serve patients more proficiently. We have both continued to grow in our hearts for supporting Christ’s work for reaching all nations through missions. After Vietnam, we took a week to travel to Hong Kong and China. It was Jenny’s first time to both and it was an eye-opening experience for both of us to meet some of her family. We were also blessed to learn about both of our ancestors and families’ histories during our visit there. We are humbled by how we see God’s hand in redeeming our  heritage and are grateful for what we have in our lives flowing from that history.

Looking ahead to 2012, we are immensely thankful for Jesus’ grace in our lives. We pray you might know his great love in your lives as well. For those of you we haven’t seen in a while, we hope 2012 might bring us together. For those whom we do get to see, we look forward to that continuing this year. Enjoy a beautiful Christmas season and a blessed 2012!

By His Love,
Andrew & Jenny Ma
(+ Stewie and Sammy rabbits, 7 years old – still alive and hoppin’ )