Dear Friends and Family, Happy Holidays! We hope that the holidays have been as happy and enjoyable for you and your loved ones as they have been for the two of us.  If you don’t already know, we’re married!  On Friday, December 13th, 2002, Bryce Porter and Pam Rogers became husband and wife in a private ceremony at the house that we both now share.  It was the culmination of several months of praying, talking, romancing, and surrendering ourselves and our relationship to God.  Our wedding day was a celebration of our commitment to each other, which was possible only as a result of our individual commitments to God and his son Jesus Christ. For those of you who don’t already know the story, we met at a small Bible study group (called a Life Group) sponsored by the

During the next seven months, we developed our friendship with each other, and spent lots of time with our friends from church.  As time went on, we became increasingly active in the different activities and service opportunities at New Life, which led both of us separately to seek a closer relationship with God.  Pam was baptized on July 3rd in the Potomac River, and Bryce was baptized in October in a friend’s hot tub!  As different as the two baptisms were, they were symbolic of the same thing: a dedication of our individual lives to God through the gift of his son Jesus Christ.

As we each found a closer connection to God, we found that we were pulled closer to each other as well.  On Monday, November 25th, Bryce asked Pam to become his wife, and to spend the rest of their lives together glorifying God.

We were married by our friend and minister, Gregg Jennings, at our house on December 13th, after which we headed out for a week of snowbound fun in Quebec, Canada.  We spent our honeymoon at a fantastic ski resort northwest of Montreal called Mont Tremblant.  Pam skied for the first time in her life, eventually conquering the entire vertical

range of the mountain four times in three days!  Bryce skied and snowboarded four of the five full days that we were at the mountain, and we spent the afternoons and evenings participating in the resort’s other activities, including shopping, snowmobiling, therapeutic massage, horseback riding, and eating at some of the fantastic restaurants!  We saw some of Bryce’s family during the trip, stopping in Tewksbury, Massachusetts on the way up, and Springfield, Massachusetts on the way back.  Pam visited seven new states and one new country in nine days, and Bryce spent three days nursing his sore “horse muscles”!

Our return to "normal" life has brought many challenges, not the least of which is the integration of our two households and lives!  We each married into a whole house full of furniture and belongings, and we are presently attempting to squeeze all of those things into one space!  Fortunately, Bryce came equipped with a lovely house, which we have both been working steadily to improve and decorate.  We’ve made some dramatic improvements lately, including the removal of the final traces of flowered wallpaper!  Pictures and descriptions of the house can be found on Bryce’s web page.

As much as Pam married into a house, Bryce married into a dog!  Logan, our six-year-old Weimaraner, is a lively addition to the household, and has provided many laughs with his goofy expressions and crazy antics.  He is truly part of the family, and we love him almost as much as we love each other! This past year has been an amazing time for both of us.  Pam continues to find success in her contracting position as a Business Analyst at Fannie Mae, and Bryce is steadily making the Internet a safer place to surf in his job as Sr. Network Security Engineer at VeriSign.  Pam has taken up golf, and both of us could be seen hitting balls at the driving range during the fall.  Bryce played softball all summer, participating on two teams in three seasons.  We continue to enjoy spending time with friends and visiting with Bryce’s family, who lives 30 minutes away in Annandale, Virginia.

We spent some of our leisure time this past year seeing some new and different parts of the country, including a quick trip to Tampa, Florida, four days of sightseeing in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, and we spent Bryce’s birthday weekend in September “doing the town” in Chicago.  The weekend in Chicago was very memorable, with a baseball game at Wrigley Field, a hilarious show by the Blue Man Group at the historic Bryant Street Theater, the amazing Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues, sailing on Lake Michigan, riding the ferris wheel at Navy Pier, and shopping on Michigan Avenue, Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile”.  We ate at some terrific eateries, including Gino’s East Pizzeria, Wildfire Restaurant, Bin 36, Ed Debevics, and Harry Caray’s Restaurant.  The trip to Chicago was an incredible weekend for the both of us, and it was there that our relationship started blossoming into something more serious than dating.  We both remember the moment that words of marriage and commitment first crossed our lips – it was while scarfing down deep-dish pizza at Gino’s East!

In November, the church that we have come to know as a second home, New Life Christian Church, sent 21 servant-hearted people to the country of Haiti on a missionary trip to spread God’s word through service and communication, primarily at the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission campus in St. Louis du Nord, and the Beach Christian Orphanage in Port de Paix.  The missionaries participated in several activities during the 10-day trip, including distributing food to the needy, building beds for the orphanage, leading Christian worship services for the Haitian people, and building a new playground for the kids at the orphanage.  Many of the missionaries were close friends of ours, and we were both very involved and active in support of the mission trip.  The entire church community was energized by the success of the mission, which has led us to participate in one of the new programs in support of the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission and the orphanage: an adoption support program for the children at orphanage.

So, Bryce and Pam are now the proud “adoptive support” parents of Makindy Joseph, a nine-year-old boy that lives at the Beach Christian Orphanage in Port de Paix, Haiti.  Makindy is in second grade at school, and has one brother named Frane.  His birthday is on February 14th, 1993. Our support of Makindy includes monthly monetary gifts to the orphanage, which are used specifically to provide for Makindy’s daily living needs, as well as gifts of clothes, food, toys, and educational materials to enrich Makindy’s life.  Since Makindy is now part of our family, we would like to share him with our friends and family, and to allow everyone we love to feel the same joy of giving to this charming little boy that we do.  To that end, the Christmas gifts that we would normally be sending to our friends and family at this time of year are somewhat different.  Our gift to you this year is Makindy’s ability to live a happy and healthy life through our gifts and contributions.  For each friend and family member that we remember this holiday season, Makindy will receive approximately two weeks of support contributions. We are blessed in so many ways, and our prayer is that we can pass along those blessings to people around the world that need them more than we do.  If you feel compelled to do so, we ask that any gifts you send us be directed to Makindy, so that your

We have many changes ahead of us in the New Year, and we’re looking forward to meeting them head on, and together.  We feel blessed to have each other, and to have friends and family that love us so very much.  God has smiled on us this past year, and we hope that He smiles on you in 2003.  Best wishes to one and all for a happy and healthy New Year!

Much love,

Bryce and Pam Porter
bryce@bryceman.com
pam@bryceman.com