In His Glad Service, Breck & Robbie Castleman

A bit of news about the life, work, family and faith of Breck and Robbie Castleman. "In His Glad Service" is a borrowed salutation from "Ham" and Estelle Hamilton who mentored us in the faith in our young life. They gave us permission to adopt their refrain for our own lives. We pray the we would be known as two people "In His Glad Service".

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Location: Siloam Springs, Arkansas, United States

Friday, December 15, 2006

2006 WAS QUITE A YEAR!!
January After recovering from a wonderful two weeks with our boys, in-loves and grandkids in Siloam Springs we had a delightful month starting a new semester, new programs in the church, dance lessons with friends.
God is filling up the pews & blessing Breck’s work!


February Robbie had a Parenting in the Pew church conference in early February. A dear friend and colleague David Lyle Jeffrey came to JBU and spent a few days in our home—what a delight! Robbie’s book Parenting in the Pew
is #34 on IVPress’ “Top 50” list and has sold over 100,000 copies since it was first published! Good thing the kids listened!!!


March We participated in the C. S. Lewis’ Inklings conference at JBU, and went to the Torrance Theology conference in Baton Rouge—we’re so glad we married each other. We love to think together! Robbie had two more Pew conferences. One in Baltimore at John and Debbie Schmidt’s church and one in Tulsa the Southern Baptist Regional conference. And we went to Philadelphia for the opening of Dayton’s major installation art exhibit, Tilting at Giants. Incredible!
You have to check the blog site: daytonc.blogspot.com

April Home-stretch month at JBU. Getting ready for an exciting month of May!
Passover-Easter Seder service a new tradition at First Presbyterian!
BIG NEWS for month: Dayton was accepted as an MFA student at the Art Institute of Chicago with a full Harvey Fellowship!


May Our Scott graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary! What a joyous celebration we had! He got a preaching award for his class and graduated with honors. Great, great day!
From evangelical prayer & praise fellowship in the married student complexes, to the Rooster Coup Poker Club for Heifer Project missions, a whiffle ball tournament and a standing ovation in the Princeton chapel for a sermon on racial reconciliation, Princeton was blessed by this family of faith.

The Sunday after graduation, Dayton and Robbie flew out of JFK to Frankfurt to teach in JBU’s German Studies program! Dayton taught Art Appreciation and Robbie taught Evangelical Theology. What a joy!!

June was a non-stop wonderful month!

Home from Europe June 4th
June 11—21 Robbie had a NW Odyssey with her sister Kellie
Had a blast …Redwoods, Sonoma Wine country, Portland grotto, Seattle, Victoria Island, Roslyn, WA where Northern Exposure was made…FOOD!
June 22—26 Breck and I had a Youth Group reunion for our first church at the YMCA of the Rockies. What a joy—the group surprised us by honoring us as their “spiritual parents” over 30 years ago.


July from June 30th through July 7th, we were off once again to the VanPuffelen (Breck’s cousins!) family reunion in Hilton Head Island, SC!! What a great family, what good fun, what seafood!
The day after we got back, we kept our grandchildren, Tyler and Eben for 8 days while Scott and Rebecca moved from Princeton to Gulfport, MS for their first church! We had a totally wonderful time with this 5-year old and 2-year old…


August Robbie taught at summer class & did a worship conference. Breck got ready for a new church year… Dayton and Karen and Anna (1 ½) moved from Philadelphia to Chicago!
And on Aug. 20th Scott was ordained as a pastor in Gulfport. We presented Scott with Breck's dad's "fish" necklace--engraved with the ordination dates for all three pastors: 1936, 1971, 2006 --all 35 years apart!

And Tyler started school

September First Presbyterian keeps growing, JBU continues to be a great place to teach and our fourth grandchild is born. Tate Fox Castleman was born on Scott’s birthday. Scott was born on Robbie’s dad’s birthday, thus the FOX! Yahoo.
Nothing like the blessing of “your children’s children”!


October Robbie did the Bible expositions for the TN-KY InterVarsity fall conference, Breck went to a Wee-Kirk conference, and we celebrated our 35th anniversary on the night of JBU’s famous “Toilet Paper Game”—down it comes on the first goal of the season!!

November …teaching…ministry…friends…parties…bad season for FSU football (okay, life isn’t perfect!)… and the family all here for Thanksgiving!! Both boys, our daughter-in-loves, and all four grands! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!

December JBU holds its first dance in the history of the school—finals, graduation, Advent, programs, cantata, and church celebrations…and resting and reading for a few weeks. Next year should be calmer, quieter… but by God’s continuing Grace, we will be grateful for what it holds.

In His Glad Service,
Breck and Robbie