Shadle Family Stories

A Dizzying December

2012-01-02T15:10:00.002-05:00

We've been a bit all over the place.

We spent a week in early December in Xenia, OH taking our Systematic Theology II class from Crusade.

We spent a week at home.

We spent around a week with Melissa's mom and dad in Waynesfield, OH.

We spent around a week in Canton, OH with my mom and dad.

And we've just been in Indianapolis for about 5 days.

This is staff life, we've sort've just grown accustomed to it. We pack a lot, unpack a lot, and just feel as though we're constantly on the move. The kids were super excited to be home yesterday, even opting out of "pool time" at the hotel just to get home earlier.

The class was a good review from a class we took a few years ago when we joined staff. It's always refreshing and fun for both of us to study for a while and be challenging in our thinking. It was also pretty great (though not without a tinge of sadness) that we were without the kids for about 5 days. The week ended up being quite refreshing for that reason.

Being home for a bit in the middle of December was really pretty fun. We had much overdue family time to soak up so I think we went to Cosi two or three times and the Zoo lights at least once. We played lots of games, had lots of giggles, and had loads of tickling going on. This was just a fun week.

Visiting the families was nice, though not without its challenges. Noah and Leah just don't sleep quite as well as at home, so that always makes everybody a bit crankier. All in all, though, it was awesome to see the kids faces as they opened their gifts. Noah got lots of Cars things of course and Leah got girly stuff, obviously.

Christmas Conference was fun, as usual, but nutso with the kids. I think after having been with mama and papa nonstop for a few weeks straight made the kids dread childcare, which made for an interesting few days. We had quite a few late nights with students, so we're looking forward to a nap here in the next day or so.

Now we're back, and school is beginning tomorrow. We could use prayer for rest and refreshment.

Thank you

2011-12-30T14:01:00.001-05:00

The Kingdom

2011-11-11T16:38:00.002-05:00

I just finished 2nd Chronicles this afternoon. For anyone familiar with 1-2 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles it can become a little redundant. "So-and-so was the king after so-and-so and he was wicked in the eyes of the Lord." or "So-and-so was the king after so-and-so and he was righeous in the eyes of the Lord, doing good like his father David had done."

The state of these kings really seems determined by one major thing: idolatry. The wicked kings seem to not worship God and set up asherah poles (whatever those are) and other shrines to foreign gods. The righteous, good kings smash down these altars and shrines. Hezekiah and Joash both remember the passover and invite all of Judah into that special festival in remembrance of God's deliverance. Good kings worship YHWH, evil kings forgot all about him and worshipped the same things as everyone else.

It makes me pause. From a bird's eye view, I would say my life is one in which I worship YHWH and give him all. But, honestly, the closer we get, the more we zoom in, the hairy things get. Maybe I'm a good king with a penchant for watching to much football? Perhaps I'm someones that smashes idols but just loves reality tv?

I don't know. I have trouble with things found either in the black or in the white. I tend to think real life is a lot more gray.

But I'm determined to my utmost to make this life a white one.

A Race

2011-10-18T12:19:00.002-04:00

Paul loved race analogies. I wonder, though, if Paul was ever actually in a race.

1 Corinthians 9:24 - "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."

and there are more.

I said I've wondered if he has actually been in a race; I think I should qualify that to say, I wonder if he has actually been in a 13.1 or 26.2 mile race.

I ran the Columbus half-marathon this past Sunday. It was 2 hours of grueling, mental anguish, as all races of that length are. Distance running is just something that is hard to put into a category because it is just a battle on so many fronts, the least of them is often the physcial one.

But run the race to win? To win? Has Paul seen these others runners? They're like gazelles skipping down the pavement while I plod along in pain. And I'm supposed to run this race, and train for it, as one running to win?

Then, Paul says this later, in 2 Timothy 4:7 - "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Distance running is all about not quitting, and continuing to push on despite any mental, emotional, or even physical desire to do so. It's just a war against yourself. Will I keep going? Do I even care? Just stop! Finish strong!
I actually think Paul got this. Run your life of faith as one running to win. Will you win? Well, that's no guarantee, and even Paul at the end doesn't make that claim. But did he leave his all out there on the course? You bet. He finished the race.

As I'm typing this I think I've changed my mind. I think maybe Paul actually was a runner and of course he has run races.

Am I the best, or even an average runner? Nope. And I'm not sure I could even say I ran that half-marathon to win. For me it was more like I just wanted to enjoy myself and my surroundings; I wanted to take it all in. In some ways, I gave in to the pain and just took it easy.

I never, ever want to say that about my faith. If running has taught me anything it's taught me what it feels like to quit or to cave in. I know that feeling of "I just can't push anymore, I just can't go on, it's time to walk." And I can see signs of it in other areas of life as well. I want to run this race of the faith to win. No way am I stopping for some "cramp" or some setback. My life is all for Jesus, bring on the hurt.

Join me?

Tidbits

2011-10-11T14:57:00.003-04:00

Noah just turned three in September and I can hardly believe it. Time really does go fast. He is definitely having his toddler-tantrums fairly regularly, but at the same time I think we can honestly say we can see him growing and maturing. He seems to understand to care for Leah and just generally likes being around her. Step by step, eh?

Campus life is crazy, as is normal this time of year. Our schedules have now been mostly finalized and we're getting into a little bit of a routine, which can be refreshing in a way. Both Melissa and I work more efficiently if we actually have tracks to go on, rather than setting our own tracks. That's not to say we don't like the idea of laying down tracks for others to run on, just to say that we seem to feel as though we get more accomplished with clearly understood schedules.

Discipleship has been really fun thus far. As I'll talk about in our ministry update, the majority of it has been a return to loads and loads of evangelism. Every few people we meet with though, just need time to slow down and be with Jesus. Sometimes it seems like our job on campus (and in life for that matter) is simply a matter of making sure and helping people walk with their Risen Lord. My goto question is usually, "How is your relationship with God?"

I'm running the Columbus half-marathon this weekend, so that should be fun. I'll be able to finish for sure, but I'm definitely not expecting to set any course record or anything. Since school started, my running has gone in the tank. All the hoopla of race day is sure to make Sunday a fun one for us.

Thank you for your prayers and concern for our family and our ministry. Feel free to leave a comment telling us about how you're doing!

The madness begins!

2011-09-27T12:01:00.003-04:00

School has officially started, and in many ways that means craziness reigns.

Trying to coordinate with a large staff team and trying to make sure the 150 or so small group leaders we have are up to the minute with the latest news is sometimes a daunting thing. What did Christian workers in the past do without texting and facebook?

This time of year is exciting for lots of reasons. We are meeting new students that will be the leaders of our movement and the kingdom of God at OSU for the next few years. We are reconnecting with students after their summers. We are reconnecting with other staff members and living out ministry together. In short, we are riding a wave of momentum to faithful service to Jesus.

Our schedules are packed and I like that. Sometimes I lose focus and drive when things are unscheduled or unplanned. I can tend to get stagnant.

My brother-in-law commented on not wanting to go to work Monday. "Yeah?" I said. "Of course, do you want to go to work?" "Actually yes! Man my job tomorrow consists of waking up to study the word, leading a staff prayer meeting, meeting with 3 different students for an hour or so each, and then chatting about evangelism with 65-70 students at night. It'll be a long day, but man it's fun." I meant it too. This is a long and trying period of the year in ministry but in many ways the most life-giving and enjoyable. Would you pray that Melissa and I would continue to be faithful and bold in proclaiming the gospel on campus? Could you pray for continued joy in Christ and in ministry?

Movement Summit

2011-09-10T14:06:00.003-04:00

Our movement summit is tonight. What is the movement summit? It's a time when all of the students in our movement gather together for the first time before school starts. It's ripe with energy, excitement and just reconnection.

Would you pray for the summit and our movement tonight? This event can be a catalyst toward great things at OSU this year, or, without God's grace and hand on the move, it could be just another thing we do.

I look forward to dreaming with these south campus students about how we can see God move this year. I said it last post, and I'll say it again; I love my job!

Something about camping

2011-09-05T08:19:00.003-04:00

Men have some interesting ways of connecting. Sure it's a broad generalization, but mostly women connect by spending time face to face in conversation. Men, on the other hand, seem to just need something to do together; we don't even have to talk.

Me and 13 other guys from south campus took a camping trip this past weekend. This was a time of refreshment, refocus on the Lord and his beauty, and just general fun. It really lived up to that.

These guys are great, and quite frankly I have to do very little to refocus their attention on ministry for this coming year. We talked a bit about what it means to be "ministers of reconciliation" and "ambassors for Christ" but these are things these guys already live out.

Honestly, that's what struck me most from the weekend. See, I knew most of these guys before they were like that. Before they had dreams of the gospel saturating and reaching every student on south campus they had quite other dreams--those much like your typical 19-20 year old male would dream about. Now, almost across the board, these guys have been reoriented to dream gospel dreams. To think and plan and talk about the way in which the kingdom of God can advance and the love of Christ can penetrate every sphere of life and culture.

I love these guys, and I'm humbled. God is good. I love my job.

The Name Change

2011-08-23T11:15:00.002-04:00

You may have heard some recent criticism of Campus Crusade for Christ changing its name. We have not changed our corporate name. We have changed the way we introduce ourselves to an audience. We are going to call ourselves CRU.

This was done for reasons to make us more able to reach the lost.

A ministry that is reaching into the whole world, especially the Islamic world with the gospel is not helped by having Crusade in its name.

A ministry that has better than 40 ministries besides the campus ministry needs a name that isn’t confusing or limiting.

Our leaders shared research which showed what most of us have known for a while -- very powerful evidence that the name "Campus Crusade" induces negative responses from many diverse populations, while this research showed that CRU produces positive responses.

We are every bit as committed to Jesus as we have ever been. Our mission has not changed. We long to take the gospel of our precious Lord to as many people as we can.

We share this with you trusting you will understand the heart behind the change. Also we hope you will help correct the wrong information that is coming in the news.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

A former staff member at OSU, Brian Metzer, posted about his own thoughts about the name change. His words were so true of my heart. I agree and "Amen!" everything he says here:

Thanks, Brian, for being able to articulate so clearly what many of us were feeling.

Tony's story

2011-08-14T14:08:00.004-04:00

The following is from a guy in the small group I lead at OSU named Tony Plouck. This was his favorite story/memory from Venezuela. Enjoy!

"Perhaps not the bst story of my summer. insofar as I don't play that large of a part in it, but certainly my favorite story of the Gospel's effect in Valencia is that of Rafa. Rafael became a believer this spring, he's a younger student, but already is stepping up as a leader in Vida Estudiantil's movement at Universidad de Caribobo. Talking to this kid was a treat, he loves the lord a whole lot, but even greater that that is his understanding of God's love for the world, and the cross' evidence of that. Things that I saw Rafa do in my six weeks with him; trust the lord to raise support to go evangelize in a nearby state, translate for a friend and I as we shared with a whole class of his peers (he invited us), share with three students the Gospel and introduce them through prayer to a personal relationship with his father and Lord Jesus Christ who gives life, and lead a large group meeting of UC students at Vida's Friday meeting, and a whole lot more. This is an example of what the gospel is doing all over the world, changing the lives of people through the impacting of their hearts, the result being people who can't help but share that life change, that heart change with others. It is my prayer and heartfelt desire that stories like this would be found in all corners of the world, and it is the hope of Venezuela!"

Tony and Rafa

So, to wrap up our summer

2011-08-12T11:49:00.004-04:00

Guys in my small group at OSU. Man I love these men.

This summer was tough for us. But honestly, it was that kind of tough that you often look back on fondly. That sort of tough time in which you know God was being especially good to you and teaching you significant things. I think that's the way we'll always look back on Venezuela.

I learned a lot about the way I like to do ministry and how our family thrives the most. The idea of being lone-ranger pioneers for Jesus sounds really good in my head, but I think this summer God taught me that I just love working on a team of people dedicated to the same mission. I think we've both been learning a lot about that this entire last year, really. We need you, friends. We need partners to motivate and help. We need friends to cry with us and be in our lives. We need family to remain dedicated to us no matter what. And we need people that are honest and care enough about us to tell us things that we wouldn't necessarily be excited to hear.

We are so grateful for our friends and family. We're learning to cherish and honor those that think differently quite a bit more. We learning to love working with people that aren't like us. In short, I think, we're learning to love the body of Christ more. Thank you, Father.

And thank you, partners, for your investment in our mission. Thank you that you will meet nearly a hundred Venezuelans around the throne of Heaven that you had an investment in. Thank you for your faithfulness and care for us and our family. We love you very much.

Venezuelan impact

2011-08-09T09:04:00.007-04:00

I am very, and this is putting is rather mildly, very skeptical of statistics. Far to often, they are used to manipulate and coerce people into some sort of action. Consider this, from a book I'm reading, Upside by Bradley Wright.

"Some of the worst statistics are flat-out made up--as factual as fairy tales.... Joel Best nominate this one as one of the worst social statistics ever. Professor Best was reading a student's dissertation prospectus that started with this attention-grabbing line: 'Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled.' The student drew this statistic from a 1995 article published in an academic journal. What's the problem with this number? Doubling numbers adds up really fast. As best calculated, if only one American child was murdered in 1950, then it would be two in 1951, four in 1952, eight in 1953, and so on. By 1960, it would be 1,024 murders, and by 1970 it would be one million kids murdered. In 1980 there would be 1 billion children murdered in the United States, and in 1995, the time of the article, the estimate would be 35 trillion children murdered. Wow! Now that would be a problem."

That said, here are the statistics from our summer. As a group of 24 students and 5 staff we:

-Initiated spiritual conversations with 1,261 students.

-Shared the gospel with 860 students!

-Saw 90 people choose to make Jesus the Lord and Savior of their lives!

-Had a "How to walk in the Holy Spirit" conversation with 64 students!

-Went through follow-up materials with 75 students!

-And, as a bonus, we had 2 or 3 group presentations (to an entire class of 30 or so) in which the Christian student organization we are with was the focus, and we got to see first time Bible studies begin on parts of campus that we've never seen before!

It was crazy. Just crazy. God did some truly remarkable things. But, as the opening could lead one to think, statistics can be misleading. But, I think, what they are good indicators of, (if they are honest as least) in this realm, is effort and faithfulness to the mission. We really showed up this summer to see God do some great things, and He did. We pushed ourselves to the limit that the gospel would be proclaimed.

Would you join with me to pray for the continued faithfulness of the church in Venezuela? And would you pray for Vida Estudiantil (CCC in Valencia) with me?

We're back, part 6

2011-08-08T07:17:00.006-04:00

The following is written by Justin Mayer. He is a guy that is in the small group I lead on campus, and was a student on project with us in Venezuela.

"A story that sticks out to me the most was when Bart and I went sharing together. Neither of us knew spanish so we just go up to students and ask them if they knew english. We walked up to this one student and asked if he knew english. He said yes and we sat down with him. This is the story about a Venezuelan student named David.

We started initiating conversations with David and we found it was very hard to communicate with him. Through his broken spanish he said he could read english, so he took a notebook out of his bad and started writing questions. Bart and I would answer them, then ask more questions. It was really cool. The spirit really gave us patience and next thing I know we were having a conversation about the gospel on paper.

Even though it was really cool communicating with David through a paper conversation it was really hard so I texted Adoniel for help with translating for us. Wherever he was he dropped everthing and literally ran to the medicine building. When he arrived he was sweating bullets. God really used Adoniel. He went on a rampage, allowing God to move through him. David's face started to light up. He started to smile and take every word spoken into his heart. At the end of our conversation we prayed with him and asked God that he would draw David near to him.

A couple days later Bart and I checked our facebooks and there in the inbox messages was a letter from David. In his broken english he said he wanted to follow our religion. I can't express the overwhelming joy that flooded my heart. God had answered our prayers.

Adoniel, Heath and I followed-up with David and told him about how he had just made the greatest decision he will ever make in his entire life. Throughout our time period in Venezuela David started to come out to Bible studies, both at medicine campus and FACES (humanities). Adoniel is going to take David under him and disciple him.
I will never forget this moment when I saw a kids face light up when he heard about the love of Christ. This is why the Gospel is worth it."

We're back, part 5

2011-08-06T10:11:00.003-04:00

Clay Acer, the other staff guy on project.

Sometimes in ministry it can be tough to believe that God is actually using you to accomplish anything at all. It can seem, at times, as though the forest is nowhere to be seen because of all the trees in the way. When people are working through real life issues we can often get bogged down with them and begin to believe that our job and our work is accomplishing very little.

I had one moment on project specifically blow that sort've thinking out of the water for me. It became impossible for me to entertain thoughts like that after Brian and I's encounter with Josue.

For a little backstory: Brian entered school at Ohio State very nominally religious. So he tried the party scene and whatever else he could find, but he found them lacking. At some point in his first quarter I (Bart) got lunch with him. We chatted for a while and then got down to the gospel. See, Brian grew up quasi-churched so he knew the right answers but things just never clicked for him. When I told him that he had a decision to make about Jesus Christ he was a bit taken aback.

He asked, "wait, so I have to choose one way or another? I have to choose to give my life to Jesus or to remain separated from God?"

"Yep, you sure do," I responded.

He looked frazzled. "I never knew that!" He paused, then, "so this is probably the biggest and most important decision people could make."

"Sure is."

Brian said, "I think I'd like to go home and think about this tonight."

Brian went home that night 3 years ago and prayed to give his life to Jesus. He has been in my small group bible study ever since.

So here Brian and I are in Venezuela and we approach a student at the Engineering school named Josue (pronounced Joe-sway). It turns out Josue's dad died in a car accident exactly one year ago and it really hurt him a lot. He had been reaching out to God with his mother quite a bit, trying to find meaning and purpose. He wanted something to make sense of life.

So, he knew all the right answers, and he said all the right things (just like Brian) but what he didn't quite get was the decision to accept Christ.

Josue said, "So, when someone makes a decision to give their life to Jesus they are given new lief and a new hope in life?"

"Yep, they sure are," we replied.

At this point I started to feel like I heard the twilight zone theme song in my head.

Josue continued, "So this is pretty much the most important decision in my life?"

Brian replied that it most certainly was and then proceeded to tell him his story of giving his life to Jesus.

Josue then said, "I think I'd like to go home and think about this decision." I smiled.

Josue went home that night and prayed to receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He immediately got involved in the small group bible study on campus.

I love Jesus. I love him because of who He is and what He has accomplished for the world. Unlike some, we are not on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru now, more on that later) because we are motivated by some fruit or happiness that comes from ministry but by a deep loyalty and passion for Christ alone. In other words, for us, fruit is awfully nice when it comes along, but we aren't demanding it or even expecting it in great amounts. But boy, it sure is nice to have moments like that to hang our hats on.

Thank you, Jesus, for using us to change lives.

We're back, part 4

2011-08-01T07:46:00.004-04:00

And actually, finally, we're home for a couple weeks now. We've had weddings the last two weeks and been in hotels for both of them. Noah was not happy at all to be sleeping in a hotel and I sure don't blame him.

The truth is we love weddings. And we love being around people. Honestly, I think Melissa and I were both mostly introverts heading into the summer but found ourselves constantly rejuvenated and refreshed by the community. If anything, we realized that maybe we're more extroverts than we originally thought.

But we had many times (me far more) in which we felt like modeling Jesus and running away to some countryside to be alone. It wasn't the people we were around, because we love and enjoy them an awful lot, it was just that it was nonstop. The hardest part though, was pressure I (Bart, by the way) was putting on myself to always be "on." I felt like I had to constantly offer sage advice and be the rock of our team. I felt like I had to constantly be modeling everything perfectly: evangelism on campus, initiative relationally, service in the home, service on the team, complete family man, and lead and cast vision for others to do all those as well. I just felt like I never got a break.

I don't think I put the pressure on myself because of some high standard I was trying to live up to or some excellent model I was following, but really because I cared about our project and our team and my family so much that I just wanted to give them my best. I wanted to be perfect for them. I wanted Jesus to penetrate every single little aspect of our project and reclaim it for himself.

This is a heavy desire, and the weight of it became to much to handle halfway through the summer. I crashed and hit a major wall. I got sick and just withdrew for a couple days. I felt as though I had been trusting God to have his way with our project the first few weeks of project, afterall that was why I was trying so hard; but I think the last few weeks was when I truly surrounded it to him. It turned, in my heart, from Bart and Melissa and Claire's project into God's project. See, he didn't need me. He can do whatever he pleases with or without me. I think that was finally starting to hit the depths of my heart.

But that is a really hard thing to learn. Though at the same time, it's very freeing and life-giving. Our last two posts reviewing our summer will be some more life-giving moments.

Gone for the weekend

2011-07-31T08:18:00.003-04:00

We've been out of town for the weekend, so thus the lack of blogging. Currently I'm sitting on the floor of our Econolodge hotel room while the kids begin to stir.

A few random tidbits:

-Noah was the cutest ring-bearer ever yesterday. I (Bart) sat up front with my arms open and he ran down the aisle to me and jumped in my arms. The cutest part might've been that he stuck the ring pillow in his mouth while he ran. It was a pretty cool moment for me.

-I bowled a 212 on Thursday night. I didn't leave a single pin up, all spares and strikes. I was pretty pumped.

We're back (part 3)

2011-07-27T08:45:00.008-04:00

Our Monday and Thursday Project Meeting

Just a few minutes ago, I read a little book from the apocrypha called "Bel and the Dragon." The gist of it is that Daniel (the same Daniel from the OT) is with Cyrus, the Persian King. Much in the same way Daniel is tested with Nebuchanezer (sp?) to worship other gods, Daniel is entreated to worship Bel (a persian idol/god) and then the dragon. Of course he refuses to do either and is vindicated by God. After refusing to worship the dragon Daniel is thrown into the lions den (again?) and fed by Habbakuk. He is then freed after 7 days while the pagan worshippers are tossed in and devoured by the lions.

What's the point? Why am I bringing this up?

Well, at quite a few times this summer, I (Bart) was at the end of my rope. I am no super-introvert (though I lean that way) but perhaps the most difficult thing about the summer was having absolutely zero time to myself. See, we had, for most of the summer, the only washer and dryer; so even during the times in which we had no project agenda students would come over to do their laundry. Often in pairs. And most often they would want to talk.

At first we loved this. It gave us such a great opportunity to get to know our students better, and really pour our lives into them. It gave us extra time to love on them and just be there for them. But after a few weeks--mind you, a few weeks with a kid going through his terrible twos and a fussy 1 year old because she's out of her comfort zome--we really just needed time alone. I began to miss time with my wife dearly, and I began to miss the extra time with the Lord that our job often affords; so I began to run on empty.

One Thursday the food team was coming over early. Thursdays was my day with the kids. This was at a particular point in the summer in which the kids were just really tired; they had not been napping well and were waking each other up early every morning. So they really, really needed their naps. Well a couple people from the food team decided to ring the doorbell to announce their arrival. This woke up Leah, who proceeded to scream for 15 minutes or so. Finally, I thought, She can get some sleep and maybe I could get a breather as well. Well, as those thoughts entered my head another member of the food team arrived, again ringing the doorbell. This woke Leah up again. She was losing it. This woke Noah up, who came out've his room to see what was the matter. It is not good when two tired kids cannot take good naps--not good at all. Well 30 minutes later Leah is finally asleep, and Noah is back in his room when the last member of the food team came home, again ringing the doorbell. Leah and Noah both woke up again.

I was going to lose it. Not because I was mad at the food team for now knowing better than to ring the doorbell (who would even think of that unless you already have babies?), I was more frustrated that nobody in our family could get a break. I laid Leah down and she fussed and cried for 20 minutes. I sat outside her door and cried. I thought, God is this really why you wanted us to come to Venezuela? Is this really necessary at all?

Like Daniel from Bel and the Dragon we felt tested and strained. I often felt like bowing down and worshipping the gods of this age (comfort, money etc) and that frankly seemed a much better option than following Christ around the world.

Again, just to balance this post, this is a series of 4 (or more) posts about our entire summer. Please don't read this post and think we had a terrible time--the good stuff is coming. One thing we definitely learned from this though, is that following Christ does often involve a cross of sorts. If we were to truly care for Venezuela, and our project, we needed to make some sacrifices. This was one that in hindsight we would gleefully give up again.

We're Back, part 2

2011-07-26T09:07:00.003-04:00

Venezuela was pretty tough for us. Thinking through even how to process the summer is a bit frightening for me because it means I'll have to conjure up those thoughts and feeling that were not so pleasant.

Henri Nouwen said this, which struck me this morning:
"To go back to that place is hard, because you are confronted there with your wounds as well as with your powerlessness to heal yourself.... Your instinct for survival makes you run away and go looking for something else that can give you a sense of at-homeness, even though you know full well that it can't be found out in the world."

We're tired. Emotionally, spiritually, and even physcially we are drained. So we've spent the last couple days trying to recover and process what just happened the last two months. We're finding a struggle (well, I am finding a struggle maybe I shouldn't invite my wife into this) to rest well because resting well means processing and being with Jesus amidst our fatigue. It's so much easier just to go into a quasi-vegetable state and watch movie and movie or catch up on tv show after tv show. But we know that ultimately that won't help. What our soul longs for, above all, is to find peace and rest and comfort in God's embrace.

So, to that I go now.

Before that, one quick disclosure: over the next four posts I think I'll use the first two to discuss what was difficult for us on project. Then the final two will be all the breathtaking ways we felt God showed up and did some awesome things both in ourselves and through our project. So keep an eye out for that.

We've returned

2011-07-25T09:34:00.007-04:00

I'm thinking this'll probably be a series of blogs as we sort've try to recap and review how were doing and what the last couple weeks were like. It'll be random, and it'll probably be a bit of out-loud processing with disjointed thoughts and stories. You've been warned.

I've made the 200 meter trek to the Mcdonalds by our house twice already since we've been back. Seeing as how we've only been back for maybe 4 meals that isn't a very good ratio if we want to live past 35. Needless to say, we missed American food--yes, even the greasy stuff that Mcdonalds tries to pass off as "food."

Our first meal back home was Bob Evans' Wildfire Chicken Salad. We're both nutso for that salad and started talking about it a few weeks ago.

Leah is into this pointing thing now. She just points at everything, it's super cute. Just in the last week she also decided to start talking! Her vocab is up to "Mama, Papa, Bye-Bye, and Baby."

We took our project pictures on the beach at debrief. We all wore white T-shirts but I didn't have one so I borrowed one from one of the girls. I was also in a bit of a silly mood so a series of Yoga-poses entailed. You can't see it, but the shirt showed off my belly, it was quite attractive.

In the last 8 days we have slept in 6 different places. In our pre-kid days that actually sounds like a whirlwind adventure of fun-ness, but now not so much--it sounds rather like torture. Our kiddos have been pretty remarkable with the rotating sleep location though.

Which brings to mind one thing we have been utterly grateful for and has been becoming ever more evident in our lives--God's provision. Often we talk about God being the provider and taking care of us, but we really feel as though we have and are experiencing a summer of special grace. God has just been really good to us. Our kids could've went completely bonkers but for the most part they have been just great. Either one of Melissa or I were susceptible to a complete breakdown being overseas and leading a group this big, but again God was truly our rock and our guide. We really needed God to show up at various times and in various places this summer, and he truly has. He has provided rest when we needed the rest, he has given us the will, energy, and drive to continue to be faithful when all around us seemed to be going awry, he has been the light and truly the desires of our hearts when often it felt like all we could do just to keep the boat afloat, and he has allowed us to minister to others well throughout the entire process.

Some people thought we were a bit crazy for taking our kids to Venezuela for the summer. I can see where they are coming from. But let's just suffice it to say that because of God's provision and grace on us these last two months our heart and desire to take our entire family overseas for multiple years has grown tremendously.

So much to be thankful for

2011-07-11T14:58:00.003-04:00

As we look back over our time in Venezuela, it's hard to believe our time is almost over. We leave around 2:30 am on Sunday morning to fly to Margarita Island where we will have our team debrief. Although it's been a whole month, it feels so much longer. We've experienced so much. It has definitely been hard. There is no doubt about that. Yet at times it has been almost easy to be here with 2 young children. There have been times where we've said we want to go home. There are times that we wouldn't mind staying longer. It's been such an emotional roller coaster.

One of the hardest things has been that we as a couple haven't been able to experience a ton of project together. Sure we get dinner with the team and Melissa sometimes goes to the nightly meetings. But we never get to go on campus together, or go to the orphanage together, or even go to church together (unless we assign someone to "nursery" duty). But somehow in the midst of that, this summer project has gone really well. We haven't been able to touch base on a heart level much, but we're in it together. Our marriage has grown as a result of this experience. Our kids have learned how to be more flexible. They've had to. We've learned how to be more flexible. We've had to.

We've really enjoyed getting to know people on this project. In fact, I think we're going to be sad that we can't see all of these students on a more regular basis all the time. Luckily a lot of the students go to OSU, so we can track them down and make them hang out with us. Or just cook, and invite the guys over. That always works for college men. At the same time, our hearts ache that we haven't had more opportunities to be more involved in the lives of Vida (the movement here) students. We've realized that is just a reality to having a family. We can't do everything. Yet, we feel so blessed by them. Everyone here loves gringo kids, so they have loved on Noah and Leah so well. And for that, we are grateful.

We've been stretched in so many directions this summer. It is so reassuring that the Lord knows what he's doing. He wants to refine our character and shape us into people like Jesus. Even yesterday, the men decided to bless the women by getting them all a rose and a chocolate bar and handing a personal encouragement note. Oh how these men have grown, especially in the face of adversity. What, you ask? Well, the women have been on a pranking rampage. And for all of you men out there, you know how competitive men can be. But they've chosen to love the women well, by even walking the ladies home after dark. By the way, none of the ladies can go anywhere unless they are in pairs. The women have been so gracious in respecting these rules for everyone's safety. And the men have served them well.

This video is pretty dark, but we can give you the gist of it. We told everyone that we were going to have a water balloon toss game. We said to make it fair, we would have guy girl teams. The guys fell for it. They tossed the balloons to the girls and then the girls wailed on them with the balloons. One more reason why these guys are especially incredible.....they were stoked to win the competition and were pretty mad that they "lost." They ended up laughing in the end, but it was a challenge at first. But this sums up parts of this summer. We've just really enjoyed each other well!

We want to make the last week on campus a good one. We want people to really go after it hard and rest a bit at debrief. It's important that we follow up people, get contact information and just love Venezuelans this last week. Would you pray that we can close up our week on campus well? Would you pray that students would have energy this last week? We're excited to share more stories of what God has done this summer at the Universidad de Carabobo!

What happened to the past week?

2011-07-06T15:42:00.001-04:00

It's been a blur. Even though we've had a couple extra days off this week, it hasn't really felt that way. It almost feels as though it's been busier. We've had a couple of play dates with Julieta and Lucas. They were giving each other hugs the other night and this was the best picture I could get. Standards are pretty low when it comes to taking pictures of 2 year olds.We're still not used to the fact that it rains every day here. It sometimes rains 2 or 3 times every day. The other day we needed to go somewhere and had to wing it on keeping the kids dry. This was our solution. Noah was fine with it. E.T. phone home.
On Sunday we had a bowling outreach where we invited students to come bowling. It was a little strange though because we were all spread out so it made it hard to talk to people. I, of course, didn't do well....but I actually didn't bowl. Noah and Lucas took turns bowling as me. Unfortunately they didn't have the bumpers, so there were quite a few gutter balls. But I think they enjoyed it regardless.
Last night, we had our own little fireworks show. Monday evening we had our weekly meeting, so we didn't really have time to do it but last night we had pizza and a pool party as a team for our family fun night, so it was perfect to do it then. The students were all pretty excited. The staff had kept it a surprise that we had fireworks for them. When Clay and I went to buy them, it was pretty fun. They had tons of stuff and Clay was like a kid in a candy store. We got some sparklers and roman candles and then actual legitimate fireworks. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised to be able to experience fireworks in Venezuela.
Leah still isn't walking. She's not at all in a hurry to when she knows she can crawl pretty quickly wherever she needs to go. Her newest thing is climbing on everything. She's figured out that she can climb the chairs, couch and the coffee table. She hasn't mastered getting down yet, but she sure does enjoy just being up on things. One of the guys made a bet with me that she's going to start walking in the 2 weeks after we return home. If that's true, I have to buy an ice cream cake to split with him. If it's after 2 weeks that she starts walking, then he'll split it with us. I'm not sure how either way we end up buying an ice cream cake, but I'm not going to be too disappointed in that purchase!

I'm posting pictures to facebook, so there will be more on there of other things. It's been really fun to see the kids get more and more comfortable here. I think they consider this home now. Noah thinks our apartment is Venezuela, so I've been trying to explain to him that it's the whole place. Ahh, he's 2 so I'm not getting too worked up about it.

It's pretty crazy to see what God has been doing on our project. We've all been stretched in different ways. Some of the staff are having a hard time being here. Some of the students are getting to the point of wanting to go home. Everyone is being faithful in sharing their faith on campus. There hasn't been a ton of sickness in the group, which has been a huge answer to prayer. It's hard to believe that we only have a week and a half left on campus and then next Sunday we leave for debrief.

Will you pray for our group as we slowly begin the transition of going back to the States? Even as we have conversations with students, it's apparent that some people will have a hard time going back. Will you also pray that Venezuelan students that we've had conversations with will stick around and be a part of the movement here? Often it's easy for students to fall through the cracks after the summer project people leave, and we don't want that to happen. We want everyone to get plugged in and we want to build the movement that already exists. Would you please pray for the students who are already involved, that they would grab these other students and take them under their wing?

Happy birthday baby girl!

2011-06-30T21:33:00.003-04:00

Leah is the big 1 today! We celebrated Venezuelan style with a cake and ice cream. She loved having everyone sing to her.
She devoured the cake. We weren't even paying attention. We look over after cutting some cake and serving it to people and she's going crazy. No one had to tell her what to do with it!
We needed a quick little shower (no baths even if we wanted to, only showers here) after all of this. She wasn't too bad though.
Noah didn't mind the cake either.

As a little treat for the kids, we went to McDonalds today. It's about a 10 or 15 minute walk so we went there, since Noah loves it and they have a little play place. That's surprising to us considering a lot of McDonalds in the States don't even have those. They really enjoyed it for many reasons. They love getting out of the apartment in general, so that was a bonus to get to play somewhere else too.

Sweet Julieta (she Venezuelan and her and her husband, Christian, are on staff here with their son Lucas) took me and Noah to get Leah some cake and ice cream. I knew where to get ice cream but the bakeries here can be a little complicated. I really appreciated her help. And the stinters and Christian and Julieta and Lucas came to celebrate with all of us. It was absolute chaos (oh and the a/c stopped working because they cut the power last night to conserve electricity). So imagine 85+ degree weather with no a/c with 35+ people all in one room. :) It's Venezuela!! Anyways, it was a lot of fun to celebrate with everyone. Leah had a great day and Noah can now say she is 1 instead of 0.

More pictures of life here to come. We just wanted to celebrate our baby girl today!

The weekend, and a recap

2011-06-27T08:59:00.008-04:00

A good chunk of the weekend was a much needed reprieve. We had all day Friday off, except for a fun social dinner and ice-cream later that evening. And then with the exception of a trip to the orphanage on Saturday from 1-5 and a home-church meeting from 1030-1130, we had the rest of the time together as a family.

Let me tell you, this was big for us; let's hope it helped our kids enough to carry them through this week. To this point, life in our apartment has just not been much fun. Leah has been cranky, sick, not sleeping well at all, and just generally upset for about a week now. So she cries and whimpers often. Noah has been those same things but his crankiness manifests itself in just general disobedience and lashing out. He is nearing his third birthday in a few months so part of this is to be expected, but it hasn't been pretty since we've arrived. Not a fun time.

With that said though, in total honesty Melissa and I are doing fairly well. We were able to have a few significant conversations together and really connect this weekend. And the culture shock that usually comes along a week or so into a trip like this hasn't been an issue at all. We're pretty sure this is because of how similar Venezuela can be to Azerbaijan--often we feel like we're back on Stint again, only with two little ones. So, spiritually and physically we are both doing rather well--trusting God with our lives and our project. But our emotions are sometimes off, which is to be expected with two constantly cranky kids.

The project has been incredibly fruitful. We have seen many come to Christ and have already shared the gospel with 391 Venezuelan students! Our students have really been faithful and have been going for it on campus. Alex Hill, one of the guys on our project, got to see 11 students receive Christ as their Lord over the course of three days last week! And both Melissa and I have really loved being on campus as well. The students here just seem to be generally more welcoming and willing to engage in conversation--even conversations in which they are told that their entire thinking about spiritual things could be wrong! It's just really refreshing.

Just about every conversation I've had here has been fruitful. The first few days a student involved in Campus Crusade for Christ here in Valencia and I went out to go sharing. We approached a group of three and began to chat. During the conversation I began to paint a picture of everything God wants to do in the world--that he wants to remove our guilt as far as the east is from the west, that in Jesus he has begun a new Kingdom and a renewed people to be loving and comforting and gracious, that God wants to heal every broken heart and wipe away every tear, that it is his desire for every person to be whole and not fractured and broken relationally, physically. One of the girls in the group began to tear up. We could tell this was what she wanted; she wanted to be made whole again, and for all her pain and sorrow to be washed away. God was working in her heart. Ultimately she did not decide to make a decision to give her life to Jesus (I think perhaps the pressure was a bit much for her with her two friends there), but we have planted a seed.

She finally heard the best story in the world, and that she could be a part of it.

Prayer for us would be much appreciated. For our kids and our continued faithfulness on campus.

The beach

2011-06-24T15:45:00.002-04:00

So this past Saturday we all went to the beach with Venezuelan students. It was an hourish drive and then we took a boat for 15-20 minutes. It was pretty interesting. Honestly, there were moments we thought maybe we weren't going to make it on the boat. There were around 10 people on each of the below boats and they do not "drive" slowly regardless of the conditions of the water. The kids handled it pretty well.Once we got there, they both loved the sand. Leah would find all kinds of corral and put it in her mouth. Great. At least she wasn't eating handfuls of sand.
Noah didn't really want to go in the water. The guys tried to talk him in to it, but he didn't like the waves. Can't really blame him. They almost took him out a few times.
But he went in with Tony. And Tony took good care of him. Some of the students even built a sand wall for him so he could just sit and the water would come up but not get him because he was behind the wall. They were really good to him all day.
Leah passed out a little while after we got there. She started to fall asleep on the boat but then it got pretty rough. Bart didn't mind. He doesn't like sand anyways, so he got to take a nap with her. And then burnt the tops of his feet because they were sticking out past the umbrella. Whoops!
I feel like I just had to take this picture. I looked up and this was my view. Come on buddy. Put some more clothes on! It's ok though. I would probably rather see that than all the women walking around in their bikini thongs. Yuck. Seriously. Noah definitely loved playing in the sand and even contributed to burying Kristin. But he didn't really understand why. Matter of fact, I don't really understand why either....
He was loving just dumping sand all over himself. He looked like a little albino child since he was covered in sand.
Then the little man passed out on the boat ride back. I have no idea how but he must have been pretty tired.
And on the van ride back, they both passed out. Bart started to also, but probably would've dropped the baby, so he stayed awake. The kids were pretty worn out but they had fun. And we did too. However, the beach isn't nearly as much fun when you get to clean sand out of 2 kids' cracks and crevices.
More to come soon. We're pretty tired but starting to feel like we're catching up and getting a little more energy. We feel like project has been go go go, but it's great for motivating people. We're just getting old so it's harder for us. :)

And as a little side note from the beach, yesterday on campus I saw a girl named Cristal accept Christ! It was pretty amazing! She is 21, has been married for 5 years and has a 4 year old. In the past year, she has lost her mother and other family members (extended family) and her father has been sick so she has felt the burden of taking care of him because she's the oldest. She has 4 younger brothers and I think 2 younger sisters, so she was at a point of needing to really rely on the Lord and allow him to provide peace and rest for her. We're excited to get to follow up with her and we told her she should go home and share with her husband and son. I'm praying that the stresses of life don't keep her from getting involved and growing in her new faith. Will you please pray with us for that? What an awesome opportunity we have to present the love of Jesus to the people of Venezuela!!!

Some VZ pictures

2011-06-20T21:36:00.001-04:00

These are not in any kind of order....but here's our kitchen with totally open cupboards (great for babies and toddlers) and the bottles of alcohol on top of the cupboards.Around 30 people crammed in our living/dining room for dinner 3 nights a week. Not really sure what Clay and Justin are laughing at, but probably Noah.
Noah passed out on our Pooh blanket. He pretty much always naps in our room now so they can both get decent naps. It's working ok for us.
And the airplane ride. Noah definitely wasn't a fan of taking off but then he did fine. He didn't like the 2nd flight nearly as much, probably because it was 4 hours and felt really long. Leah did really well considering she was a lap child and couldn't really go anywhere.
The weekend was a combination of tiring and relaxing. On Saturday we decided to go to the beach. That meant leaving at 7:45 and getting back around 6:00. It was a long day but the kids had fun. We'll post more pictures soon. We have to download more of them. Plus, we don't want to overwhelm.....

Oh and the Venezuelan Pentecost (we've adapted this from the Azeri Pentecost as we used to call it on Stint) has arrived. Not really. We've just all had a little bit of the runs. It might have been some of the veggies we ate with dinner last night. They had soaked in a vinegar solution but maybe that didn't work? We're not feeling bad though, so that's pretty amazing considering how bad it could be. We're praying we don't get any of that nasty stuff. The kids have colds but they're handling it pretty well. So sad to have a cold in a really hot place, but I'm sure their bodies are adjusting to a lot here.

Please pray for sleep, energy, health and that we would rely on the Lord. Last week was great and we're hoping it continues to be great and that we and the students don't get sick and/or burnt out. Oh and pray for some of the guys on the project. Some decided to not be wise and apply sunscreen at the beach and they are very much paying the consequence for it (one guy is blistering). They would appreciate the prayers as they try to recover.

Until next time.....as they say in Venezuela: chow (good-bye)

The first few days

2011-06-16T14:50:00.002-04:00

From my (Melissa's) perspective:

Well, with almost a day of travel and all of us not going to bed until 4 am on the morning we arrived, we thought it would be good to get up, take a shower, have some breakfast and then get the ball rolling. Nope, no water. Wasn't planning on that. Actually, we did have water at 6 am when I randomly woke up and thought I had a good night's sleep only to find out I slept for 2 hours and it was super bright outside. But I choose to go back to bed, and then wake up at 8 to now water. Whoops!

Most of our first day here we didn't have water. That kind of makes for a small challenge with kids. We went out to eat for lunch and dinner with the team since no one had any sort of food other than breakfast (the stint team that is hear graciously got us all breakfast food for the first few days we were here). So that was nice not to have to run to the grocery store right away. Problem is, I still don't totally know where to get groceries. I mean, Christian, a Venezuelan staff guy took me the other night because we were barely getting by on what we had, but it was a 10 minute drive and, let's be honest, I'll probably get lost if I try to go there again. Oh well. I think there are some small places close by. I have a few weeks to figure it out. :)

The kids have been doing ok. Leah is a super trooper. She's been sleeping really well and eating pretty well here. I haven't been able to give them much fruits or vegetables since we got here since I forgot to buy vinegar at the store, but they're surviving off of bananas and other things. Noah has had a pretty hard transition. He understands that this is weird and he doesn't understand why we live with 2 other people (we're sharing a 3 bedroom apartment with the other 2 staff women on the project, so there are 6 of us in the apartment). He likes them both, so enjoys playing with them or asking where they are. Luckily our apartment complex has a little playground type area that we can go to when both kids are awake. There's a pool too, but we're not sure if we can actually use it. Noah is pretty excited about it though. It even has a kiddy area.

I'm feeling pretty disconnected from the project. Our apartment is far enough away from everyone else that it makes it pretty hard to be involved with 2 kids. But 3 nights a week, everyone will be at our place for dinner, so that is good. And I'll get on campus to meet with students at least once a week. And we have a family night where we go out and do something fun, so I'll be able to touch base with people here and there. Sometimes I just feel like there's not much purpose in me being here. Though I am in charge of all the money, so it's probably good for Bart and Claire (and the students) to not have to worry about all of that stuff.

Julieta, Christian's wife, and I have been able to touch base a little. They have a 2 year old and a baby due in August so it's nice to be able to connect with someone who is in a similar life stage. I'm really looking forward to being able to spend time with her.

I honestly haven't seen Bart much. It's pretty strange. I feel like I just need to get out and explore but Bart doesn't like that very much. He worries that it's not safe. It is, at least during the day. I went out by myself with the kids the other day to meet up with everyone for dinner and a few people kind of freaked out. I mean, what am I supposed to do? Stay cooped up in the apartment all day long every day? No way!

Oh and the apartment. Let's just say, bachelor pad. Gross. This is how dirty it was. Leah is crawling and the tops of her feet and her knees where constantly black. DISgusting. So we (I) decided that I would pay someone to come clean the place on the 2nd day we were hear cause I just straight up could not handle it. It's better now. And it's such a strange apartment. The guy has enough toilet paper to last like a year. Sweet. Don't have to buy toilet paper. He has like 20 tooth brushes between 2 bathrooms. He has 2 plants, 1 of which is looking pretty bad, but the other 1 looks perfect. He has a strange porcelain doll type thing sitting between the plants. I'll take pictures and post this stuff. Don't worry. Oh and he has like 20 empty bottles of alcohol sitting on the high shelf in the kitchen. And that's not mentioning the numerous pictures/figures of Mary/Jesus or something of the like. He also has a tv in every room and an empty fish tank which Noah got pretty excited about cause there was a car in it. So weird.

Oh, and he had a dog. Dog hair everywhere. I'm used to it already. There isn't a vacuum here so what can you do? There is absolutely nothing childproof about this place. We have to lay the stroller in the kitchen area so Leah can't get in to everything because there are no cupboard doors or anything. And there are knives, spoons, tools, pots, pans and many other things she could get into. Hoy da. We do have hot water though and air conditioning. Both are pretty darn amazing. So it could definitely be worse. Oh and the blanket on our bed.....Pooh. One big gigantic Pooh. Noah loves it. This place screams bachelor pad, yet not at all at the same time. I really don't get it. But we're here and it's working for us. And I kind of have to laugh even as I type this. The joys of living in another country.

So this has been a book. Sorry. It's been a lot of what I expected and yet a lot of what I haven't expected. But we're making it work. Noah is picking up a little Spanish and everyone that sees our little gringo kids either smile or say something in Spanish. Most of the time I just smile cause I have no idea what they're saying. I think there will be a lot of that this summer. Me just not knowing half of what people are saying. That's ok. As long as I know where home, food and the bathroom are, I'm probably good.

Out like trout.

Melissa

We're in Venezuela!

2011-06-15T13:42:00.004-04:00

Or as Noah likes to call it, Wenezuela.

Traveling wasn't a blast, but we figured it wouldn't be. The thing about our kids is that they have a hard time sleeping anywhere but in their bed/crib; Leah in particular. Noah actually did a pretty good job, considering.

We left from Capital City Church in Columbus about noon on Sunday for the airport. Our flight left at 3ish so we felt we had plenty of time, but we didn't account very well for the chaos that results from traveling with 30 people. Some people checked in but forgot to grab their boarding passes from the self check-in. Others were a bit frantic over their bags and the like. Others were just downright scared or anxious leaving the states for a month and a half. Eventually we made it, but with little time to eat. Our family scarfed down some chicken and fries in about 10 minutes while everyone else boarded and eventually we all made it.

They did pretty good the first flight--but having a lap child is not very much fun. What is especially not fun is that Leah is at that curious-I-want-to-crawl-everwhere-and-stick-everything-in-my-mouth stage so sitting on a plane with us holding here is not her idea of fun.

We arrived in Atlanta with everything and everyone we needed. We didn't have a long layover, only an hour, so we walked quickly to the next gate. The Atlanta flight was not so much fun. Noah decided it was a good time for his potty skills to completely evaporate and twice he peed in his pants. Changing entire outfits twice is not a fun thing on an airplane, especially with a whimpering, crying 2-year old. Towards the end of the 4+ hour flight, Noah just wanted to get off. "I want to be done with airplane." Leah was fussy for a while until she eventually fell asleep with Melissa holding her. It, of course, wasn't a restful sleep and she awoke every so often to let the people on the plane know she wasn't a very happy camper. We let Noah watch Cars on our computer just for sanity.

We trudged through the Caracas airport. As is pretty common in Venezuela, the bus that was coming to pick us up was about 30 minutes late so I think we boarded the bus and left around 1130 or so. The bus ride was ok, actually. Noah slept on me and Leah on Melissa and we each got a bit of sleep as well. Upon arrival in Valencia we dropped the girls apartment off first--but that was a bigger task then we thought. We had to make sure they were situated and comfortable and all that before we boarded the bus again to drop off the rest of the project at the hotel. The long wait was that the hotel clerk had to enter all 18 people staying there into the hotel with their passport info. That took quite a while with Melissa and the kids and Clay hanging on the bus the entire time. The kids were troopers really; it could have been much worse.

We eventually made it to our apartment and got our stuff situated. Leah was not ready to just be laid down after all that holding so she let us know all about her tough day. Even that, though, wasn't for very long--maybe 10 minutes. They got some sleep and we did as well. We awoke to the beginning of summer project in Valencia!

We'll post about our first few days soon, stay tuned for updates!

update coming

2011-04-23T09:02:00.001-04:00

Pardon our cyber dust. I will blog soon. In the meantime, enjoy a few pictures!

Nutso last month

2011-01-14T14:29:00.002-05:00

I'll take a shot at recapping our whirlwind December/early January.

Until December 20th we had a good bit of down time. We visited Cosi 3 or 4 times and just generally had a lot of fun. This is really one of the only times of the year where we feel like our jobs allow us the freedom to relax a little bit, so we took those 10 days or so and did just that.

Then we went off to Waynesfield to be with Melissa's family. Fun times. Melissa's parents were super gracious and watched the kids which allowed Melissa and I to go out for a couple dates while we were there. Great times. The one thing about having kids this young is that I just never feel like I have enough quality time with Melissa; it feels like the time we do have together is when one if not both of us are dead tired and it doesn't lead to stimulating conversation. Anyways, good time seeing the family, Bart got lots of books and Melissa lots of gift cards for Christmas.

Then off to Canton on the 24th to hang with my family. My brother and his wife just had a baby boy so we were pumped to be able to see him. Christmas day was interesting because Noah decided he didn't really want to open presents with the rest of us, and Leah wasn't super happy either. Eventually they came around, but I think all the new stuff/people was starting to wear on them.

Back to columbus on the 26th to pack and crash.

Then off to Indianapolis on the 27th through the 1st for IndyCC, which is our annual conference of 2000ish students from the great lakes region. The traveling is really starting to wear on us, to be honest. It was fine when we were married without kids but everything just gets so much crazier when you have two kids and they need naps/food/diaper changes/whatever else.

Then back to Columbus for a few days until we flew to Dallas from the 6th-11th. We were there for summer project directors training (we're directing in Venezuela). We took Leah and Noah went to live with Grandma and Grandpa for those 6 days. Really good conference; we feel like we learned a lot and are a bit more prepared/excited about the summer.

Finally we're all at home and can catch our breath. Bummer is we're in week 3 of the quarter and ministry is definitely underway so we don't have much time at all to relax. If you could pray we wouldn't start working on fumes that would be great.

Holidays

2010-12-08T07:44:00.002-05:00

Holidays are a bit nutso for us. It's mostly just the travel. Driving to NW Ohio on the 20th, back to Columbus on the 23rd, to NE Ohio on the 24th, back to Columbus on the 26th, then to Indianapolis on the 27th, and then back to Columbus on New Years. This was fine and actually never felt like much until we started popping out babies.

If you could pray that we would use the car time wisely, we would appreciate it. Melissa and I always seem to have good conversations in the car.

I'm giving a seminar at IndyCC (the 4 day retreat in Indianapolis with around 2000 students from all over the region), so that has been what I've been working on the last few days as students have vanished with finals. I'm doing it on an overview of the story of scripture. Been a blast preparing. Mainly I'm working from three books: "The Mission of God" by Christopher Wright, "God's Big Picture" by Vaughn Roberts, and "The Drama of Scripture" by Bartholomew and Goheen. Great books; pick up all three if you can.

I've asked almost exclusively for books for Christmas, and man am I pumped for it.

Back to reading!

MaKenzie came through her surgery

2010-12-02T22:13:00.002-05:00

Everything went really well! Praise the Lord! The doctor said it was worse than she thought but they were able to fix it. She's in a lot of pain but she's doing well. She's at the Cleveland Clinic for the next couple days. She's such a trooper. Please pray for her as she recovers. She'll be at home and will need to make a decision in the next couple weeks as to if she can return to school in January. Hopefully the road to recovery isn't super difficult. Please pray that she'll rely on the Lord through this process.

Thank you all for your prayers!!

Random Shadle tidbits

2010-11-17T07:19:00.002-05:00

-Noah is ginormous. Dude is doing all kinds of fun stuff. He has begun creating sentences which is quite fun for us. Last night, he let me throw him around for about 20 minutes which was quite the breakthrough; usually he just doesn't like "roughhousing." He has been a great brother too.

I ran 3.75 miles today. Felt really good. I'm starting to run again after my 26 day rest (1 day for each mile!). I'm leaning towards the Cincy Flying Pig marathon on May 1st. Yes, I'm hooked.

Ministry has been amazing. Really. Amazing. We have 16 guys coming out to the small group in one dorm and around 9 or 10 to another. In my ten years on south campus I've never seen or heard of anything like that. These aren't just regular dudes either; they're already actively sharing their faith and trusting God to move on their floors and in their dorms. This is gonig to be a fun year.

And the guys in my Action Group (older students that are leaders of those small groups) are, to a man, having just great years. So much has changed from last year sometimes I just pinch myself. God is seriously on the move on south campus at OSU.

We're heading to staff conference this weekend. We're excited because the hotel we stay at has an indoor water park which will be just a blast for Noah. I'm pumped.

I'm reading "Eat, Pray, Love" right now. Don't laugh. I've been gaining moe interest in these super popular books since reading "No Impact Man." I think if I'm to be reaching out to a community with the rescuing hope of Jesus it should be good to know at an even deeper level where exactly Jesus wants to penetrate. The book has actually shed some light on a few things for me: women, depression, and the way the world thinks about "purpose in life" just to name a few.

Leah is an angel. Seriously, she is just about the best baby ever. Was sleeping through the night I think even before one month, eats great, and is just all smiles. I love this house. My family rocks.

The Browns have got me excited. Peyton Hillis plays football the way it's meant to be played. The last few years I haven't cared much about the NFL because of the league rules and guys like Brady and Manning have turned it into a wierd sort've track and field with a ball. Hillis brings that old school smash mouth stuff back and it's quite fun to watch.

MaKenzie update

2010-11-15T14:25:00.002-05:00

Well, MaKenzie will be having surgery on November 29th. Thanks for all of the prayers. She can certainly use more prayers as she tries to finish up classes 2 weeks early and prepares for the surgery. The doctor was quite shocked that she could even function. She said her condition is normally determined when the tissue is 5 mm below the skull (this is all layman's terms of course) and most people have trouble functioning if it's 7-8 mm. Well, MaKenzie's was actually 20 mm! Praise the Lord that things haven't been awful for her! She has been having terrible headaches and has dizzy spells. She's fallen a few times and is having trouble focusing, but it's really awesome to know that there is an end in sight.

Luckily the recovery is 2-3 weeks so she won't miss winter quarter at all. That is another huge answer to prayer. She is such a trooper. We're so thankful that she's getting answers and that everything is seeming to fall into place for her to be able to get better. Please also pray for her time at home as it can be very stressful with her family. Her parents are divorced and things tend to get sticky sometimes when she's home. Thank you all again for your prayers. We'll keep you updated as things progress.

On an unrelated note, we enjoyed some time home with the family. Todd (Bart's brother) and his wife Niki are having a baby, so we were able to be home for the shower. The kids did really well traveling the 2+ hours to their house and enjoyed the time with the grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. We head out for Indianapolis on Wednesday until Sunday, so we're hoping the kids do well traveling the 3 hours there and back. Plus, not to mention, sharing a hotel room with 2 little ones will be a new fun adventure for all of us. Hopefully we'll all get some sleep!!!

Please pray

2010-11-05T23:01:00.003-04:00

This is such a fitting picture of MaKenzie.....always happy!

So I (Melissa) have been meeting with a student at OSU named MaKenzie for the last year or so. Well, recently she found out that she has Chiari Malformation. Basically what that means is that a part of her brain is descending out of her skull and putting pressure on her spinal cord. As a result, she has serious headaches and cries very easily. After 6 years of headaches that have become worse and worse, she finally decided that she needed answers. She had an MRI this week and that is when she became aware of this. It breaks my heart that she has to go through so much at such a young age. She has tremendous faith in the Lord and I trust that God can heal her of this. Even if he doesn't, he is still good.

At this point, she has to see a neurologist and figure out when she needs to have surgery. They would probably need to enlarge the hole at the base of her skull and potentially remove something in her spine. We don't know all the details yet, but I want people to be praying. She is such a great girl and I'm blessed to have her in my life. I'll continue to update as I know more. What a crazy thing! To have brain surgery at the age of 21. It just blows my mind!

Thanks everyone for your prayers. We're blessed to have wonderful people in our lives. Our CCC fall retreat is happening right now as I type this. Right now, around 300 college students are gathered to worship the Lord in unison. How awesome is that?!?! Please pray that this retreat would be a catalyst for change is people's lives. We all need to grow and we pray that this would just be one more avenue. I'm excited to get to go tomorrow for a bit and connect with students. We'll update more about retreat later.

Thanks everyone!!! We are excited for what the Lord has in store for our future, MaKenzie's future and the movement at Ohio State!

The Marathon recap Part 3

2010-10-27T07:45:00.024-04:00

I haven't yet decided if I will post a fourth recap. One entailing the week or so following the race. Scroll down a bit to see the beginnings of the marathon and what has been going on up to this point.

Mile 23 - I am absolutely dragging. For the last few miles I've been trying to get into some sort of running rhythm but it just hasn't happened. All the walking (1/4 of every mile at this point) is just tearing me apart emotionally. My time is ticking way higher than my goal of under 4 hours. You can still get under 4:30 with a good last 5K, Bart. Continue to push yourself. This will all be over soon. Brian is still with me and it is super encouraging. One of the many things I like about Brian is that he is not super preachy or pushy. He wasn't yelling at me or in my face, yet he was still pushing me enough to keep it going. "You can do this! This is a good pain! Only three more miles!" Stuff like that was super encouraging. At this point, though, he said something that hit deeper. He didn't sound irritated, just urgent, and he said "Do you want to finish?"

Oh man. No, actually. I don't even care at this point. Just get this thing over with. But I did care. I did want to keep pushing. And so I tried. The almost complete difference between what was going on in my head and what was going on in my body was funny to me and not something I enjoyed. I really did want to keep going, but I just couldn't stop telling myself to stop and walk it out. To be honest, I think at this point, if not 8 or 9 miles before, I had lost the mental battle. I had stopped fighting.

Tony Plouck, another student I do ministry with joined us at this point as well. I love these guys. Tony grew up a runner, and was the son of a cross-country coach. Tony immediately starts the usual cheers: "You got this! Head up! Keep fighting your almost there! Head up, Bart!" I did not receive these well. I was super encouraged and actually they did boost me quite a bit, but I just wanted to throw him off the bridge we were crossing or into traffic. I just didn't want to fight anymore.

Mile 24-25 - It wasn't all doom and gloom. I'm just trying to paint an accurate picture. Actually it WAS doom and gloom but it was also clinging to hope and attempting, in whatever way I could, to persevere. It's hard even to write about these last few miles because I was just emotionally spent. And, oh yeah, pretty physically spent as well. Two more miles Bart. This is a quick jog out to the library and back from our house. Two miles is nothing! But my legs would just not work. My dehydration at that point was crazy and my leg muscles were going bananas. I had been drinking a lot in the last 10 miles but it was to little to late. You can't start drinking halfway through a marathon and expect to be ok. Those two miles felt like they took forever. But the mile 25 sign made it all worth it. Last mile!

Mile 26 - I tried to run this whole mile but just couldn't. I ran maybe 200 meters before my cramps went crazy and I walked the next 200 meters.

I ran the remainder. This was really tough but I just wanted to finish as strong as I could. My legs flared up like crazy. I didn't want to hurt

anymore and knew that the next mile was the only way through the pain. This whole mile is a blur. I remember turning a few times and thinking I thought this was over, why are we still turning? Where is downtown? Why is this lasting so long?!

Tony and Brian give me one last pep talk, and it actually worked this time because I WANTED to do what they were saying this time. They turn off before we turn the corner for the last .2. These pictures are that last little bit. Boy was I happy this is a downhill. All I really had to do was pump my arms and try and lengthen my stride, and at that point that was about all I COULD do. Then the sweet finish.

I actually remember reading to take advantage of the picture at the finish. Like, stick your arms in the air or something; let it be memorable. I actually think I tried to look good but just ultimately didn't have it in me. I was done. You did it! Yes! It's over!

Hmm, 4:32 was much better than I thought it'd be. Good job! Now where do I go? I kept walking.

I actually almost walked right past the medal people. I don't think they would've let me pass, but I nearly did. It was a little strange having someone place a medal on your neck when you can barely stand. I think I would've liked this more about fifteen minutes later, but hey, it was still pretty awesome. Lots of cheers and encouragement.

My medal picture is kind've funny. You can almost tell what was going on in my head. Really? I appreciate the gesture really I do, but I can barely hold myself up and you want me to pose and strap on a memorable smile?! I sort've succeeded, as you can tell, at bringing out a smile.

The end was awesome. It was over and that brought sweet relief to my legs and heart. Especially my heart. The inner turmoil throughout the race was almost to much to handle. I think I had always thought the toughest part of a marathon would be the actual running of 26.2 miles but, at least for me, that wasn't the case. It was the struggle. The "can I push through this cramp" that happened about 20 times. The voice in my head yelling "just give up!" and my ability/lack to listen. That was the tough part.

What an awesome day! This picture made it worthwhile. Nate finished a bit after me and we celebrated and laughed quite a lot.... then we hurt a lot. Welcome to marathon recovery...

The Marathon Recap Part 2

2010-10-24T13:15:00.027-04:00

Ok, I'd like you to imagine a situation:

It's early Monday morning and you're on your way to work. You have a long work-week in front of you, at least 60 hours. Problem is, you have no energy. Your newborn baby decided it would be a great time to cry all night; so you're running on about 3 hours of sleep. Plus, your hungry because your 4 year old threw one of those typical tantrums of kids that age that lasted right through breakfast time. And you're going to be late.

Add up all of those feelings of fatigue, crankiness, frustration, and irritability and you've got me at mile 15 of the marathon.

Well, and the rest of the way.

Mile 15 - We've passed the South Campus gateway. That was a welcome sight, and I think I said something like, "Ah, home." Brian laughed. He was also talking a lot. I would love this any other time but even trying to listen was expending energy I didn't feel like I had. I really hope Brian doesn't think I'm a jerk if I don't respond; talking just doesn't seem like something I'd like to do right now. We walk around the turn from Chittenden to Indianola. This was really tough for me, and I almost feel like recapping it here quickly doesn't quite do justice to the way I felt about this. It was really hard for me to stop and walk with Brian right beside me. See, I'm ok with personal failure (and that's what it continually felt like) because, well, I'm just familiar with it. But openly and publicly failing (and yes it felt like total failure - did I already say this?) by walking was really emotionally tough for me with Brian. He didn't say anything.

We actually have a pretty decent pace going despite what is going on internally. I'd guess about a 9:30 per mile pace. Ok, Bart, you've ran 11 miles before and that's all we have left.

Imagine the first half of the run never happened. Yeah right, good luck with that one.

Mile 16 - We swooped back down High st. and turn onto College Rd right on South Campus beside the new union. I had a thought at this point about how cool it was to be running right in the middle of the road. How many times do you get to run right in the middle of busy streets?

I also grab some gatorade. And another gatorade. I realized at about the 15.5 mark that I was thirsty. If you've never ran a marathon then you probably don't know that it's terrible if you ever get thirsty because that most likely means you're pretty significantly dehydrated. I haven't felt much in my muscles but my thirst worried me. Brian was telling me a story about seeing security guards or something during his class because President Obama was visiting the oval that night. Good for the President but at this point I wouldn't have cared much if he was coming to hand me keys to the oval office. You're still in good shape, Bart. Even though you've walked a bit, 4 hrs is absolutely within reach.

Mile 17 - No! No, No, No! An absolutely debilitating muscle cramp brings me to a total stop. It was like Forest Gump in Vietnam. It felt like someone shot me (or bit me, according to Gump). My right hamstring just knotted up. We stopped by the side of the road and I stretched for probably a couple minutes. This was not good. Stopping 17 miles into a 26 mile jaunt is never a good idea because you just lose all rhythm, and in a marathon getting into a good rhythm is imperative. Oh man this is not good. 9 miles to go and my legs are just totally failing. But only 9 miles left. But that's so far. But I've done that before. But I feel terrible. Flip-flop, flip-flop. That was seriously my mind for the duration of the race. I'll try to expound on some specific thoughts, but putting every single one of my thoughts on here may be enough to make the reader bipolar. But this whole mile was trouble the whole way.

Mile 18-20 - Brian is still with me. It really means a lot to me. I'm not quite sure I expected to be as emotional as I was about the race. I was spent. My strength to contain myself emotionally was totally void. At this point I was walking about 300 meters (or 1/5 mile) for every 1300 I ran (or around 4/5 mile). My hamstrings were perpetually tight, but the real problem was every time I ran about 1/2 mile my quads cramped and would just refuse to work. I was doing a bit of limping. Every time I stopped to walk (again, every 4/5 of a mile or so) I just felt totally defeated. I just can't do it. I just can't run. I wonder how long it would take to just walk the rest of the way? I actually start doing the math. If I walk the remaining 7 miles at 20 minutes per mile then I'll be done at 5:30 or so. Who cares, at least this'll be over! Ok, so I wasn't desperate enough to settle for a 5:30 but I wasn't far off.

I see my parents around mile 19 I think. Mom came out into the road to give me a high five. After we pass Brian asks who that was. "Do you know her?"

"Well, it was my mom. So yeah I know her." We both chuckle. I know it's not funny but after running for 3 hours straight you'll laugh at anything.

You'll notice in the picture to the left that Brian is not with me. A bit past mile 19 I saw a girl pull off to the side of the road in shambles. She was crying pretty hard and just looked in total despair. I know the feeling. "Hey, go talk to that girl," I say to Brian.

"Huh? What girl?"

"The girl over there, just see if you can help her and then come back."

Brian turns around and talks to the girl and I continue running. Immediately I feel alone. Maybe I can walk these next few moments with no guilt since it's only me? Nah, let's push really hard so when Brian catches up he'll be impressed at how far I've gone! Sheesh, even writing out my thoughts makes me feel silly. Who needs alcohol to remove all your mental/emotional inhibitions? Just run 20 miles I promise it'll do the same for you. Brian catches back up a bit before mile 21 I think. He stopped and prayed with her for a while. What a stud.

Mile 21-22 - When I passed my parents mom mentioned something about Melissa being up ahead on Grandview. This nearly broke me. Melissa and I had talked quite a bit about her being there and just both decided that it would probably be to hard with the kids. The timing issues (of naps, me running etc) just seemed to difficult to navigate. But she was coming! I love my wife so much. It's ridiculous how much she means to me. I would finish this race on fire if it meant I could make her proud of me.

I see them at about 21.5 and it's awesome. Noah looks confused and a bit overwhelmed but he gives me a high five. I'm pretty sure I sprinted the next 200 meters or so just from my enjoyment of seeing them.

The miles feel longer and longer at this point. You can do this! Cramps, cramps. Who cares, just stop! No, push through! Oh just walk the rest. The mental struggle is driving me bananas. I wasn't prepared for that at all. My long run of 17 in training I thought had prepped me for it, but I was totally wrong.

At mile 22 the crowd begins to get a little more excited. The streets definitely aren't crowded, but the ones that are there know how much us runners needed encouragement at that point. If I remember correctly, you can even see the city from atop the hill and it was quite a relief. Just four miles Bart! You're a light training run from finishing!

Conclusion coming up...

The Marathon Recap

2010-10-20T17:19:00.032-04:00

Warning: this is a long post.

In the days leading up to the race I was quite nervous. Could I actually do it? Was I going to disappoint myself or others? Two things in particular had my insides in knots: First, I had not run any sort of race whatsoever since track in high school, and even then the longest race I ran was the 200 meters! and Second, I missed a huge chunk of training with a bum knee.

At the very b

eginning of August my left knee just would not cooperate. I had to shut down altogether. My long run at that point had been 17 miles. And boy I was cruising. I was

getting closer and closer to 8 minute miles even in training; the time just kept coming off. My goal of a 4 hour marathon began to look not only attainable but perhaps to high of a goal! But, boom, there goes the knee. For the next 6 weeks I did literally nothing physical and the two weeks following that did only walking and some light lifting. Two months of no running.

I was really bummed about this. A few times I almost withdrew from the race, or at least changed it to the half-marathon instead of the full. Could I really expect to run a full missing two months in the peak of training season? I'm not a runner, after all.

What the heck, let's try anyways! So, having not run at all from the beginning of August, to the beginning of October I decide to have a go at running. The legs feel great. Well rested and strong. My knee is in great shape. I run 11 miles 8 days before the marathon as a sort've test. It's a great run. I pass with flying colors and get really excited. I ran the 11 in 1:35 which is an average of about 8:40 per mile. Great! Under 9 minute miles will get me well below the 4 hour marathon mark! I begin to taper down and rest for the race.

So leading up to the race I trust my knee and my legs, now I'm just mostly worried about the actual distance. 26 is a lot further than 11. 15 miles more!

Race day is just beautiful. Probably around 50 degrees at the 7:30 AM start. Nate (my brother) and I are nervous but ready

. It's really a lot of fun to be in an atmosphere like that; just so much anticipation and excitement. We took some pre-race pictures but hey didn't turn out. Bummer.

I really hope I don't have to stop and poop during the race.

We eventually make our way to our corral (the 4th, and last, corral because neither of us had run any race that could register us nearer). The fireworks go off and the line starts moving. My stomach is in knots.

Is this really happening? Are we really about to run

26 miles? I'm a bow-legged 200 pound football player. Nate, are you sure this is a good idea? I wish I was in the crowd right now...

We're funneled like cattle to the starting line. Oh boy here we go. And we take off. Well, sort of.

Mile 1 - Nate and I ran together this entire mile. It was about a 9:30 mile. We passed one dude with a "Today is my 67th birthday shirt on" and I told him congratulations and good luck. Nate and I both cracked a few jokes, I think as a way to ease our tension a bit. It's so packed here! How is my form? We see mom and dad on the right and it's fun to high five as we pass. We continue to bob and weave our way through a great many runners. The first mile

flag comes up quicker than I thought. The butterflies cease for the most part; running has that affect.

Mile 2 - I tell Nate good luck, we fist bump (for about the 5th time) and I speed up a bit. Time to rock and roll! Let's go Bart, you can do this! Man it is S

O crowded! I swoop across the road (we were running down the right side) to the left curb. This is where I run the next couple miles. I'm really enjoying this! I feel really good, the bands have been fun, and it's really cool to be cheered on by random people! I feel so encouraged! Under a bridge we pass a guy that's playing bagpipes and I applaud.

Mile 3 -

The first turn is at the end of this mile. I feel like I'm really starting to get into a rhythm. I wonder how fast I'm going? Boy I wish I would have seen the second mile flag to have a better gauge on my pace. Don't push. Don't go to hard. Long way to go yet, Bart. The picture on the left is, I think, about 3.5 miles. I'm starting to get a little irritated at the other runners at this point. You people have some nerve running in MY marathon! I wish that wasn't what I was thinking but it definitely was. I felt like I kept getting cut off and nobody was really holding a pace so we had a lot of speeding up and sl

owing down to weave in and out. Oh look, here comes the mile 4 flag! I'll be sure to check my time and see my pace...

Mile 4 - Those last two miles were really good! 26 minutes through 3 miles means 8:15 per mile the last two. Good work! If I can just hold this pace I'll be set up really nice. Am I going to fast though? The picture on the right is me about mile 4.5. At this point I jump up on the sidewalk and in the grass on the left. I'm just tired of weaving in and out of other runners. The problem with this is that at this point the curb is fairly high if I'm remembering correctly. It's about a six inch jump to the grass, which doesn't sound like much but if you have 22 miles ahead of you every

little bit of energy exerted elsewhere hurts the cause. I still feel great. I'm just really enjoying the whole thing. The atmosphere is incredible.

Mile 5-6 - These two miles were pretty much the same. I was just trying to take everythin

g in and really enjoy what was happening. Make sure that you are taking the turns tight Bart! I remember reading somewhere that you could add up to 1/4 of a mile in the race if you take the turns wide. It's funny that a little thing like that consumed me. We merge back onto Broad St. and I know that that means mile 7 is coming up. I'm still in great spirits. At every water station they give away tons of paper and plastic cups holding water and gatorade. Mile 6 was the first time I grabbed something to drink, gulping it down while I ran. I made a joke about all the people stomping on the cups and how it made me want popcorn. I got a few courtesy laughs. I check my watch.

Mile 7-10 - Good pace. Just keep this up and we'll be outta here in about 3:45! I think I was averaging about 8:20 per mile after the first mile until this point. To fast? Am I going to be able to hold this pace? I spend a lot of time theses miles looking for people I know. I see Justin and Hannah Mast, and Claire Green, who are on staff with CCC at OSU with me. Nice to see them. I don't see my parents though and wonder why. They talked about seeing me at about the 8 mile mark. I wonder how Nate is doing? Mile 11 means back onto Hight St, and here it comes!

Mile 11-12 - This was when things started t

o fall apart for me. I hear a conversation from a couple guys. "Hey, have you stopped to walk yet?"

"Not yet, you?"

"Yeah, stopped a couple times for about 40 seconds."

This was the beginning of the end for me mentally. Really?! People are stopping? I thought this was a race! Well, if everyone else is taking short walk breaks then I may as well join in! That wasn't quite my exact thought pattern but it was sure close. It's sort've like when you see people doing something that you would rather not, but get swept up in it anyways. So, yeah, I do stop and walk. For about 60 seconds about halfway to mile 12. I really didn't even need to stop at this point, I just felt like it'd be a good time to catch my breath and relax. I see my parents shortly before I stop and walk.

Things really start to pick up about halfway through mile 12. This is when the crowd is pretty large and their enthusiasm seems to push me a bit. Runners that are stopping at 13.1 are beginning to pick up the pace and I can tell. People begin to kick. Not on purpose, but I begin to pick up the pace a bit to much; not that I'm kicking with the half-ers, but I don't think I was far off.

Mile 13 - After 13 we pass the half marathon turnoff point. This is an emotionally crushing mile for me. I sure wish I could turn off with those guys. 13.1 more miles? I'm really only halfway there? My legs are already starting to feel like jello. Generally, to be honest, I'm fairly ok at this point. I run the half marathon in 153:55. Good pace and something I was pretty excited about. The street thins out a bunch with all the half-ers gone and I like that a lot. Then this guy runs with me for about a half mile. Who is that dude? Why does he keep blowing that horn? This guy begins to drive me bonkers with his horn blowing. He is actually running a full marathon blowing that horn the entire way?

Yep, he sure was. I laughed for the first 30 seconds; then it just became irritating. I think I thought about Dumb and Dumber and the most annoying sound in the world. I laughed again; then got irritated again. Thank goodness he is moving faster than I am because I may have tackled him.

Mile 14 - I was joined by a great friend. Brian Kuric, one of the guys that I lead on south

campus ministry decided to join me. The picture on the left is actually Brian and I at around mile 21, so a bit further down the race. Brian was waiting for me at mile 14 and it was really great to see him. I needed some serious encouragement at that point.

Chilean miners T-shirts

2010-10-19T08:43:00.001-04:00

From: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/14/the-story-behind-the-chilean-miners-jesus-t-shirts/?hpt=C2.

The story behind the Chilean miners' Jesus T-Shirts

As miners were being pulled from Chile's San Jose mine Wednesday, most were wearing tan T-shirts over their coveralls. The Chilean government told reporters the green coveralls were designed to help absorb the sweat as they ascended to the top.

But Wes Little, a CNN editor/producer in Atlanta, wondered why the miners were wearing the T-shirt over their coveralls. He noticed a logo on the T-shirt's left sleeve for the Jesus Film Project.

Here's what we found:

The Jesus Film Project is a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International, the massive Orlando, Florida-based evangelical ministry.

The Jesus Film Project tells us they have translated the film into 1,105 languages and that it has been seen in every country. You can watch or listen to over a 1,000 of the translations here.

The main goal of TJFP's ministry is to create and distribute effective media in every language, says Berry Fiess, the group's director of field information services.

Seventeen days into the mine accident, CCCI country director for Chile, Christian Maureira, started contacting public officials to see if they could send the miners a copy of the film. Fiess said Maureira was able to reach a daughter and a brother of miner Jose Henriquez.

Through that family contact, the group was able to send an MP3 audio version of the Jesus film and an MP3 audio version of the New Testament in Spanish to Henriquez down in the mine.

The Jesus film explains that the New Testament tells how Jesus is laid in a tomb-like cave after his crucifixion. Three days later, Jesus is said to have risen from the dead. In the Jesus film, women come to the tomb and find the stone that blocked the entrance has been rolled away, the cave empty.

It is unclear if the miners saw the resurrection story as a parallel for their hoped-for rescue, but Jose Henriquez passed along a letter to CCCI's Maureira from inside the mine. Fiess shared the English translation with CNN:

Thank you for this tremendous blessing for me and my coworkers. It will be good for our spiritual edification. I am fine because Christ lives in me.

We have prayer services at 12 noon and 6 pm.

"At the end of the letter," Fiess said, "(Henriquez) said goodbye with Psalm 95:4, which says, 'In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him.'"

A few days later, Henriquez asked Maureira to get them special T-shirts.

"The T-shirts were a gift from Campus Crusade for Christ Chile," Fiess said. "In the front you can read, 'Gracias Senor' – 'Thank you Lord.'"

And on the back, Psalm 95:4.

"Apparently, all the miners liked them," Fiess said. "It kind of solidified them."

No impact man?

2010-09-27T07:15:00.008-04:00

This was the book I just finished this weekend. Great read. I'd recommend it to anyone for multiple reasons.

I've discussed the premise before, but essentially this guy is chronicling a year of his life in which he attempts to have no impact, environmentally, on the planet. This means no carbon emissions (no car/airplane/train/even elevator! travel), no electricity, no trash (think of the difficulty in buying food!), amidst other things.

It's a rather funny book at times, and Melissa and I found ourselves thinking some funny things while reading(more on this tomorrow I hope). This guy starts with the idea that to be someone that constantly complains about the environment's demise, perhaps he should actually DO something instead of just commenting. I wish this were true of so many others and commend the author for his action.

It felt like essentially reading a series of blog entries, and it well may have been, but they were a fun read. He deals with questions like: Can one man really make a difference? Is the care for our planet really worth it? and probably mostly, Is it practical at all for us to happily live in such a way as to have minimal impact on the environment?

Ultimately, I think he'd say that no, one person can't have that big of an impact; though he may inspire others. He would probably also push back on the individuality of the questioner and get us all to see ourselves as more of a unified group than individuals. We can make a difference.

And what makes happiness? My favorite part of the book was his mining for what ultimately leads to happiness and fulfillment. Do we consume more and more things (trash, cars, other waste) because we truly belive it will make us more happy? Do we eat more and watch more tv because it actually does lead to a happier life? Throughout his year on the project, it seems, the answer to personal happiness is in relationship. I agree with this, to a point. The author gives no straight answer, but the hints would say that the way to find satisfaction and peace and joy in your life is to cherish better the close people in your lives. Turn the tv off, put the ipod down, talk more, play more. This is close to the mark, but still will leave us wanted, I believe. What if we find the very people we're seeking our fulfillment from are the very people bringing us the most pain? It's because of his line of thinking many young women want to have babies, or get married. Life is about relationships, they think. I just need to find the right guy, or after they find a guy and realize while he may be a fine fellow, he is not the pinnacle of creation; so, now I just need a baby! Life is about enjoying family, right? To many moms then find themselves desperately wanting. I'm not in bliss! Why isn't my husband and my baby making me the joyful, happy person they're supposed to? Maybe the problem is with them? Maybe divorce is the best option? Should I just try again?

No, tv isn't what makes us happy. Eating inordinate amounts of crappy food won't make us happy either. But I submit that neither will asking our families to be something they're not designed for give us ultimate happiness either. Yes, we should value relationship, and we should cherish our friends, but I think we're missing the bigger story. I wonder if the author is asking us to replace a few things we use to numb the pain of our lives (tv, food, etc) for another (family/close friends)?

We were created specifically, and for goodness and joy. We were told to be stewards of the earth and care for it. We abandoned the creator and forsook the earth. We went our own way in rebellion. Now we are on a constant path to try and reclaim that missing joy, that emptiness that everyone feels to some degree or another; and we look anywhere we can to fill it. All options leave us wanting except the option to return, again, to the creator. He has been ever near, never leaving. God is not distant and remote, but is active and present. He has never turned us over, but has always remained passionately close, despite our rejection. We have continually turned to other things and spit in His face, yet he remains steadfast with his lovingkindness towards us. Let us go to Him now! Let us finally throw up our hands in our seeking after worldly gain and worldly pleasure! Let us look Him in the face. In Him we find joy and peace. He will never fail us; He will never leave us. He has come to rescue His people and taken their just punishment upon himself. He has begun a new day with His new people to reclaim the earth, to be stewards once more. He sets our hearts to singing at His faithfulness and goodness. He has set the captives free! He brings peace to the brokenhearted and will wipe away every tear.

Join me in true joy!

We're diseased

2010-09-17T08:37:00.001-04:00

Yes I know that many of the pictures I put on here have nothing to do with the entry that follows. I'm cool with that; the kid is just cute and I can't NOT litter this blog with pictures of him.

Melissa and I are getting really excited for the beginning of the school year. We have a friend who has graciously been offering to babysit for us everyone now and then and last night we spent a few hours over some coffee and hot chocolate just talking about the next couple weeks and preparing our hearts for what is to come. I think maybe what we both didn't anticipate was that God had plans to search our hearts and dig deeper as to certain fears that we both have and how we can allow Jesus to minister in those areas.

We spent significant time talking about father/daughter and father/son relationships and how we've been affected by those. See, we know that all people are affected in huge ways by their relationships with their parents, but, at least for me, I just don't think about it very often. We just don't spend enough time trying to become more aware of the patterns and thoughts of our hearts. We sort've just live without much thought. Last night God allowed us to dig really deep and expose certain things about the ways we work and think and love. It was great. I love my wife and know her to a far greater extent this morning than I did yesterday morning. And I was quite smitten with her already!

That God allowed us to have that time was perfect timing. A huge part of ministry is just an outpouring of our hearts into the lives of students and this university. We meet with students to just allow our love for Jesus and our zeal to overflow into their lives. We want to let them see our love and get infected with it. Through working through some of our deeper issues, God allowed his light and love to penetrate. Today we feel a greater awareness of him and a greater care for the world and its people that we did before. Let's hope it's contagious.

Transition time

2010-09-15T09:06:00.002-04:00

Still can't believe that little man is 2 now.

I've started spending a lot more time with some of the guys that are in my Bible study and man has it been refreshing. It's just great to come along side and encourage them in their depth of understanding and their faithfulness. It's also super encouraging personally. Statistically things you teach you remember (and affirm) 90% of the time while things you hear only 10% of the time. I've definitely found in ministry that the more I pour things out (teach) the more I remember and affirm them in my own life. The more I talk about faithfulness and service and love the more I want to do those things better personally.

I've mentioned that I'm reading "No Impact Man." Good book so far. This guy has set out as a goal to live one year, as close as he can, with virtually no impact on the environment. No trash, no electricity, no carbon means no cars, no tv, and no toilet paper to name a few. I'll probably talk more as I get further but one thing in particular has been on my mind as I read, well, besides the obvious that we (our family) uses tons of trash and waste tons of stuff and are generally terrible stewards of the family. I've been thinking about his goal and the way he goes about it. He basically starts with a simple assertion, "I need to take care of the earth," and then he actually goes out and does it. For whatever reason, I seem to talk way more than I act. This guy begins something that is pretty hard, but he starts it nonetheless. Contrarily, I seem to talk about the Kingdom (Of God) life and how great it is, but sadly I just don't find myself acting like I truly believe it. I'm a commentator on truth rather than a partaker. I think I downplay my capacity to engage and make a difference; I fail to believe (outwardly) that it truly is more blessed to give than receive. I fail to act in like with the claim that "the least is the greatest." Not only do I just fail to live the kingdom life, but some days I just don't even try. Consider this a corporate confession.

Now I choose to act.

Noah's birthday!

2010-09-13T06:47:00.004-04:00

We can't believe the little dude is two years old already! You know, I always thought those 'older' people that would say things like "cherish every moment because it goes so fast" were just people with misplaced priorities. Honestly. I just thought they didn't spend much time with their kids and they just look up and poof! their kids are bigger and they regret the time missed.
I've had a change of heart over the last two months, since Leah's birth. The thing with babies/toddlers is that almost every day they learn something new. It's just hard to keep up with. Daily Melissa says something to me like, "Did you know that now he says "hey dude?" Or "Yeah he has been doing this lately. You didn't know that?" NO, actually, I didn't because I can't keep up!
The little man is just awesome. Just plain awesome. A rather large part of my heart gets sad at school starting soon and "papa" having to spend more time away. I just don't want to miss a single thing.

What's he like now? Well he is quite a cautious little man. When we take him anywhere around other kids he usually just stands beside us for a good 10-15 minutes just taking everything in. I'd love to hear what's going on inside his head when he watches kids go bananas at the library or at a park. Eventually he'll join in buts its never the full-flight craziness that other kids seem naturally inclined towards.

He loves cars and trucks and points them out all the time. Big trucks or big cars especially get his attention.

The little man is really cuddly which is great for us! Hes like that with Leah as well, always wanting to give hugs and kisses. Mostly it's because he mimmicks everything we do, which is also quite fun. Also humbling, to be honest. Sometimes when I'm sitting there watching a game or something he'll just come sit beside me and watch. Not quite the family heirloom I'd like to pass down. Nothing wrong with tv, don't get me wrong, but I'd love the boy to have better/more constructive forms of rest. I'd like this big boy (me) to have better forms of rest as well.

He got lots of toys from his little birthday shindig yesterday. Last night he particularly liked the baseball bat and ball. We let the no throwing balls rule slide a bit last night and he had some fun with it. He also got cartrackthingamabob that he enjoyed. Hes sick today and was yesterday as well so hes pretty mellow but we could tell he liked all the new stuff. Man do I love that little guy.

On a totally different note: I've decided to start using a handkercheif. I'm fairly certian reading "No Impact Man" is going to make me a hippy. More on this soon, I just thought Noah's birthday warranted this post.

Staff reconnect

2010-09-09T13:00:00.003-04:00

I am increasingly finding that the more I get older the more introverted I become. That, to me, is strange considering I work with students all the time and I'm under pressure to become MORE extraverted. I just find myself longing for that alone time a little more than in the past. I just long for time with the Lord and perhaps my journal and my thoughts. Life just comes at us so fast and I desire more and more solitude and quiet.

We have started staff meetings again. We've spent a good amount of time in the Bible and in prayer for the upcoming year and just the unity and peace on our team. We've also had a fair amount of just community hangout time. I love these times. They also drain me quite a bit. Put me with 3 or 4 other people and I'm great. But put me in a situation with 20 or so people and I can become a bit drained after a time. With all the staff stuff recently let's just say I've been trying to fight to get alone. Also a difficult task with two kids under two.

I started a book that Melissa has been reading called "No Impact Man" and it's been pretty intriguing. His desire is to live an entire year having as little impact on our environment as possible. I've been dwelling on one thing in particular about the book that I'll talk about tomorrow.

I've heard the Buckeyes looked great last week. We missed the game because we don't have the Big Ten Network and with work starting up we all needed some family time. The transition to much more child-care has been ok for Noah but it seems he just really wants to soak up his mama and papa time more because he gets less of it. As for the Buckeyes this weekend should be good. Melissa has family that are Miami Fl grads and I'd like nothing more than bragging rights. One uncle continues to adamantly declare OSU's national championship in 2002 was a cheat because of a pass-interference penalty in overtime.

Big girl

2010-08-31T20:41:00.002-04:00

Leah had her 2 month appointment today. 90th percentile for weight. Girlfriend's putting on some pounds. That's ok. It'll be easier to stay warm this winter. Dr. said she's looking good. It's always tricky trying to figure out if they're growing/eating ok when they're exclusively nursing, but now we know! Either way, she's beautiful. People tell us all the time.

The prodigal children

2010-08-30T08:57:00.003-04:00

I just finished "Prodigal God" by Tim Keller and it was quite refreshing for my heart. In it, he dissects the two lives of the brothers in Jesus' parable in Luke 15. Both seek and try to find freedom, life, and joy. The younger brother turns to selfishness and debauchery. He turns to "popular" sins like money, sex and rebellion. The older brother's err is not quite as mainstream but probably even more common. He tries to find his joy and significance in his own goodness. He is the good church man. He is the moral one.

Both are base and decrepit and I find both within myself to degrees that frighten me. I am the younger brother in my selfish attitudes and life choices. I am the older brother in my having the audacity to find my fulfillment in the father's tasks rather than the father himself.

I am thrown upon the grace of the gospel once more; and I am very pleased by this. Join me, please, in finding your joy and being in Christ rather than your good deeds or your moral life like us older brothers so often do. Join me in dwelling in Christ alone rather than the flighty joys this world promises to us younger brothers.

-We start staff meetings tonight. I am very excited to reconnect with the team and trust God for big things this year. I'll keep you posted about these times.
-One of the things that is difficult with our job is diving deeply into our church community. The time/travel restraints often just don't allow us to do that. Yesterday we had a great time at our church picnic and Melissa and I both grieved this reality on the way home. We love the people at our church and don't get nearly enough time with them.
-Tonight will be Noah's first of many childcare visits for the next 9 months or so. He normally does great with babysitters but the frequency of them, we fear, will bring a not so pleasant transition. Pray for him if you get the chance please.

Learning to jump

2010-08-27T22:16:00.002-04:00

The little man doesn't quite have the hang of jumping quite yet. He does more of a leaning walk thing. Off this stool, at grandma's house, he wouldn't budge until someone stood close enough for him to grab onto for help. It's fun watching him turn less baby-ish and more boy-ish each day.

One of Melissa's big hobbies these days is garage sales. She gets amazing deals on lots of kid stuff and it's way cheaper than some of my hobbies (running for instance). Plus one of the things Melissa loves doing is just being generous and giving what gifts she can and getting cute/good stuff for people with babies is a great way to do that. I love that about her by the way.

I mention this because we're heading to a church garage sale tomorrow morning. I say "we" because the church sales are the only ones that I can really get excited about. We've been to a few churches that have been selling some awfully good books for dirt cheap. You have to know what you're looking for, but we've found some good stuff.

I got a chance to connect with one of the guys I have mentored/discipled for 2 of the last three years and it was really fun. I've missed these guys a lot over the summer. This guy spent a significant part of his summer on a study abroad trip. It was really fun for me to hear him talk about the awesome gospel centered conversations he was having with so many people on the trip. When I think about where he has come from in his freshmen year to now on the verge of his fourth it makes me smile and be in awe at God's work and grace. Just like Noah is learning to jump, this man has learned to live a missional life.

Life update

2010-08-24T14:31:00.003-04:00

I'm still feeling a bit under the weather. Really just a lack of energy. Praise Jesus for java juice. Melissa is still on the verge; it'd really be great if she could avoid it as this is kind've a busy week. We've got lots of things to plan and order before we start our staff planning stuff on Monday.

I'm continuing to get ready for the year by bathing in the book of Acts, and somewhat less in Luke. I love Luke; and have for the past couple years. I just can't move on. I'm jumping around elsewhere every now and then (besides my regular 4 NT chapters a day to read the NT twice each year) but mainly I'm letting Luke/Acts sweep over me. I've begun work on my first four or five bible studies with the guys and I'm pretty excited about it. I really believe that one of the best things I can pass onto any student I come in contact with is a deep love and adoration for the Bible. If these students can fall into and live in this book I'm confident the kingdom of God will breakthrough in any sphere they enter. When the kingdom comes, so comes healing, so comes life to the fullest, so comes joy and peace and sacrifice and love and compassion. I pray all the time that they would love this book.

Other random Shadle family info:

-We gave Leah her first bottle today. Went really well. Still going to breastfeed but once school starts we'll need the flexibility.

-I finished my 17 mile run on Saturday. Ran the first 13 (a half-marathon!) in 1:45 and needed a bathroom pitstop which ruined the flow of my run. Originally that sentence said "needed a bathroom pitstop that ruined my flow" but I though perhaps that could be misunderstood:) All 17 I ran in 2:24. Running the full marathon in October in Columbus.

-We got out Noah's tricycle yesterday and he didn't quite get it. Maybe he's not there yet. He sat on it but couldn't figure out the steering or the pedaling; both of those are pretty important in riding!

-Staff report August 30th. Lots of community time, prayer, preparation, and connecting with God to ready our hearts for the storm that is Fall quarter at OSU. I hope to blog a bit about this.

Cacth-up day

2010-08-23T07:35:00.002-04:00

We've just returned from a trip to Melissa's parents. It was pretty fun. Melissa and I eat like cows when we're there and it was sort've a last hurrah before we buckle down about our diets. She is determined to lose that baby weight and I could stand to lose 10 or 15 lbs as well.

I have a cold right now so that's not a whole lot of fun. Noah does as well. Melissa is bound to be next. I seriously hate being sick. It just saps everything out of me. Most especially it just saps my heart. I don't feel much of anything, and let me tell you, when your job is to be passionate about Jesus and encouraging to everyone around you and you feel dead to the world it's not a very nice combination. I have a feeling today is just going to be one of those days that we try and buckle down and remain faithful despite how we feel. It's drag yourself to work day.

Add and illness to a quasi-significant amount of catching up/procrastinated work (which always happens when we go home) and we could really use your prayers. The schoolyear doesn't start for another month or so, but we both have quite a few things we were hoping to get done this summer that haven't yet been finished.

Noah loves grandma and grandpa Grover. He was more huggy and kissy there than we've ever seen him. It was cute but we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop with him now being back home. They pay him constant attention and he always gets what he wants, but when we're home he doesn't have that luxury and doesn't always transition well.

We started tackling drills! Grandma got him this penguin punching bag thing that bounces up everytime you knock it down. We would run (me on my knees and him prancing, ha!) at it and spear it together and commence with 10 seconds of laughter before we had another go at it. It was seriously fun. I really love that dude.

Melissa and I had some seriously needed connect time as well. I'm afraid I haven't done a very good job at romancing her now that we have two babies. That few hours was precious to me.

This blog thing

2010-08-18T15:03:00.004-04:00

Good friends :)

These are from the "touch a truck" carnival thing we went to one weekend.

This blog is so tough to keep up with. Not sure why, it just always gets lost in the shuffle. Here are some pictures of us as I try to limp my way back into making this a discipline of mine.

SHE'S HERE!

2010-07-02T14:22:00.004-04:00

Leah Noel arrived on Wednesday, June 30th at 9:00 pm! After having contractions on Tuesday night and going to the doctor on Wednesday morning, labor officially started around 10:30 on Wednesday morning. Baby Leah arrived late enough that Melissa's sister, Deb, could be there to help coach the harder labor. She (Deb) was great! She encouraged us to walk around and be active, which is what allowed Leah to be born so early.

Aunt Deb helped a TON through the labor and delivery process...

what a great big sister she is to Melissa

Right after delivery

Noah already loves his little sister

So happy about the toy Leah got for him!

We're in the hospital until this evening and everything is going well. Noah has enjoyed some time with his sister, but of course, probably doesn't really understand that she'll be coming home with us. He's enjoyed playing with toys to distract himself from the reality of his sister, but he does enjoy "crying" back at her when she cries. They're already "talking!"

I'm sure we'll have more to post as time goes on. It should be an interesting transition going from one to two kids. We'll find out. We're looking forward to seeing Leah's personality and how Noah handles being a big brother.

It's begun

2010-06-22T20:19:00.002-04:00

So we're 37 weeks pregnant and I (Melissa) went to the doctor today for one of my normal appointments. Everything is as usual. I'm measuring a little small still but within the normal range. I'm dialated 2 cm and she said I could go really any time. I've been experiencing cramping for the last week so I know my body has been getting ready, just like it did with Noah. I'm not really sure I'm ready for labor again though....

And speaking of which, they informed me today that the hospital requires a doctor to deliver me as opposed to a midwife, which I'm not a fan of. Midwives are always so much more personal. Plus, probably 5 of the 6 in the practice would let my sister actually deliver the baby, so that would be fun (since she's a midwife...just not in Columbus). So please pray that all the details of labor/delivery would get worked out so that I can have a midwife again like I did with Noah. It was such a good experience and I'm hoping for a similar one with this baby.

It's hard to believe that we're 3 weeks away from our due date. Where did the time go? I think the baby's room is ready and the car seats are ready as of today, but what on earth? How do you really prepare for things like this? I have no idea. But we have decided on names. Levi for a boy and Leah for a girl. It was a pretty easy decision once we finally sat down and talked about it. Bart's kind of picky. :)

So please pray for us. We need it. We need grace to approach this new journey we're about to embark on. And Noah will have a transition as well. We're praying he handles it as well as a toddler can. He's a champ though, so I think he'll be ok. We're not too sure about ourselves though.....haha

Taking the plunge

2010-06-15T09:10:00.003-04:00

I'm going to purchase a Mac. I think. Pretty sure. Pretty hesitant, but I'm going to do it! Maybe. Yes. Perhaps.

We've been having all sorts of computer issues lately and we're both just kind of tired of it. A couple weeks ago we got the "blue screen of death" on our laptop, which, in the following days, became more frequent. Sometime last week the machine decided to just stop starting up all together. We start it up and get nothing. It's pretty irritating. It also puts a damper on quite a few things we were doing/planning to do including working on our support raising a little bit. Sort've a bummer that we had this month to raise support for our ministry (and probably this month only with a new baby coming in a few weeks) and it's halted by computer issues. It's also tough to do my current job, which is coaching one year missionaries on their support raising when I can't keep anything organized because our machine is falling apart. Thank you Lord that you are sovereign and all this will turn out fine; it's just irksome in the meantime to have our "control" taken away. We're growing :)

I promise I will talk about outreach week because it was a great week. I'll do that soon.

Greek is going well. It's starting to sink in a little bit more and more each day, and its becoming quite fun to see words that I recognize quite frequently in the New Testament. The language really isn't that hard. I find it easier than French and Azerbaijani.

All boy

2010-06-07T22:46:00.003-04:00

I like to rough house with Noah, so why wouldn't we swing nice and high?

As you can hear at the end, Melissa wasn't super thrilled about it!

Random thoughts from this morning:

2010-06-04T08:50:00.009-04:00

Great time in the Word this morning. I read Acts, yeah all of it. Then Galatians. Then James 1-3.

Spent a significant time with the Lord trying to work out the "faith v works" stuff that's been going on in my head lately. I've been having a few discussions with Hop (our neighbor and fellow staff member) about NT Wright and the "New perspective on Paul" and I've just been trying to get a grip on the entire debate/discussion really. I'm not going to jump in because frankly I just still don't know much about it.

Here's what I've been gathering this morning (and part of yesterday's study as well). I think Paul wrote Galatians around 49 AD, which is significant because it was before the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. It's significant because Paul seems to be on the defense of his apostleship/gospel validity a great deal in Galatians. Also, a commentator I was reading from yesterday even made a hint that seemed to say that he believed probably even James wasn't sure what to think of Paul or this perceived new gospel that he seemed to preach. Perhaps the "judaizers" and "men from James" were the same people? Perhaps they just went a little further than James gave them instructions to do?

I think the heresy Paul is addressing to the Galatians is not so much "Do good works to make yourself right with God" as it is "Do good works to remain right with God." These Judaizers or "men from James" seemed to think that once you were redeemed by grace for free, to remain "in Christ" means to live lives in accordance with the law. Make sense? Paul's answer is, no! You're made right gracefully by placing your faith in Christ. You remain right by gracefully placing your faith in Christ which works itself out in acts of love. It is in Christ alone that we are redeemed, so add nothing.

Then looking at James it seems he is in agreement. He essentially says, "Want to know if the faith you profess is genuine? Look at the works." James doesn't adhere to a "faith by works" system, but one that starts and ends with faith as the thing that makes us right. He is simply clarifying what that faith is, namely, that it's not just profession.

So what pierced my heart is the goodness of God this morning in giving himself to be the redeemer of a lost people. Having redeemed us, he then gives us the privilege of being His witnesses. I get to live out that goodness in being a loving witness, both to those inside my circles (family, friends) and those way outside.

I hope my writing is adequate enough to convey theological truth with any hint of clarity whatsoever, but fear that it is not. Oh well.

Our current lives

2010-06-02T07:39:00.007-04:00

More on the spring outreach tomorrow. For now I'll catch anyone that reads this up on our lives.

Noah is huge. Around 30 pounds and the dude knows how to throw it around. We're starting to have a lot more son/daddy roughhousing and I'm a huge fan of that. He is nearly 2! He's saying all kinds of stuff and getting much better at communicating. He has this big truck that tows other cars around and that's been his favorite toy lately; he loves stacking the cars on there and towing them around. Also loves eating rocks.

Our summer assignment is coaching our interns and stinters (those going on one-year mission trips abroad) on their support raising. It's a job I rather enjoy actually. It's fun to have a front row seat during this process of their lives and watching God show up. Our movement is sending 13 students overseas for the next year to plant ministries! In total we're coaching 21 students throughout the summer. It's keeping us pretty busy. We're actually not even quite done with school yet, OSU's finals week is next week, so we've been pretty busy lately trying to begin to coach those in support raising and simultaneously finish up the year.

We're due July 12th for baby number two. Pretty sure it'll come early and we're ok with that solong as it's not really early.

I'm training for the columbus marathon and sometimes I think I'm nuts. Just got back from a 3 mile trek. Also started up Koine (New Testament) Greek and I've been loving that lately. Seriously.

We just spent our 5th anniversary getting a hotel in Lima this past weekend. Sad, I know, but it was actually quite a good time. We went there because we could drop Noah off at Melissa's parents and already be at our destination. We didn't want to have to spend our little time together traveling or anything. It was awesome to have about 36 hours of unhindered Melissa time. Man I love my wife.

Outreach week

2010-05-17T10:00:00.001-04:00

Check out the article in the Lantern:

http://www.thelantern.com/campus/students-more-spiritual-than-religious-1.1481442

This was on the heels of our outreach week surveys. "Young people are moving away from religion toward a more open spirituality."

46% of students said they believed in something other than monotheism.
67% gave a secular answer for the purpose of life (ie to live for yourself)

This is what we run into all the time. I'm going to talk a bit in the next couple days about our outreach week in more detail but suffice it to say that students at OSU and in the midwest are becoming more and more "spiritual" (interested in spiritual things, though mostly with an eastern religious bend) than they are "religious."

Start out by checking out the article. More later as I try and reenter this blog-world and update you into our lives and ministry!

Formal!

2010-05-15T13:22:00.005-04:00

We had our Real Life spring formal last night. For us old people, it wasn't that exciting to dress up and get our groove on. But what was pretty exciting was the fact that it was held in one of the rooms in the Horseshoe. Yeah, that's right. Noah got to experience The Ohio State stadium for the first time last night. He liked roaming around and stuff. He might have even liked the field. I tried to "let" him go out on the field (which we weren't supposed to do), but Melissa didn't let him get that far....something about setting a bad example for the students. I'm not sure what she was talking about.

Is there a better place for a family picture?

Go on buddy, right down onto the field....I just couldn't stop him.

Not sure how my 7 month pregnant wife could though. Hmmmm.

We had a good time. Noah enjoyed playing with all of the balloons and stuff and had a few dances. All in all, what a great location to be at, right?

Our new place

2010-05-05T14:09:00.007-04:00

It's hard to believe that we've been in our new place for a month now. It has flown by. We're still unpacking and rearranging things slowly but surely. Overall it has been a pretty good process. I don't think we realized how nice it would be to have the extra space. Noah has adjusted pretty well and I think he considers it home.

Speaking of Noah, he's now in his toddler bed. We had it in his room kind of for lack of options to put it and he would climb in and out of it and play but we didn't think much of it. Well, one night last week as we were getting ready to put him down, he climbed in and we thought, why not? So we layed him down and left him there and he's done a great job ever since! Ridiculously easy so far. He did have one night where he was apparently tossing and turning a lot and rolled out of bed twice. Ouch! Sorry dude. There are rails on the sides for a reason but if you lay at the wrong end of the bed, there's not much we can do. But apparently he hasn't been too tramatized by those experiences and has continued to sleep just fine in there. We're really grateful. He's such a trooper.

So that means we took the crib out of Noah's room and put it in the baby's room to get ready for the new arrival. So weird. To think in the next couple of months we'll have another person in our house with us and occupying our time. So the baby's room is slowly coming together. Not much else to do. Melissa doesn't really get into all the decorating junk so I think she's going to hang some pictures and call it a day. I'm ok with that.

On another note about our new place, I actually have an office space. It's in the basement and isn't separated off in any way, but it's my space that I can retreat to in the wee hours of the morning to get stuff done before everyone wakes up. And I need that space now that I'm making coaching calls in the mornings. That will get busier once school is done, but for now since it's on top of my current workload, it's enough. One more advantage to having the extra space is that I now have a work area. So handy.

That's all for now. Blogging hasn't been super high priority lately with how busy things have been. This is outreach week so God has been doing big things on campus. I'll try to post a couple of stories this weekend. We're using a new tool called Perspectives and partnering with OSU's newspaper, The Lantern, to do spiritual surveys with people, so it's allowed us to have some pretty cool conversations so far. More to come on that.

A bit behind

2010-04-26T22:34:00.002-04:00

It's been a little while. Things have been busy. We've moved and are feeling somewhat settled. We still have boxes here and there but we're definitely able to live and function quite well. Our summer assignment has started so the next few weeks will be extra busy since school hasn't ended, but it will go fast, maybe too fast. Either way, hopefully we can keep this blog a little more updated with what's going on. Plus, in a matter of a couple months we'll be a family of 4 and life will only get more busy! But here are a few pictures of our little dude....

We haven't had a family picture taken in a while, this was the weekend after Easter
We enjoyed trying to capture his facial expressions when he would find an egg

I found one!

Baseball season started

2010-04-26T22:31:00.001-04:00

Need I say more?

On the road again

2010-03-20T09:49:00.003-04:00

We headed out yesterday from our place at 8:30 for Florida. We had to stop on campus to meet up with some students and figure out who was riding with who. Around 9:45 we were finally on the road in the suburban with 4 college students and our family. There was another car of 3 students following us.....

Well, about 45 minutes into our drive the suburban started acting funny. The speedometer was jumping all over the place. The cd player stopped working. Then the gas pedal just stopped accelerating all together. As Noah would say, "uh-oh." So we pulled off the side of the road and the hazards wouldn't even work. We popped the hood and everything looked fine so we thought, well, we'll just try again. Then it wouldn't start. Double uh-oh. Phone calls galoure. Call AAA, call Melissa's parents (it's their vehicle).

So then a tow truck was going to come but could only fit 2 people. We had 7 people. So luckily Melissa's mom was at our place (she offered to come pack up some of our stuff....we're moving....another story). So we had her come pick up those of us that wouldn't fit in the tow truck. So after 45 minutes of playing in the dried grassy ditch and trying to pass some bags off to the other car (oh, and Melissa peeing next to the suburban cause, well, she's pregnant and drank a smoothie on the way), the tow truck arrived and then Melissa's mom arrived.

So the tow truck left with Bart and one of the guys. Then we had to fit 4 adults and Noah's car seat in a vibe. Not enough seats. As we're getting 2 guys in the front seat cause we don't have enough seats, we hear the familiar sound of the a police siren behind us. Look back. Yup, a cop car pulled up right behind us. He runs our plates and then walks up to the car asking if everything was ok. Luckily everything was and we explained the situation and he just let us go and told us to be safe. Phew. No ticket.

So I went to the car shop and we watched some March Madness. Melissa and everyone with her went back to our place to get lunch and watch March Madness (well, the guys at least), while they waited for Melissa's Dad to get there with another vehicle (they're pretty sweet, but that's a whole nother blog in and of itself). Her Dad arrived, they all loaded up, and then came to pick us and the bags up at the car shop.

Somewhere around 2:20 in the afternoon, we got on the road again. After squeezing all of us in a slightly smaller suv and figuring out how to fit all of our bags, we were on the road again. Not exactly how we had planned the day out. Noah (and Melissa) did surprisingly well considering. He didn't really get more than an hour nap in the car. We stopped for dinner in KY and then drove to Alabama to our hotel. We arrived somewhere around 10:20 pm and Noah was a hot mess by then. He of course didn't sleep well last night and ended up in our in our bed (actually this was our first experience of him sleeping in bed with us). He was up at 7:00 local time, not exactly what we were hoping for, but what can you do?

We're leaving here in a bit. We all got breakfast and now it's just a matter of getting back on the road. Melissa says we only have another 6.5 hours, so hopefully by dinner time tonight, we'll be in sunny Florida. Let's hope the rest of the trip is uneventful. We'd like that a lot. Would you pray for that? Please?!?!

Other than that, we're looking forward to Florida. It should be a good time of meetings, outreach on the beach and community with around 60 OSU students. Let's hope Noah sleeps well and this is a good week. Then we move the week after we get back. We definitely need prayer for that as well.

More later. Sorry for not posting more lately. It's been an interesting winter.

The Hobbit

2010-02-07T17:32:00.002-05:00

You didn't think I would leave out sci-fi/fantasy did you?

This was my third time through this Tolkien classic and each time I think I love it more. I'll spare you the plot. What I seemed to mull over this time was something about Bilbo that seemed to resonate with me as well.

Bilbo is half Took and half Baggins. The Tookish side of him has the adventurous spirit (obviously because Took's are quite known amongst hobbits as a bit queer), while the Baggins side loves nothing more than the quiet and comfort of home. Often in his journey with the dwarves Bilbo would think of his hobbit-hole longingly. He was continually torn. "Why did I come on this dratted quest!"

I related to this split quite well. Parts of me want nothing more than to grab some hiking gear and just trek across the globe with my family. I'll hunt our food, we'll camp wherever we feel like stopping, and we'll share the gospel with anyone we meet. Even as I think about this I get excited. Yet I love the comfort and confines of home as well. I love coming home after a long, hard day and debriefing with Melissa. I love waking up in our pajamas and throwing some eggs in a skillet.

The adventurous/homely split made me think about lots of other things as well. I'm afraid in to many aspects of my life I allow the Baggins side of me to lead me toward inaction. That part of me fears being exposed, so I'll just remain apathetic. Anyone relate?

Fun times!

2010-02-03T10:22:00.004-05:00

So I know this is technically Bart's blog, but I just wanted to post a couple of fun things. I've been feeling the baby move and kick the last couple of weeks. Well, last night, Bart actually felt the baby move a few times also! It was fun for me for him to be able to experience a little of what I experience. And it's crazy how it doesn't even matter that it's our second child, the feeling is still pretty amazing. To think that God designed this whole process is just mind-blowing. So cool. And our little dialogue after he felt the baby move went a little like this:
Me: Cool huh?
Bart: Uh, it's a little scary actually.
Me: Scary, like, you're going to have another child and you're not really ready for it?
Bart: Yeah.
Me: Or scary, like you're going to have another child and you're not really ready for the first one? :)
Bart: Yeah, that too.

It's such a funny process trying to figure out how we're going to be parents of 2 kids. Life just changes so much but it's good that we're honest about where we're at. Then shortly thereafter, the following dialogue happened after I turned over in bed and moved the covers:
Bart: Hey, stop stealing all the covers.
Me: Sorry, my fat butt just needs more blanket now.
Bart: Well, we both know it's not your butt that's fat.
Me: Yeah, I know.
Bart: It's your ears.
Giggling ensued. He loves to mess with me. And sometimes I let him.

Also, one other fun thing.....Bart will be giving his first talk at Real Life on Feb. 25th (we think that's the date). He's pretty excited about it. Giving a talk/sermon in front of potentially 700 people would be a little unnerving for me, but he's pretty pumped. So if you're in the Columbus area that evening, you should come hear him speak. I'm sure he'll do an amazing job. Let us know if you need more details.

Noah has been pretty sick lately. His temp was 101 yesterday but he's recovering nicely today. And it seemed as though he got behind in his talking in one day and just started busting out new words today. It's fun to try to translate what he's saying. But he now says somewhat coherently, shower, eyes, mouth, nose (this however sounds like no) just to name a few. And he says please in sign language all the time cause he wants something. What a fun age! We're excited to see how he responds to the baby.

The Sacred Romance

2010-02-01T15:39:00.004-05:00

Another great book I just finished is "The Sacred Romance" by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis.

One of my new year's resolutions was to read 26 books this year equaling one every two weeks. I'm way ahead of the game at this point and will probably discuss the others I've finished. Reading for me is a pretty addicting thing, but I feel I've been fairly balanced in my priorities.

This book was dear to my heart. The gist is that throughout history God has been in a massive pursuit of our hearts because of His great love for us. Just as He pursued Israel despite her continual betrayal, He pursues us. But we are wounded. We are hurt by the realities of living in a fallen world. People forsake us and deep down we begin to accept that we're just not all that unique, we're not at all lovable. How could God love a person like me if He knows the things I've done or the thoughts I've had?

The authors go to great lengths to woo the reader's heart by giving a true picture of the awesomeness of God's love for us. It surpasses our pain and doubt. It is true. They point out this love in the telling of the world's story. All of creation and everything throughout history has been about God radiating His love to a fallen, rebellious world.

They get the meta-narrative and it grabbed my heart. Thanks Lord for being the author of all things. Thanks for writing yourself into the story to redeem a fallen world and restore this man.

Sacred Parenting

2010-01-31T13:20:00.005-05:00

This was a great read. The main thrust is laid out in the first chapter, that the goal of Godly parenting is to raise Godly parents.

Yep, you read that correctly. Just as marriage is more about making us holy than it is making us happy, parenting is the same way. God uses the reality of kids in our lives to make us holy.

Our culture tells us something quite different. It tells us that having kids and getting married is the key to happiness, or at least a piece of the happiness puzzle. The Bible tells us that the key to everlasting joy is found in the person and beauty of Jesus. God uses our kids to raise and sanctify (grow) us into the kind of people he wants us to be.

The rest of the book then talks about the reality that true joy is found in Christ and different aspects of parenting that can help us find our joy in him. This is a great read. I've not read many (perhaps not any?) other parenting books, but I'll guess this would be my favorite regardless. So many parenting books are to-do lists that only burden us with guilt at not being the perfect parents. This book is not like that and that puts it at the top of the list for me.

All over

2010-01-17T20:50:00.003-05:00

MLK day of service is tomorrow. Should be fun. I'm hoping to reconnect with Ray at the Habitat restore. I blogged about him a little while ago.

Big week for me and my guys. I'm planning on hitting the dorms hard and sharing boldly and repeatedly. Pray Jesus would give us the words to say.

We're sitting Noah on his potty. Trying to get him used to it with his clothes on before we start getting more intense. I'm scared.

We're also trying to draw a line in the sand about his meals. No more catering to his wims, we'd like for him to actually eat what we offer!

I made a few New Year's resolutoins and actually am holding to them for the most part. Now if we could just stop eating out...

Snow!

2010-01-08T14:46:00.005-05:00

We've had some snow the past few days so we decided to have some fun with it. Noah gets pretty upset when we try to bundle him up in his snow suit, but after a few minutes of wrestling and tears, we're ready to go out. Once we get outside, he's totally content, even if he just stands there. Melissa's mom found a sled for us so he enjoys being pulled around in that. Unfortunately I have a tendency to kick some snow in his face on occassion, but he handles it well. He's such a cool little dude.

Speaking of cool little dudes, he has at least 1 of his molars in, 1 half in and 2 working their way in and he's been a trooper. Sometimes he gets extra cranky, but for the most part, he handles it like a champ. He apparently has a pretty high pain tolerance or something. We're ok with that.

My mom got us a potty for him for Christmas, so we've been having him sit on that every once in a while. Ideally he'd be potty trained before the baby comes so we're going to be working on that. No real training yet, though. Just sitting on it to get comfortable with his throne.

At the Grover's

2009-12-20T08:27:00.002-05:00

We're having a good time on our break. A little bit of relaxing and a little bit of time with family. Hopefully we're being refreshed. It's often a tension for both Melissa and I. If we're not being productive we often just feel uneasy, as though we've wasted our day, or our Holiday break.

Part of the problem I think is that we're not very good at rest. See, to my understanding, biblical rest is time in the care and attention of the Father. It's supposed to be time we take our hearts, hurts, concerns, joys and everything else and just be with God. Believe me, this is what our hearts desire. But we always seem to find time for other stuff, be they movies or trips or books or games or whatever. We tend to view rest much in the same way we did before we became believers, before Jesus became the supreme desire and draw of our hearts.

Do you struggle with this? Have you found anything to work?

God, take control of our break. Let it be dedicated and about you. Let our hearts be molded such that you are the apple of our eye, that our hearts leap at the thought of our communion.

Our newest addition...

2009-12-17T15:07:00.004-05:00

Nope, we're not getting a dog. Although, that would probably be a good investment with Noah deciding that half of his food belongs on the floor. Oh, well.

Yup, we're going to have another little one! On July 12th, or there abouts, we'll be adding another child to our family. The ultrasound confirmed that there's only one in there, which is a relief. We would probably have to move for sure out of our apartment if we had twins! We're super excited! Noah will enjoy having someone else to show books to and throw balls at. We'll maybe have to watch that though. :) Noah was pretty cute at the doctor's appointment too. He was looking at the screen of the baby and saying "ball." Yup, sure. Something like that, I guess. Life will definitely change this summer.

The nice thing is that we'll probably be placed in Columbus this summer to coach interns and stinters who are raising support. We were originally supposed to go to Venezuela for the summer but we had no intentions of having a baby in Valencia, Venezuela! It will be pretty fun to coach people because we've been through what they're going through and we'll know a lot of them. There are quite a few graduating seniors at OSU who are applying for stint or an intern position so it will be a blast to stay connected with them while they're trucking through the support raising process. The other nice thing is that having a baby in July shouldn't really interfere with the beginning of school.

So we're slowly getting used to the idea of added chaos. Luckily we already have the stuff for a baby and lots of clothes to go along with it. Hopefully we'll be a little more prepared this time. :) Please pray with us for a healthy baby and healthy mom and that we would be able to take the next 6 months to prepare well for this new transition in our lives. We really appreciate it!

Parenting thoughts

2009-12-15T09:01:00.003-05:00

I'm currently reading "Sacred Parenting" by Gary Thomas. It's been a great read thus far, I'm only two chapters in. It's quite similar to his book "Sacred Marriage." The latter essentially says that the reason we get married, as believers, is for our holiness more than our happiness. This is totally true, and the reason that Dr Phil's philosophy will ultimately fail us.

Dr Phil, and our culture, would subtlely have us believe that if we could just figure out a healthy and mutually beneficial compromise in our marriage and family, then we will be ultimately happy. Just figure out a system in which you're both giving 50% and both taking 50% and you will gain marital bliss. I find this system quite wanting. For starters, people's felt needs differ greatly. Melissa, for example, has virtually no need to be affirmed. I could tell her she is great all day long and it does virtually nothing for her. But if she tells me how awesome I am, I will climb mountains and slay dragons for her.

So, let's assume that Dr. Phil's philosophy grants that each marriage partner has different needs and 50/50 won't always work (and it may, I really don't know all that much about what he thinks). Then, if I'm a single man, my goal is to find the most unneedy person I can; someone who has no emotional or physical needs at all is ideal because then I get what I want all the more frequently! If I only have to serve 20% of the time, then I get served 80% and that sounds better than the alternative!

Here's my main problem though, with our current culture's view of marriage. The entire premise is that marriage is about our happiness. Let's figure out a way to maximize our happiness so that we will be fulfilled. We seem addicted to happiness but I would suggest we seek it in the wrong places. What if, instead of using marriage as a drug to make us happy, we saw it as an avenue to grow our character and make us holy? What is parenting and marriage were more about refining us as people in the image of God than they are about us feeling happy?

Don't get me wrong, I think as we pursue holiness and character growth in marriage and parenting we will be happier, but the end goal will be our holiness, not our happiness. What if rather than helping Noah avoid uncomfortable and scary situations, I encouraged him to perservere through them, growing him as an individual? What if, rather than using Melissa to make me happier, I deny my happiness, and seek only hers?

I guess the main point is that believers and unbelievers have different ultimate goals. For unbelievers, and our current culture falls here, this life is all we have; thus, we should just try to maximize our enjoyments in the small time frame we have. They have no hope, no ultimate goal for which to strive. After death we return to dust, so let's eat drink and be merry! The believer, on the contrary, has a purpose in becoming more like Christ in this life and the next. Our lives are not about how to maximize our enjoyment in our stay here, but rather how to become more like God for eternity. Our scope is longer, do you see? Marriage and parenting are not for this temporary earth, but are relationships to help equip us for the joys to come.

See, Christianity is about joy and happiness also. But for the Christian his joy is found in Jesus. His joy is in growing in Jesus' character, in experiencing Jesus' pain, in loving the way Jesus loved. The Christian's joy is found in enjoying God. The alternative is to enjoy the creation of God rather than the creator. The unbeliever enjoys the pot while neglecting the potter.

I fear that was perhaps all over the place but there you are!

Update on family life

2009-12-14T17:01:00.007-05:00

We're on break now, which is much needed. Fall quarter essentially consists of running yourself into the ground physically, emotionally, spiritually and any other "ly" you could think of! We're off till around the 27th when we head to Indianapolis for Christmas conference.

Our Christmas present to each other was a family zoo pass. We get to take all three of us and two guests whenever we so desire for the next two years. It's already been put to great use. Noah is playing in the play area above; He really seems to like the tunnels :) Really, he is more interested in the other kids than he is the animals, but we'll take it!

We're heading to Waynesfield for about a week before heading to Canton for a few days, then back to Waynesfield, and then off to Indy. The traveling is one thing we could do without over the holidays, but it seems it's unavoidable. It's great to see family and let Noah play with the grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins though.

Our own manna

2009-12-07T07:14:00.003-05:00

We've had an enormous amount of food given to us for free lately. On Monday we ordered an XL pizza and a L pizza from Papa John's (We like leftovers and had a free L pizza code). When I got there it turns out they messed up the XL and made a pepperoni and cheese pizza instead. We got to keep it. I walked out with two XL pizzas and a large. Needless to say, we've been eating pizza all week.

Yesterday we decided to get one of those family pasta deals from Bob Evans and they made the wrong pasta. We got to keep that extra as well! We walked out of there with two family pasta's (feed 4!) and half a dozen dinner rolls. I can only guess we'll be eating these leftovers for the foreseeable future.

I was thinking about these events and the God we serve. See, we don't really live in a culture, nor do we have needs in which God needs to provide water from a rock or manna from Heaven, but God does still provide. Many would see these events as happenstance or luck or coincidence. I believe that God cares for the needs of His people and will provide. God can use messed up orders to provide for the material needs of His children. He cares and provides for the sparrow, how much more for us?

PS Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I'm planning on 9 or 10 more entries in December.

Our Vet's day

2009-11-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

We spent Veteran’s day in service to different people and areas of our city in need of help. Over 150 campus crusade students gave up their vacation day to help the hurting areas and people in our midst. Many of us spent time in Franklinton, one of the poorest areas of town, rebuilding gardens necessary for food for the folks in that area. Others worked in food pantries, while others helped in homeless shelters. Bart and the guys in the Bible study he leads went to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity for the day. What a joy! Bart spent a couple hours of the day with a guy he met named Ray. They were picking up appliances for people to take back to the Habitat restore. Ray opened up quickly about how he had lost his wife and 2 of his kids in a house-fire, the pain it caused, and the difficulties in trusting God following that tragedy. Bart had the joy of talking to him of the trustworthiness of God and empathizing was Ray about the horrors of being in a world fallen and tainted by sin. Bart also got to help Ray’s understanding of faith, which he had a few questions about. More than a couple times upon the trip, Ray said, “God meant for us to ride together, Bart. Thank you for everything.”

Monday morning thoughts...

2009-11-02T06:22:00.003-05:00

Another week, and I'm pretty excited about it. Which has been rare for me the last couple weeks.

I was finding myself just really really tired. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, you name it, and I seemed to be drained. I was feeling a heaviness just about every day and in just about everything. I think, in very subtle ways, I began to abandon the Gospel the grace, even while simultaneously I taught it! I had made ministry and my life about my tasks and my work. I had been making leading and building students a job done out of myself alone. It's no reason I've been so tired.

Bunyan says, in The Pilgrim's Progress:

"Run John, run, the law commands
but gives neither feet nor hands.
But better news the Gospel brings,
it bids me fly and gives me wings."

I had made life about the law. I was about my tasks and responsibilities. I'm choosing repentance. I want to be about the Gospel. I want to be about the God that gives life. I'll find my joy and heart renewed in the person of Jesus. Join me. Leave the rat race and rest on the Lord.

"Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Fall!

2009-10-25T20:01:00.004-04:00

It's been a while. Things have been busy. We're about 5 weeks into fall quarter at OSU and it's been a roller coaster so far. We're feeling like we're getting used to our schedules. This past weekend we didn't have anything scheduled so we decided to have some fun. Two sweet gals said they would baby-sit on Friday night so we went to dinner and went shopping. It was pretty awful going shopping because I needed some dress shirts and I hate shopping in general, let alone trying to find shirts that fit and I like. But I did enjoy spending time with Melissa.

Then on Saturday, we went to a farm. They had pumpkins, rides, slides and animals. Noah had a blast. He really enjoyed the animals and some of the rides. Really, I think he enjoyed playing in the corn the most. And I, of course, enjoyed throwing Melissa's mom in it too! We have a video of that but I'll need to download it.

Taylor, Seth, Melissa & Noah on the banana bus

Going down the slide, he wasn't very impressed.

Taylor, Noah & Seth

Playing in the corn!

There were goats and pigs and cows and bunnies and donkeys.

Then Saturday evening we had two other sweet gals baby-sit and we went to a coffee shop for a few hours. It was so amazing to get to have two date nights in a row. We were pretty pumped. It was a pretty sweet weekend. Oh, yeah, and Noah is officially walking. We have a few videos but they're pretty long and I don't really want to torture anyone. We'll try to get a short one. He's pretty awesome!

Chaos

2009-09-22T14:05:00.003-04:00

Yes, we've entered the world of chaos. For the last few weeks we've been meeting with our staff team and preparing for ministry. This is the week. Classes start tomorrow. We had one of our student gatherings on Sunday to get students geared up for the week. Then we did freshmen surveys bright and early Monday morning and stood in the occassional pouring down rain for the involvement fair most of the afternoon. Today was small group leader training where we had around 100 students who are leading Bible studies around campus. After that was the dorm blitz, where we all went out to follow up the surveys and talk to students. Even tomorrow, we will be trying to get more students to fill out surveys and have spiritual conversations while doing that.

This first week is so important because it's when students really start making decisions of what direction their college life is headed. We want to share the Gospel with them and get them plugged in to the body of believers right away. Please pray for us, that we would be having awesome conversations these first few weeks and that students' hearts would be soft. Please pray for our leaders, that they would be excited about where God has them and what he's doing through them. Please pray for us during this transition time for our family. Please continue to pray for the last bit of our support to come in. We only have $210 monthly to go! God has done amazing things to allow us to get this far in such a hard time in our economy. And it will be much more difficult to finish our support now that we're on campus and meeting with students.

I had my first Action Group last night. It was awesome! The first week is always so much fun because we always go longer (since they haven't started classes yet) and we really get to dive into each other's lives and hear how everyone's summers went. I'm working with such a great group of guys. There were 11 of them and most of them I already know pretty well and am pumped to get to know them even more. Melissa made dinner for us, no small feat for 12 hungry guys. They were all excited and decided that they want dinner every week! Imagine that, college guys wanting a home cooked meal! Melissa left us to fend for ourselves so she could go to her own Action Group. She's partnering with Elisabeth (who's leading the group full-time) so that she can meet some of the girls and be involved in their lives.

Ministry is definitely different now that we have Noah. It was especially hard to leave him today, knowing that I wouldn't see him for 10 hours. Melissa and some of the other moms are trying to figure out a schedule for watching each others' kids and finding volunteer baby-sitters. We're really hoping that will work out well so that the moms can have more opportunities to get involved. Please pray for that, baby-sitters and that schedules would allow moms to be on campus.

Tonight was our first OCF/Valor planning meeting. This is the name of the ROTC group that meets every week. We're really praying that this will take off this year and that we'll have huge avenues of meeting cadets and midshipmen to have spiritual conversations. One of the Navy chaplains is actually associate staff with Crusade so he's totally on board with helping out in whatever capacity he can. We're praying for huge things for this ministry because these students will be key leaders in our armed forces, and there's such a need for the Gospel in these places where daily soldiers are sacrificing their lives. We want them to know that they don't need to fear death, especially when so many of them face it on a daily basis.

If you want to see Noah's 1 year pictures, the website is http://gretchenphotography.smugmug.com/. Just click on Noah. We'll be getting a cd to print pictures from, so we're (mostly Melissa, cause she's into that kind of stuff) excited to get some pictures hung of him now that he's one!

Birthday Boy!

2009-09-17T20:29:00.003-04:00

Well, it has been an eventful year. Noah weighs 23 pounds, has 5 teeth, crawls everywhere, takes steps here and there, loves to say "ball" and has mastered real food. We had some 1 year pictures taken of him and we're waiting to see how they all turned out. Here's one that Melissa took that day.
We had a party for his birthday, and it actually happened on his birthday! He wasn't very excited about the cupcake, but he enjoyed it nontheless. We decided that this was the only real party we're going to have for him, so we figured we should make it fun. I think everyone enjoyed it. We had it at our church so we could fit all of the families, so it was nice to have everyone play ping pong, pool, play station and more and still have plenty of room to sit and eat. It was a lot of work, but it turned out great!

It's so hard to believe that he's 1 already. For the past year of raising support, I think he hasn't really known at times where he lives. We're closing in though and only need about $200 in monthly support left to go. Now life will change as we're both on campus and we try to figure out a schedule of baby-sitters and other moms to watch him. One of the great things about working with Campus Crusade is that we get to work with awesome college students! So we're hoping that we'll be able to figure out a schedule for some students to watch the staff kids so that the moms can participate in more stuff. It should be interesting either way. I'm sure he'll enjoy the late nights, loud bands and all the college chicks checking him out!

Please continue to pray for us. I imagine it will be a challenging transition from support raising full-time to being on campus and doing ministry full-time. We're excited to be done with support and ready to be on campus. Will you pray that our last bit of support comes in quickly? And that our transition as a family will go smoothly with all of the schedule changes and baby-sitters and whatnot? We're excited!!! Thank you for caring about our lives!

Practice of the Presence...

2009-09-05T08:59:00.003-04:00

I'm currently reading "The Practice of the Presence of God," written by Brother Lawrence in the 15th century. It's crushing me.

It is just so hard to practically be aware of God's presence throughout the entire day. Seriously, try it; especially in our culture, I dare you. It seems we've gotten very good, and I the chief of all, at compartmentalizing God. We have "quiet times" and "prayer times" and then we go on throughout our day with little recognition of the reality of MT 28:20 that says "...I am with you whereever you go."

I do this so much that in thinking on it now I almost literally sick to my stomach. My thought is "ok, I've finished my time with Jesus, and I've finished my faithful acts (supporting raising stuff) today, so now I can enjoy myself! What's on tv?! What football games are on, or are coming up? How is my fantasy football team?" God takes the sidelines and Bart's pleasures take the forefront. It breaks my heart. Oh wretched man than I am, who can save me!? Where can I find hope?

I give my life to lesser things; sports, movies and the like. These things are not bad, but they are undoubtedly lesser. The presence of and intimacy with God in all things is a much more noble pursuit. I think you can enjoy God in the midst of sport, and I think you can enjoy God in the midst of games or movies or just about anything; but I just haven't figured out a healthy way to do it. I don't watch football, for example, and enjoy it with the Lord; I watch football and movies because they entertain, because I can shut off my mind and watch. I enjoy the neurological and emotional impulses those things bring. Really, to be completely honest, is it any different that simple self-gratification? Can entertainment of this sort be any different than a drug addict getting his "fix?" Help please, if you have wisdom on the topic. Share with me some insight into how you enjoy Christ in and during sport or television or video games or movies. I could use it.

And how do you not feel as though you are compartmentalizing God? When is entertainment "healthy" for you, and not just self-pleasure bringing?

My problem is we've gotten very good at justifying things. "I enjoy God's creation when I golf" or "I enjoy redemptive stories in movies because it makes me think of Jesus" or "I love reading because it sharpens my mind/imagination/knowledge/whatever which allows me to more fully grasp and love God." Those are very real things and I admittedly feel the same about all of them. But is it very different from "I just love golf" and "I love movies" and "I love books?" Do we just do whatever we like and then twist God into it? Is that really death to self? Is that denying all and embracing our cross to follow Jesus? I find this tension difficult.

Can you help? Do you have any advice or wisdom to offer?

Our update

2009-09-03T08:38:00.000-04:00

Good when He gives, supremely good;
Nor less when He denies:
Affliction, from His sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise.

I can think of no better way to sum up the whole of our hearts than that saying penned by Brother Lawrence in the 15th century. God is good; His grace and mercy overflows our hearts and besieges our souls. God is good, though support be difficult. God is good, though we’ve lost $225 in monthly support in the last two weeks. This time, from His sovereign hand, is a blessing in disguise. He is working and reshaping our character to His good and perfect will. To thee, oh Lord, we bow in reverence.

Oh how we wish we could rejoice with you regarding the finality of our support raising process! God has not willed it so thus far, so we humbly await that grace from Him. To be sure, it has been a very up and down last few months. We have rejoiced at God allowing us to meet new ministry partners, but we’ve simultaneously grieved a few of our bigger partners that have decided to no longer partner with us.
On the whole, we have been raising support for about 13 months, and to be completely honest, we grow tiresome. The passion of our hearts is to engage students with the reality of the historical person of Jesus Christ, to see their lives change, and to watch the world be transformed by these students. From OSU we pray to send laborers the world over, in every occupational field imaginable to shake the world with the humble, love-led Kingdom of God. Since our support has not come in as of yet, we await our entry into this field. We rally partners to this cause and await God’s perfect timing; that we may embark on the quest He has laid before us.
But the school year is upon us! Surely you can imagine the tension we feel! On one hand we are drawn to embrace students returning from the summer, while on the other we are in need of support. This will be a difficult balance over the next few months; but, we trust that this is to God’s good pleasure. We have learned through this process that God’s business is to redeem and grow the character of His people. He is building in us a joy in Him above all else, that we may be patient and discerning. He is helping us to trust in the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives to become wise regarding our time, our emotions and our hearts. James 1:2-4 says:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Noah is walking

2009-08-31T13:09:00.004-04:00

Look out world! This was pretty exciting for us last night. Check it out.

God is good.

2009-08-22T12:10:00.003-04:00

All the time. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose."

We're clinging to that currently. We got news a few days ago that a foundation that has supported our ministry in a huge way has chosen not to this year. They may in the future but they cannot this year. The news was pretty bad for both of us, and we took it pretty bad. Lots of questions: Why would you do this God? Why can't we just be done with support raising? When can we move on? God, don't you care?

We know that God is more interested in growing our character than he is in doing what we want. Oh, praise Him that that is true. I could think of a hundred things that I/we have wanted but have been better off either waiting for or not getting at all. God is truly in control and we're especially grateful for that.

It's been a while but I'm still planning on finishing up my post on the Gospel (see a few posts ago). I have more thoughts I'd like to get down on paper...err... page. Whatever. In the meantime here's a couple pictures: Melissa thought the first one was hilarious.

On the move again

2009-08-15T09:41:00.002-04:00

We're off to Marengo this afternoon to hang with Melissa's family and celebrate a couple birthdays. Should be a good time. Then we're off to Canton until around Tuesday/Wednesdayish; hopefully to work on some support.

To update support, it's been a bit up and down lately. Lots of phone calls and emails and facebook messages have been sent out this week. Prayerfully they'll reap rewards. We're hoping to have 4 or 5 appointments this weekend.

I'm planning on posting at least one follow up to my post entitled "The Gospel." Read it if you haven't; hopefully I'll get to it this weekend.

11 months

2009-08-14T17:47:00.004-04:00

Noah turned 11 months yesterday. It's hard to believe how fast he's growing up.

We loved this face.

Well, we all have meltdowns, right?

Noah pictures

2009-08-11T10:20:00.006-04:00

The Gospel - please read all

2009-08-10T07:30:00.016-04:00

The thing that struck my heart with the most force at the crusade staff conference was something God brought through Tim Keller on the second day. He decided to talk about the Gospel (which one would think I'm pretty familiar with!).

Keller went on an on about what a meritocracy America is. That is, that we are a nation and people that base everything upon our merits. Have you done enough to deserve a good job? Have your test scores and grades been good enough to get into a good college? Are you a nice and good enough man to be worthy of a wife and family? Even, you will get presents for Christmas if you are a good little boy all year.
If yes, then you're good to go! A good job is yours! A good school, a good family are yours! If not, then you just don't deserve them. You get coal.

In Christian circles it's more subtle. Do you pray regularly? Do you share your faith? Do you study your Bible and know a great deal about it? If these things are true, you are a good Christian! If not, uh oh; you may not be a Christian at all, or so the thinking goes. At the very least, you are a bad Christian. You get no results in ministry, and you do little to impact other people. You aren't living a good enough life.

This meritocracy, or merit-based world we live in, is hard to shake from our psyche. You get what you deserve may as well be (a part of) the American motto.

I was doing this a great deal. Subtlely, I began to think that God was more pleased with me, and I was more loved if I was just more faithful. If I made more support calls that day, then God was happier with me. If I read the Bible more than God was happier with me. If I prayed a little more... you get the point.
And conversely, if I was not doing those things, than the guilt was heavy. God must not like me much today, I'm such a bum. God can't be pleased with me, I don't deserve it today.

The question, then, is this: Is that true? Is God happy with me when I'm good and upset when I am not? Is it true that Jesus loves (only, or so the implication goes) "good little boys?"

This is how I felt. Utterly trapped!

The answer, NO! Romans 4:4-5

"Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. "

The Gospel is an absolutely free gift! We do not "work" to be made right with God; rather, God gives us righteousness freely! To the man who does not work means exactly that. The wicked man that does nothing and deserves nothing; that wicked, lazy man through faith, God justifies!

That is scandalous! That is not fair! God, you give your love and grace and righteousness to bums?! For nothing?!

Yes! That's the scandal of the Gospel, and of the grace of God! That's the message that frees the captives and sets the prisoners free. That's the message that has brought friends of mine back (literally) from the edge of suicide. That's the message that has captured hearts of people all over the world. This is not Islam. God will not weigh your good and bad deeds on a scale at the end of your life, as is true in that religion. Rather, and truly, God will look on you and ask if you've embraced and cherished the free gift. Did you trust God, and place your faith in Jesus to forgive you of all unrighteousness, past, present, and future?

See, I made it about me. What was I doing to be a good Christian? Was I being faithful? I was not living as though I was already made faithful by the blood of Jesus. I was living as though I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and be faithful. Then, during worship following Keller's talk, I relinquished my action and submitted to the God that forgives for free, the burden was lifted, and the guilt was removed. I didn't have to try; I simply had to place my faith in the one who accomplished all. Oh how my heart sings at being free!

This, I remembered, is why I do what I do. I'm on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ to bring people to the point of recognition of this reality. Don't you see (I want to cry) that you are under a burden that is to heavy to carry? Don't you want freedom, unlimited mercy, unending love and acceptance from God? Embrace Jesus! He is given you for free; it costs you nothing, you wicked men! Come to the God that forgives and gives, come see His beauty! How can you not love this God?

The Kingdom of God is no meritocracy.

Post #100

2009-08-08T13:08:00.005-04:00

That's kind've exciting.

I weighed in at 215 this morning, so I lost 6 lbs in one week! Sheesh! I stayed at the 2,000 calorie diet and let Jillian beat me around 5 times this week. I also went running twice. I must admit I feel more energetic, which is nice. As is true for most people, when I eat sloppily I just feel sloppily.
Jillian annoys me with some of the things she says though. "If you want abs like these you have to work" and "you don't get shredded overnight" or something like that. It annoys me because I feel like I'm investing in our culture's love of vanity. I'm not working out to look good, I'm working out to be fit. I could care less if I look good with my shirt off; I care that I live to see my grandkids and that I'm the kind of good father and husband that my son and wife need. Rant over.

We got Papa John's pizza last night per my wife's request and she let me get an anchovy pizza! It was stinkin awesome. I love anchovies though I only get them maybe once a year. I'm having leftovers tonight and I'm stoked.

Support has sort've hit a stall. This morning I made nearly 30 calls and talked to 2 people. One of the calls was super encouraging, but nonetheless, overall, the morning was a bit disappointing. We're so close, but we want to continue to rufn the race to win. We can't quit just because the finish line is in sight; we have to push harder.

Noah talked to us the other day. Well, ok, he didn't talk to us, but he signed "more." It was pretty exciting. We're communicating!
Hes breaking his fifth tooth in currently as well. The dude gets a bad runny nose and real congested when he breaks teeth; we just feel terrible for him. The best is when the snot runs into his mouth.

Draw you scoundrel!

Catch-all

2009-08-06T15:41:00.004-04:00

I'm feeling pretty terrible today. Currently I'm watching Rudy hoping I don't throw up. Not sure what brought it on, but here's hoping it's just a one day thing.

Last night was fun. Melissas mom and dad came down to babysit Noah for a few hours and then we all had dinner. Melissa and I went to watch the new transformers movie, which we really liked; action the whole time. Melissa cooked stuffed peppers and man were they amazing. Maybe I'm ill because I ate to much? Did i mention we went out for ice cream afterwards?

Last Saturday I weighed in at 221. My goal is to be 190 by January 1st. I'm not a bit ashamed to admit that I've been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred. It totally kicked my rear the first few days, but I'm starting to get in a bit better shape already. I was so sore i was having trouble walking those first couple days. Working on around a 2000 calorie diet also, nothing special, just limiting the calorie intake.

God brought so much to my heart at CSU. Staff conference really was quite awesome. It had its trouble traveling with a 10 month old, but we really connected with the Lord and the Body a great deal. Hopefully in the next few days I'll talk about some of the stuff Tim Keller, Larry Crabb et al brought before me.

part 2

2009-08-05T09:37:00.003-04:00

Apparently, for me, "I'll blog tomorrow" means give me a few days. If that. My apologies.

Hopefully that last post made sense. Re-reading it I feel maybe I failed a bit at explaining my ideas, and the writing was a bit poor. Regardless, I'm moving on; my major objection for non-exegetical sermons (sermons that do not study, in depth, a particular passage of scripture):

My understanding of Sunday morning messages is that they are to teach. They are to mentor, or disciple, the attendees in the ways of faithfulness and Godliness. They are als to be wise in the way they do this.

Most messages these days are essentially pep-talks, or simple exhortations. By simple exhortation I mean a basic piece of advice. The pastor has essentially one point and then he rambles for 25-30 minutes about it:

"We should read our Bibles! Look at 2 Timothy 3:16 - The Word is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training.... Let's read our Bibles! If you have been struggling with reading your Bible lately, repent now and come to the altar. Today can be the day you change. Ok now, with every head bowed and eye closed... who here could use more Bible reading in their lives?"

Messages like this have one point, in this case to read your Bible. Why not just say it and move on?

Here's my problem. Why? Because the pastor gave me one random verse I'm supposed to just jump in? Besides, I have no idea how to read my Bible. Where do I begin? What about when struggles come? What are good resources? Why is it important?

I'm rehashing that I hate being told what to do; and to be honest I have a general distrust in a great deal of pastors these days. I've failed to move to my point I think, here is attempt number two.

A pastor's role, and I believe the role of the church, should be to grow the congregation. Seeker friendly churches and stuff like that just seem a bit off to me. The church should be about teaching and growing it's members, not watering things down so that the messages come in catchy topics. Bring the meat! Non-exegetical sermons fail to bring the meat. Pastors that do this fail horribly at equipping the congregation in it's knowledge and skill in using the Bible, and deciphering true and health exegesis. They are just dumbing things down to simple nuggets. No wonder we are so apathetic to things of God; it's for unintelligent robots that like being told what to do.

The outreach should be left to the members of the church, not for Sunday mornings. Let's leave the analogies and the catchy word-plays to the members of the church trying to reach the people that need such things (the unchurched). Let's bring the depth of knowledge and meat to those members of Sundays.

Exegesis

2009-08-02T17:32:00.003-04:00

I love Biblical exegesis. From Wikipedia: "Biblical exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of the Bible. The goal of Biblical exegesis is to find the meaning of the text which then leads to discovering its significance or relevance."

And I struggle with 95% of sermons these days because we just don't get that. We get alliteration and catchy topics, but leave the Bible almost wholly out of it. Melissa and I have listened to a great deal of sermons that are essentially:

"Today we're going to talk about getting fired up for God! Jesus was fired up for God! Here is a passage where Jesus heals someone and look at his reaction, he's fired up for God! Whoo!"

Then the pastor will tell a thousand other analogies of people or whathaveyou that talk about that topic, while leaving Biblical exegesis on the sideline. Can God move through these messages? Sure, but I'm just not a big fan.

Here's why. The pastor is essentially telling me what to do. I hate that. Partly because i'm a "pastor" of sorts and I hate telling people what to do. I would (and Jesus did this also) much rather bring people to the foot of God and allow them to see their own sin and need for change. I just don't care that much about what John Smith or Jane Doe pastor has to say about world issues or even how I should live. It's not motivating to me at all; afterall, I'm not living to please them, I'm living to please the King of Kings. Show me what He has to say.

Another reasons I have issues with non-exegetical sermons is that the pastor may be totally misunderstood.

I have heard two or three messages essentially saying, "don't doubt, just believe." Misunderstanding people have taken this to the extreme and just checked every healthy skeptical thought they've ever had. A healthy skepticism is often good for our faith. Where would we be without CS Lewis, or Francis Schaeffer, or Tim Keller? These are people with honest questions that brought them to God. God doesn't want us to check our curious minds and just believe; He does want us to bring them before Him though. --- Now, I don't think those pastors would disagree with me, but because they failed badly to exegete the text they were trying to preach from, the message was all jambled. Bad theology follows. Apathy has followed that, at least in the American church.

One other issue I have with non-exegetical sermons I'll discuss tomorrow. Perhaps I'll flesh out those ideas more too.

Back to blogging

2009-07-31T10:02:00.003-04:00

I have LL Cool J's "Going back to Cali" in my head as I titled this post. I'm going, going, back back to blogging blogging.

I have lots and lots of thoughts from this last week and a half at CSU for crusade's national staff conference. Tim Keller was bringing it, as was just about everyone else I talked to.

Starting a diet tomorrow. Crusade has a wellness program in which they're willing to donate $5 to our staff account for every pound lost between now and January 1st. Sounds like incentive to me to lose 30 lbs or so! I'm probably around 225, but I'll officially weigh-in tomorrow and keep you updated. Eating at a cafeteria buffet all week definitely was not good for me, and neither was knowing the official weigh-in is august 1st; it made me want to chow-down until then. I haven't decided if I'm getting a gym membership or not, I'll go check it out today. I'm just considering running more and lifting a bit, but I'll add some junk into that should I get a gym membership.

Deeper thoughts coming tomorrow.

I love Aaron Badenhop

2009-07-28T21:56:00.002-04:00

That's all.

My first plane ride!

2009-07-22T16:39:00.006-04:00

(Noah speaking) So yesterday I got to take my first plane ride. It was strange. Mom & Dad made me sit on their laps for a long time. Well, excluding the one time Dad let me crawl half way down the aisle. It wore me out. I got to take a short nap though. It was a 3 hour flight, so I needed to get some much needed nap time in. I've attached some pictures. I especially enjoyed looking out the window.

You never can be too safe when it's your first time flying.

Cool, dude!

I wore myself out again on the shuttle to Colorado State University. I liked it though. Big windows on the bus. Lots to see.

So my first plane ride was pretty good! Now we're staying in the dorms at CSU. I'm not even a student yet and I'm living in the dorms. Not sure how I feel about that. The food is good.

We went to the fair last night and got to see all kinds of people and there were rides and stuff. I didn't stay out too late though. Mom and Dad were pretty tired and kept telling people I needed to get to bed. Sheesh.

I even got to go to hang out with some other kids this morning. Mom just dropped me off and left. She did pretty good though. No crying or anything. Some of the other Moms and kids were crying but we handled it like a couple of pros. I think we're gonna try to visit the other kids a lot while we're here so Mom and Dad can go to the meetings. I liked it so we might as well, right?

Well, that's it for now. I'm liking it here. We walk everywhere, and by walk, I mean Mom & Dad push me around in my stroller everywhere we go. I'm having fun and meeting all kinds of new people. I hope I remember them when I see them again.....

Crazy few weeks, and it's getting crazier

2009-07-20T08:56:00.005-04:00

My brother got married last weekend. The week prior we spent a great deal of time in Canton hanging our with the family, and it was a really great time. We golfed a bit, played some games, and learned the thriller dance. It was a bit like my childhood actually...

The wedding was a lot of fun. Everyone was super stressed, which is always sort've fun for me. Sometimes I think I should be a firefighter or ER doctor or something because often when people around me start freaking out I get unnaturally calm. I remember one time Melissa and I were driving home on a rainy night and at an on-ramp we started to spin and hydroplaned 180% so that we were now facing oncoming traffic. On an on-ramp! Melissa was driving and obviously panicked. I just sort've calmly said, "everything's ok baby." I put the car in park because we had stalled and then I said, "We have to restart it," and she did. It was a pretty cool time for me. I was just ridiculously calm and she started up the car and we turned around and drove away.

I was like that for the wedding and other events. Everyone was bouncing around stressing and anxious and I sort've leisurely strolled around enjoying the day. I hope my brother enjoyed the day as well.

If that flower doesn't say "laid back" I'm not sure what does!

Great time seeing the nieces also. Lots of cute pictures I'll probably post hereafter.

This week has been spent packing and getting everything ready to head to Colorado State University for 10 days for Campus crusade's staff conference. It's always fun traveling with a baby. Pfft.

Yes I kicked over a little girl

2009-07-18T16:38:00.004-04:00

Check it out, from my brother's wedding reception this past weekend.

This was a ton of fun. I was a little flustered after booting the girl over, but I got back on track at the end. Everyone was super suprised.

Back on the support trail

2009-07-16T08:31:00.004-04:00

Been on somewhat of a hiatus lately, so it's good to get back in the swing of things. We currently need about $900 in monthly support, so we're getting close! We've had a crazy week, and I'll post about it in the next few days. Getting back to MPD (ministry partner development) is always tough for me if I've neglected it for a few days. See, contrary to the majority of crusade staff, I am not a self-starter. It's difficult for me to create inertia, but once I get going it's relatively easy to keep the ball rolling. Thanks to God for the grace of today's inertia!

I spent this morning thus far reading through the entire gospel of Luke. When I study a book of the Bible, every week or so I like to read through the entire book to solidify the "big picture" of what the author is trying to convey. I think this is wise; often we can take small snippets (sp?) of what one small section of the Bible is trying to say and then form what turn out to be misguided and small conclusions. Yes, let's study each verse (For example I'm reading Darrell Bock's Commentary on Luke and I'm 200 pages in and we've just finished the first chapter), but let's not neglect the entirety of what Luke is trying to say. Each verse of each book falls into a broader picture of the books main themes. Thereafter, eve, each book falls into the broader picture of what the entire Bible is conveying. Context is key. So, I'll read through all of Luke one day each week while the other 6 days I'll really dig into the specifics.

Many other things running through my mind; those should give me blog-fodder for the next week or so. Stay tuned...

What's ahead:

2009-07-07T08:38:00.002-04:00

You sly dog...

Heading home tonight for my brother's wedding on Saturday. Should be good times seeing all the family. We play a ton of games, for good and for bad. Meaning, for instance, my mom said she got about 5 people together to play a game of "rail-baron" a few days ago and it broke out in fights and other nasty stuff. On one hand we're spending time together, but on the other perhaps it's not the most edifying time to be had. I plan on golfing a few times over the week and it should be interesting because I haven't golfed in maybe two years. I may have went last year but I just can't remember.

We're trying to set up some support appts and work on MPD while we're there as well. If you could pray for this that would be awesome; for the obvious reasons, whenever Melissa and I are with family we seem to not be very productive. We want to remain faithful to our MPD (ministry partner development, or support raising) while we're there nonetheless. I plan on leaving a few mornings to head to Mcds for some coffee and MPD time.

Melissa's last day at the law firm is today. We're excited to move on to the next chapter of our lives. We have enough support to raise our paychecks to livable standards, so she turned in her notice about a month ago. They're going to be sad to see her leave undoubtedly. She has been an off (Baku, OSU) and on pillar for that accounting department for 5 years or so. We will both miss things about that place and hopefully we can stay in touch with some of the people there.

After my brother's wedding is Columbus for a week or so and then off to Colorado for a national CCC conference. Should be hectic. Fun, but hectic.

Rough Weekend

2009-07-06T14:03:00.002-04:00

We headed to Melissa's families house for the 4th weekend. It started out pretty great. We had family come in from all over the place, her cousin from New York was there (and they threw a suprise birthday party) as well as other out-of towners. Great food, great conversation.

The 4th was fairly uneventful. We had some family things, but I just wasn't feeling very well. I wasn't all out sick, yet anyways, just a bit under the weather. We went out with her mom and dad that evening to a chinese buffet and man was it good. It was good the next morning, also, except it was coming out instead of in.

I woke up Sunday at 3AM or so and never went back to sleep. Was on the toilet and puking for the majority of the morning, not a good time at all.

Worse yet, though, Melissa's mom and dad's dog Spencer (who was Melissa's puppy for five or six years I think) passed away Sunday morning as well. He wasn't old, but not young either, I think he was 10. It was emotional all around and I admit I would've been a lot more said if a parade wasn't going on in my nether regions. Melissa actually was petting him when he passed away. Spencer was a great puppy and he'll really be missed. They buried him that day and I was sad I didn't get to help or be there.

It's funny how we just bond with pets, dogs especially it seems. I've said it in joking, but I'm pretty serious as well, that dogs just represent a lot of Christ. They are super forgiving (you could yell and scream at them and the next minute they're right by your side), they are loyal, and the good ones like Spencer are obedient. Melissa used to joke in college that she didn't need a man because she had her dog. To a small extent I think she was on to something there. Obviously a friendship with a dog is a small glimpse of what we were created for, for intimacy with God and fellowship with each other.

Tough family stuff

2009-06-30T14:09:00.004-04:00

I got a phone call today from my older brother that was rather tough.

Heres the situation. My younger brother is getting married in a week and a half, and his bachelor party will be this coming weekend, July 3rd and 4th. I found out about the date of the party about a month ago and was a bit dissapointed because I knew Melissa and I were busy that weekend. Melissa's family is having a get-together over the weekend and we had committed a few months ago that we would be coming. You see the dilemma: honor my word to Melissa and her family? or head to Canton to be with my brother to celebrate his bachelor party.

I chose the former, and I would do it a thousand times over. Melissa is first in my life (well actually a distant second to Christ). She is my world and my loyalty belongs first and foremost to my promises to her. Ephesians 5:31 says:

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."

I have left my former family and have begun a new one with my bride. Yes, family still plays an important part in our lives, but it is secondary to my unity with Melissa. She comes first. This is a tough marriage lesson, but one that I hope I'm grasping better.

Anyways, my older brother was disappointed (and said my younger brother was also) that I couldn't come to the party. To his credit, he was looking out for my younger brother and make his wedding stuff special, which is a good and commendable thing. I tried to explain that we have prior commitments, and that my allegiance is to the things I've promised my wife. It saddens me that I'd dissappoint others by this, but I guess that's the way it goes.

Anyone else have similar issues? Is leaving and cleaving a difficult thing for you? Care to share?

Diapers

2009-06-29T17:29:00.004-04:00

Cloth diapers.....yup, we're trying them. No real reason other than we want to be better to the environment. We're not really sure it's gonna save us a ton of money, but we're trying it. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Oh, yeah, I'm cute!

E.T. phone home

I'm just getting ready for my senior pictures.

I need to master the one where I rest my chin on my hand. Yeah, you know the one.

Recent Email

2009-06-27T09:55:00.003-04:00

If you've been getting our ministry updates, you know I've been doing a bit of evangelism and disciples through the medium of email. Every minute people from all over the world are seeking counsel and advice for life, and we want to be a part of helping all nations hear the Gospel.

Today I got an email from a guy named Ekpes. He asked, "Why do wife inspite of what you do for them, love and care for them even owe debt just to satisfy them still nags at issues that worth nothing." A tough question. Here is my response:

Marriage is a difficult thing. I can definitely sympathsize with you, that I often feel like my wife and I are fighting over "little" issues. Really, I think, our fights are about deeper aspects in our hearts. When we fight over little things, it's usually our wives way of telling us that we've hurt her in some way. Perhaps we aren't loving her sacrificially? Perhaps we put other things before her? Perhaps we neglect her feelings or put her down? It's tough because we are sinful people, in need of grace ourselves, but our wives are as well. The only cure for stuff like this is Jesus. I love Hebrews 4:14-16 that says:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathsize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

So, Jesus understands this plight! He was ridiculed, mocked and even betrayed. People thought he was crazy. Definitely Jesus understands what tough relationships were like. God would have us look to Jesus, who understands the frustrations we deal with, and accept the grace and mercy to cover over the sins! I would love to be in contact about this. Let me know how I can help! I will be praying for you.

Thanks for reading. I hope this encourages anyone in tough circumstances that may read.