lazy saturday

Sometimes Saturdays call for cookies....and little boys for makin' and eatin' them. :)

yes, Thad gets dressed sometimes...and that's Ian's cooking hat :)

getting crafty

I made aprons! This summer while cleaning out my Mimi's sewing room, I found a vintage apron pattern and immediately wanted to make one. After picking out the designs from all the old vintage ribbon, ric rac and fabric lying around, I made these a couple of months later. They are so fun and I love wearing them while I cook! I had a friend over the other evening and she loved the fun look. You know, that's who I am. I love old things like that... I love vintage items and even hope to make a lot of my own clothes once we return to the states. Mainly because there is a lot of fabric waiting around for me at my mom's house from my Mimi's old sewing room. If you didn't know about my obsession with old and antique things, now you do! I'm a sucker for scraps that others would throw away. Everything can be used and recycled to make something more useful.

I made some for my sisters too :)

"May your hats fly as high as your dreams" - Michael Scott

So I gave my first graduation address today. Sort of. I had the priviledge of speaking today in a Chapel service dedicated to one of our seniors who was graduating early. I've never done one of these things before so I was pretty nervous. I ended up speaking about the future and how students tend to deal with/think about it. I think that most students fall into one of two categories which I feel I have named appropriately:

The Mollie
This is the ideal student for teachers. This student is focused on doing their best and thinks a lot about the future. They have their plans laid out and are seeking to do their best to accomplish their goals. The problem with this student is that they can sometimes become too foucsed on the future. Some kids have their life so planned out and are so focused on getting where they need to go that they miss being effective in the present.
(My wife was more of the former description than the latter, I simply chose to use her as an example to the kids because several of them are just like she was in high school).
The Thomas
This student is fine to have in class. They don't necessarily disrupt things, but they are known for being a bit talkative. This student lives for the here and now. "Why worry about tomorrow, it will take care of itself," is their motto. The problem with this student is that they can be so focused on today that they make no plans for tomorrow. They love people and relating to them, but they don't always think about the long term consequences of their choices.

Both of these types of personalities have their own strengths and weaknesses. Thankfully, Jesus loves both of them and gives some great advice that helps to put the present and the future in their proper perspectives. A Pharisee once asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. His answer is awesome becuase it is present tense, with future implication:

Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Loving God with our heart refers to an emotional love that arises naturally from a growing relationship with Him. Loving God with our soul refers to our volition or choices that we make. Loving Him with our mind involves our intellectual nature. Even what we study in the academic world is important to Jesus. So the basic summary is that we are to love God with the totality of who we are. This is the starting point of being useful to God: Loving Him with every part of ourselves. It's only when that is the starting point that we are able to accomplish the second part of the commmandment, to love our neighbor as ourself.

There is a huge focus today on helping others. Scripture is clear that this is a noble and good thing, but Jesus qualifies the commandment to do this by stating that it flows from a heart that is focused on God.

• When we love God with our heart, we love the things He loves and, conversely, hate the things that He hates.

• When we love God with all our soul, we choose to act on those things by reaching out to those in need in the world around us. We also stand with God against those things He hates and work to prevent them from occurring or end them if they are already present.

• When we love God with all our mind, we understand that all of what we learn academically can be of use to God. The things that we choose to study will play a major role in making us into the people we ultimately become. And who we become, is of great importance in terms of how God can use us in this world.

For students, loving God with all they are in the present affects the choices they make now that play a massive role in who they become. The challenge for all of us is to love God this way so that we are useful to Him in our local and global communities. This is the heart of Jesus' message and the only way that we can keep the present and the future in their proper perspectives.

Some Christmas photos

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas time and a great start to a new year!

Where have the ornaments gone??

So this is the culprit! I knew somebody was taking the ornaments....

But how can I punish this face :) he starting grinning when I found him up there. They know they are in the wrong... and they are hoping their charming little toddler look will help them out.

Thad decided he would help me out, but I had to explain that a Ninja sword fight was not going to help the situation.
No children were harmed in the making of this picture

Now, if I could just find the ornaments.....

Merry Christmas!!!

it's just too cute a picture...

Well, we made gingerbread houses. Not your traditional style... but we had fun regardless of the interesting creations. When all was said and done, there were more sprinkles on Thad's plate than on his house. Plus I found more under the table later.

This one above is mine, with Santa and his reindeer

mine again..

Here's Thad's creation and you can see his sprinkles on the other side.
We had friends over who joined in the fun and I will make sure we do this next year as it is so fun!!

Sorry

Some of you have tried to view our blog and unfortunately could only see a bright red color! We're sorry for that. We do have a lovely background but it can only be read by certain programs and therefore defaults to unreadable red. If it's not fixed now, please tell us. But all should be right again and we thank you for your patience with us as we make our blog look "pretty". Thomas just loves the new look!! :)

Pictures from The Journey

Thomas teaching. He can't live without a whiteboard.

One of our kids taking communion.

Thomas again...rocking his "Matthew's Party" t-shirt and Velcro "old man" shoes.

You should buy this for yourself or someone else for Christmas

From the album "Come Let Us Adore Him".

I cry like once or twice a year, and it usually involves Manchester Untied losing. I admit it though, I cried like a baby listening to this song and eating french fries tonight. Let me explain, because there's some history here. I have been especially overwhelmed by the incarnation this year as I've been doing my quiet times and studying for my times of teaching. I really don't even have words. I mean, I'm rendered speechless when I try to wrap my mind around it.

Last night at The Journey I taught on the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John. They deal so beautifully with what it meant for the Word to become flesh (mankind) so that He could show us the best way that life could be experienced.

Have you ever thought about the world that Jesus was born into? The Roman Empire was in the middle of it's most glorious period (the Pax Romana) and yet the people of Rome and the surrounding world found themselves disillusioned by religion and philosophy, overwhelmed by a rising materialism, and immersed in every sort of debauchery and immorality. Surely they felt their emptiness and yet had no answer for it. For the Jews, they found themselves locked into a religious system of their own creation. Blinded by their own self righteousness and desire to be separate, they had completely lost their mission of being a light to the nations around them (Isaiah 60:1-5).

Jesus steps into this bringing grace and truth. To the gentiles, truth. All of the false idolatry and immorality that failed to satisfy them and stood in stark contrast to the truth presented by Jesus. He demonstrated what it was to live a life of meaning and purpose that wasn't a slave to physical desires, something severely lacking in the Roman world.

For the Jews, He revealed grace. The following of the Jewish Law had become its own religion that differed from its original intent at the time it was given. For most, the law was something to be kept in order to please God and was also a source of pride (something God ins't a big fan of). The problem with law is that it's mostly focused on "do not". The grace that Christ offered freed people from the burden of the law. This freedom allowed people to take the focus off of their own behavior and to focus on reaching out to those around them in need, both spiritually and physically.

I pray that you can really spend some time thinking about the incarnation and that it was directly for people like us. Whether you came out of hedonism and idolatry like the Romans, or self righteousness like the Jews, "the Word became flesh," for us all. That's what makes it a Merry Christmas.

We're Not in Kansas anymore...

We'll I was walking through the foyer and around the tent my boys had set up right in the middle of everything, when I glanced back and saw this sight. I started laughing and wondered how we killed the wicked witch of the east? This is how I found it, no tampering with the set up here! It's funny and of course my boys have no idea what movie scene they created.
But it turned my thoughts towards how I feel sometimes as we continue to live in a foreign land. This is not "Kansas" anymore and I feel lonely at times without much connection to home. I know that lies come from the evil one to discourage us and so I encourage myself in the Lord. But to be honest, we do have days where we feel so out of place. Even as our ministry here is going really well, we tend to doubt at times that we're making a difference. Again, we covet your prayers and encouragement as we daily connect with students or staff and desire to be used to the fullest. As always, the homesick feelings come during holiday time, but we know this will be another wonderful Christmas celebration. As we focus our eyes on the Lord, we are reminded that we are all in a foreign land and not "home" yet. Because Jesus himself was willing to come to this world, we can have hope for our future and the promise of a true home where we'll find true belonging.

Thanks for caring for us and checking in with us! We love to hear from you and think of all of you so often.
Blessings to you this day!

This is kinda regressive Turkey dinner... at least it's how I'm portraying it for you!

20 lb Turkey!!

The before shot... yes those are pears for our place cards... :)
Definitely a wonderful day and lots of yummy fellowship!

More info on our youth church

Here is the handout we made for our youth church. I'm not sure if you can read it but if you click on it you should get a close up. I thought it was really cool how my friend Cindi highlighted certain words. I wrote a paraphrased version of Luke 24:32 for it. "Didn't our hearts burn within us when He spoke with us on our journey and opened the scriptures to us?" I thought that was really cool and it worked with the original text.

The Journey: We're not a band. We're like a church type thing

At about 5:45 in the morning sometime this past June, I found myself sitting in front of my brother-in-law's sweet computer thinking and praying. I had ridiculous jet lag because we had only gotten to D.C. the previous afternoon. I remember praying and asking God what His plans were for VCS for the coming year. I remember that I just starting writing down ideas and then a vision for each of the ideas.

The thing I spent the most time thinking about was the idea of a youth church. Because of the diverse student population of VCS we frequently have kids that come to know the Lord from various cultural and religious backgrounds. Many of these kids come from homes where they have never been to a church. This could be because the family simply never went or because they were hostile towards the idea. The issue is that when these kids come to know the Lord at VCS they often have opportunities for discipleship but many never actually attend churches.

As the summer progressed I somehow managed to misplace my idea notebook. When we got back to Vienna we jumped straight back into things with school, chapel, and soccer. And then we had Spiritual Emphasis Week. As the week came to a close I discussed ideas about follow up with teachers and our speakers. In my heart I clearly heard God reminding me of the vision he gave me early one morning in the summer. I shared this idea with a few teachers and our secondary principal. Everyone thought it had amazing potential and so we started planning. What we came up with was The Journey: A Youth Church.

The Journey is intended for, but not limited to, these types of students. We want students who come to know the Lord from non-Christian backgrounds to experience a church community. Having The Journey be connected with the school provides an atmosphere of familiarity for both the students and the parents. Yesterday we announced the idea of The Journey to the students and we have had an amazing response. I think the coolest thing for me was discussing this idea with a small group of students. One girl said that she had come to know the Lord during her first year at VCS but has never been involved in a local church. She said that she was so excited about this because it was a church that she would feel comfortable being a part of. I seriously got choked up.

With the goal of reaching our kids in the context of their world, we decided to start a facebook group and a website. We already have 30 or so kids who have joined the facebook group and kids are leaving comments about being excited about things.

As you can imagine, this thing has taken a lot of work on the part of numerous individuals. The beauty of things is that God puts certain people in certain places to be used for His purposes. Myself and another teacher have been the main idea people but we have several people who have been involved in publicity and graphic design for things. We also have a tech (snort) guy handling our website. So this whole thing is pretty exciting.

Please be in prayer for The Journey. Our first meeting is Wednesday December 3rd. I'll post a bit more about the vision of The Journey as well as our structure and idea about the order of things later.

More photography from Thad

what's a better subject than your naive little brother?

too much tilt

almost there....

that's better.

Tilly

Last night we had the privilege of going to our school play, Tilly. A book written by Frank Peretti, it tells the story of a couple who chose to abort their baby only to be haunted by the memory forever. As the story unfolds, you find the mother dreaming about her little girl in heaven. I want to say so much more about the journey this family takes, but I won't ruin the story as I'm sure you will want to read it. I knew this would be a hard story to tell, but our students and one staff member did an excellent job!! Truly, I was moved to tears and felt like I could have really lost it at several points. As a mother, I cannot fathom choosing to kill my child. But the beauty of this story is the reality of God's grace and forgiveness found in Him. The couple does find true and lasting forgiveness in the arms of their Savior. How many women have chosen this path? How many more will choose it once the law makes it easier and more acceptable to do?
This play challenged my heart to pray for the mothers who have given in to the lie that "it will fix everything". Life and breath is God's to give and take away.
One of staff couples has an amazing story of the choice they made to glorify God despite other advice. When they found out their baby would potentially have brain damage due to a cyst found, they were encouraged to abort the baby and start over. But as they prayed for God's will and blessing, they found their baby was healed with no trace of this cyst anywhere! Today my son plays with their son and calls him his dear friend. God has a beautiful way of telling His story to the world and when we are willing, he will use us! Last night's performance was directed and led by this couple who made a beautiful choice to trust their Father. They had the privilege of watching their 3 year old boy debut in the play as a "little kid". What could be sweeter than to see your boy given life and now telling the story of how precious life truly is...

Picture perfect

At a fountain in the volksgarten downtown. I hope they will remember these days in Vienna... good memories are being made.

Science Fun

i realize this picture looks quite weird... but I can't get it to rotate and forgot to do that before I posted it. I'm lazy i know, but if we're sticking with the science theme it kinda looks like he's in a fetal position. Just about ready to come out... I'd say that's one big baby!

There's nothing as fun as getting your very own box to play with! he's pretty mad that his little brother is throwing toys into his "fort".

The next few pics are from our experiment. We simulated a volcano erupting with baking soda, vinegar and soap suds for added bubbles. We tried it in two cups of different heights. I definitely used the sink for easy clean up and was too lazy to make volcano out of play dough. But then again, it was unplanned and more of a last minute "I'm going crazy, must think of something to entertain them" type idea.

He looks pained... but I assure you he enjoyed it! By the way, that's a before shot.... somehow this post got all backwards and complicated. Sometimes my brain feels that way. I'll do better next time!

Thanks...but no thanks!

So, this is worth posting about b/c it made me laugh and want to throw up all at the same time. Today my precious children were helping me clean the house. I had been on the floor on my hands and knees scrubbing the tiles while Ian was trying to help but getting in the way! Then I heard Thad rustling around in the foyer and I came out to find that he was washing the floor. He had his little broom and was pushing it around while water was being smeared on the floor. I said "Oh, how sweet honey, thank you!". Then as an afterthought, I asked him where and how he'd gotten the broom wet. He promptly and very proudly proclaimed, "the toilet, mom!"

AAHHHHHH!!! I was disgusted that toilet water had been smeared on my floor...especially since I hadn't cleaned the toilet yet this week ;)

Bringing you More chaos from our household to yours!

The Redeem Team

I'm not a big basketball fan. I love the NCAA tournament and I enjoy playing every now and again, but really it's just not my thing. I am however a big team USA guy as soon as the Olympics role around and it honestly doesn't even matter what sport it is. Maybe some of you are even like me and you've actually found yourself getting really into an intense match of water polo just because the USA was involved. All of this to say that I actually enjoyed watching the basketball in the Olympics this year and was proud that team USA redeemed themselves after their less than stellar showing last time out.

Yesterday in Chapel I spoke about Halloween and redemption (clearly connected I know). I started off with some of the history of Halloween as well as some of the misconceptions about the origin of Halloween that have sometimes been propagated within some Christian circles. Basically, Halloween does not have its origin in the Satanic sacrificing of virgins or anything like that. It was essentially a New Years Eve party for the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe that was eventually "Christianized" by the Catholic Church with the introduction of "All Saints Day."

Because of its connection with Pagan practices it became associated with Satan and Demon worship during the Middle Ages mainly b/c the non-Christians still celebrated the Celtic fest (10/31) while the Christians celebrated All Saints Day (11/1). That's mostly why nowadays people dress up in costumes with evil and jacked up themes. Those were the things associated with devil worship in the Middle Ages.

Anyway, the main reason I brought up Halloween was because it is a somewhat divisive subject and it clearly does have some evil things associated with it. Dressing up like witches, demons, and other things associated with stuff that is clearly condemned in scripture is certainly not a good idea. But I wonder, people are sinful and commit evil all the time and yet, they can be redeemed. Can we as God's people redeem things that some have taken and used for evil?

We do this all the time whether we realize it or not. If you and your spouse waited until marriage to have sex than you technically redeemed human sexuality from the way that it is portrayed in the culture. If you've ever taken part in a sporting event and in your mind and heart chosen to enjoy playing because it is a gift from the Lord than you have been a part of redeeming something that in many cases is used for personal glory and pride.

The idea of redemption is kind of a big deal in scripture. It's really the whole theme of the Bible because the idea of redemption is buying something back, remaking it, or using it the way it was originally intended. In Genesis 3 all of the perfection of how Man interacted with God and His creation got really screwed up because of sin. Now Man is really jacked and so is how he views and uses stuff (technical terminology I know).

The beautiful thing about God's plan is that He gives Man the opportunity to be redeemed and made new (2 Cor. 5:17). I really think that along with this comes the ability for Man to redeem or reclaim good things that God has given and to use them in a way that honors Him. That's what makes being a follower of Jesus such a cool thing. Because we have been redeemed (made new again) we have the ability to experience God's creation closer to the way that He originally intended it (it ain't quite there yet...see Rev. 21-22 for future details).

So as the Church let's hop on board with being the worldwide redeem team. Those guys in China were the "redeem team" because they put things right (America = owns everyone else in basketball). Let us live in a way that shows how people and stuff (even Halloween) can be redeemed when the focus is on the Lord Jesus. And let us join with all of creation in looking forward to the redemption that is to come (Rom. 8:23-24) when our bodies and all the stuff around us will be fully and completely MADE NEW!.

Pumpkin Part 2

Mmmmm.... Pumpkin seeds roasted! So, while Thomas and Thad were carving the great pumpkin, I was separating the stringed membranes from the seeds. Today we roasted them and they taste so yummy. First we added 2 tsp of olive oil and then seasonings to taste. I chose cayenne pepper, garlic powder and some cajun seasoning we had on hand. Of course you need to salt them well and then mix all ingredients together before putting them on a pan. Bake at 300 for 45 minutes checking and stirring every 15 minutes.

The result is a great snack and very rich in vitamins! Thad tried one and liked it...but then didn't like the aftertaste. We'll see if he'll try some more later.
Hope you can make some from your pumpkin!