1 year…

Happy birthday to my one year old boy, today.  At exactly 4:00am, one year ago, this morning, a beautiful, 7 week early little boy was born via emergency C-section.  He wasn’t supposed to be very healthy.  Small lungs, dysfunctional kidneys… God had other plans.

Today, we are celebrating life.  In particular, our son and the blessing he has been over the past year.  From the NICU to Texas, just like that.

Thank you all for the prayers you have offered on his behalf over the past year.  Without them, I’m not sure where we’d be.  We love you all!

A Tough Road

As the day has progressed, I feel that I need to pause in the job hunt and offer prayer for my brother-in-law.  To make a long story, of which I’m not even sure about all the details, really short, he needs our prayers about struggles that are hard to describe without sounding demeaning.  As ministers, I think one of the most difficult tasks is to learn how to genuinely, honestly and completely unselfishly minister to all people.  Ministry to those who live in darkness, those in the light, those warming pews, those under bridges, veterans of the faith and so on.

Please pray for clarity, humility and a calm, Christ-like spirit.  We all need it, but especially my brother-in-law, since he is the face, even sometimes the punching bag, for this brand new church…

Please pray hard.  We need God on our side.  Not that he isn’t already, but we need more warriors.  We need radicals willing to follow a radical leader.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on all of us, sinners.

Searching…

I can’t even find the words to express my thoughts this morning. I was feeling a little nausious yesterday, but I’m doing a little better today. No food poisoning, no stomach bug, just the sick feeling you get when you realize you’ve been walking down the wrong path for too long, only to find yourself hanging off the face of a 2,000ft. cliff.

Explaination in paraphrase:

I had a job a month before we moved here.  I get here, the job falls through.  I hunt for a job for two weeks.  We gather with our core team and some mentors and prayerfully decide I should be fundraising and working with VineLife instead of job hunting/working another job.   Now I’m back hunting for a job for reasons I’m still somewhat angry about and working through.

The cliche goes, “It never hurts to ask.”  Jesus himself even said, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened…”

My question:  Is there anyone who would be willing to make a radical sacrifice and help a state-side mission working family?  The work here is far too vast for us to sit around and worry about where our money and food is going to come from.  We need $135,000 for the next four years.  So far, we have raised close to $13,000.  I know God is alive in this world, though he may be silent at times.  This blog, of all things, is one of the ways that I am NOT going to put God in a box and say he can only provide through conventional means.  This is completely unconventional.  The truth is, that’s how we are living our lives right now, outside the box.  But, we still need support.

Please keep us in your prayers.