It's fun to stay at the YMCA!

During the long President's Day weekend we took the kids up to a YMCA camp for a few days of winter fun. We had some friends, Craig and Joanna and their two kids, join us which made it all the more fun. The camp was right on Torch Lake and the night before we arrived they got about 18" of snow (the first real snow they had received all season). The accomodations and food were OK, but the outdoor experience with the kids was great. It was the first time for our 3 to ever put on skis, and they all picked up it very quickly. We went on both semi-groomed and ungroomed trails, and the bright sunshine glittering off the fresh snow as we glided (ok, there wasn't much gliding going on...) through the woods was a sight I wont soon forget. I'm not certain, but I think we made a memory.

Classic Emily!

Here is our daughter - Emily. She is the one that keeps us all laughing on a daily basis. She is full of energy, imagination, and has tons of personality. Not to mention that she happens to be extremely cute and smart. She loves animals (has about 500 stuffed animals that she sleeps with every night...) and is very tender hearted.

Emily turned 8 this past year and is blossoming before our eyes. She is an excellent student (already a better speller than Mom or Dad...) and is one of those students who really expects to get an "A" in every subject and probably will.

As mentioned earlier, Emily is our animal lover. I remember one time when a friend of mine, Greg, shot a big doe and I brought it home to hang in our garage for him. I was worried how all of this might affect Emily - I didn't want to upset her. After hanging the deer she and her siblings came into the garage to check it out. She walked over to the deer, began stroking the "fur", and with a very serene look on her face said "I just love animals". That apparently applies whether they are dead or alive!

Emily is probably the sweetest 8 year old on planet earth. And she is a precious gift of God to our family!

Wellspring in Winter

Here is a picture of Sandi and I at Wellspring - one of the ministries that grew out of The Church of Saviour in Washington D.C. The day before we flew out we got about 9" of snow - it was really beautiful! The fresh snow capped off what for us was a time of getting quiet enough for long enough to hear the voice of God.

Grant holding 8-point

Just wanted to take a few minutes tonight to tell you about our son, Grant. Here he is at a wild game dinner our church sponsored last month holding a nice rack from a buck that was taken by a friend our ours, Rob Quigley (with a bow at 15 yards on Halloween of '05). By the way, did I mention that Rob is all of 17 years old! (Where do you go from there?)

Anyway, Grant is now 6 years old and is all boy. We shoot bows together in the summer and fall. He loves anything to do with weapons, danger, sports and any type of competition (especially competing against me - he wants to know how long until he will be bigger and stronger than me...). The testosterone is already flowing! Last year he sat for about 2 hours with me in a tree stand and amazingly kept his focus for most of the time. I look forward to the day he takes his first deer - I hope to be right there cheering him on.

He is a great kid and watching him grow up into a young man before my very eyes is quite a sight to behold. One of the things I love most about him is his tender heart. Often, when we are talking about someone who is in need of prayer, he will ask "do they know God?". He is genuinely concerned that the people we care about know God and have the grace and love of God in their lives. As he grows older and gets "tougher", I pray that his heart stays tender toward God and the people he has placed around us.

Son, you might find this entry in some archive a few years from now. And if you do, I just want you to know that I love you and that I am very proud of you.

Church of Our Saviour Visit

Our Journey Group (7 of us that are part of a continuing ed experience at Western Theological Seminary) just wrapped up a 4 day trip to Wellspring - one of the ministries started through The Church of Our Saviour in Washington D.C. On this trip we were able to invite up to 3 people each from each of our faith communities (some house churches, and more typically structured local churches like the one I am a part of).

This was a great experience. I was able to bring my wife, Sandi, along.

The 3 things that this community tries to balance are the inward journey (spiritual formation through spiritual disciplines), the outward journey (missional work, especially among the poor and marginalized), and doing both of these in community.

Another take away was the idea of forming a small group around a call (outward journey), instead of around affinity or the like. It was said that if you develop a small group around some other purpose, and then try to develop a missional focus, it almost never works. And this was our experience with our house church experiment - so I resonated with this idea.

Sandi and I are following up by reading a couple of books by Elizabeth O'Conner that tell the story of The Church of Our Savior in greater detail.

We also got a chance to meet Gordon Cosby and hear some of his heart and vision - very cool.