The BIG 3 0 !!!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

Today is Benjamin's 2 year birthday. There are days when it totally does not feel like 2 years have already come and gone but then there are days when I look at how he walks, how he talks, when I watch his sense of humor, when I am amazed at his interest in different things, when he gets so excited about learning about the world around him and when he is just absolutely sweet as he can be to his Mommy, his little brother and to our friends & family. His vocabulary continues to grow by leaps and bounds each day. Each morning lately he's wanted to read a couple of books and play with mega-blocks for at least half an hour (sometimes much longer) before getting ready to eat breakfast. He's done really great with all the changes with having a new brother under roof and with all the various company we've had come through the last several months. I believe that the Lord has already allowed Benjamin to really deeply touch several peoples lives and I really look forward to how the Lord will continue to work in his life more in the years to come.

Thought You'd enjoy a just born picture of Benjamin and one of him about a month ago.

Nepal & Merton

Last weekend we had some fellow Asburians stay with us. They have been on the mission field with Word Made Flesh since they graduated from Asbury... hmm... 10 years now. It was great to catch up with them and our hopes were that they would have some down time and a relaxing visit before the got on the road again and spoke at several churches. I was really impacted by the time I was able to share with them. At one point on Sunday evening after dinner we had 8 kids under 7 years old, two teenagers (to help with the kids) and 6 adults all running around the house. It's great to hear about how the Lord has worked in their lives and how they continue to allow Him to guide their family and ministry. You can read their blogs on the links to the right.

Although I'm a bit slow on it I finally finished reading Thomas Merton The Seven Storey Mountain. It was a good book for me to read at this point in my life. Reading this has helped me began to think again about the role of fasting, the role of being contemplative (with regard to understanding more about God), and about how we should learn from God how to be happy.

"By the gift of Faith, you touch God, you enter into contact with His very substance and reality, in darkness: because there is nothing accessable, nothing comprehensible to our senses and reason can grasp. His essence as it is in itself. But faith transcends all these limitations, and does so without labor: for it is God Who reveals Himself to us, and all that is required of us is the humility to accept His revelation, and accept it on the conditions under which it now comes to us: from the lips of men."