Selah's Baptism

A few months ago, Selah felt called to give her life over to Jesus. She's been wanting to get baptized for awhile now, but we wanted to wait a little bit while her decision settled. We don't feel like Scripture teaches pre-conversion baptism, so we wanted to wait until we saw her life and heart's affections changing. We had some Americans over to eat and then had a small ceremony. Don't mind the mess on her clothes, it was part of our potluck. :) One of our American friends also decided to get baptized. He wanted to have a post conversion baptism, so we did both he and Selah on the same night. Here she is giving her testimony. She did a fantastic job!



What a blessing that in the same year, Brad has gotten to deliver our 4th baby (he literally caught him) and baptize our oldest daughter.




When Brad asked the group if anyone had any questions, Malachi jumped in and asked Selah "Do you believe that God is strong?" And he asked the other guy "Do you believe God is good?"






The Lord has been abundantly good to us. We are seeing Him grow our kids more and more each day. Selah, we love you and are praying for your walk with the Lord to continue in richness and covered in His mercy!

The Power of Modeling

Recently, I pulled off the shelf a book we have that helps parents apply particular texts to particular character and life issues that face our children and family.

I read the following verse, "As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him." (Ps. 103:13). I immediately thought, "I can't teach this. I'm not compassionate. They've never get this." How my soul ached. I felt debilitated in sharing God's word with them because of my deficiency in character.

This morning I heard a talk based on the following verse: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it" (2 Timothy 3:14)

(An older pict of Malachi)

Can I and we appeal the the hearts of our kids and friends for the sake of the gospel saying, "Remember who you learned this from..." (i.e. me, for one) Paul sometimes say, imitate me. This is a penetrating question not just because it exposed the dark corners of our character but we then have to distinguish the difference between our "moral" example and our Christian example---that is, in what respect is Christ unambiguously and blatantly savored and glorified, not just "God", "church", "bible reading", "heaven", etc.

Last night, some good friends of ours gave us a date. We talk about how often we and others sometimes use the excuse, "But I never had an example for _________; so that's why I can't do this well (in life, marriage, parenting...)"

We have to find out what those areas are that (1) hinder our ability to teach the whole word of God, displaying Christ as our treasure, & (2) may be family bondages for which we have no example to draw from (perhaps, our families rarely spoke about personal matters, never openly celebrated the glories of Christ in conversation, romance between spouses,....)

As you pray for yourself, please pray for us.

New Niece!

Carrie's sis gave birth to our first niece yesterday (this is her 3rd, and the other two are boys)!

We are so excited for them. Both mom, dad, brothers and baby are doing great. Her name is Grae Cecile and she was 7 lbs. 8 oz and 20 in. I'll try and get some pics posted in the next few days.

Welcome to the family, Grae. We pray that you will love in humility and gentleness as you grow up. That you would be a woman of wisdom and prayer and total satisfaction in the Lord.

We Love You!!

Who says? (Reflections from Single Fatherhood)

Carrie has been gone all week. It’s been my turn at single parenthood. I’ve heard people say in the past things like parenting will make you patient….blah blah blah. Who says? A week alone with all the house duties, homeschooling, my normal responsibilities, I’ve not feeling any more patient. It’s like one of those other half truths….time will heal. (Any one still remember those embarrassing moments from junior high? Yah, my pride still hurts.)  Only the Holy Spirit makes us patient (Galatians 5:22-23).

 

Rather, kids and time simply show how sinful I (we) am. It’s not a fun process, but necessary. Like the law, it doesn’t save you but at least it shows you your need and how big those blind spots actually are. It’s been a tough week mainly on my heart as I’ve been disgusted with the inner murmurings and anxiety of my heart. My prayer has come from Colossians 1:11…to have “endurance and patience with joy.” This has been a great week of reminding me that I don’t get Jesus…his character is beyond our comprehension. Unless we go through trial or periods of pain and exposure, we’ll never be in such awe as we ought. For that I’m thankful.

 

For those of you who know me best, you know I am incessantly meditating on two topics: (1) Calvinism (a.k.a. Predestination, Election, Doctrines of Grace, (insert your favorite name)) and (2) parenting. This week has challenged me to reread one of my new favorite parenting books…which I commend to you.

 

“Sacred Parenting”—not your typical parenting book. It’s about how to take advantage of the process of parenting for the sake of our spiritual growth. I’ve never read anything so right on and clear as this one. I highly recommend it.

 

(For those who want an exceptional—outstanding—“how to” suggestion, I suggest “Shepherding a Child’s Heart”. Revolutionary among modern books…wonderful application of Scripture without platitudes, generalizations, and psychological babble)

 

 

 

 

Na, I won't kill you...

So I'm gone this week. And I just read our blog and actually was encouraged by Brad's blog. The fact that he can be at home with all 4 kids by himself and still even fathom another kid, was fun news. We'd actually love to adopt at some point in the future. Who knows?!

So it's been weird being gone. People have said "are you loving being gone and being without kids for a little bit?" And actually, while it's been nice to travel, I feel off kilter. My world is never about JUST me, so now that it is for a week, I'm not sure what to do with myself. And I love being wife, mom, diaper changer, chef. I love that role and I love all the ups and downs my life brings. I will be going back home tomorrow and I'm pumped.

I've also realized lately that the students that are now graduating from college, could have been kids I baby sat. I'm starting to really feel the chasm between me and single people. I love single people, but I'm just so far removed from their world.

That's it for now. I'll be home tomorrow. Oh ya, if you think of us, pray for my sis. She's due with baby #3 any day now!!!


ps: as I write this, I'm eating carrot cake and drinking a caffe latte, so life's not too bad!

Carrie's Going to Kill Me for this Blog

Let me first say: WE ARE NOT PLANNING ON HAVING KID #5.

 

With that said….we are baby name lovers. As you all know…our kids don’t have “normal” names. In fact, if we did somehow have a kid, it would be a curse to name him or her “John” or “Mary”. (For those of you who just said to your self, “somehow?”, yes, we both know how it happensJ)

 

Anyway, we’ve thought of a girl’s name that would fit our family if we had another one (Did I say we’re not planning on another one?) We can’t share it because we love it and don’t want it stolen just in case we’re surprised. However, boy names are tough to be creative on while still fitting our apparent criteria for kids’ names.

 

We’ve always named our kids (1) to spur spiritual conversation and (2) as prayers for their lives. Consequently, they’ve all been Biblical in some way. In our kids’ names, we have English, Hebrew, Greek, and Chinese represented).

 

Any suggested boy names?

Last Week and Graduation

We made it!! My wonderful husband came home last night and we all survived to see him come home. Here's a few pictures from our time. Here's an American friend reading to Selah and Malachi. There aren't many Americans in our city of 2.5 million, so the ones we know we treasure dearly. She and her husband have become good friends and are a really great source of encouragement to us. She came over one night to help me through was I affectionately call "Melt Down Hour". That would refer to the 5-7 pm time in our home. That seems to be the hardest period of time in our home. We're all too tired to function well.




Here's Kesed and his friend. She is so cute. And I'm not sure why, but I always feel like pictures of Chinese babies need to be in black and white. Her mom told me that there's a saying in China that is common among parents and it's basically "I don't need an umbrella, I've got my head." She sings it to her often, especially when our kids hang out because her head is so much bigger than Keseds.









Here's a good friend of ours! She LOVES kids and is not at all intimidated by 4! That's a rare find here. She's really a treasure to our family. Malachi took the second picture!







And here's Selah's graduation (we had this in the 24 hours that Brad was at home). So now she's officially a 2nd grader!!! We are really proud of her. She is reading chapter books and remains so curious about everything. She's really into history at the moment. Her heart for serving our family and sharing good news with others is phenomenal. We love you, Selah!






There's a one month old dog that lives in our apartment complex and our kids have fallen in love. They and several other kids have been playing with the sweet puppy every afternoon. "Maybe a few years from now" has been my response :).

single mom-take 2

So it's the second round of Brad being gone. Every time he's gone, my respect for single mom increases tenfold. The news around our house is that Selah graduated 1st grade and started 2nd grade this week! She's so excited and so am I. I'll do a graduation post as soon as I have some time to shower and breathe.

It's actually been a wonderful time with the kids. God's really been pretty incredible in giving me help. We've had tons of people come over and help out with things. And it brought me to discover the cure for singlemomness:

Prayer

Friends

and Paper Plates.

Simple Pleasures Time

To try and counteract my frustration blog of a few days ago, today I came up with some 'Simple Pleasures' I get to have by living here. It's good timing, because my husband is gone this week and returns for 24 hours and leaves for a few more days, so trying to stay positive is a good thing. Actually, my time with the kids has been great. Ok, ok, I'll call this one 'Simple Pleasures of the Motherland':

1. Buying strawberries that were literally picked that morning. And then paying $2 for 2 pounds.

2. Watching my kids play outside with friends.

3. Listening to my kids build boats out of yogurt boxes because their toy supply is limited. Their creativity has been a blessing to watch.

4. Eating vegetables at almost every meal.

5. Having the store ladies tell me I'm too skinny. :) I think they expect me to be huge because of the 4 kid thing.

6. Buying food, socks, plungers, and blankets, all from street vendors.

7. Flying kites in the Spring time.

8. Surprising people when they discover I can speak Chinese. Sometimes I wait to reveal this information so that I can eavesdrop.

9. Breaking the stereotypes of what they think of as 'American'.

10. Hosting these 4 sweet girls everyday during their rest from school. And occasionally a random grandma and her grandkid.

Many days are hard, but I wouldn't trade anything (ok, maybe there are a few things :) ). He is Good.

kid pics

These are some pictures I took this weekend. There are a couple of things I like to pretend to be. One of those is a photographer. The other is a rock star. Actually, my sister is an AMAZING photographer. That link thingy is to a few of her pictures. I'm really proud of her.

But here's some pictures of the kiddos. I realize my boys got overrun by girl pictures this time. Sorry boys.











We had a little graduation ceremony for Malachi on Saturday. He's officially done with Kindergarten and movin' on up to 1st grade. He called it his "gladuation party"

I just want...

I know that God is good. I know that He has His hands in our lives. I can see Him vividly displayed right now in our time here. But there are sometimes that the "I wants," seem to take over my thought life. It started last night as I was reading some blogs of some friends. They are making cute crafts, buying cute curtains and dressing their kids in cute clothing. I went to bed longing for something fun and cute. This is a really shallow post, but my thoughts nonetheless. Many think that people living overseas shouldn't struggle with this kind of stuff. For us, it is the very fact that we live overseas that has exposed this junk. I digress. Here's a list of
"I wants," that I have been collecting in my mind since my blog reading episode last night.

I JUST WANT:


To have a picnic with my family without 15 other people standing around us criticizing our parenting.

To allow my kids to run through grass.

My kids clothes to be clean, which never happens here.

To see my new niece before she's 5. And to see my other nephews and my other friends' babies/kids outside of a picture.

Hot water to wash my dishes and take a shower in.

A week to go by where nothing breaks in our apt.

To call up family and tell them come over to watch a football game. Not pingpong.

To call up friends and have them come over to eat chips and queso. Yes, the processed cheese that clogs your colon.

To sit and have a conversation in English at Starbucks. And not drinking this Nescafe stuff that is 51% sugar, 40% creamer and other junk and 9% coffee.

Walk on the streets not fearing spit, poop, pee and various other bodily fluids that decorate our streets.

To eat pizza that doesn't use ketchup for the sauce and corn, shrimp and hot dogs for the toppings.

To be invited to dinner by someone because they like us and not because they want us to teach them English.

People to stay in line and not cut in front of me, so that I don't have to throw elbows at grandmothers.

To watch my kids play soccer on the weekends and eat those orange halves at half-time and drink juices boxes and the end.


I just want to be normal....just for one day.

I Love Charlie!

This video is a MUST see. Click on Charlie for some funny stuff.


Charlie

Devotionals

In the past year, we’ve found ourselves talking a lot with people about devotional times, “quiet times”. John Piper’s “When I Don’t Desire God” has radically challenged and shaped us in this area. Whether overseas or not, this can be a challenge for people to maintain, but the reason it’s a struggle sometimes is the same for us as it is for others…essentially, we all are too easily satisfied…we don’t hunger for God enough. We’re content with living each day without God’s presence and conversing with him. We direct these words to ourselves as much as anyone. We’d rather sleep in, or watch a movie the night before, or hang out, or whatever else. The battle for the morning is won the night before.

 

A few ideas have hit us in the past months or weeks. First of all, if we to move from California to New York, we would adjust our “time zone” so that what is normal for a New Yorker is pre-dawn for a Californian. Can’t we too do this with out time wit the Lord? Simply moving our whole “day”, going to bed before other people, would work wonders. Second, as we have found ourselves wanting more time, complaining we have no time for prayer or study, we have been reminded of fasting. We all eat, but we could use that time to pray and meditate on the Word instead. The only question is, what are we more hungry for?

 

A simple thought hit us the other day, which answers many immediate questions about prayer and fasting: We pray for the same reason we fast. We don’t fast for the same reason we don’t pray.

 

John Wesley is quite blunt when he wrote, “The man who never fasts is no more in the way to heaven than the man who never prays.”

C.S. Lewis pierces our hearts with the truth, “It is impossible to accept Christianity for the sake of finding comfort….”

 

 

Malachi's Princess

The other day Malachi came to me and said:

"Mommy, I love you! You are so sweet and kind, you are just like a princess." In an ever so gloating fashion, I replied "Thank you, Malachi, that's really sweet of you. I love you too!"

"Ya, mommy you are just like those sweet princesses, you know, you sweep the floors and do the dishes and clean the house."

"Oh, you mean I'm like Cinderella?!"

"Ya, mommy, just like Cinderella."

Thanks Buddy.

Easter

Here's a St. Patrick's Day picture! It's so much fun being overseas when holidays roll around, because we get to pick which ones we want to celebrate. So Halloween, just skipped it. But St. Patrick's Day, celebrated it to the full. So the morning of Mar. 17th, I made green Shamrock pancakes and we watched a little snippit of a VeggieTales that has the St. Patrick story. It was wonderful. We spent 2 days going over his glorious life. If I was a cool blogger person, I'd have St. Patrick in blue and you could click on him to warp you to some invigorating website about him, but I'm just not that cool. That's what Google's for.




We invited 2 other American famlies, a few Chinese friends and some of our kids friends from school. We first decorated some bags to put our Easter eggs in while the Dads went outside and hid the eggs and candy. A few of the Dads had to post security duty because the community kids were taking the things out of the bushes.




Selah and her sweet friend. We taught our friends how the egg hunt was done and they were off!





Here's Charis, her pancho and some bag decorating.



He is 6 months old already!




And then we hit KFC. We actually ran into a bunch of Selah's classmates also there. It was funny because we took over most of the restaurant and the playground. Every 7 minutes of so we'd hear an announcement over the loud speakers: "Please make sure your kids are safe on the playground." That's the indirect way of telling us "you are making way too much noise."



We had a fantastic holiday! We've made lots of friends and gotten to tell many about our celebrations. Thanks for your thoughts.

Your Thoughts

I have a few minutes before the family gets up for the day's festivities and wanted to ask for your thoughts. We are having some friends over for a party today. We'll do the egg thing and some games with some foreign and national friends. Please think of us as we share our lives. We spent the afternoon, yesterday, with our kids sharing with people in our community. Not one person has heard of the celebration.

Pictures and I'm sure stories to come!

In the Name of the Grandfather, the Son, and the National Spirit

A little cultural insight here—

In China, “face”, honor and shame, are a big deal. It goes beyond merely having “pride”. It relates to the very ambitions of life, one’s daily customs and interactions, and view of family. In China, there is a very explicit bias towards boys over girls. The effects of this are well documented. We had a friend recently tell us that his mom suggested he try to have a child and if it were not a boy then perhaps he could “get rid of it”. When you inquire why this male bias, you find a few reasons.

One is practical—boys are the “social security” of this society. When they grow up, they are supposed to take care of the parents, whereas girls will marry off and the couple’s funds mainly help the husband’s family. Ironically, however, because of the valuing of boys, parenting usually spoils boys and is harder on girls. Consequently, in actuality, these girls tend to do a better job at caring for aging parents than do boys who are often too selfish or irresponsible to care.

Other reasons though get more to the heart and soul of the Chinese culture, rooted in thousands of years of thinking. Since the Chinese worldview has no comprehensive understanding of the afterlife, all philosophical/religious thought tends to be very this-worldly. Thus, they see their only way of “living forever” to be by passing on the family name and instilling certain values and loves unto the coming generations. Thus, the preservation of honor is paramount. Thus, community is all the more important. Honor is “heaven”. Shame is “hell”. Worldviews are practical, affecting one’s biases, joys, hopes, politics, ambitions, customs….How strange we examine our own so rarely. Oh that we would let Scripture question ours.

For Jack Bauer Fans

http://boortz.com/more/funny/jack_bauer_truths.html

 

On the Catwalk...

So we've decided to give Selah some more freedom in picking out her own clothes. Usually she'll pick something out and I'll veto at least one or two parts of the outfit. Well, she's getting older and I figured what can it hurt to let her choose her entire outfit and actually wear it outside the house. I'm not altogether sure that was a wise decision. Here's the first day's selection:



This is at the end of the day (I say this to let you know that she wore it out in public). Yes, that is a pink polo under her velvet dress. Now I'm not the trendiest kid on the block, but I'm pretty sure this is not fashionable in any culture. But she's so proud of herself and so excited at the ensemble that she put together that I just don't have the heart to change it.





You have to look a little closer at this one. The is the next day's choice. This week, she got really into putting shirts OVER her sweaters. Sometimes those shirts were even tanktops. Unfortunately there are no pictures of that day. But this little get up is also a sweater and a green short sleeved shirt. Again, she's so excited and proud about her choices. I'm biting my lip and taking pictures to keep for blackmail when she's a teenager.




Here's Charis and her split pants. If you've known us for awhile, you also know that Chinese children wear split pants for easy access bathroom stops. You might laugh now, but when you're potty training a 2 year old, split pants and peeing on the streets is the best thing ever. She's really enjoyed her class at school and is doing great there.




Here's her dress that our former nanny gave her. It's really expensive and nice. You can be the judge on it's fashion acceptability.



We had some good friends over the other night to eat with us. Their baby girl is only a month younger than Kesed. It's his first Chinese girlfriend. We explained how Americans love Chinese babies, so this picture is included on our "catwalk" blog because maybe the cuteness of this picture will redeem me letting our girls out of the house with these aforementioned outfits on.

wow, i'm gettin' old

I'm officially an old fogey. I'm doing some work and listening to Natalie Cole. I no longer really care for loud, fast tempo music. Give me some Norah Jones, Natalie Cole, James Taylor and some hazelnut decaf...now that's a good night.

Depressing State of Fatherhood

We just got back from having some noodles and witnessed an
unfortunately very common situation. A father was eating with his 9
year old daughter. He barely said a word to her as he sat and puffed
on his cigarette. About 10 minutes into the meal, he gets up and
walks out of the noodle shop. We figured he went out to get
something and would be right back. Well, about 10 minutes later, I
watched him as he is standing in front of the restaurant....waiting.
Waiting for nobody except for his daughter to finish eating. She sat
there by herself while she finished her noodles and then got up to
meet him outside. I asked her if her father was waiting for her
outside and she said yes. He felt no need actually come in and
relate to her.

A few months ago, we were having our family night at KFC (funny how
your opinion of fine dining changes when you both live overseas and
have 4 small kids). In walks a small group of people. About four 10
year olds and their mothers walk in. Behind them walks the father of
one of the kids. Come to find out, the father of the birthday girl.
They all sat down and were talking, playing, opening gifts, cutting
cake and having a great time. Where did the dad spend the ENTIRE
meal/party? He spent it at another table, eating and reading his
newspaper. He didn't even pretend to want to be there. When the
bill came, he paid, but that's about the extent of his role there.

The state of fatherhood here is utterly depressing. Dads are
disengaged and actually live in separate cities a lot of the time.
Kids are considered the wife's deal and hopefully a way to secure
some retirement money.

But I don't want to pretend that we've got it all together either.
How easy it is to disengage or just relate to our spouse while our
kids are growing up in the background. As we've heard it said, "the
days are long but the years are short."

We all need to soak in our kids. To visibly show them that we want
them around and we want to know how they are processing their little
worlds.

The Stars at Night...

The stars at night, are big and bright....

So if you just clapped 3 times after that line, you are one of my dear Texas friends. Gotta love Texas



And Selah and I were walking home together from our family night out and she and I were looking at the stars. She was so excited to actually see that they exist outside of a book. This country's stars have mostly disappeared behind the curtain of pollution.

But not tonight! What a magnificent sight. Even more incredible when you have been void of their display for SO long. So all of you who can see the marvelous canvas God has given you outside your windows, take it in tonight. It's such a vivid display of God's complexities and beauty. Psalm 139!


On a not so sanctimonious note here's today's Arbitrary Parent Rule:


Arbitrary Parent Rule:

"Malachi, you cannot breast-feed your brother!"

How Does God Make Rainbows?

Today, Malachi asked me, "How does God make rainbows?" Immediately, I struggled how to answer this, as I barely understand optics, and ROYGBIV (the color spectrum) wouldn't makes sense. Hmmm... I finally said, "It's a little to hard to explain."

Malachi said, "I know how. He makes rain and then gives the sun and that makes a rainbow." So simple. Why didn't I think of that?

It's a delightful truth and treasure that some matters can be both beautifully complicated andstill so wonderfully simple.

Jia You, Beijing!

My friend, Laura, was diving in Beijing the last few days at the World Cup. I didn't think I'd be able to make it, but my wonderful husband let me go to Beijing and spend some time with her! It was really such a great time. She is an incredible diver and I am in awe of not only her ability to dive from 10 Meters up, but also her testimony to the diving world. She loves the Lord and is a real encouragement to other divers. She and I did gymnastics together, ions ago and now we are friends again with both her and her husband.




I also got to have one of the first peeks at the new Olympic stadium. It was beautiful. Here's the inside of it. The whole thing is made to look like bubbles. It's a steel structure with these pockets of this plastic stuff. They are filled with air. So the entire structure is flexible and even bouncy. It's supposed to hold up well in storms and is some kind of cutting edge technology. I don't know what it is exactly, but it looks really amazing.

This is the diving well. You can see the ceiling looks like bubbles. There's even a diver in mid flight on the spring board.



Here's Kesed cheering on the Chinese divers. Here he is chanting "Jia You!" (that's what all the fans say at sporting events. It literally means "add oil", but means "go, go, go")




This is the stadium at night. They can also make it red or green or yellow. In the above picture, behind the "Water Cube" is the "Bird's Nest". This is the other stadium for outdoor events. Both stadiums are beautiful. I spent a few taxi rides helping the drivers with their English. They are supposed to be learning it for the games, but I found not a one that could speak it.

One funny thing they did was take the tickets according to gender. They made the women go into one line for security and men in another. I'm not sure if it will be that way for the Olympics-I'm hoping not.

A brief catch-up

Here's Kesed on his first official train ride into Beijing. We had to ride a sleeper train because the tickets were sold out. So we bunked out on a few beds (albeit, usually shared with some other Chinese finding comfort on our first level beds) and travelled into town. The boys found a good place to wrestle. It seems as if the male gender has a wrestling chromosome, because I've been at funerals, weddings, graduations, pools, you name it and if two or more men are gathered, there also will be wrestling. We spent the night in Beijing and were off the next morning.




We had a great time at some homeschool meetings and meetings of great encouragement. But we also had a day or two to play. Here's Charis at the beach. She's mastered the art of collecting sand in her diaper and hair. We dodged some Russian speedos and a few bikini's that were ill placed. But we had a great time with friends and a great time of mutual fellowship.









Here's a picture of my friend who comes to usually in the afternoons sometime. She works at a store nearby and is really patient with my Chinese. Brad always tells me that I'm never in pictures, so here I am.



Travelling was nice, but it's always good to be home. It doesn't appear as if any of our things were messed with while gone. And yet again, my plants were alive! They've gone 6 weeks before without being watered and I'm teetering on that same timetable this time. One of these days they are going to revolt and just choose to die out of spite. The kid started back at school today. Charis had her first day today. We'll post more on that later.

Parenting and Prayer

Parenting has again afforded us some lessons on prayer.

 

First of all, whenever we give a command to our kids, we always require a “Yes, mom” or “yes, dad”. We are teaching them that they do not have the privilege of asking “why” before obeying. Understanding is NOT a condition for obedience. Instead they are to trust us. Imagine how little we would obey the Lord if he followed this way of thinking…knowing why as a condition of obeying. This wouldn’t be trusting. Honoring authority is the first great decision people must learn to make before they can make other good decisions. (This is a root of sin)

 

However, recently, Malachi especially has been saying rapidly, “Yes, Mommy/Daddy, but why?” In other words, he has the “formula” right but the heart wrong. We’ve had to clarify our intention…be about the process of obeying, then you may ask why, though we still reserve the right whether to answer or not. This is exactly what we often do when we pray “in Jesus’ name”. It becomes a formula and our heart is not in it. We think the formula obligates God and constitutes our obedience.

 

Second, we sometimes give them instructions only later to find out they were not followed. We ask why and they say something like, “I couldn’t… [or]…I didn’t know how…” We have quickly realized that we too say this to God; however, as with our kids ignorance or inability is NO excuse for the disobedience. They could always ask for help! This is exactly the lesson of Scripture. We are NOT called to do things we can do. We are commanded to call on Him who can do all things…and wants to bless us!! God typically calls us to things we CAN’T do…for our joy!

 

Oh if we would but know the heart of God and trust Him….

Home Again!

Well, 10 pm and we rolled on into our apartment.  It was so great to be home.  We had one of the most encouraging and wonderful three weeks that we've had in a long time.  Lots of friends and lots of Western food (which translated into 3 meal of Tex Mex for the fam!).

I haven't downloaded pictures yet, but I'll see what I've got and try and get some up in the next few days.  Sorry for the neglect the past few weeks, internet was pretty scarce.  But we're back  now and ready to roll.  

It's always strange to return after a few weeks and remember that the world has still been moving forward.  We're just trying to catch up this weekend and then start everything back on Monday.

A Few Last Things

We're gonna be out of pocket for a couple of weeks, so updating might be scarce. But I leave you with 1 arbitrary parent rule and 1 Malachi-ism.

Malachi's Chinese name is Fan Yong Qiang. It means 'brave' and 'strong'. He very often says "I'm brave and strong because I'm Fan Yong Qiang" (in chinese, the word 'qiang' rythms with the english word 'strong') Brad and I joke that his Chinese name is also his super hero name because he uses it when trying to achieve super human things, like getting up onto the counter. Well, we left the house at 5 am this morning. He was pulling a suitcase and told Brad "I'm brave and strong, I'm Fan Yong Qiang....but this is too heavy. The brave doesn't help me very much right now." It added some much needed humor to our mornings activities.

My arbitrary parent rule that I found coming out of my mouth the other day was..."No, Charis, you can't put glue on your French toast."

Kids are a beautiful reminder to not take ourselves too seriously.

We'll do our best to give some updates while we're away, but no promises as to the internet availability.