Freedom

This is what we're all about, freedom in Christ. It's a beautiful thing. This video gets me every time...

Oh yeah...

While you're here, if you're here, check out the cool slideshow playing on the right. It has a lot of pictures so if you'd rather look at the album just click on it and you should be able to do that.

Also check out Greg McKinzie's new family site.
And Bryan's new blog.
And Greg Kendall-Ball's revamped photo site.

Let me explain...

No, there is no time. Let me sum up.

So much has happened since I took my unplanned hiatus from this site that I could not hope to catch you all up. Nevertheless I will attempt to sum up in an untold number of bullet points what has happened and hereby pledge to do a better (though probably not daily) job of updating this thing with reports, thoughts, and feelings...because I'm just that kind of guy.

• In June of '08 we were turned down by our most promising lead for support
• We moved to Tyler at the end of August to honor their financial support of us, and to convince them to renew - I mean, once they saw how cool we were...
• In October Shiloh officially joined Cedar Lane as a supporting congregation!
• August - December - my daughter grows and continues her quest to be the cutest/prettiest/most precocious baby on the planet
• January - Shaye begins to walk. She is officially a toddler (now 13 months old). I thought she couldn't get any more beautiful but she surprises me daily in this.
• January 12 - We throw the coolest (probably) shindig ever done at Shiloh. Check Larissa's blog for more details.
  
• January 21 - I become a Godfather. Sera Ashlyn Middleton is born to John and Chelsea. Shaye is guaranteed to have 2 great girlfriends for her life - God is good!

I could elaborate for paragraphs on any of those topics so if you want to hear more about any of them, leave me a comment. This is all assuming that in a year I haven't lost every person that ever checked this blog. I reckon that this discipline will still be good for me.

I'll be back...

Beauty from Pain

After quite the hiatus I return....sort of. I was considering waiting an entire year before my next post but what the heck. This is something I wrote for our team's latest newsletter. If you haven't been to the website in awhile you should check it out. We've redone the whole thing. Follow the link on the right and enjoy! (I apologize for the formatting, Blogger isn't cooperating)

From the beginning of our involvement with teamAREQUIPA we’ve been asked questions. I can understand that. For a group of college students to plan a long term mission work in a foreign country surely raises a lot of questions among their family, friends, and supporters. As the time of our departure has gotten closer the questions have been taking some interesting shifts. Early on we would hear information-gathering questions: Where is Peru? How long do you plan to be there? What type of mission work will you do? The questions I’m fielding now often have to do with how we can commit so much of our lives to this work, or how we can take our family out of the country for so long. Often times I’ve been told “I couldn’t do that...moving to a foreign place and doing that work.”

Anytime I hear that statement I have to stop. I stop because that used to be my exact thoughts concerning mission work. Upon my graduation from high school I distinctly remember two things. One was that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and that whatever my vocation would be it most likely would not be ministry. With those two things in mind I spent my first year in college primarily in....ministry courses. I couldn’t escape the courses offered by Harding and I found myself drawn to those classes. For my first summer I had a youth ministry internship with an East Texas church, and the next summer saw me at Shiloh Road working alongside Tim. It is amazing how often we seem sure of the decisions we make only to have God step in and remind that He has plans for us as well. God’s plan that I’m referring to is my wife. It is because of her that we thought and prayed about joining teamAREQUIPA and because of her calling to help children that we initially joined.

That statement also gives me pause because I think people look at what we are doing and think it is better than their life of faith. This is certainly not the case. God calls every believer to step beyond of their comfort zone and submit themselves to something difficult in His name. I believe that everyone’s sacrifice will look different. Your sacrifice might be a particular ministry you’re involved in, or moving into a neighborhood of non-Christians to be a light in the darkness. You might excel in the business world so you can feed more of the hungry and care for the sick. You might care for your parents through their old age past the point the world expects of you. Each one of us has a different story, a different life, so it makes sense that our sacrifices will be different.

As David said in 2 Samuel 24, I cannot sacrifice to God that which costs me nothing. At the end of a time of trial for Israel David needed to build an altar and make a sacrifice to God. He wanted to do so on the threshing floor of a man named Araunah. This man offered David everything he needed for the process; the wood, oxen, and land but David refused. He could not take for freely from this man and give it to God. That is the type of attitude we want to have. Larissa and I see this mission as a sacrifice to God. It isn’t that we couldn’t be faithful here in the U.S. but it would not require much of a sacrifice from us, it wouldn’t cost us much. We pray that our sacrifice to God in this way, knowing that it is costing us much, will be pleasing to Him.

Sacrifice is defined by doing something painful, but for a purpose. I’m not necessarily speaking of physical pain, though I can see that as a possibility. The pain I’m talking about is brought on by this fallen world we live in and by our adversary. When you make a sacrifice of your life to the Lord, the kind that costs you something, there will be pain in the offering. But we have hope that the Lord will aid us in our time of need because of our faith in Him. We know that He works good in the lives of those who love Him. Jesus blessed those poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the persecuted, and the merciful. He promised the Kingdom of Heaven, comfort, mercy, inclusion in the family of God. Not only do we have those beautiful promises for the future but we have a family of believers here to aid us in our walk. He has it covered.

I’ve been impacted recently by a song called Beauty from Pain by the band Superchick. Let me share some of the lyrics:

Here I am at the end of me
Trying to hold to what I can’t see
I forgot how to hope
This night’s been so long
I cling to Your promise
There will be a dawn

Someday I’ll hope again
And there’ll be beauty from pain
You will bring beauty from my pain

I love this song because it reminds me that I am not the redeemer of my own life. God has redeemed me! He has saved me and in the end, it is He that will bring beauty from this world. We cling to the promise that “there will be a dawn.” That dawn is when Jesus returns. We know that leaps of faith, difficult choices and sacrifices are the perfect resources for God to change the world.

we live, we love

This post will be a testament to my incredible randomness. This is due, in part, to the fact that my last post was a very very long time ago.

The title of this post comes from a song by Superchick titled "We Live." I love the last verse:

Waking up to another dark morning
People are mourning
The weather in life outside is storming
But what would it take for the clouds to break
For us to realize each day is a gift somehow, someway
So get our heads up out of the darkness
And spark this new mindset and start to live life cuz it ain't gone yet
And tragedy is a reminder to take off the blinders
And wake up and live the life we're supposed to take up
Moving forward with all our heads up cuz life is worth living

There is a lot to this verse, and the song, that I really like. I've had it stuck in my head for about two weeks now as we've drawn closer to Easter. Yesterday I listened to it a number of times with this last verse sticking out to me. Friday was Good Friday, funny that we call it Good. Jesus was killed on Friday. Saturday morning we woke up and it was dark, we mourned, we despaired. I woke up this morning though to see that the clouds had broken and Jesus has risen, overcome, triumphed. As I continue on in the wake of Easter I remember the new covenant in His blood and, of equal importance, my part of the deal. I have a life to live in His honor.

Lots of things have happened since my last post other than Easter. I'll list them:
Shaye can hold her head up for a really long time, laugh (a little), stick her tongue out at me, drool a lot
Baseball season has begun
I caught on fire (don't worry, I put myself out)
Greg and Megan had their daughter: Anastasia Grace McKinzie
Ana Grace and Shaye have become good friends

And now for the weird/cool. A sculpter in New York did something truly amazing a few weeks ago. He sculpted an anatomically correct, life sized model of Jesus.....out of chocolate! He titled it "My Sweet Lord." If that isn't pure brilliance I don't know what is. Here is a picture of it, and here is the BBC's article about it. (this picture has been edited for a PG rating)



In other incredible news, a church in Abilene is holding a conference over the book "Wild at Heart." I myself have not read this book but I've heard from a number of reputable sources that it is not that good. This church is giving out, as door prizes, swords, ipods and shotguns. Incredible no? No church I ever went to handed out swords. Maybe I've been going to the wrong churches. Here is the link if you don't believe me.

I will try and post more often. Maybe next time my post will make sense.

best mac ad yet

Bryan recently posted about his experience upgrading to Windows Vista. I agree with his conclusion: Do not upgrade to Vista. There really isn't much of a point, unless you need Vista for work (as he does). The latest Ad from Apple highlights Vista's biggest problem: it is annoying.

bird flu update

You're not seeing things. You may have forgotten about Bird Flu, but I have not. I remain convinced that this will be a global pandemic and I renew my commitment to you, the uncaring masses, to keep the information flowing. According to this article there are probably 4 deaths in Nigeria caused by this vicious disease. Be afraid..be very afraid.

hodge podge

Obviously it has been some time since my last post. A lot has been happening since then. The last 30+ days have been, in most ways, completely devoted to my daughter. Well, at least the time that I'm not at work. Our entire life revolves around her now. She gets fed, changed, bounced, rocked, smiled at, laughed at, cried at, swung, cuddled, hugged, kissed, swaddled and pacified. Some of our best times have been in the middle of the night, or the wee hours of the morning. She loves to make funny faces and silly sounds. There are time already that I can see her thinking about things she touches or sees us looking at her strangely. What a great 5 weeks it has been.

This past weekend Larissa and I traveled to Fort Worth with Greg and Megan (in a minivan I might add) to meet with our team and to present ourselves before the missions committee at the Richland Hills church. It was a satisfying weekend filled with great food (thanks Mother McKinzie), great friends (we were blessed to be prayed over Saturday night by some of our closest friends), and good conversation. We met on Saturday with Bryan and Eralda and were able to spend some time talking about the team and where we are now and how we see the future unfolding before us. Our meeting Sunday morning with RHCC went very nicely I think. They responded to us positively and we await some feedback from them in the next few weeks.

Larissa and I have been watching a little more TV than normal these past few weeks. Our favorite shows are (in no particular order): House, Heroes, Studio 60, Law and Order: SVU, and Bones. We've also watched a few of the American Idol auditions, some of those people trying out are hilarious.

A blog that I've found that I visit frequently is scottfreeman.info. He's had some great posts concerning non-violence in the past few months that have really had me thinking about the issue and wondering how I got to this point in life without thinking about it. This leads to other issues such as serving in the military, as a police officer, protecting your family, etc. that I may write something about in the future. For now I'm reading and thinking about this and I hope you will too.

This article is very interesting. Any thoughts?

unto us a child is born

Ok so I ripped off some language usually reserved for the baby Jesus, get over it. Early on Christmas morning Larissa woke me up with a "my water has broken!" Just like that we were off to the races...I mean hospital.

Shaye Rebekah Smith was born on December 25th, 2006. She weighed 7lb 12oz and measured in a respectable 20 inches. She is unbelievably cute and has been a very good newborn. I will stop here and post pictures for all to see. I'm positive more will follow. Click on the picture to the right to be taken to the pictures.