There and Back Again

Our Ethiopian Journey has come to an end, but our journey blazes onward. Come join us at our new blog as we continue loving, living and blogging.

Our new home: http://burningvapor.blogspot.com/

Be sure to bookmark the blog and sign up for email updates. I am still adding content so please be patient. Look forward to seeing you over there!

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Mistaken Identity

Bri and Ana attend a special ed pre-school several times a week for a couple of hours a session. It has been a great experience for them. Jennifer typically picks the girls up from school but Jennifer was prepping for her "Once a Month Cooking" Saturday so I picked the girls up.

I was standing outside of Ana's classroom just, you know, watching her interact with another little girl and her teachers. One of her teachers finally looked up and noticed me. She stood up and said, "Ok Riley, your Dad is here." The little girl, Riley, looked up at me and then went back to coloring while her teacher got up and started collecting her things. "Come on sweety, time to go". Riley didn't move. It finally dawned on me what was going on so I spoke up and said "Hey Ana!" Ana looked up and said "DADDDDDDDDDY!!", and started running towards me.

I could visually see the blood slowly leave her teacher's face as she replaced "Riley's" belongings and started digging out Ana's. I acted like I didn't notice because the obvious embarrassment was punishment enough. And in case you were not completely clear on what just happened...Riley was white and Ana is a nice mocha tone.

2007 Desiring God National Conference

For those of you like me who were not able to make the conference this year, Desiring God has blessed us greatly with free copies of the audio and VIDEO messages!!

Click here to download those messages.

A Great New, Old Volume

I recently read a book review over at The Shepherd's Scrapbook, which is a great blog to stay connected to, on "Christ Crucified: The Marrow of the Gospel in 72 Sermons on Isaiah 53" by a 17th century Presbyterian Puritan. My response to the volume is "WOW". Seriously, this book has been incredibly deep and rich. I am still plowing through it but I have thoroughly enjoyed the messages so far and my own faith is being impacted by the life of John Durham and the great Christ he and I worship. If you haven't picked up anything lighter than Lucado (sorry) lately, challenge your reading with this one.

Edit: I thought I would offer an example from his first sermon. Durham argues that if the Gospel is the greatest news that mankind will ever hear, and if our joy is only found in Jesus (the Gospel) and if, like Paul, we desire to only know Jesus and Him crucified, then we as Christians should remind ourselves everyday of the Gospel. (pg. 1-74)

This message has re-emerged among contemporary Christians and we are beginning to hear it preached again. It struck me that this was not a new thought among preachers, even 17th century Puritans were preaching the same message.

The Tooth Fairy

Yesterday, Caleb came in wiggling one of his "milk molars" (that's what they tell me it's called...who comes up with these names anyway?) Jennifer told him that if he pulled his tooth and put it under his pillow then he would wake up the next morning and find a dollar. Now, for those of you who know, we do not do "the tooth fairy", "the buggey man", "the easter bunny", or "satan claus". So Caleb was trying to figure out how the tooth disappeared and a dollar appeared. The only thing he could imagine was that God came down and took his tooth while he was sleeping and gave him a dollar. Kinda funny. We didn't explain it to him and left it alone for a little mystery. The boys were excited and didn't believe that it would happen, so that were rattling away in Amharic and talking about this great mystery.

The next morning Caleb got up and found his tooth replaced by a dollar and the boys were blown away. They were laughing and back slapping and having a great time. Well, we were at the doctor today and Caleb asked me, "Daddy, where dollar come from? Did God take tooth?" I replied, "No son, Daddy took your tooth and replaced it with a dollar."

No truth! was the response. They absolutely would not believe that I could have actually taken the tooth while they were sleeping. I started acting like I was sneaking into their room and then I acted like Caleb snoring and the boys got a real kick out of it, but they wouldn't believe it. So, with their arrogant little all-knowing smirks (I say that with a smile and an arrogant smirk on my own face by the way) on their faces, they challenged me to show them the tooth when we got home. I had actually forgotten about it and Caleb reminded me again. When I showed them the tooth you would have thought that I had just started burping purple bubbles. Their mouths were wide open and looks of astonishment spread across their faces. "Dad, how?" I repeated what I did and they all just started laughing.

Laughing, Caleb took the tooth and said, "Again Dad, again". At this point I was laughing at their reactions. "Nope, only happens once. Dad owns the tooth now." It was a good moment