Potty Training

Yes, today is the day that we decided to potty train our Rowan. She is currently running around the house naked. Her first attempt was to stand beside her little potty seat and let herself go...on the carpet. Doh! So close and yet so far.

These are those moments in a parents life where you go through so many emotions. You are frustrated that they just can't transfer what they normally do over to the potty. And yet you also realize that there is some sort of emotional attachment that your baby has to those velcro pants. And that leads me to patience. It's a big deal for her to change a habit that she has know her whole 2 year old life. It's easy to forget that.

As a dad I want to enjoy the milestones like this one, no matter how many messes it makes. I know these are incredible days that I will someday wish that I had back.

So bring on the towels and tears. I'm going to enjoy the journey.

Adoption Day Garage Sale

Part of what we call LifeWorks at Life Church is about caring for children, with an emphasis on orphans and others who are at-risk. Nate and Lisa Jarot have decided to adopt a baby from Vietnam. And we know first-hand, it is an expensive undertaking. So what started as a small idea of selling some items for the adoption, became...the Garage Sale to beat all other Garage Sales (Nate's phrase).

Nate did a nice job of directing people to the toy department, the sporting goods department, the clothing department etc. It was a fun three days and many people from the church either donated clothes or money. Kara Sims brought her "missions stand" that she made with her grandpa to raise money for the church's trip to Armenia. My daughter Raegan worked the goodie booth with Kara.

I love helping people to adopt. I feel it is a command (see James 1:27) that the church in general is beginning to wake up to. It's sad that many people are discouraged by finances. The church needs to get behind these couples who want to adopt.

m&m's back once again, call a friend...

In case you are wondering, yes, I am finally going to give in and consistently blog. I thought about it for a long time and even fought it for a while. And yes, I have read how Rob Bell thinks that blogging is as useless as rooting for the Cubs.

But I think that it fits with the way that I am wired and I hope that it gives a voice to some things that I care about.

So, thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the journey.

Fathers of the Faith

Stacey and I were invited to the Billy Graham retreat called The Cove by a friend (Dave Buehring) to view a taping of 6 "fathers of the faith" who were asked a series of questions about their lives. The six men were Loren Cunningham, John Perkins, Jack Hayford, Lloyd Ogilvie, Robert Shuler and Winkie Prattney.

The questions ranged from "what has been the most important spiritual discipline in your life?" to "how do you handle betrayal?". It was an incredible experience to get to peer into a conversation of these six men while the rest of us were watching their conversation in the other room. These men have lived their lives well and we had a chance to sit and learn from answers to questions that we would all love to ask.

Below is a link to the organization who is doing the taping. The DVD will be available later this year. I hope you get a copy, there were some great life lessons.


lionshare.org