Possible new job

This will take the shape of general life information and prayer request. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I'm meeting with a Christian Ed. Committee for a local church who is considering hiring me as a part-time youth pastor.

While I'm excited at the prospect of working for this church because I think they're doing some really cool things.....it also raises a lot of questions. How do I divide my time between two churches? How will two different youth groups look like? Where do I go to church on Sunday morning?

And all that being said, I'm a firm believer that youth ministry is a full-time job, not part-time. I have expressed this to both churches. However neither are in a position (or choose to be in a position) to keep me full-time....at least for now. So how do "put all myself" into my ministry, when I can really only put part of myself into it.

If you could please pray that as we make these decisions. Also, I'm trying hard to take some Bible classes online, however Geneva is not being cooperative with my past classes there. Please pray that we can work this out soon, or I will lose my continuing ed. money by the end of the year. UGH.

Going bald

I think that I'm going bald. Not on the top of my head. On my chin. Currently I have between 8 and 9 inches of goatee going on. Since the arrival of Corban however, I have been losing chin hairs constantly.

Part of the problem is that he's pulling some out. The others just seem to be falling out. I believe that my chin is rubbing on his head....and they're coming out. But it could also be some stress issues.

Either way.......it's pretty much official, my chin is going bald. (picture is not me)

Cache #1000

You may or may not know that I have been obsessed with Geocaching for a little more than two years now. If you don't know what geocaching is....basically it's like modern day treasure hunting.....except more often than not, you find it. All you need is a GPS and access to the internet. Someone hides a container somewhere and puts the coordinates on the internet. You put the coords in your GPS and go find it. Then you sign the log and put it back for other people to find.

ANYWAY....For the first year and a half of my geocaching I was pretty focused on going geocaching any chance I had. I would go on day long caching trips while Mari was at work. We also did a lot of hikes together on days off. It was my stress relief. I've done as many as 32 in a day before. Well back in April I did my 950th geocache. The problem is that every 50th cache I've tried hard to make it something really cool to remember. Well with #1000 looming, I wanted to make it extra special......but how?

I decided that #1000 would be with Corban. It would be his first geocache and our 1000 all at the same time. There is a Kids Cache very near our house that I've intentionally not done for two years believing that someday I would take some kids with me to do it. Well I did.....my kid! But when was he coming? How long would I have to wait? I've done 50 in a week before....how would I spread 50 out until Corban arrived? It was HARD!

My stress relief, geocaching, couldn't be my stress relief. So while I was stressed out waiting for my son to arrive, I was doubley stressed because I couldn't geocache much. But that was all remidied this week.

A kid in my youth group who is also a geocacher tagged along for the outing and made it pretty special in his own way. This was a blast. You can read the log and view more of the pictures HERE.

Corban gibbering

For those of you who aren't satisfied with just pictures....here's a short video clip of Corban gibbering nonsense. We play back and forth with this.

Happy boy.

Make Me Christianity

Mari had me read this article in the last Christianity Today. She's always asking me to read stuff, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. This one was great. A good challenge to Western Christianity. I was challenged on the youth level. In youth ministry there's such an emphasis on mission trips. And so many of them are based on the "go fix it" mentality. "Us smart Americans are going to fix your country for you because we're so wealthy." I loved the part where he talked about instead of being "fix it" Christians, we become "Lord make me" Christians. WOW I've been passing this article on to a lot of friends in ministry.....now I'm passing it on to you.

The Story

Well here goes nothing. Hopefully this won't be a novel.

TUESDAY JULY 11th Marjorie and I drove to my parents house after work. This would allow us to see my parents a little bit, since we haven't really seen them since Easter. The idea was also that we would relax a bit before "the hurricane" hit.

WEDNESDAY JULY 12TH We flew out of the Pittsbugh airport at 5:30 pm after some delays because of weather. We flew to Washington DC on a little tiny prop plane. The plane was packed, but we were one step closer to our son. We arrived in DC....found the shuttle for our hotel, and away we went. After checking into the hotel, we figured out that there was a Thai restaurant not far from the hotel. Our last meal. So we got a cab and had some of the BEST Thai food, I've had outside of my trip to Thailand. Maybe I was just really hungry though. Back to the hotel so Marjorie could swim a bit and early to bed. BIG DAY TOMORROW

THURSDAY JULY 14TH We woke up at 6:45 am. Corban's flight was suppose to land at 8:10. Grabed a shower and for some reason I felt I needed to post quickly. That made us late. There are shuttles from the hotel and the top and bottom of every hour. We missed the 7:30 one because of me so we had to wait until 8. We get to the airport and found where Customs was. Then we located a screen with his flight information (see top line of picture). Once again our son was LATE! He can't be on time for anything!

After some time his plane finally was on the ground and he was in Customs. The only thing between us and him was a couple walls. After about an hour, out walks 4 girls 2escorts and one CORBAN! (actually he was carried out) At first he wanted nothing to do with us. He would only go to Mohammed (the escort). But after two hours Marjorie forced the issue and Mohammed left. After some crying he calmed down a bit and was good for her. Then we were off to get ticketed again. We had some time to kill before our flight. The weird part was that it seemed all the employees of the airport seemed to know we had just got him. They smiled and talked real nice etc. One hour plane trip home and Grandma and Grandpa met us at the airport. He slept the entire plane ride back to Pittsburgh and the car ride to my parents house.

FINALLY HE's in our arms. Without boring you with all the details of the last couple days I'll hit some key points. He knows Marjorie and I and is very comfortable around us. Everyone else, he's not too keen on. He gets real shy and doesn't respond to anything. It took my parents two days before he got close to them at all....and even then he didn't want long hungs or held by them.

His sleep paterns are messed up still. Ethiopia is 7 hours ahead as witnessed by the clocks at the right. So 3am is 7am to him. We're slowly working on it though. He eats everything. he's not a picky eater at all. He doesn't put things in his mouth. What I mean is, unless it's food, he doesn't put it in his mouth. If he's not sure it's food he won't put it in his mouth. He had to watch me eat a blueberry before he had one. He likes to make noise, he likes placing toys either away in containers or on counter tops. He has an amazing laugh. He's learned to give kisses. He likes being flipped upside down. He LOVES his stroller and his sandals. Right now he's sitting in his stroller sleeping. He won't get out. He also doesn't want his sandals off either.

BOTTOM LINE: I won't say that this was worth the wait. The waiting sucked and there's no denying that. HOWEVER.....he is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. As we are faithful to God, He was faithful to us and we now have a cute little boy running around our house. Thank you for praying for us over the last couple years. Please continue to pray for us and Corban as he is still adjusting to a lot of new things.....basically everything. Also, be warned that there's a good chance that I'll be posting a bundle of pictures here of him over the next 18+ years!

Real Quick

It's just after 10pm and I can't remember when the last time I was this tired was. This is going to be quick. I'll write more later when I have a minute to catch my breath.

Corban is in our arms. He's the most beautiful thing either of us has ever seen. He's still very jumpy and taking a long time to get used to us. He made major progress today. He's super shy around new people. We're working on getting his clock in line. We kept him up tonight so maybe he'll sleep a little longer.

Ok i really gotta get some sleep. i'll fill everyone in more later. please don't stop praying for us now!!!!!!

ONE WEEK

One week from today Marjorie and I board a plan to fly to Washington DC. We spend the night there and early the next morning our world changes.

Next Thursday at 8:10 am an Ethiopian Airlines flight touches down at Dulles International. On that plane will be this little guy. Here's where the real crazy part begins. We will be meeting him at Immigration. We're not sure totally what that will look like. He is being escorted by the son of the head of our agency. This man was adopted 20 years ago from Ethiopia by the head of our agency. He is also escorting 4 other children over. I'm really not sure how he's going to do all that.

ANYWAY.....so we finally get our son. We cry awhile, settle down and hopefully get over the shock. Then we wait. See our plane doesn't leave until 1:45pm. So we have to kill some hours in Dulles Airport. So the first couple hours of our parenting will be inside an airport we're not very familiar with. This is the part we're freaking out about. It's not being parents, it's not instantly having a 19 month running around our house, it's not potty training (though I'm sure these are all things we'll freak about in time). The fact that we have to be in an airport with our new son is wigging us out.

Then the good stuff though. We get on a plane and fly back to Pittsburgh. We've already heard from some friends that will be waiting at the airport for us....as well as family members. We hit the ground at 3pm. If you're in the pittsburgh area.....feel free to come on down.

After all that the fun really begins. Lots of guesswork. How big is he? What' he eating? How does he like to sleep? When does he go to sleep? What size goalie gear do I need to buy him? You know, the important things in life.

Please keep us in your prayers over the next couple weeks. Not only as we travel back and forth, but as we see doctors to get him checked out, as we still have a bunch of paperwork still to do, to make him legal etc. We know we have some amazing prayer partners around the country. Blessings on all of you!!!!