This is my home dog (and his wife). This is my ace in the hole. My main man. Brandon Zangus. Wangus. Wango. B-Zang.

And he's crazy.

I spend a good amount of time during the week online talking on AIM. I flew out to speak at his youth gathering back in December (he lives on the Jersey shore). He's a goof.

So today I fed Corban lunch and then put him down for a nap. I hadn't eaten yet for whatever reason and I was hungry. So just being silly I said, "hey, you should go get a pizza and bring it to my house." He babbles back and forth for awhile....then all of a sudden he says, "Done deal, it'll be there in 15-20 minutes."

What will?

A pizza. He googled pizza places around here. He called them and paid for the pizza with his credit card. Not only that.....he didn't call Little Caesars, he called the good place....Pizza Roma. Thin crust, giant slices....and not 5 dollars.

He's crazy but man do I love crazy friends!

Stories and new stuff

Couple quick things.......

1. I put up some new pictures of Corban on the FAMILY PICTURES page.

2. I moved some links around over there to the right. Thanks to Bill for the silly tag site (I'm not beyond stealing ideas)

3. Story....I didn't relate this before about Tobiah......Marjorie called our adoption agency on a Wed. to ask where we were, and when we could expect a referral. After some really good conversation, we were told that there were some families ahead of us and that we're probably hear in the next month or so. The very next day (that'd be a Thursday for those keeping track), I was home with Corban and the phone rings....usually that means Marjorie is calling us from work. It was our agency. They had a little boy they wanted to know if we wanted or not. WOW that was the quickest month of my life! So just as we had settled into more waiting....BAM a little baby boy.

4. I wish you could hook my brain into a video camera so I wouldn't miss cool moments. Last night as Corban was sleeping I went to put a different sheet on him....and he yelled "I NEED A MAP". It's a line from a book he loves, but he was yelling it at me in his sleep over and over. I would love to have that on film.....but who would've guessed he was going to do that? Lost. Bummer.

New Picture of Tobiah!

We received a new picture of Tobiah. Dang is he cute. How did I get so lucky to have two beautiful looking boys like this? WOW
I need to update the family pictures page with Corban pictures. He's so big now. Maybe this weekend if I get some time.

Our Family Grows!!!!

We'd like to introduce you to our new son. This is Tobiah Natnael Reinard. You pronounce his name Toe Bye Ah Nate Nae El. He is 4 months old. He is currently at the Layla House in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that our agency runs.

We were told today that there's a good chance we can go pick him up in about 4 months!

He sure is a cutie!

So thank you so far for your prayers. We still covet them as we move forward that all the paperwork will continue to go smoothly and we can get over there and back again SOON! Also that he would continue to gain weight, as he's a bit underweight right now.

Just off

Corban's birthday is officially Tuesday. We celebrated last night though (which might be a story for later). I tell you that to tell you this....

I was sent out to get some presents. As I wandered through the toy aisles....I came upon a punching balloon. It was $.99 and I figured you can't go wrong with that. Plus...who doesn't like punching balloons?

So last night Corban got his punching balloon (and other things) and he could've cared less about it. Which is fine. He thought it was just another balloon...and we already had others around the room. So I blow it up.

So this punching balloon is horrible. It doesn't get round like a regular one is suppose to. It looks just like a normal balloon. Also the little nipple that the rubber band is attached to, isn't centered on the balloon...it's off. So when you punch it, it doesn't return just the way it was intended to.

So this morning we were playing with it...and making coffee...and I started thinking about this stupid 99 cent balloon...and the church

My first thought was about how Corban didn't know why he should care about this balloon. To the outside observer, he wasn't sure why he should care about the same thing he's already seen before. As a generalization, the church is the punching balloon here. The outside world looks at us and wonders why they should care about us doing the same thing over and over and over again. It looks the same, smells the same, tastes the same. It's just another balloon....except this one is orange.

My second thought was that we're often erratic because we're not completely on center. I'm continually amazed that we have this perfect instruction manual for our faith...and so many of us don't get to far into the nitty gritty. We're all aboard for the newest, coolest, nicely marketed book that will change our faith....but we can't just read the Bible.

Finally as I watched Corban just hit the punching balloon in the air, like he does every other balloon...I thought "that's not what that's intended to do." I've been thinking a lot lately about what God intended the church to be. What our role is here on earth. I have to wonder if this is really what Jesus intended for us.

(this is a slightly unrelated thought..but I'm still drinking my coffee)My pastor and I have been talking about persecution and how when the church is persecuted, it grows. When was the last time the church in America was persecuted? Church is easy. We need some good old fashion persecution!

Ok enough philosophizing about a balloon.....not bad for 99 cents though!