Family Pictures

Here are some pictures we had taken of Luke and the kids a couple of weeks ago:

Another Great Adventure

Luke left this morning for some training in Texas to prepare for his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. We're very thankful that he'll be home with us again for a few weeks between this training and his deployment. We trust God's Providence as Luke travels and serves and as we spend the next several months traveling and growing through another Great Adventure.

Defeating the Purpose?

Luke has some time off this weekend and we plan to go through the house and garage and weed out a lot of the things we don't need anymore. (Where did all this stuff come from?!) We've always been book buyers and very rarely purged books from our shelf. Our house rule is that we can only have as many books as fit on the shelves... so we've put in a lot of extra shelves.

Last night, we went through the bookshelves and removed at least 4 boxes of books. We're trying out half.com to sell the many textbooks we no longer need, but it didn't seem worth it to list the paperbacks. So we checked out paperbackswap.com. It's awesome! Basically, each member posts books he or she is willing to part with. Listing the first 10 books earns 2 credits. Books cost 1 credit. After listing books last night, I can go shopping from everyone else's list of books and they can shop for mine. For every book I send out to another shopper, I get an additional credit. I pay shipping to send books out and the other members pay for the shipping to send books to me. I can also get credits for referring people, so if you're interested and you click through the link at the top of this post and post 10 books, I'll get a credit.

So you can see where this is going... for every paperback book that actually leaves our house, we can get another one. Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all...

Not For Sale

I'm reading this book called "Not For Sale" that I picked up two years ago but didn't get around to reading. I bought it after hearing the author, David Batstone, speak. In the book, he takes a look at human trafficking around the world. Without going into very graphic detail, he tells stories of several people who were recently held and traded as slaves in different parts of the world. It also talks about some of the the many organizations and individuals who are instrumental in freeing these slaves.

I haven't finished it yet, but so far I can recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the current state of human trafficking, the organizations committed to fighting it, and the modern abolitionist movement. And it's this month's free download at christianaudio!

His Latest Achievement

All Together

We're home from our whirlwind trip to Illinois for my grandmother's funeral. I'm so glad we were able to go and spend time with my family, remembering Grandma and celebrating her life as a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, friend, and child of God. Family was so important to her and I think it meant a lot to her children that so many of her family could gather around to celebrate her life and miss her together.
Saturday morning we made a big breakfast with bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy. It was the kind of breakfast Grandma made for us when we went to visit at her house. As my parents and aunts and uncles, great-aunts, cousins, and children of cousins filled the kitchen and laughed over our meal, I thought how much Grandma would love this. And then I remembered that she is in heaven, worshipping our God and surrounded by all the saints who have gone before, and even this-- this family gathering that brings me so much joy-- does not compare with Glory.

Where O Death is Now Thy Sting?

"Christ the Lord is risen today,"
Sons of men and angels say.
Raise your joys and triumphs high!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.


Vain the stone, the watch, the seal,
Christ has burst the gates of hell.
Death, in vain, forbids his rise,
Christ has opened paradise.


Lives again our glorious King!
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
Once he died, our souls to save.
Where thy victory, O grave?


Soar we now where Christ has led
Foll'wing our exalted Head.
Made like Him, like Him we rise,
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.


Hail, the Lord of earth and heaven!
Praise to Thee by both be given.
Thee we greet triumphant now!
Hail, the Resurrection, thou! Alleluia!


- Charles Wesley, 1739


My grandma went to be with the Lord yesterday after a long battle with lung cancer. She loved God and her family and her neighbors. She took great comfort in the Word of God and had peace in the last days of her life, knowing that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, and today she worships God in his heaven.