Niagara Falls

Niagara is a good half-way point between Ohio and Massachusetts, so this was our second year stopping there. This year, we also remembered our passports so we got to go to the Canadian side and experience the falls the way they should be experienced.

We arrived at mid-day on New Years Day

It was cold, misty and rainy but still beautiful

A picture of us... and Ryan's beard

The horseshoe falls... breathtaking

The rest of the area reminded us of Gatlinburg, TN

All in all, it was a great pit stop and start to 2012. Now we have been back to real life for a few weeks. It's good to be home and back in the normal rhythm again, but we sure had a great time in Ohio. 

Advent Season… Leading to Christmas

Advent is one of the first seasons of the liturgical church calendar. It covers the span of the four weeks leading up to Christmas. It is a time as a Christian to reflect on the first coming of Christ, and also a time to look forward towards his second coming. It is not something I knew existed before moving to Massachusetts. In New England, all the churches we have visited celebrate it and so, it has quickly made it’s way into our Christmas celebration as well. 

It is nice to think of the season as being the full four weeks, a time to reflect on what it all means and to spend time with Jesus. The first Sunday of advent, Ryan and I hurried about, collecting supplies so I could make a simple but creative advent wreath (pictured below). After assembling the wreath we had some time of devotions and lit the first candle. We set up and decorated our tree, and began to soak it all in. Of course, at the beginning of the season, I had grand plans that this year would be perfect. I would focus on the most important things and not get carried away with the busy extra details. Well, I can tell you (now that it is Christmas Eve), things didn’t go that way. It seems to be a pattern, but every year at this time life seems busier than ever, and this year was no different. But even when we didn’t get to do our devotions and light the candles on Sundays, we would do it on a Tuesday or a Thursday (whenever we had a moment to breathe). 

Now upon reflection, it was still a wonderful time of preparation leading to Christmas. I did stick with the book of essays I had selected (featured here) and it has been really great to read each essay day by day. Some have been thought provoking, and others joy provoking. Ryan and I have also been having amazing conversations about God and about marriage and about life. And now, we are in Ohio for two full weeks, and already the visit has been an awesome time of much needed rest and connecting with family and close friends. 

Below are just a few pictures of us decorating for the season and then one from a candle-lit service at our friend’s house church in Dayton, Ohio this week.

Walking Down Memory Lane

This week we are staying with Ryan’s family in Springfield, Ohio. Springfield is where Ryan and I grew up and it is so interesting to come back and visit. It is home, but it feels different too after living somewhere else for four years. I am beginning to wonder how it will feel to come back and visit after living in France for two years… or ten years… or who knows, maybe thirty years. It is truly a growing experience to live in new and different places and cultures, but it will always be fun to come back and walk down memory lane. 

One of Ryan’s memory lanes is that he used to always play in the fields and woods behind his house, and Ryan and his friends would build tree houses and play games and so on. So this past Sunday he gave me the tour of the area where it all happened. Most of the remains of the tree houses were no more, but it was great fun all the same. Below are a few of the highlights in pictures.

Advent Season 2011

As the Advent season quickly approaches, I am filled with both a sense of anticipation and excitement. I love this time of year and all that it brings, from serious reflection on Jesus’ coming to earth (and how that irreversibly altered the story of the world for the better... forever) to the simple joys of peppermint mochas and exchanging gifts. I love it all. :)

As a guide in my Advent season devotions this year, I am planning to follow along with a small book called Our Savior Come: An Advent Companion (there is also an e-book here). It is a series of reflection essays and scripture readings aimed at making the season leading up to Christmas a bit more thoughtful, purposeful, and worshipful. Our friend Nathan Shorb contributed one of the essays, along with a dozen other writers and artists. I can’t wait to begin the season, which starts November 27th.

Another thing to think about this season is how you can bless someone else. There are a million creative ways to do this so I am not going to go on and on about it. But one of the organizations I like is Samaritan’s purse. They do great things all year round, but there are a couple of fun ways to get involved during the Christmas season. One is Operation Christmas Child. In a nut shell; you select a child (age & gender), fill a shoe box with small gifts and practical things, then your box is given to a child in need (typically in a third world country) along with a small book explaining the good news of Jesus Christ. There is even a follow-up discipleship program for all the kids who accept Christ. To find a drop-off location in your area where you can take your box, click here. Another option is their annual gift catalog, in which you can donate towards one of their many global initiatives, either as a gift for yourself or someone else (an aside: it is always good to be sure someone would appreciate this as a gift first). My two favorite picks this year are #22 (Clean water for a thirsty community) and #44 (Baby chicks, they are just so cute), but there is a long list of terrific options.

If we have time throughout the season, we will keep you updated on some of our thoughts along the way. But before all that, Thanksgiving is literally right around the corner, so enjoy that special day whether you give thanks with family, friends, or just you and God.

Twenty Percent

We are at 20% of our monthly support goal. Praise God!

The Gospel Works

Erin and I have been taking a class through World Team called Gospel Foundations. In the class we are working through how to apply the Gospel to our lives, because as a professor of mine used to say, “As Christians we never move on from the Gospel, we move on in the Gospel.” One of the most basic truths of the Gospel that continues to amaze me is that it works. One of my favorite authors, in talking about the apostle Paul, put it like this: 

I have often reflected on the strangeness of the task to which Paul devoted his life: telling pagans that there is a single creator God rather than a multiplicity of gods was bad enough, but adding that this God had made himself known in a crucified Jew, who had then been raised from the dead, was bound to cause hoots of derision…. Yet Paul found that when he told this story, when he proclaimed that this Jesus was indeed the world’s true Lord, people (to their great surprise, no doubt) found this announcement making itself at home in their minds and hearts, generating the belief that it was true, and transforming their lives with a strange new presence and power. (N. T. Wright, Paul, pg. 100)

The strange power of the Gospel works. It worked then and it works now.

Some interesting French religious statistics

It has been too long since our last post, sorry for the silence. Today I was reading our friends and teammates blog, the Shorb's (who I introduced a few weeks back here), and I wanted to share their post on some more recent statistics about spiritual interest in France.

This was a study published in February 2011 and the most encouraging percentage to me was that even though only 36% said they believe in God (in general), 62% of the population said they would like to discuss the questions they have about God with someone. Not that it is always easy to identify who those people are, but it is awesome that for the majority of the French, if God exists and who God is, are important enough issues to be thought through and discussed. And that is just what we want to do, discuss it with them. :)

If you want to see all the statistics, hop on over to the Shorb's blog here.