Kid Update

A few updates about the kiddos...

Eden is now playing football (soccer), which is really funny to watch. He's loving his second year of school (Montessori). He's having a bit of trouble with accidents at night, but overall Eden has mastered his bladder. His favorite playtime activity is to play with his train tracks, ride his bike, race his toy cars, and talk nonstop every waking moment of the day.

The other day Eden said, "I love mommy because she has milk and cookies in her tummy."

Eli is now a very stable walker. He loves to sit and read books, will eat pretty much anything we put in front of him, and can empty out a package of wipes faster than you can say, "Eli!!". He is most definitely our calm/chill child, at least for now. He and Eden enjoy wrestling and rolling around on the ground, however after about five seconds it turns from laughing to screaming.

The other day Eli said, "Glboof shhlupppfffs." He's also saying "da da" fairly well now.

You will never know how much we appreciate your influence spiritually on our family. Not only are you holding up our ministry in prayer, you are holding up our family. Thank you for all your prayers and support.

Do Not Steal

This Thursday night I’ll be driving over to Limerick to speak at the SFC meeting there. Brent and Lori Enget are back in the states getting some much-needed family time. At the helm of SFC Limerick in their absence is Matt Shepherd. He’s doing a spectacular job handling all of the responsibilities that come with being a key leader in a college ministry.

He has wisely delegated some of the speaking tasks to other ministry leaders around Limerick. He’s included me and Blake in two of the weekly meetings, so my turn is this week. The theme of the messages for the semester has been the ten commandments. My topic is “Do Not Steal.” It is a tricky one to teach on, because there is more to it than a simple “don’t do it, k?” 

At the heart of all our instinctual human behaviors (including stealing) is sometimes a fundamental lack of trust in God. Just like the Israelites, all humans need the loving hand of God to show us a better way. But unlike the Israelites, today we have the new covenant with God through Jesus. We can live in a better way because Jesus is our strength and help in overcoming what our nature cannot fight. He helps us to trust God and live in loving community with others. 

Please be in prayer that I communicate well to these students through the power of the Holy Spirit and that He will also inspire them to have great questions and thoughts for our discussion. You guys are awesome and we can sense that you’ve got our backs in prayer. Thanks for being there for us AND here with us as we go forward. 

Students of Dublin

We are so excited to be launching our new website very soon. It will be called Students of Dublin and will feature unfiltered stories and photos from students of the city’s many campuses. We are also going to add results from surveys that we plan to do in various colleges. This is a project that God has put on our hearts for a long time. We are just now able to start the wheels in motion. 

The idea for this was sparked about four years ago, when we did a survey on morality at Trinity College. Surprisingly, all of the students we surveyed (ALL of them) had personal values that were somewhat conservative as compared with what they thought their peers had. The students seemed to assume that their peers preferred certain ideals while they themselves had private values that were not popular. The reality was that all of them might have been going through life feeling perceived pressure to conform to a reality that was mostly made up. We want to provide a mirror into reality for students like these. 

God sees who they are and loves them without any filter. We want students to understand that they are not alone in the choices they make and to let their voices be heard. We also seek to create a space where local churches can read about the needs and interests of students in their area. Churches want to care for students in helpful ways. This website might provide a guide. 

The next big step is to find a web designer to implement our flood of ideas. Please pray that we find the right person for the job. Thanks for being a part of this dream! Stay tuned for more news on this front.