a breather

This is the first somewhat normal Monday in three weeks, except for the electrician restoring power to half of our home. Between traveling to Seattle, ImpaCT 09 at our church, the Hartford Project with our teens, and visiting family for 4th of July we have been somewhat scattered. What I'll do is give you a quick summary of each and then I'll put some pictures up later.


Seattle: a great city with a totally different feel than cities on the East Coast. Lots of water, trees, and modern architecture. There aren't older buildings like there are here and there is this spread out feel to it all. I stayed at a great Hostel, walked around down town, explored via public transport, visited a neat museum, and spent time reading at a neat tea and crumpet shop. It was great to spend time with friends at the rehersal dinner and wedding and I was excited to hear about God working through his church in Seattle. In many ways the spiritual needs reminded me of the New England area, but it was interesting to see how the same issues of sin and brokenness played out in different ways. The same root issues lead people in New England to work themselves to death, while in Seattle people take vacation and rest very seriously. Here people tend to be blunt and cold while in Seattle they are warmer but very passive aggressive. Anyway, you get the idea - same underlying disease with different manifestatoins.


ImpaCT 09 - This was a time of focused gospel ministry where we had teams from AL, and MA, as well as individuals coming in from various other places. The two teams primarily focused on a children's program which we ran in an impoverished area of the city. The other individuals went through West Hartford and Waterbury (a city about 30min away) and sought to have conversatoins with people about God. God blessed these endeavors by providing opportunities to speak with a variety of people about the gospel. We are currently following up with the many people who either expressed interest in further conversation or committed themselves to Christ.


The Hartford Project - About 200 teenagers and youth leaders from fourteen area churches came into Hartford for a four day missions trip. We partnered with churches and orginizations in the city to show the love of God to Hartford. This was an amazing time of service as we God powerfully at work in all sorts of ways. We saw him controlling the weather so we could continue with our plans for outdoor festivals at two churches. We saw his life changing power as we heard about his work in saving people that come from places of influence and power, and people who have been brought to nothing by addiction. We also had wonderful times of worship as we praised God for all that we saw him doing that week. This was my second year participating and both times it has been an incredible experience.

Visiting Family - Right after the Hartford Project ended I hopped on the road to meet family in the Pocono Mountains of PA for a few days rest. Hillary had been staying with my parents for a few days and came up with my dad to meet us there. The unsung heroes of all that I have been telling you about are Hillary, my family, and some friends who have helped Hillary care for Wesley as I have been generally out of the picture the past few weeks.

back and between

Monday morning I took my first ever "red eye" flight from Seattle to Cleavland, to Hartford and it wasn't as unpleasant as it could have been. At first there were two infants echoing each other's screams. One would cry then the other would screech back from some undisclosed location further up in the plane. But they settled down pretty quickly and I was able to catch a few hours. I'll post some pictures and tell some stories, but I am pretty spent right now. We're in the midst of IMpaCT 2009 and the Hartford Project starts this weekend, so I am a little overwhelmed. It definitely feel scattered - I better sleep. Goodnight

out...

Wednesday morning I'm on my first trip to the West coast. I'm attending a friend's wedding and am very excited. A few days with no responsibilities is pretty awesome and I don't feel too bad because Hillary has some help coming. There is a lot to do between now and 5am Weds. morning so I won't say much, but will write about the trip when I return.

smiles

It is pretty sweet when you see faces like these. Sometimes there is lots done to incite the smiling and other times it just kinda happens. Wesley is definitely putting on the weight and is on his way to being a chunky baby. He is just getting those rolls on his neck and it is pretty fun. Sleeping is coming along. Two times now he has slept for 6+ hours and we feel amazing when that happens. Other nights though aren't so good and we need to remember not to get discouraged. The next few weeks will definitely be a challenge for Hillary as I'll be away on and off, and she'll be on her own for some of it. I'm going to Seattle next week and am very excited to explore a new city and be on the West Coast for the first time.

growing - gardens and babies

Wesley is certainly growing and we think our garden is too. Wesley had his one month check up and weighed in 1lb heaveir than last time (8lbs 8oz) and you can see the difference in his chubby cheeks and chunkier thighs.

Our garden, unlike Wesley, is not so easily measured. I spent all of labor day weeding and trimming the various trees which efectively shadded our garden. We've got cucumbers, peppers (green and red), zuchunni, tomatoes, green beans and lettuce this year. In addition we've got a few herbs going by the deck. There is this neat sense of accomplishment in weeding and planting and I really enjoyed it. I think part of the enjoyment stems from the fact that elsewhere in life the results of what I do aren't immediate. I love working with people, but it is nice to spend a day in the garden and tear all this stuff out and put all this stuff in, but I guess it will still be a while to see if it grows.

If you are wondering about our sleep, Wesley isn't on a schedule yet. He has some nights where we only sleep four or five hours, but there are others, like last night, where we got about eight hours of sleep. Eight hours is amazing.

moving on up

The exciting news for this week is that Wesley has jumped up in diaper size to #1. It is interesting that until a few weeks ago I did not know there were various sizes of diapers. It defineitely makes sense, but there are all sorts of things you learn when you have a kid. Hillary brought Wesely to church yesterday and that was the first try of attempting to get to a certain place at a specific time. It was challenging. We don't keep much of a schedule since our plans plans are easily foiled by a hungry or sleepy or cranky baby.

Outside of baby stuff a highlight from my week was attending a graduation party for one of our students. It was unique in that only guys were invited (no girls except immediate family). We hung out and ate for a bit and then took time to encourage this student. Different men from his life talked about what they had seen and hope to see in him and many gave great advice for the next stage. It was interesting to be at this graduation party and think that I would be doing something like that as a Dad one day.

a little fussy

Wesley is clearly a cute baby, but he is following the path of most infants - not sleeping when he is supposed to. He is all swadled, being rocked, comforted, and all that good stuff and then he just looks up at you with these wide open eyes. Sometimes it is really funny, but when it gets to be the early hours of the morning my sense of humour seems to run out. Overall it hasn't been that bad - I can't imagine having a baby who just cries. I just think we were a little spoiled early on when he would eat and then go right to sleep. We are figuring him out a little bit more each day, but he continues to grow and change so sometimes it is hard to know what to expect. It is really interesting at moments to think, "Wow, I was a squirmy little baby just liket this and one day Wesley will hopefully be grown up with kids of his own." Those are my thoughts as I change diapers at odd hours of the morning.