tonyandkirsten.org

Madeline is officially teething now. People have been asking us for weeks on end if this was the case, and our standard reply has been something like, “we’ll tell you when we see her first tooth. Right now, it’s just drooling and chewing for no aparent reason.”

Wednesday morning I stuck my finger in Madeline’s mouth to let her gnaw on it, and was slightly surprised to feel a sharp little point on her lower gums. A tooth emerging! Of course, it’s making her really cranky…but it’s still an exciting milestone. As soon as it comes all the way out, I’m sure we’ll try and get a picture of it. I’m told by more experienced mothers that it could be a while before her tooth is all the way in, and of course this is just the first of many more to come…so it could be an interesting few months if the rest bother her as much as this one is.

On a completely different subject, we got a real honest-to-goodness chain letter today in the mail. The postal mail, not my email. Not one of those cutesy “send this to six of your friends and soon you will get postcards from around the world” sorts of things that went around when we were kids, but a true “Get rich quick by sending a dollar to six people” type of letter. As far as I can remember, I’ve never gotten one before. I thought they were long gone in this modern age of spam email!

It was adressed to one of the former residents of our townhouse or the “current resident” and of course it wasn’t from a sender we knew. The text of the letter claimed that it was legal because they were “selling a service” of adding you to a mailing list or something like that. Yeah, right. Likely story. If I can find out where to report these kinds of things I will probably do it.

Here’s A burned CD Google wants you to give to friends and family. Bring this home for the holidays, and don’t forget Firefox, Thunderbird, and Ad-Aware, too!

Cardboard Salvation Army Bell Ringers...what does it say that I think I would be more likely to give to a fake bell ringer than a real one???

“It’s a Wonderful Life” in 30 Seconds and re-enacted by Bunnies“. If you’ve never seen one of these, you really have to take a look. My favorite one is their rendition of “The Shining“. Redrum! Redrum!

So, God is always active, right? It’s just that sometimes we don’t see what’s happening. We start to believe that God doesn’t step into time and change things anymore.

And then…

And then, He moves in such blatent ways that you can’t ignore His hand in the world. These are moments that renew your faith and propel you through the next set of mysterious circumstances. Here’s a quick report of these last two weeks, which were amazing.

• Saturday, Dec. 4 — We started a cinnamon roll selling fundraiser so that money would not prohibit anyone from going to a conference over Christmas break, Faithwalkers. We made 90 cinnamon rolls and prayed from 8 PM – 12 AM. Among the prayer requests are needs for funds, helping people decide to go to Faithwalkers, and changed lives in our community.
• Sunday, Dec. 5 — I announce the cinnamon roll fundraiser during church. Immediately after announcing the fundraiser, a really tall guy walks up to me to ask, “I’m new here. So, what’s this ‘Rock‘ thing you were talking about?” I find out his name is Nick, and he wants to leave his troubled past and follow God. Did I mention he’s really humble, and he wants to change his life?
• Sunday, Dec. 5 — We sold 85 rolls that morning and took orders for 75 more to be delivered that next week.
• Sunday, Dec. 5 — Nick calls. He wants to know more about fasting and how to read the Bible. He wants to show God that he’s serious. We talk. He tells me that he wants to come to the Rock on Friday.
• Wednesday, Dec. 8 — I get the first report of how much money we need to raise so that everyone who wants to go, can. It’s $1150. Wow. That’s a lot of cinnnamon rolls.
• Wednesday, Dec. 8 — Matt Heerema sends an email to the Rock list, letting everybody know that Tony Striegle, a member of Stonebrook, tore a ligament at work and needs help roofing the house he’s building for his family. He needs the help on Thursday. It’s dead week.
• Thursday, Dec. 9 — I go to help roof for the afternoon. There’s a lot to do, and we don’t get close to done.
• Friday, Dec. 10 — I ask for help to go finish Tony’s roof on Saturday. 12 guys volunteer!
• Friday, Dec. 10 — I go help with Rock setup. There’s this new guy who asks Michael T. Riley if this is The Rock. I meet him. His name is Mike. He asks me, “So, are you guys about Jesus?” Surprised by his forwardness, I reply, “Ya, we are. Are you?” He goes on to tell me about how earlier in the day he was having a break down. He said his mind was falling apart. Not knowing what to do, he found a New Testament in the Memorial Union and started following the index about which passages talk about which problems in life. He tells me, “Jesus put me back together. Earlier today, I wasn’t about Jesus, but I think I’m coming around to your side.”
• Friday, Dec. 10 — We get done setting up equipment in the Great Hall, and I point out Tim Borseth to Mike. The two go out for dinner, and Tim shares Romans 10:9-10,13 and 1 John 5:11-12 with Mike. Mike decides to jump in and prayed a prayer of confession and invitiation for Christ to enter his heart. He is now saved!
• Friday, Dec. 10 — Nick comes to the Rock. He enjoys it and hooks up with several other Christians, among whom are Matt H., Pat B., and Dave P.
• Saturday, Dec. 11 — We roof Tony Striegle’s house! We get all the living spaces covered just as the sun sets.
• Sunday, Dec. 12 — We sell 95 cinnamon rolls at church and take orders for 112 more throughout the week.
• Sunday, Dec. 12 — Tony Striegle makes a generous contribution to the Faithwalkers fund.
• Tuesday, Dec. 14 — Mike decides to go to Faithwalkers! Did I mention that a month ago, I prayed that someone we hadn’t even met yet would decide to go to Faithwalkers? I did. Apparently, that person is Mike!
• Tuesday, Dec. 14 — Kirsten and I do the math and figure out how much money was raised for Faithwalkers. $1600! That’s enough to cover our team and help several others go to Faithwalkers!
• Wednesday, Dec. 15 — The current count is 27 men and women from RCA (that’s our team) going to Faithwalkers. 13 of them are going for the first time!

So, God raises more than enough money, saves the soul of Mike, and brings Nick from a troubled past into fellowship with Christians! His hand was so clear!

Amazing!

Pictures from the last two Friday night Rocks are now posted in our photo gallery…you can enjoy some great shots as well as a few fun, not-so-perfect, artistic looking pics I liked.

Rock in Curtiss on 12-3
Rock in the Great Hall on 12-10

Happy Viewing!

We’ve been getting a lot of use out of our new camera…Tony discovered a feature that allows multiple shots to be taken quickly…which means I have hundreds of pictures to sort thru to pick ones to put in our photo gallery!

So far we have…new pictures in the Random Ministry Pictures album and of course LOTS of new pictures of Madeline from the last couple of weeks. It’s clear we are really enjoying the new camera, since we’ve already taken 70 pictures of her this month that seemed worth uploading!

We also took a lot of pictures at the last two Friday Night Rocks, but I still need to sort through them. You can look forward to those being posted soon!

[album:30,1]

I’m taking a break from working on Christmas letters to type this. Between the signing, folding, and stuffing my forearm feels like I’ve developed a repeitive motion injury, and I am only a little over half way through our 110 recipients! I suppose typing isn’t going to make my arm feel any better, but at least it’s a change of pace.

The other day, I said something to Tony along the lines of…”Christmas should be separated into two holidays — one for the Christian rememberance of Christ’s birth, and the other for all the modern, consumeristic celebrations most of the world associates with Christmas.”

He asked me if I had gotten the idea from an NPR “All Things Considered” commentary along a similar vein. As it turned out, I hadn’t heard it, but I went and found it in their archives and gave it a listen. The guy had a good point, but he was more altruistic in his ideas.

I, on the other hand, would just like to enjoy the commercialism of Christmas with out the guilt. You hear it every year — slogans like, “Jesus is the reason for the season” and “Don’t take the Christ out of Christmas.” We as Christians are urged to focus on spiritual aspects of the holiday and to leave the commercialism behind to a certain degree to have a holiday more true to the original meaning.

Each year I feel a slight twinge of guilt about how much I enjoy red and green candies, cartoonish snowmen, cheesy holiday music, buying gifts, baking cookies, attending parties (wishing I had “real” parties to go to where you dress up in fancy clothes), decorating the Christmas tree, and even a little bit of Santa Claus…though Tony and I both agree that the modern tradition of parents pretending that Santa brings the toys and really lives at the North Pole, only for kids to later discover the parents weren’t telling the truth is a bit ridiculous.

None of those things have any direct connection to the Christian meaning of the season, except some of the cheesy holiday music. I can easily ignore the Christain side of Christmas all together, except for a few messages at church and maybe going to a Christmas eve service if I am lucky enough for it to work into the family celebrating schedule.

A week or two ago I had been wracking my brain trying to think of ways to bring more of the Christian meaning of Christmas back into the celebration, when I decided the ideal solution was to have two holidays. The secular side of Christmas is so not conducive to the spiritual side of Christmas and it’s hard for them to coexist. The secular side is all about hustle and bustle while the spiritual side is about reflection and rememberance.

I know this is wishful thinking, and that I probably really will have to find ways for the two sides of Christmas to coexist with one another in my life and the lives of my family. But it’s certainly nice to dream a little of a day when enjoying snowmen and Santa and decorated trees could have a day all its own.

Madeline, who is normally so happy that it takes only the hint of a funny face to make her smile, refused to smile when I took her to get her pictures taken today. She wasn’t particularlly crabby or tired. She didn’t act hungry or scared. She wasn’t even doing her characteristic “open mouth stare” so frequently seen in pictures of her on our website. She just had a neutral expression on her face, with her cheeks ever so slightly puckered.

Naomi had come along for the drive to Des Moines (I had a coupon for the JC Penny studio and the nearest one was in West Des Moines), but nothing she or I or two different photographers could do would make her change her expression. Amazing! The photographers were really nice and offered to reschedule for no additional charge.

If these pictures were just for ourselves, I would have just gone with the somewhat sullen looking pictures they did take, but we’re planning on giving these as Christmas gifts to Madeline’s adoring Grandparents and Great-Grandparents. I’m sure they will be happy with whatever we give them…but they are worth a second try to see if we can have smiling Madeline pictures.

The new appointment is Monday afternoon, still in time to get the pictures back before Christmas!

With the number of new things we came home with after our Thanksgiving trip to see family, you would think that we had already celebrated Christmas. We saw one of my aunts and a cousin, and they gave us a whole gift-bag of baby gifts for Madeline. Then when we visited my Dad and step-mom, they had a great noise-and-lights toy for Madeline, as well as a book of Christmas rhymes. We also made our second-annual visit to Office Max for “Black Friday” (otherwise known as the Day-after-Thanksgiving) free-after-rebate items. This year our scores included another USB memory stick, blank CDs, Calendar Creator software, and a power strip.

Finally, we bought ourselves an early Christmas present — a new digital camera! We have had our eyes on the Canon A75 for quite some time, and saw it on sale for a great price starting the Sunday after Thanksgiving. We had been planning on spending Christmas money to buy it, but we decided we couldn’t pass up making the purchase early. By the time the bill comes due, we’ll have the money, right? We absolutely LOVE this camera! This pictures are much better quality, it takes great little movies, and the batteries will last MUCH longer.

You can see some pictures taken with our new camera (as well as a few still taken with our old camera) in our photo gallery:

New pictures in our November Madeline album (new pictures start on page three)
It took a lot of takes to get a good family picture
A few pictures from our Thanksgiving travel to visit our families