We have decided on Tabitha June as her name. I never thought a name could be so difficult to find and choose.

Check Acts 9:36-39 for Tabitha’s story and June is the English way to spell the Farsi word for “dear” or “darling”.

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Hi all,

Our little baby girl was born early Monday morning, Feb 25th.  Like Tad, she was almost two weeks early.

Debra did a home water birth and for the most part it went well. The last five minutes were more like firing a torpedo but at least it was over quickly. Debra might not feel the same but she can write about it in her own post.

Tad is enjoying his new role as Big Brother and there are only small hints of “Hey, I’m not the only fish in the pond anymore….”. He is adapting well for the most part though.

Here are a few pictures of Baby Girl. As soon as we settle on a name, I’ll do another post.

Pictures

Jeff

In the recent past, I read Grace Walk by Steve McVey and found it to be an absolutely awesome book. I am a person who defaults to relating to God as judge which leads to legalism and thinking that I need to earn His forgiveness and love. Grace Walk is McVey’s transformation from a similar lifestyle of action and works into someone who walks in the Spirit and does things because they overflow from his understanding of how the Christ system works. I can’t say I was transformed in the same huge way but my default mode of relating to God certainly changed for the better.

I am currently reading another McVey book in the Grace series, Grace Rules. “Rules” in the title is a verb, not a noun. Think of a surfer yelling “You rule, dude!” It’s that kind of rule.Grace Rules focuses more on Grace vs. The Law. I just finished a chapter that uses an analogy of marriage to highlight McVey’s point. I’ll put a few of the paragraphs that jumped out at me below. Hopefully they will entice you to get the book but mainly I hope they get your mind churning and cause you to ask yourself where you live on the continuum between grace and legalism like they did me.

Trying to overcome sin by changing one’s behavior is typical of a person whose life is ruled by law. Remember that law is a system whereby someone tries to make spiritual progress or gain God’s blessings based on what he does. In a life where grace rules, victory over sin is experienced by the expression of the indwelling Christ within us. The mere absence of expressed sin is not victory. Jesus Christ within us is our victory. Until a Christian understands his union with Christ, his default setting will be a legalistic lifestyle. His whole life will revolve around rules.

The bolded sentence really hit me because I thought that the absence of sin (a particular one or many/varied ones) is the goal, the state of victory.

When a Christian gets frustrated because Jesus won’t give him a list of rules, he may turn back to Law and ask, “Will you tell me what to do?” Mr. Law is always ready to make a connection with a Christian with wandering eyes – one who looks away from Jesus. So a believer may find himself married to Mr. Grace (Jesus) and yet involved again with Mr. Law. What is it called when a person is married to one partner but involved with another? Spiritual adultery. That’s what a Christian has when he builds his life around rules. The Bible clearly teaches that we are dead to the law. We have no relationship with rules anymore. Our life is Jesus Christ. 

Wow, McVey gets right to the heart of things! 

So why do many Christians live by laws? In Colossians 2:23, Paul says it is because “these are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion….” The religionist loves rules for one simple reason – they make him look good. It’s all about appearance. A legalist enjoys the special status he holds among his peers because he seems to keep all the right rules. It is a matter of pride. 

Again, some hard-hitting truth.

Like I mentioned above, these two books have made a huge impact on my understanding of what the Christian walk is supposed to look like. McVey brings up another point regarding forgiveness but discussion of it warrants another entry here. I’ll get going on it ASAP.  All of the points McVey makes are right there in scripture, things most of us have read numerous times. I pray that we will read God’s word slowly and purposefully so as to let it sink in and stick in our souls. 

Have a merry Christmas and let’s cherish the best gifts of all, Jesus’ birth and our adoption into His family! Jeff

Well we’ve been back in the states for 3 months now and are still in the process of transition.  In many ways I think it’s taken us longer than we anticipated.  Jeff’s job search has been slow, but we’ve seen God’s hand in it all along.  Jeff has just today received a job offer for a contract position that will get us at least through the end of the year.  He starts Monday.  We praise God for His perfect timing.

We’ve been living with amazing friends throughout the summer in two different households.  The Lonas Family graciously and generously put us up for seven weeks followed by the Hale Family who blessed us with their blessings for nearly four weeks.  These were both amazing blessings to us and saved us a huge amount of money and provided extra security as we landed back on American soil and became a little more stable.  We are now house-sitting for a retired couple from our church for the next two months as they travel the US in their RV.  This has been a refreshing refuge for us and has provided still more transition time for Jeff to get started at his job and for us to begin looking for a place of our own without any pressure to move in right away. 

I think some people we’ve talked with over the last three months have felt sorry for us and have wondered whether we regret giving up our house and all of our belongings three years ago…only to have to start over again now.  No one has come out and said this, but I’ve sort of “felt” it cross people’s minds.  To be honest, in moments of doubt it has crossed my mind.  But I’ve been so encouraged by John Piper through this process.  His book Don’t Waste Your Life has given me morsels of truth and encouragement at just the right moments and has spoken perfectly to our situation.  God has reminded me through Piper that risk is part of the Christian life….and whether we realize it or not, risk is woven into the fabric of our lives.    Here’s a great quote:

“Risk is right.  And the reason is not because God promises success to all our ventures in his cause.  There is no promise that every effort for the cause of God will succeed, at least not in the short run.”

He goes on to talk about the greatness of risk for the cause of God…

“On the far side of every risk…the love of God triumphs.  This is the faith that frees us to risk for the cause of God. … It is childlike faith in the triumph of God’s love – that on the other side of all our risks, for the sake of righteousness, God will still be holding us.  We will be eternally satisfied in Him.  Nothing will have been wasted.”

And so in the midst of a culture where the “myth of safety” prevails, I am happy to be living out a very obvious reality where there are many unknowns waiting around the corner and numerous things beyond my control.   The great thing about Jeff and I’s current situation is that there is no mistaking WHO is in control.  We feel completely out of control and that is such a great place to be (even as uncomfortable as it may be at times)!  Had we held onto our house or put all our stuff in storage three years ago…we wouldn’t be nearly as dependent upon God at this moment.   We would be tempted to be much more self-reliant.

And so, I can say with certainty in this moment that I do not regret following God’s leading to the Middle East three years ago and all of the sacrifice that came with it.  For God has taken us (and continues to take us) through a process of becoming more satisfied in HIM alone and not in belongings, circumstance, status, purpose or anything else.  And this makes it all worth it.

Hi all,

We got hit this afternoon by a big dust storm that swept in from the southeast. Three minutes before I took the picture below, the sky was as blue as can be. Check out the video to see what I mean. These storms are literally a fast-moving wall of dust. Craziness.

I am still looking for a software dev job, I have one opportunity that is probable and a few that are maybes so we’ll see. God is taking good care of us while we wait though.

We are both going to teach conversational English classes one night a week with international students from the local university.

Debra is hosting a Turkish gal from the university as well. They will get together once or twice a month to hang out or go grocery shopping, whatever they decide to do. Debra will elaborate I’m sure.

More later,

Jeff