Brooks Blog

In transition...

2008-07-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

So we've been in Roseville for over three weeks now, and as Matthew has recently started a temp job that's full time, it is now up to me to keep you up to date. I have failed! Sorry...

This past week and most of this coming week we're housesitting for Matthew's great-aunt who lives in Sun City Roseville. She has not been able to travel much recently for various reasons, so she's excited to get away to see friends. And we are quasi-homeless, so it's been kinda nice to "have our own place" for awhile. Matthew's aunt has 6 cats, so we're caring for Tommy (the people-friendly fat one), Puss (the oldest and the biggest wuss), Norman (the punk) and Ethel (the one who loves ice water), and Bonnie (who stays in her closet) and Clyde (the playful one). Matthew's aunt used to foster litters of kittens when they needed to be bottle-fed, so when not all the cats of the litter were adopted out, she ended up with the others. So Norman and Ethel are from the same litter, as are Bonnie and Clyde. As you may be able to tell, I'm enjoying having pets, even though I wouldn't choose to have 6 of my own! It's really neat to see how all of them are cats and behave like cats, but each has his/her own unique personality too. God is cool that there is so much diversity among creatures that are so easily stereotyped! I guess that's true of humans, too.

So anyway, aside from life with cats, I put together a dresser/changing table that got delivered to Matthew's parents' house this past week. If you're ever looking, I recommend going straight to WalMart or Target, and if you like what's in stock, buy there. It's cheaper than anywhere else. But if you make the "mistake" of looking online at Target first, you might get into trouble and become perfectionistic like I did. Target won't order something they have in their catalog for you to be delivered to the store, and for furniture they charge $95 for shipping. Babies R Us is about the same, but has a bigger selection and slightly higher prices. So I went with JC Penney, because they had a pretty good selection and only charged $27.50 for shipping. The whole process ended up being way more dramatic than I had anticipated, but I'm excited to have a place to put our clothes now (our armoire is in storage), and baby Naomi's stuff when she arrives.

Matthew and I have also joined a gym, and so far I've been successful in going to water aerobics classes three times a week. I can tell they're going to make a difference in my overall strength and condition by the end of the pregnancy, and it's nice to be able to work out pretty hard without my entire abdomen getting sore and tired! I went for a walk with Matthew last night, and I had to walk crazy slow so as to maintain a certain level of comfort.

Aside from all that, I spend most of my time catching up on little projects I never got done while we were in Portland, doing little projects to help out Matthew's parents (like re-attaching handles that have fallen off of various drawers), watching DVR recordings of Law and Order, and reading/napping. It's a hard life. ;-)

This weekend in particular, Matthew and I went to Roseville Sugarbears champs to watch my siblings, Peter and Krista, swim as fast as they could. Yesterday was also Krista's 12th birthday, so we went out for dinner and then returned to my parents' to eat cake while Krista opened presents. She got lots of clothes, and was very excited about that!! She must be a pre-teen. Or maybe she's just a completely different creature from me... that's highly plausible! The two of us are hanging out for a few hours each Tuesday afternoon for bonding time. This week she's starting a game of Civilization, meeting the six kitties, and we might make some cookies. :-)

Well, I'm having issues getting to a "good" ending place, so I think I'll just stop blabbering instead. (Sorry no pics this time.) Happy Sunday!

We made it!

2008-06-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

We have arrived at Matthew's parent home in Roseville, CA and are settling in nicely.

Yesterday was a long day. We did the final check out from our apartment a little after 8am, put the car on the car carrier and got on the road by about 8:45am. It was a long drive. We had to go about 15 MPH slower than normal with the truck and trailer and tried to stop about every two hours to stretch our muscles, etc. On top of that we had to slow way down going up steep hills (especially the Siskiyou pass at the boarder) because the truck engine was getting too hot so it took us a little over 14 hours with us arriving around 11:15pm last night. It was a long day with a stressful ending (a mishap with unhooking the trailer from the truck) but we got good rest last night and today has been much more relaxing.

We got a pretty good start and thanks to some help from our dads and Emily's mom were able to unload the truck into our storage unit in about 90 minutes. Since then we've done a little unpacking and a lot of relaxing. We're excited to be home near family and old friends. Thanks to all of you who prayed for safe travels and a smooth transition, thanks also for all the well wishes and goodbyes from our Portland friends and the good wishes and

The Truck is Loaded!

2008-06-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

This will likely be our last blog post for a bit but I wanted to give everyone an update. We finished loading the truck at about 4:30pm thanks to help from our friends Jason, Gary, and Ford. We had quite a bit of extra space but don't think things will tumble around too much. We still have some cleaning to do but will have the help of our friend Virginia with that. We should be done by 7 or 8pm. We'll be staying the night at our pastor's home and then coming back for the final check out from our apartment at 8am tomorrow. That should put us on the road by about 8:30. We figure we will take it nice and slow (since we're towing the car too) with plenty of stops so it should take between 12 and 14 hours but we should be able to get into Roseville in time for a good night's sleep there. Then on Thursday morning we'll unload most of our stuff into storage and start to settle in as guests with my parents. A busy couple of days but we're excited to be coming home!

Peninsula Baptist Update

2008-06-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

We had a good time visiting Peninsula Baptist Church (PBC) this weekend. God gave us some beautiful weather and we were able to explore Long Beach and a fair bit of the greater peninsula on Saturday before enjoying an evening of good fellowship with the church's pastor and his wife, daughter and son-in-law. We stayed the night with them and attended church the next morning "under the radar" then went back to the pastor's home for a Father's Day BBQ and US Open viewing get together with several other couples from the church.

While we enjoyed our time and see a lot of potential and positives in this situation some of the traits of the community itself (demographics, culture, climate, isolation, distance from family, etc.) are dampening our enthusiasm about the prospects of raising a family in that area. We have advised PBC that at least for now we are not able to commit to coming there if they offer us a position. While we don't want to shut the door we have informed them that with our move and the baby coming we will not be able to continue to pursue the process at this time. We expect them to continue their search. If after a few months in California they are still interested in us we may try to make another visit and take a closer look but for now we will be continuing our search and we will be perfectly content (and happy for the wonderful people we met) if God raises up someone else to fill this position.

Penninsula Baptist Church

2008-06-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Thursday Matthew made the 2 and half hour drive from our home in Portland out to Ocean Park, Washington for an interview with the search committee of Penninsula Baptist Church. PBC is an independant Baptist church. They run about 150 on a Sunday and currently only have 1 pastor. They are looking for an Associate to assist with general pastoral ministry (preaching, visitation, etc.) and to help develop lay leaders for and oversee ministry to families and youth.

Matthew has had several opportunities to dialogoue with the pastor, Kerry Stroupe, and they seem to have a good rapport. The church is located on the Long Beach Penninsula in Southwest Washington about 40 minutes north of Astoria, OR near HWY 101. The Penninsula is a beautiful area. It is a popular tuourist destination during the summer and has one of the world's largest beaches but it is fairly isolated area and gets about twice as much rain as Portland so there are definitely some cons to go with the pros.

So far the interaction has been positive. We are planning to go out together next weekend (June 14 & 15) to check out the area a little more and visit the church "incognito" to see what we think. This will also serve as a mini-vacation to celebrate the end of Emily's teaching year (June 13 is her last day with students). We would appreciate your continued prayers for God's clear guidance as we consider this possability.

Interview

2008-06-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

Matthew has an interview with the search committee at Penninsula Baptist Church in Ocean Park, WA. They are smallish church on the coast of Southwest Washington (near Long Beach, WA north of Astoria, OR) looking for an Associate Pastor to assist their senior pastor in various asspects of ministry.

So far Matthew has had a brief phone interview and a lunch meeting with the pastor. Those have gone well enough that Matthew plans to spend most of tomorrow (Tuesday) with him at a conference in Salem, OR before driving out to Ocean Park for the interview on Thursday. While the pastor seems like a great guy we really don't know that much about the job description, church or community yet. We would appreciate your prayers for God's guidance as we consider this opportunity. Thanks!

Moving Preparation

2008-06-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

A week ago we helped our good friend Luke Thomas load up for the move down to California. Yesterday Matthew helped our neighbors Travis and Cheryl Wavrin with their move. Our little housing complex is starting to get pretty quiet with all the summer moves that have been taking place and all of this serves to remind us that we too will be leaving our wonderful home here in Portland very soon.

Our last day at Central Bible Church is June 22nd and our plan is to take Monday the 23rd to finish packing up our stuff, pick-up the moving truck on Tuesday the 24th and load the truck and do our final apartment cleaning on that day. Then on June 25th we will drive south to California where we will unload most of our belongings into storage and move in temporarily with Matthew's parents while we wait for Naomi to be born and continue to look for a long term ministry job.

Over the next few weeks we have a lot to do to get prepared. We have already begun to collect empty boxes (see above left). Fortunately as the yearbooks at Beaverton High are distributed Emily is able to collect as many of the empty boxes as she can fit in our car each day. We're also beginning to pack up some of our things that we won't be needing before the move (see below) and of course we hope to get rid of a lot of our stuff before we move.

How valuable something is can be significantly altered by the knowledge that we'll be loading it into a truck, unloading it into storage, storing it for months, loading it back into a truck, driving it to wherever we end up and unloading it again before we get any more use out of it (not to mention that we'll be paying for the privilege of moving and storing).

Matthew signed up for a Craigs List account today and we're hoping to sell some of our furniture in the next couple of weeks. We also are planning to give a bunch of stuff away before we leave. If you are in the Portland area keep an eye out for a "Free Stuff" post coming soon. Also if any of you local Portlanders are available on June 24th we'll be looking for help that day. Don't worry though we'll almost certainly contact you directly to beg ;-).

Baby Shower

2008-06-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday the ladies of Central Bible Church put on a baby shower for Emily. It was a special time and we really felt incredibly loved by our church family. We also ended up with a ton of great stuff to get us started on our way as parents.

Emily admiring the two "cakes" made for her shower.

Jennie Wymore, a friend from church and Life Group who is from Honduras had a beautiful cake made for Emily in the authentic Latin American style. With dual blessings written on it in English and Spanish for our coming baby girl. Connie Clayton made us a "diaper cake", a decorative sculpture of diapers, toys and baby products assembled to look like multi-layered wedding cake.

A close up of the eatable cake.

Emily was showered with a wonderful variety of gifts including clothing, blankets, books and toys for Naomi to enjoy throughout her first year or so of life. Our generous friends also kindly took into account our coming move and avoided giving us bulky items, instead chipping in on some gift cards for a group gift.

Emily preparing to open her many wonderful gifts as the Clayton daughters offer to help.

Emily showing off the lovely "Sunbonnet Sue" quilt that Donna Gurney made for us.

Emily enjoying the love showered on her with gifts, words, and fellowship.

In addition to the gifts the ladies showed their love by throwing a great party with food, games and good fellowship and with kind words spoken and written on many cards. A special treat was a book they assembled for Emily with each woman writing their own page sharing their words of personal love, encouragement and wisdom for the mother-to-be.

Kay Ramsey, Shelley Price and Rachel and Tia Clayton at the shower.

Sarah Clark, Lori Wolpert, Mary Lister, and Karen Dunbar with Emily at the shower.

Unfortunately, the timing of the shower was bad for some of Emily's closest friends from Multnomah who were not able to attend. However, these girls didn't want to miss out on the fun so they threw Emily a "private baby shower" on Sunday after church. Erin Searight, Virginia Thomas and Mellisa Pace took Emily out for lunch (and of course dessert, too) at the Cheesecake Factory. The four of them enjoyed some good "girl time" and Emily received even more adorable gifts for baby Naomi.

Emily, Erin Searight, Mellisa Pace & Virginia Thomas at the "private shower" at the Cheesecake Factory.

Parental Visit

2008-05-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

Matthew's Mom (Kathy), Dad (Tim) and Emily at the Rose Test Garden overlooking downtown Portland

We were delighted to host Matthew's parents (Tim and Kathy Brooks) recently for a relaxing week of fun and celebration. Emily's family has been able to come up and visit twice since we've been in Portland but this was the first time that any of Matthew's family has been able to come up for a visit. They arrived on Tuesday May 13th in time to attend Matthew's ordination council interview and stayed through Monday May 19th so they were able to come with us to Emily's ultrasound appointment and see little Naomi on the Doctor's screen.

Right: Mom, Dad and Emily at the mouth of the Columbia river in Atoria.

Left: Emily flying our two-string kite on Cannon Beach

In addition to being great company they were very generous with us, taking us out to eat several times and treating us to beautiful day on the Oregon coast on Saturday May 17th when the wheather turned unusually warm. We had a great time introducing them to Tillamook ice cream, Burgerville, Powells City of Books, and many of the other wonderful traits of the Portland area. Most importantly we enjoyed good times of visiting, play games and just being together. Thanks Mom and Dad for such a great time.

Dad takes his turn with the kite with Haystack rock in the background.

Matthew watches as Mom flys the kite, she said it was the first time she'd ever been able to keep a kite in the air.

Emily and Matthew got their turns too. Here Emily flys while Mom takes a rest.

Graduation

2008-05-27T14:55:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been more than a week so it is past time that we acknowledge Matthew's graduation from Seminary here on the blog. Matthew graduated on May 16th with Masters of Divinity degree from Multnomah Biblical Seminary. It was a special celebration because so many of our good friends from our time here in Portland were all graduating together. It was also neat that Matthew's parents were able to come up from California to visit during this time and so were able to be here for the ceremony.

Graduation day began with Baccalaureate chapel which featured a message given by our good friend Ford Jordan (he did an awesome job). Afterward there was a group photo taken of the seminary graduates and faculty (see below) and an informal reception.

Although Emily had to work Baccalaureate was a good time for Matthew and his folks to celebrate graduation with some of his classmates (many of whom were never found in the crowd after the graduation ceremony that evening). Here (from left) are proud graduates Milan Homola (holding daughter Arianna), Ford Jordan, Matthew and Paul Kwok.

That evening Matthew and many of his friends got to walk across the stage and receive their hoods as they graduated with Masters Degrees. Here Matthew receives his hood from Seminary Dean Dr. Brake. The combined graduation featured all of the Seminary classes as well as the undergrads at Multnomah Bible College. It didn't start until 7:30pm and featured a lengthy address (everyone I talked to agreed that Ford's was better) so it was pretty late when it finished up. The crowd afterward combined with the late hour and the presence of family and friends made it difficult to track down everyone we would have liked to see that evening and limited the celebration for that evening (although it would carry over to the coming days). We were able to track down some of our best friends for a few group photos at the end though.

Here Luke Thomas (MDiv), Zach Banker (MA), Mike Pace (MDiv) and Dave Searight (MDiv) stand left to right with Matthew on the end. This group of guys has studied, played, laughed, discussed theology, eaten, and done just about everything else together over the past three years of study together.

Although our wives (with the exception of Virginia Thomas who earned her Graduate Certificate) didn't get to walk across the stage this graduation was just as much for them as their accomplishment of supporting (financially and otherwise) their husbands as they earned their degrees. Above are the so called "Sugar Mamas" (from left) Virginia Thomas, Amanda Banker, Mellisa Pace, Erin Searight and Emily who celebrated earning their PHTs (putting hubby through) degrees with equal gusto.

We were blessed that Matthew's parents were willing and able to take valuable vacation time to come up for a week long visit that included graduation (check back for more on their visit). Here are Matthew and Emily with Matthew's parents Kathy and Tim Brooks on the big night.

Meet Naomi Linda

2008-05-22T12:20:00.001-07:00

Yep, it's a girl! The ultrasound we had on Monday confirmed that and also that she is healthy and developing just fine. Our revised due date is September 29th. Above is our favorite of the pictures we got from the appointment. You can see her spine and the sillouette of her head with her lips slightly parted as well as her left arm raised up near her face. We can't wait to meet her!

We decided on the name for a girl within a few weeks of finding out Emily was pregnant. We like that Naomi isn't too common (outside of the top 100 girls names) but is still known enough as to not throw people off too bad with spelling or pronunciation. We also really like how it sounds and it's meaning (sweet/pleasant/beautiful) as well as it's biblical origins. The Naomi of the bible (Ruth's mother-in-law) is a beautiful example of the grace God shows through family relationships. Our prayer is that we would be that kind of channel of grace to our daughter. Linda was Emily's birth mother's name and we wanted to honor her memory. We like that our daughter's middle name will have a meaningful story behind it as well as a pleasant sound.

Sorry it took so long to get this posted. I had some difficulty finding a scanner and then getting the scanned images uploaded. Thanks for all of your prayers. We will keep updating this blog with relevant news and photos including updates about our coming move, Naomi's continuing development (and it's impact on Emily) and Matthew's ongoing job search. We hope to have some photos from Matthew's graduation and our visit with his parents later this week.

We will leave you with an image of Naomi's tiny little foot (sorry it got scanned crooked)

Big Week!

2008-05-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

So it has been more than a week since we updated this blog and a lot has happened in that time. It has been one of the biggest weeks of our lives. We've enjoyed good times with friends and family and personal milestones. It is going to take a few days to catch up a little with all the exciting things that have been going on in our lives so keep checking back over the next week or so. We'll have news and photos posting rapidly for the next few days.

Good Times

2008-05-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

Matthew finished his last Seminary class last Tuesday. It's been a good week since then with a mix of productivity and fun. Emily still has to go to work but has been able to get in on some of the fun as well. Here is a brief review of what we've been up to.

Wednesday - Matthew celebrated academic freedom with breakfast with friends followed by a couple of hour playing Nintendo Wii before hitting the Internet again to resume the job search.

Thursday - Matthew sent out 14 new resumes and had a phone interview with a church in Indiana. In the evening we both enjoyed good times with friends and good food at our friend Mike Pace's birthday party.

Emily and our friend Virginia Thomas hamming it up during a game of shuffle board at Saturday's Masters Class Retreat at Canby Grove.

Friday - Matthew finally crashed and spent most of the day resting in some capacity. We enjoyed a quiet evening at home and went to bed early.

Our friends Erin Searight, Luke Thomas, Ford Jordan & Virginia Thomas at Masters Retreat

Saturday - After getting some chores done in the morning we headed off to the Multnomah Master's class retreat where we ate large amounts of good food and had good relaxing fellowship with many of our friends from school. We enjoyed visiting and playing mini-golf, Foosball, shuffle board, etc. The day was capped off with a time of singing around a campfire.

Sunday - Yesterday we enjoyed a rare Sunday with no afternoon or evening scheduled activities. We took a long afternoon nap, had time to visit and pray together, Emily cut Matthew's hair and we got to call out mothers. Our neighbors the Thomases also hosted us for dinner feeding us yummy homemade pizza.

We're looking forward to the coming week as well. Matthew's parents will be visiting from California (arriving Tuesday evening). We are looking forward to spending time with them and to Matthew's ordination interview (Tuesday), Graduation (Friday), and our Dr. and Ultrasound appointment (Monday) among other things. Check back next week for more updates.

One Day Left

2008-05-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been very good about keeping up with the blog lately. It's been a hectic finish to the semester the last couple of weeks but we are doing well. Tomorrow is my last day of classes at Seminary. Next week my parents are coming up to visit and will be here for my graduation on May 16th. We're looking forward to having some time over the next few weeks to celebrate the completion of my seminary degree and spend some time with friends who will be starting to go their seperate ways soon.

I should be able to do a better job of keeping things updated during the next couple of months. I'll keep busy enough looking for a job and preparing for our transition but I'll still have some time to relax and hopefully stay in touch a little better.

In the mean time I wanted to let you all know that I have a phone interview with a church in Crawfordsville, IN on Thursday. I don't know a whole lot about the church or job yet but it is still good to see things moving along. We'd appreciate your prayers. Thanks!

God Closes a Door

2008-04-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

We heard from First Baptist Church of Clovis today. They've decided to go in a different direction with regard to their staffing plans (which I took to mean they're not going to add a full time associate pastor right now). They didn't elaborate beyond that which is probably just as well.

As you might expect we're feeling kind of disappointed right now. We were pretty excited about this possibility the church was healthy and growing, the position sounded like a great fit for Matthew, it was close to family and as a bonus we already had good friends at the church. We've been praying that if God had something different in mind for us that he would close this door so that is how we're trying to look at this decision but we're still a little bummed out for now.

Please keep praying for our job search. We've got some conversations started with a few other churches but nothing is very far along. We're continuing to look around for other possibilities as well. Thanks for all of your prayers and words of encouragement.

Our Trip to Clovis

2008-04-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

Here’s a quick overview of our visit to First Baptist Church or Clovis (FBCC) this past weekend. We had a really good visit. The church treated us like royalty not only flying us down but renting us a car, putting us up in a nice hotel, feeding us tons of wonderful food and on and on.

Matthew flew down Thursday afternoon and spent the evening hanging out with his friend Nick (the youth pastor at FBCC) and a bunch of high school students who come over for Bible Study every Thursday night. Friday morning he got a chance to tour the church and get to know most of the staff in an informal setting and over lunch. Friday afternoon Emily flew down and that night the Sr. Pastor and his wife took us both out to dinner where we had a chance to get to know each other a bit.

The folks at FBCC were thoughtful enough to keep most of our Saturday free so we could have some time for ourselves. We took advantage of the opportunity to meet Emily's immediate family in Turlock (halfway between Roseville and Clovis) for lunch and a short visit. Then Saturday night we had pizza with the staff and some of the church board members and had a chance to answer questions on a whole range of topics.

Sunday we got to church early enough for Emily to get a quick tour and then attended the first service. Between services we met briefly with a couple board members who couldn't make it Saturday so we could answer their questions and then we got to hear our friend Nick speak at the youth service which runs concurrently with the second main Sunday service. After all of that the Sr. Pastor took us out for one last fabulous meal and we all had a chance to ask a few more questions and offer some impressions in a kind of debriefing session.

We don't expect to hear anything for at least a couple of weeks which gives us plenty of time to continue to process our experience and get whatever insight we can about this decision from people that we know and trust. Of course we don't even know if we will have a decision to make, there is no guarantee they will make us an offer but so far we're feeling pretty positive about the possibility of joining this church if they do. It is a healthy and growing church and seems to have some needs that fit Matthew's skills and interests. We continue to appreciate your prayers for wisdom for both us and the leaders of FBCC in considering this possibility.

FBCC Visit

2008-04-08T14:17:00.000-07:00

This weekend Emily and I will be visiting First Baptist Church of Clovis (FBCC) near Fresno, CA to discuss the possability of my joining their pastoral staff. I will be flying down Thursday afternoon and Emily join me on Friday. We will stay through Sunday evening but don't have the details on how exaclty we will be spending that time yet.

One of my very best friends, Nick Bradley (he was Best Man at our wedding) is the youth pastor FBCC so we know a little about this church and they know a bit about me through him. The church would like to create a new pastoral position to oversee discipleship and small groups and help out with some teaching ministry. Right now this sounds like exactly the type of position that I've been looking for. In addition the idea of being on staff with Nick and being only 3 hours from "home" (Roseville, where our families live) is very appealing, plus some of our very best friends from Seminary (Luke & Virginia Thomas) would only be 45 minutes away in their new home. With all of this in mind we are very excited about this possability but are trying to keep an open mind and really seek God's will in this.

We will let you all know how things go and when we have any hard information we will post it here promptly. In the mean time we would really appreciate your prayers for God's peace and clear guidance both for us and for the leadership of FBCC as we explore this possibility together. I continue to be in various levels of contact exploring possible Associate Pastor positions with a number of other churches but right now this potential opportunity is front and center in hearts and minds.

P.S. If you're curious about FBCC you can check out their website at http://www.fbclovis.com/

Spring Break in New York

2008-03-31T17:56:00.001-07:00

We had a lot of fun on our trip to New York. It wasn't probably as relaxing Spring Break as we might have benefited from but we had a good time and squeezed a fair bit of the New York experience into our three days there.

The Manhattan Skyline from the Ferry to Ellis Island (Tuesday)

On Monday we got up dark and early (4:30am) had a quick breakfast, walked to the max station and got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our flight was oversold so they offered us $200 in travel vouchers each to fly through Atlanta instead of direct. We accepted and it wasn't until we were being rushed on to the plane going to Atlanta (it was leaving earlier) that we realized it meant we wouldn't be sitting together on that leg of the flight. So that was kind of lame but we connected fine in Atlanta and got to fly first class together from there to New York. Our two-leg flight meant that we got in to JFK 90 minutes later than we would have so by the time we tracked down our luggage (taken to but not yet scanned in at the luggage storage facility because it arrived on the direct flight that landed earlier) and took the subway all the way to Grand Central station we were pretty wiped out. Fortunately it was just a short walk to the hotel and after a rest we walked down 5th Avenue to the Empire State building and over to Times Square.

Emily in front of the Brooklyn Bridge (Thursday)

Matthew with Lady Liberty in the background (Tuesday)

Tuesday we slept in a bit had a big breakfast at the diner next to our hotel and then headed down to Battery Park for a trip over to Ellis Island. The weather was beautiful but the lines were long. We ended up boarding our ferry around noon and enjoyed the ride and a cool audio tour of Ellis Island itself. We were back at Battery Park around 4pm where we had a hot dog and enjoyed some street performers before walking through the financial district, past the bull statue, down Wall Street and over to the New York Stock exchange. From there we made our way over to Ground Zero before heading over to Times Square to see about discount Broadway tickets. We didn't like the selection too much and were pretty pooped so we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while. When our appetites returned we took the subway down to Chinatown and found a hole in the wall Chinese food place that our guidebook had recommended. It was obviously good because it was packed out but we didn't have to wait. The food was great and we shared a table with a couple from California which was fun.

The Statue of Liberty (Tuesday)

Wednesday we got a little earlier start, just coffee and a bagel for breakfast and plenty of snacks in out backpack and we headed to the Metropolitan museum of art. We spent a little over 4 hours exploring the art work from various time periods and regions, not counting a 30 minute break to have a snack and enjoy the sun in Central Park. From there it was over to Times Square to try for discount tickets again, this time we were early enough for a good selection of shows. There was a line but it moved quickly and we got tickets to a musical comedy for half price with time for a bit of a rest before dinner. After a little down time we got ready for our night on the town and headed down to Union Square for a fancy dinner at the Blue Water Grill. After dinner it was off to the theater district for our play. It was called Curtains a light hearted murder mystery with plenty of silliness and big song dance numbers. It starred David Hyde Pierce ("Niles" from Frasier) who was excellent and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Emily in front of the Flatiron building (Thursday)

The Empire State Building at night (Monday)

Thursday morning we got up fairly early packed up our stuff, checked our suitcase and checked out of our hotel before heading out for our last day in New York. We got Jamba Juice for breakfast and drank it while walking North on 5th Avenue past Rockefeller Center, St Patrick's Cathedral and some of the world's most famous stores. We even ducked inside FAO Shwarz to warm up and play for a while before heading down another block and beginning our exploration of Central Park. We spent several hours wandering through the park from it's woodsy interior (called "the ramble") to it's children's zoo, it's famous carousel, it's Shakespearean theater and Belvedere Castle which provided a great view. After all that walking we had worked up an appetite. We took the Subway over to Brooklyn and walked down to a little place under the Brooklyn Bridge called Grimaldi's in search of New York's best pizza, according to the people we'd met Tuesday night (and apparently the cityguide website). After a short wait we settled in and devoured a ham, olive and mushroom masterpiece. We took a short walk down by the water to take in a view of the bridges and buildings that make New York famous and then rode the subway the long way around so as to catch the line back into Manhattan that would take us across the Manhattan Bridge for some more views. We even still had time to make a quick stop to see the Flatiron building before buying our tickets at Grand Central for the 4:00pm shuttle to JFK and grabbing our suitcase and some Starbucks for the road. The traffic to the airport was horrid but we were able to relax and had no problem making our 6:55pm flight. After a long, but thankfully direct, flight home we made our way home and collapsed into bed thankful that we had Friday to unpack and recover from an amazing but draining trip.

Matthew in front of Belvedere Castle in Central Park (Thursday)

Matthew's Quirks

2008-03-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

I didn't make this up but I got "tagged" so I guess I'll play along.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
That would be Sara Greco: http://bighairbetty.blogspot.com/

2.Post the rules.
Done.

3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
See Below. I'm posting for myself (Matthew) only. If Emily wants to come back and list her quirks later she can but I'm not going to go there.

4. Tag at least 3 people.
Um...I don't read a ton of blogs but I guess I'll go with:
1. The Jordans - http://fljordanfamily.blogspot.com/
2. The Bankers - http://littlebylittleonetravelsfar.blogspot.com/
and
3. Jason Kirkpatrick - http://idrinkicedtea.blogspot.com/

5.Make sure the people you tagged know you tagged them by commenting to them.
Taken care of.

Matthew's six quirks:

1. I'm a bit of a language Nazi: I can handle the occasional grammatical error or mispronounced word OK but there are certain misuses of language that really bug me. The worst is when someone uses the word "literally" for emphasis but then follows it with a figure of speech. Sportscasters are really bad for this one: "He's literally carrying his team to victory" (No you idiot he's figuratively carrying his team, if he were literally carrying his team they'd all be on his back) or "He literally flew over the defender" (Really, did he sprout wings? Did he get in an airplane? or did he just jump really high so that it seemed like he was flying). I don't mind figurative language but don't go out of your way to say you're not using a figure of speech and then use one anyway.

2. I hate sticky fingers: This wouldn't be that odd except that in all actuality I'm kind of a slob. I'm not neat and I spill stuff pretty easily but for some reason anything sticky on my fingers is really annoying to me. I've always been that way. I hated paste when I was in kindergarten and to this day when I eat something sticky with my fingers I compulsively touch them together until I can wipe them (repeatedly) on something. My wife calls me "napkin boy" for this one.

3. The noise of scratching cardboard is torture to me: I'm not exaggerating. My skin crawls (figuratively) when I hear finger nails against cardboard, or cardboard scraping against concrete or something like that. That noise is far worse to me than fingernails on a chalk board and I actually get a horrible physical sensation when I hear it. My wife thought it was funny at first but when she realized how bad it really was for me she stopped using it to tease me.

4. I am a leg shaker: I'm convinced this is hereditary. My dad does it worse than me and his dad does it and both my brothers do it. When I'm sitting around kind of relaxed with my foot flat on the ground and my thigh parallel to the floor my leg frequently shake up and down rapidly with my heel striking the floor and the balls of my feet staying put. I don't even realize I'm doing it until someone gives me a dirty look because they can feel the ground shaking. It is really weird, I have no idea why it happens.

5. I am a slow reader: I'm not sure how quirky it is but people who don't know me real well might be surprised to learn that I am really a very slow reader, especially for a Grad student. I almost never read faster than I would be able to read aloud. I have to hear the words in my head to really follow what I'm reading. If I really focus I can make myself read a bit faster but my comprehension goes way down. When I read slow and "hear" the words I have very high comprehension and really enjoy reading, it just takes me forever.

6. I can't remember numbers: For most things I have a pretty good memory. Words stick in my brain particularly well and I generally can remember names, concepts, even directions OK but numbers are another story. I have almost no phone numbers or addresses memorized. Even when I hear a new phone number I have to keep saying it to myself or I'll forget it in like 10 seconds. If I say it to myself for a whole minute and then am distracted for 20 seconds and haven't written it down I will have lost it. Fortunately Emily is great at remembering numbers so I can just tell them to her instead of writing them down all the time.

Well there you have it, six of my quirks.

Busy Weekend

2008-03-15T15:28:00.000-07:00

Emily has been feeling better energy wise, which is a good thing considering our busy weekend. Friday night we went out for dinner and then saw the Beaverton High School production of "Once Upon A Mattress" one of Emily's students played the lead (Princess Winifred) and is extremely talented. It was a good show and we really enjoyed it. Afterward we went to the local Dairy Queen and got to use the 2 for 1 coupon Emily has been saving for months.

Today Emily had a Student Wives Fellowship event from 8:30 until about 1pm and then tonight we are going to a joint birthday party for two of our friends that are classmates of mine at Multnomah. Tomorrow Emily teaches Sunday School and I'm helping lead a meeting for all of our welcome ministry personelle before church. After church there is a potluck and meeting for all of the Young Adults which we are attending and then in the evening we have Life Group.

It's all fun stuff but makes life a little crazy. Emily's napping right now (good idea) and we'll both need to rest up and get some work done in the coming week so we'll have energy and freedom to enjoy our Spring Break in New York.

To our prayer warriors out there thanks for praying for Emily. She has been doing better. Please pray for her dental health. Her gums have been receding (which is normal) and now have reached the point where food or water can get between the gum and tooth in a few places. She'll try to get in with a dentist before we leave for New York.

Job Search Update

2008-02-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

Most of you know that Matthew is in the process of looking for a ministry job for after he graduates in May. Many of you have been praying for this search and some have been asking how the process is going so I thought I'd give you an update.

Over winter break I worked on preparing my resume and gathering resources for the job search process. I also completed the lengthy application for accreditation with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), the denomination I grew up in. I also decided to focus his search (at least initially) on Associate Pastor positions working with Adults in teaching and discipling type ministry (jobs that weren't primarily Youth, Administrative or Worship Pastor duties). This narrows the focus considerably but it is where I think I can be most effective in ministry.

At the beginning of February I began to circulate his resume, sending it to just about everyone I knew who might know someone who might know about a job opening that might be right for me. I also began checking for job openings that might fit him on Ministry job search sites. To date I’ve submitted more than 30 resumes for Associate Pastor positions that looked like they might be a good fit at churches all over the country (from NY to FL to AZ to WA). For the most part these churches are still in the process of reviewing resumes and deciding which individuals to give consideration to so I’m in waiting mode for those.

A few churches have responded either indicating they are considering other applicants while a couple others have sent more detailed information and requested applications to be returned or suggested we set up a time to speak on the phone. This has been encouraging but still leaves us a very long way from finding the right position so even as I prepare to begin a few conversations I am continuing to review websites for new openings, consider potential referrals from people I know and wait on churches who are still considering my resume. I’m also waiting for the C&MA to finish reviewing my application and schedule an accreditation interview which might open up some additional opportunities.

The process of settling on the right ministry position is lengthy and complex. After considering resumes a church will generally want more detailed information from a candidate either by filling out an application or speaking on the phone. Additionally I need to find out more about the church and the position to decide if I want to continue to pursue that job. If things move along from there the next step would usually be for Emily and I to visit a church to get a better feel for it and talk to the leaders in charge of making the decision. Again we would be interviewing them even as they interviewed us to make sure both sides felt it was a good fit. Often a second or even third visit would be desired before a church would officially decide to “call” me and we would be able to confidently accept. At this point, depending on the church, there could be additional steps required before I could officially be hired, such as a congregational vote or denominational approval.

As you can imagine even if one of the churches I’ve already contacted turns out to be the right fit it is likely that we won’t know for sure for a number of months. This means that we’re not optimistic about knowing for sure where we’ll be heading long term when we have to move in June. That’s OK because assuming things are still up in the air we’re planning to move to the Sacramento area for the interim while I continue to search and follow up with the process and perhaps work some. This would allow us to be close to family when our baby is born and get in good visits with the people we’re closest to before we potentially move far away.

So that is where things stand. We appreciate your continued prayers and any other leads you might hear about. The more contacts we make the more conversations we can potentially start the better chance we have of finding a really good fit in reasonable amount of time. Thank you all. We love you!

Big News!!!

2008-02-21T09:46:00.001-08:00

Well it is time to officially let the world know.

We're going to have a baby!!!

This is from the ultrasound we had on Monday. It confirmed that Emily is about 9 weeks along and that everything is looking good in terms of baby's health. Our official due date is September 25th, 2008. Baby's heart rate was a healthy 171 BPM.

So far Emily's symptoms have been very manageable. She has definitely felt a variety of symptoms (nauseau, fatigue, etc.) but so far she has been able to keep everything down and hasn't had to miss any work. We would appreciate your prayers for her and also for the health of the baby. We can't wait to meet him or her and introduce him/her to all of you!

In case the ultrasound picture just looks like a blob to you (and lets face it unless you already know what you're looking at it is just a blob) here is a more discernable image of what our baby looks like at this stage of development.

Thanks for sharing in our big news and for all your prayers and well wishes. As we have more details to share we will keep you all posted through this blog.

"KJV Only" Preacher on the theology of pee

2008-02-20T20:12:00.001-08:00

OK, so Emily can't get blamed for this one, it's all Matthew. When I saw this I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or get mad so I posted it here.

The guy is right about the phrase appearing 6 times (although the numerology he refers to is bogus) and that it is only translated lliterally in the KJV. It is translated males elsewhere. If he were willing to look at the original Biblical languages he'd actually see that the KJV is doing a pretty fair literal translation as well, word for word that is what the Hebrew says but where he goes from there is absolutely crazy.

All 6 times the phrase is used (1 Sam 25:22, 1 Sam 25:34, 1Ki 14:10, 1Ki 16:11, 1Ki 21:21, and 2Ki 9:8) it is part of a promise to wipe out all the males of a certain family. It is clearly a deragatory phrase referring to men and it is not a statement about manhood to be emulated, so "males" isn't an inappropriate translation but you could argue it is less literal.

This guy obviously hasn't bothered to think about the point of any of these passages and just likes to pull Biblical phrases out to support his rants on personal issues. This is a very extreme example of the kind of twisted "pull and prove" use of isolated Bible verses that lead Christians astray and give Christianity and the Bible a bad name.

Incidently, the reason some people (in Europe or wherever they might be) discourage peeing standing up isn't to emasculate men it's because they no men don't always have perfect aim. Worse yet some men don't bother to clean up after themselves if they do "miss the mark" so sitting is encouraged. Maybe this preahcer never "misses the mark" but it is interesting to note that if his KJV wanted to stay hyper-literal the Greek word it translates as "sin" in the New Testament could be literally translated as "miss the mark" so that Romans 3:23 could read literally as "all have missed the mark and come short of the glory of God". Hmm...maybe he should reconsider his refusal to sit down.

Matthew is Published (sort of)

2008-02-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

One of my professors, Dr. Paul Metzger, has set up Blog to interact with issues related to his new book Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church .

To get the ball rolling he selected a few student papers to be published on the blog. Mine paper titled, Church Discipline in a Consumer Culture: A Call for Compelling Community was selected. In the essay I discuss how the tendancy of the evangelical culture to treat church goers as consumers has undercut the Bible's model for corrective church discipline and suggest stronger community within church congregations as the best remedy. If you're interested in reading it or just curious about the Blog or Dr. Metzger's book go ahead and click over to: http://consumingjesus.org/ my paper is in the "essays" section.

New Laptop

2008-02-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

On Monday we received our new Dell Laptop computer. The HP laptop I have been using was given to me by my Dad about four years ago when it was time for him to upgrade. It has been servicible with a replaced hard drive and new battery getting us another year out of it but it has been freezing inexplicablly from time to time and it's power cord is so worn that it only charges the computer if you arrange it just right. We have desktop also but it was purchased before Emily started college and has 25% of the RAM reccomended for running Windows 95. So we decided it was time to get a new computer.

Our new Dell Laptop (left) doesn't look all that different (except for the duct tape on the power cord) from our old HP (right) but it functions on an entirely different level.

Emily played with it some on Monday night and yesterday I was able to get it set up to access the Multnomah internet network. It's very nice and we expect to be very happy with it. Thanks to Mom & Dad Hallsten who let us use their consumer report info. and my brother Dane who helped us determine what features to order. We feel like we got a good deal. It will be nice for me to be able to sit through a class without worrying about having my power cord nudged and my computer dying or having it randomly freeze in the middle of a lecture.

If anyone knows someone who is desperate for a free laptop that functions but has plenty of issues let us know. We'll be donating it (and probablly the desk top too) somewhere in the next 5 months.