Merry Christmas from the Easton Elves

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My prediction

Curiously, I am predicting that our baby will come exactly on its due date this time around. "Why?", you say? How could this be? Weren't your first two born the day before their due date?

Aria celebrated her birthday yesterday (Wednesday). Lael's is on a Wednesday this year. My birthday is on a Wednesday this year and the baby is due on April 4th--- a WEDNESDAY!!! Valerie's will be on Sunday this year but that would be just way too coincidental if her's was a Wednesday too.

So, don't ask if its going to be a boy or a girl. Obviously no one knows that! But ask me what day it will be born on-- I say WEDNESDAY!!!


P.S. Thanks for your patience all you people who read my blog yesterday, within 12 hours of me posting, even though I hadn't posted in 3 months. I pity you checking so often... I would have given up long ago :)

Surprise... a post... a brief thought

I was thinking about the disciples response to Jesus when he said, "I say to you, one of you will betray Me." (Mt. 26:21) We all make Judas out to be the bad guy, and obviously he was. But it is interesting that all of the disciples began saying, "Lord, is it I?" I have thought about this before but a new thought I had today was that it appears that they had come to the point that they knew Jesus knew them better than they knew themselves. They didn't respond to Jesus statement with a chorus of "No!" and "It would never be me!" They knew that Jesus spoke the truth even though it did not align with their idea of what they expected to happen. But more importantly, they trusted His word more than they trusted their own confidence in themselves. If I had of been there, I would have said, "surely, Lord, not me... now which of you guys is the hypocrite?" But these guys had hung out with Jesus long enough to get past those games that I like to play-- they knew Jesus knew everything. They knew he knew the deceit, deception and doubt in their minds and they didn't trust in their own facade. I believe they hoped it wasn't them he was talking about, but they knew Jesus well enough to know that He knew.

So, for me that means--- when it comes to my relationship with God, I need to be honest with him. When it comes to the future, I need to trust Him that he knows best. I don't know what tomorrow will bring-- He does. That is a source of confidence and hope.

Last course....

I finished a correspondence course last night at midnight. I began the course in May and had until the end of September to finish it but of course my "plan" to work away at it all summer did not occur and over the past 2 days I have been working non-stop except for a couple of hours to sleep.

Needless to say, today I am enjoying a rest. It doesn't mean that my life has stopped but I feel like I can relax without guilt.

I am taking one other course this semester which is the last course in my M. Div. It has been a long road since I started my Masters in the summer of 2000 at Dallas Seminary.

Overall, it has been a great experience-- I think the best thing I have learned is "how to preach". I learned some Hebrew but am disappointed that I didn't learn more. I also enjoyed the Church History component.

I was relating to some friends last week that it will be weird not to be in school anymore. I have been in school all my life except for 2 years between 1998 and 2000.

Why we don't go

I have been taking a missions course this semester and it has been very thought provoking.

One thing that I can't get out of my head since Tuesday is this:

The top 3 factors that North American Christians don't go to the nations:

1. Self-Absorption
2. Fear (all sorts, ie. suffering)
3. Someone/Something given greater rule in our lives than Christ

Take a "Sniff"

I could retitle my blog for the next couple of days because apparently I have inherited a little cold from my sweet little girls. Its amazing how they reward your love and cuddling when they are sick... they just want to pass it on. Valerie has avoided it so far.

I am trying to remind myself of my own sermon I gave yesterday at Westmount... to enjoy the ride of life and all of its ups and downs. Ecclesiastes 3 says that everything happens for a reason... there is an appointed time for the good things and for the bad things. We don't understand what the purpose is all the time but God is working out his "good purpose". We don't have the capacity to understand all of what God is doing.

The best illustration I could think of was to equate life to taking Lael to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Nebraska-- an 18+ hour car ride. The last time we made the trek she started asking for "new books" about 1 hour down the road. Valerie and I looked at each other and said, "she has no idea!" As parents, we knew that it was a worthy venture for her to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma but it was beyond her 2-year-old mind to conceive of a 1500 km trip. So she would complain and whine-- just like we do, throughout life. We don't know where God is taking us and we don't have a full picture even of where God has brought us from-- but we are on the ride.

Solomon encourages us to submit to God's purposes and "do good" (ie. obey His Word). "Trust and Obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus" And then he says that we should "rejoice" or "be happy". I understand that as enjoying the rollercoaster ride that is life.

So I sit here with a sniffling nose and smile...

First Half of Summer and Memories

Well the 60 days have elapsed and so, as faithful as I am-- I am blogging.

The KLBC year ends at the end of April which means 4 months of "summer." Although I am in the office everyday, the pace of the summer schedule is much different than the rest of the year. Unbelievably the first half of this summer break is over.

We were privileged to take a week and visit our neighbour nation to the south and its fabulous capital. Although most of you have probably seen the pictures on my wife's blog (valerieeaston.blogspot.com)-- you have not heard my take on it. It was challenging but fun-- the farther I am removed from the actual event the better the experience seems.

Parenthesis: The theory of Memory
(Memories are based on fact but they are preserved by post-discussion and review. Most of my childhood memories have pictoral documentation. Why is that? As time progresses, the pictures help me review the event in my mind so that the most reviewed aspects of the event are what I now have preserved in pictures. My wife asked me the other day if I remember the first time something clicked in my mind. Nothing came to mind-- how sad. She had 2 such memories. In St. Augustine's confession, he goes to great lengths in the discussion of memory. The memory is an amazing thing and curious. St. Augustine says "What happens when the memory itself loses something, like when we forget anything and try to recall it? Where do we search for it but int he memory itself? There, if one thing is offered for another, we refuse it umitl we find what we are looking for, and when we do find it, we recognnize that this is it. However, we couldn't do this unless we recognized it, nor could we have recognized it unless we remembered it. Yet we had forgotten it!" When Valerie asked me that question... immediately my mind began to race back through the annals of my life and times and tossed out various options for me to approve as fitting the criteria. To recall memories, one does not do anything physically but sit and think-- sometimes exhausting work and perhaps what you are doing now as you try to sort through this interesting phenomenon.)

If I haven't lost you: back to D.C.

... It was challenging to camp with 2 little girls. On more than one occassion the thought of heading home crossed our minds. But we tried to enjoy the happy moments. Having small children means choosing to do things that you might not normally do in such a historical and interesting city. Instead of touring the Capitol we instead visited an Aquarium. This was 800% more interesting to Lael and ended up being a very happy memory because of her excitement. Because Valerie had to feed the baby periodically-- that meant times when Lael and I could just relax and play "empty the contents of the diaper bag" under a shady tree. Such times are important parts of family vacations and the most important thing about our trip-- or lives-- whether we are at home or taking in the sites of powerful cities-- spending quality time with our families.

Thank you, Lord, for granting us that week. Help me remember the good times and help the girls remember them too!

Next week we are off to Nebraska to see all of Valerie's family. Her parents are celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary with family and close friends.