Manna today

During the last couple of weeks, the world has been going through a major financial crisis. Many people are concerned about their jobs, their savings, their retirement, and their future security. In my whole lifetime, I can't ever remember a time of insecurity quite like this one.

This weekend my wife and I have been trying to get more organized for the birth of our 4th child (and 3rd daughter) sometime in the next month. What started out as a project to get my wife's hospital bag packed has ended up a sorting of all the boxes and bags of children's clothing that we've accumulated in our apartment and storage space over the past 7 years. We have them separated in categories like 0-3 mos, 3-6 mos, 6-9 mos, 9-12 mos, 12-18 mos, 18-24, mos, as well as older kids clothes.

I've been amazed to discover all the beautiful clothes that we have for our kids. The majority have been gifts or hand-me-downs from friends or church. We have spent very little on children's clothing over the years. Some of the outfits all of our kids have worn over the years.

The clothes have been like the manna that God provided His people. Even yesterday, we received 3 bags of nice baby clothes from friends at our kids' school.

As I have thought about this, I've been reminded of God's provision for this practical need. In Matthew 6, Jesus said that we should worry about things like food and clothing, as God the Father knows ahead of time what we need. But it's easy to forget this. It's like when Peter got out of the boat, but then started sinking after he took his eyes off Jesus.

This afternoon after church, we watched the DVD "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." All our kids really enjoyed this, as did my wife and I. Seeing the Lion Aslan is a good reminder of who is the ultimate King over the stock market, governments, and everything.

This is a strange time. It is symbolized in many ways by the terrible season that the University of Michigan Wolverines are having in football. During the last 40 years, they have generally been a powerhouse team that consistently wins 8 or more games. This season, they are 2-4 and lost to a lower division team yesterday. I listened to the game and couldn't believe it.

Turning 47

Today is the 47th anniversary of my arrival on this earth. This is the first one that my mother isn't around to call me at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, which was when I was born in near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Apparently, my parents had quite an adventuresome ride from their home on a small country road to the hospital.

This birthday snuck up on us. We've been so focused on getting our nearly 3 year old ready for preschool (she started this morning), as well as for the arrival of #4 in the next few weeks. We celebrated it yesterday with an easy, unrushed morning together, Pizza Hut take out for lunch, and chocolate birthday cake. We went to the later afternoon service of an international church and our kids enjoyed the English Sunday School.

I've received many kind words in e-mails, e-cards, Facebook messages, and will read my paper cards later today.

It's fun having the kids around for more recent birthdays. I guess it will be sad when they are older and not necessarily living close to me. It's hard to imagine that, by my mathematical mind reminds me that it's probably not that far off in the future.

I dropped our youngest at her first day of school this morning. Unlike our other 2 kids, this was entirely uneventful, with no tears or sadness on her part. As the school director said, she's been visiting this school since she was in my wife's womb. She looked all grown up in her dress and tights. It will be fun to hear her lunchtime report of her first day. It makes our mornings so much easier to not have to drop her off at the daycare center, even though she loved it there and the workers there are incredibly nice.

Wedding of an artist friend

On Thursday afternoon I received via Facebook an invitation to the wedding of Jaime and Anne Laure. Jaime is a professional dancer from Colombia whom we met at the Belleville Church 8 years ago. He was one of those eligible single Christian guys whom we hoped would find a good wife someday. It was with excitement that we recently learned of his engagement several weeks ago.

As their wedding was at the same district city hall of where we live, I decided to attend the civil ceremony. They accepted my offer to take photos. It was just a small number of us who were able to attend this ceremony.

A couple of days ago I read an excellent article in the Oct 2008 issue of EMQ online.com, a journal for those working in cross-cultural ministry. This current issue focuses on families in ministry, a subject that has been on my mind a lot in recent days.

Below are some points that resonated with me from Lila Balinsky's article titled "An Ordinary Family in Ministry."

"The most ordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children." G.K. Chesterton captured, in this simplest yet most profound of phrases, the idea that the basic family united created by God is vital to mission in the world.

In this day of short-term missions and whizzing vision trips, the emphasis is usually on individual contribution to kingdom work. In no way is this article meant to demean the great contributions made by religious orders of single people or the dynamics of the short-term paradigm, for surely the command to go and disciple the nations is not restricted to certain social units. However, let's take a look at the family unit in mission. ..The missional dynamics suggested...are just as applicable across our hometown streets as they are across geographic boundaries.

Families are the core of a community. Anyone with children knows the impact of babies and children within a cross-cultural community setting. As a new missionary wife in Ethiopia, I knew we were being included in our new community when a venerable old mama poked her head inside our jeep window and spat a blessing upon the cheek of my newborn. I also remember saying to my husband when our three sons had all left Ethiopia for college, "I think we lack some luster in the total community now that our boys have left home." Even in our own churches and communities, we respect and enjoy observing a model family. Almost two hundred years ago, Rufus Anderson (1796-1880) missionary and administrator of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), wrote that "the heathen should have an opportunity of seeing Christian families." Mrs. Elizabeth Dwight, missionary to Constantinople in the 1800s, is reported to have said, "The heathen want not only ministries of the world, but pious, well-educated families...to be the living, bright examplies of the doctrines of Christianity (Robert 2005, 238)

A family in mission must also be given to hospitality. Someone has described hospitality as "an open door in and an open door out." Hospitality expresses all that you are as a family and all that you have to give, both inside and outside your home..."An open door out" means "get out" into the community, to your neighbors, to those different from you. Of course, there is always a balance between "get in" and "get out" and the best advice is "get it all together" before you do either. These decisions take the grace and wisdom of God on a basis.

I hope that Jamie and Anne Laure have a happy and productive marriage that makes them both more effective in their art forms. I hope that, in time, they have children as well. May they work together effectivelly for the Kingdom.