A day in the life of me

Last Friday, Leatha had a whole day of training for her new job (very part-time job), so I had the kids all day. I thought this was hilarious, because it says something about how Cameron views me. He was apparently very nervous that I would forget to pick him up from school. So he wrote me this note and handed it to me...

This says, "at 3"

I unfold it, to find this message, 

"Go to school to pick camero

n up."

Apparently my son has me figured out. His worst kid nightmare of being left at school was a very real possibility with dad in charge.

Here's a summary of my day:

7:00 AM- Prayer on campus- highlight was having Martin in my group (pictured below). He's a brand new Christian and today was a breakthrough for him. It was the first time I've heard him pray out loud. He prayed, "Jesus, help me tell my family that I've become your follower." 

8:30-10- Staff meeting

10-11:30 Director's meeting

noon-1:00 Basketball 

2:00-3:00- Met with a guy who wanted to become a Christian. He's close. It seems to be a season of open doors for the gospel right now.

3:10-4:30- I taught 30 freshmen in our Theology of the Gospel class. It's such a privilege, even comical, to think of teaching TOG in the "Black Engineering" building at Iowa State.

4:30-5:00 One of the students in my TOG class is Silanto, from Haiti. He has one of the most amazing stories. Unfortunately it's 8:36 pm and I don't feel like blogging anymore tonight. 

This is the mud puddle that claimed my iphone last week (right outside of Black). It was such a fluke- my first drop...and it lands in a mud puddle. In spite of some weird glitches, somehow it still functions.

5:15-5:45 Catch up with Leatha while the kids play outside (actually Makai was crawling on me)

5:45-6:30 Dinner...Thai Chicken Curry with Jasmine rice. Wow, it's so good.

6:30- Put Makai down, the rest of us played Candyland

7:20- All kids in bed

7:30-now Catch up on huskerpedia, usatoday.com, some emails, and blog

8:42- Talk to Leatha before she crashes...

9-ish-???- My free Monday redbox is awaiting me. I watch it in bed on my laptop. I expect to get about 1 hour into Dark Knight before I totally crash....

I predict Makai will wake up screaming (he's not exactly Mr. Sunshine in the morning) at 5:45. Leatha's guess is 5:30. Once again, I'm the eternal optimist...

A Prayer

I remember my Grandpa Bill (click here for a previous entry on his life) used to quote (and live out...) this whole section from A.W. Tozer. I'm preaching on Romans 10 tonight, which reminded me of this:

The testimony of the true follower of Christ might well be something like this: The world's pleasures and the world's treasures henceforth have no appeal for me. I reckon myself crucified to the world and the world crucified to me. But the multitudes that were so dear to Christ shall not be less dear to me. If I cannot prevent their moral suicide, I shall at least baptize them with my human tears. I want no blessing that I cannot share. I seek no spirituality that I must win at the cost of forgetting that men and women are lost and without hope. If in spite of all I can do they will sin against light and bring upon themselves the displeasure of a holy God, then I must not let them go their sad way unwept. I scorn a happiness that I must purchase with ignorance. I reject a heaven that I must enter by shutting my eyes to the sufferings of my fellow men. I choose a broken heart rather than any happiness that ignores the tragedy of human life and human death. Though I, through the grace of God in Christ, no longer lie under Adam's sin, I would still feel a bond of compassion for all of Adam's tragic race, and I am determined that I shall go down to the grave or up into God's heaven mourning for the lost and the perishing. And thus and thus will I do as God enables me. Amen

- From The Next Chapter After the Last, p. 36

Green Pampers

Being an all natural family in our stage of life, this brand of pampers resonates with us.

Family Date Night

We decided on a trip to Des Moines, as we had a gift certificate to the Olive Garden and Leatha needed some maternity jeans (Ames shopping is... lame)

We dropped $60 on a pair of Gap maternity jeans. It was some of the best $60 bones I've spent in awhile. Men, if there's one thing we need, it's for our wives to feel good about what they're wearing and how they look. It comes with being a woman. 

I'm making myself sound good.

Truth be told, Leatha has only had one pair of jeans for the past couple of years, which she grew out of. I guess it's hard to fit two people into one pair of jeans. So she's been wearing these exercise pants for the past few weeks....months.

It makes it easy because my wife is extremely content when it comes to "stuff" (esp. clothes), so this purchase was a slam dunk. In proof reading this, Leatha would argue that her contentment is not true contentment (which is to "want what you already have"), but it's just the reality of not having the money in the clothing budget to buy new clothes.

Anyway, we went from Jordan Creek Mall to Olive Garden in West Des Moines. Here are some pictures from that...

Makai stuffing his face.

This is to be expected...crayons in the water.
Our family of six ordered only 3 entrees. Almost all of the lasagna and 2 pieces of pizza were left. I'm always amazed at the serving sizes here in American restaurants. And yet, our waitress gave us a hard time, saying, "Well, if you're going to split the meals, then I won't be able to get you more salad unless you pay for it." Please. Our kids ate all of one leaf of lettuce. She later realized she was ripping us off, so she brought more.
Beck chillin' with a bread stick.
Ava being silly.
Cameron was a trooper, even though he wasn't feeling well.
Every once in awhile I have to throw myself in a picture just so you know I'm a real person, and not just some random person making up this whole blog.

Be Encouraged

God is at work in some amazing ways at Iowa State. I'm so proud of our TSC students, who model the attractive love of Jesus. For an amazing article from the ISU Daily about this, click here. It's written by a transgender girl who has visited the last couple weeks.

An Open Letter

Dear February,

I'm glad you're here, but you're off to a bad start (a Cardinals loss).

Weather.com says you'll be 7 degrees warmer than... you know who. Yeah, that 31 day beast right before you. I hope you're even warmer this year. You won't have to try too hard to beat a negative 39 average. Whatever you have to do to keep the groundhog from seeing its shadow tomorrow, step up and get it done. Then let the sun come out right away.

Please.

Yours Truly,

Mark