Ran-dom

Riley loves to eat dog food. I move her and she crawls right back to the bowl. I move the bowl and she sits there where the bowl was, looking all around for it. One day I looked over to find her chewing on a bone and Aspen chewing on Riley's Cabbage Patch. Riley should start barking soon.

We, Vox, had our first Sunday downtown. It was incredible!! God had really gone before us to prepare things. We had our make-shift kids area and it looked great - thanks for the help Rebecca & Matt! I was really amazed at how smoothly things went. It felt like when we bought our first house - so 'grown up'. I am so excited about what God's got in store for us!

Jed is learning shapes & colors. It's a lot of fun. His vocabulary is really growing. And he seems to be getting a little more comfortable with Aspen. Honestly, I don't blame him much b/c she loves to bite (while it's not hard, it's still not comfortable).

Aspen is an escape artist. She's been getting out of the fence. Thankfully our neighbors love her and just let her hang out w/ them & their dogs for a while before bringing her back. It's cool b/c getting Aspen has really helped us get to know our neighbors better. By the way, we've rigged the gate so that she can't squeeze thru, but it's not really convenient for us. So hopefully she'll get big enough soon that we can undo it.

Riley is crawling really well and pulling up on everything, walking along the couch. She might walk sooner than I expected. She's also saying Mama & Dada. I'm finding that things w/ Riley are surprising me. With Jed I sat watching in anticipation for the 'milestones'. But w/ Riley I guess I'm just so much more busy that I was shocked to find her standing up at a toy one day.

My brother Nathan recently blogged about alcohol & christianity. It was interesting to see what all his baptist-school-friends had to say. (I don't mean that to be derrogatory, just descriptive.) Nate linked to this website - http://www.stevekmccoy.com/reformissionary/2005/09/alcohol_abstent.html
and got lots of push back on the subject. Here was my push-back to the original push-back. Any push-back?

The same way that drinking can be a stumbling block (although, usually just for believers), not drinking can be one for unbelievers. We have recently moved to catholic cajun country where drinking is a VERY normal part of life. People need to know that there is freedom in Christ. They need to be told that they are free to drink. But that with that freedom, comes responsibility. People need to see that freedom & responsibilty modeled in Christians, and not just with drinking. That doesn't mean that you have to drink to minister. Although, sometimes that really is needed. Sometimes drinking is about fitting in. If a guy sits down w/ a beer to tell you about his troubled marriage, offers you one and you tell him you don't drink, you have just distanced yourself at a time that he needed someone near. And sometimes drinking is about being different - it's just enough to capture someone's attention, enough to get them to think twice about the God that you serve & the life that you live, and see that God is bigger than some silly legalistic rule on drinking. I'd much rather distance myself from the believers than the tax collectors and prostitutes if it means that they might ultimately see their need for Christ. Believers, on the other hand, have the choice of learning from it (Disciples) or attacking it (Pharisees).