This is take from Together for Adoption’s website. Click here to go to their site. Please check it out.

Praise God that He is stirring the hearts of His Church.

As you know, the Haitian church has been devastated by the earthquake.

Pastors are dead.

Church buildings have been demolished.

Our Haitian brothers and sisters are suffering in inconceivable ways.

To use an analogy, if the Western Hemisphere is the setting of The Parable of the Good Samaritan instead of the land of Israel, the church in Haiti is the man half dead and we are the neighbor. Our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ have immense needs, and God has given us the opportunity and responsibility to care for them as the Good Samaritan cared for the man who fell among thieves.

As you have likely heard, many more children have become orphans as a result of the earthquake. What was already an orphan crisis in Haiti has become an exponentially greater crisis. Since the church in Haiti is itself suffering terribly from the devastating earthquake, they are not in a position to even begin to care for their orphans.

So, we are actively working on an initiative to mobilize the U.S. church to be the hands and feet of the Haitian church to care for its orphans. We want to serve our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ by coming alongside them and doing for them what they cannot do themselves: care for their orphans in crisis.

As you can imagine, executing an initiative like this is complicated. We are working to put a clear plan of action together. If you are interested in knowing how you and your church can participate, please send an e-mail to dan.cruver@TogetherforAdoption.org and keep checking the T4A website for updates.

More information will be coming. In the meantime, pray that we as the church will rise up to come alongside our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ for the sake of Haiti’s orphans.

Jerod and I bought this cool shirt from Aaron Ivey’s website. They are $25 and 100% of the profits goes to the relief work in Haiti.

If you have $25, consider buying a shirt.  Every time you wear it, it will remind you to pray for the People of Haiti.  Pray God would restore them.

Check out this blog:

http://haitirescuecenter.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/sleeping-outside-again-tonight/

Pray for these kids and if you are able, help!

Before the holidays I went to a gathering put on by the wiser, more mature ladies of our church, the Austin Stone.  The gathering was a platform for these ladies to share the traditions that their families had observed.  They encouraged us to create traditions for our own families that pointed to our family values.  One of the women said, “Our husbands are the head of the home, but I would suggest that we are the heart.”

The first thing I gleaned from the gathering is that every tradition my family holds should be linked to a value Jerod and  I embrace.  Here are the values we discussed:

1.  We value Jesus Christ and believe He was sent by God to pay the price for our sins so that we could intimately enjoy God and His relationship with us forever.

2.  We value quality time spent together as a family.  We value the roles God gave us as husband and wife and the roles our children play in our family.

3.  We value missions and the spread of God’s Holy Name and His plan for all people.

4.  We value obeying God in all things because we know obedience leads us to deeper intimacy with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

5.  We value being wholistically healthy- body, mind, and spirit.  We’re still working on the “body” part.

6.  We value all people.  We believe all people were made in God’s image, therefore the orphan, slave and prisoner need care in light of Jesus’ sacrifice.

7.  We value expressing our creativity and talents in a God-honoring way.

After we hashed out our family values, we brain-stormed a few ways to reveal our values through our family traditions.  We linked each tradition back to our values.  Some of the ideas below came from the wise ladies at my church.  I hope you take from this list or create some of your own.

Holidays

We have a “thankful” box that comes out the beginning of November.

During the month, each family member (who can contribute) writes down things they are thankful for from the current year.  We read the cards on Thanksgiving morning over breakfast.  This allows us to reflect on God’s faithfulness to our family.

The cards are then displayed throughout December as a reminder of our good God.

The cards go into a holiday scrapbook with our family Christmas picture.  We want to store our family memories and reflect on God’s faithfulness so that we will remember in the future.

We volunteered by serving Thanksgiving dinner in St. John’s (a poorer neighborhood in Austin- not the Caribbean- though I wouldn’t be opposed to serving there  ).  We want to serve others during the holiday season.  It is so easy to get “caught up” selfishly in your own family.  This activity will change each year as our kids grow older.

We ate favorite foods for Thanksgiving: pecan pie, turkey, broccoli casserole, cream cheese + olives stuffed in celery, sweet potato casserole, and stuffing.

We make ornaments each year.  We make a family ornament and one for each kid (so far we only have one kid).

We’ve just started this so I’ll let you know as we add more traditions.  One we’ve started with Elijah almost everyday is to read him a story, pray and then put him in his bed for the night.

A great resource is Noel Piper’s book, “Treasuring God in our Traditions”.  Each family is so unique and its exciting to create your own family’s culture.

May God richly add to your family, friends, and relationships.  If you have a tradition that you observe, please share it with us.  Leave a comment or link us to your blog.  

We hope your family has a wonderful Christmas

and a Merry New Year!

A lot has happened since the last post.  Eli is now 1 yr old and started walking!  The link below is to a few recent videos of him and his tricks.

http://vimeo.com/user1642411/videos/sort:date

Another quick video of Eli getting close to walking…he really likes his Radio Flyer

http://vimeo.com/6976583

Elijah – All I Want to Do

Sometimes Eli gets to stay with Gran & Grandad, (Jerod’s grandparents) and they dance with him to the song “All I Want to Do” by Sugarland. Click the link “All I Want to Do” to check him out.

Looks like he’s learning to dance on his own…at least a little.

Eli is moving into the phase where he mimics a lot of what we do.  Click the video link below to see one of his newest tricks.

Jerod and I tied the knot!

Today I was thinking about us and I am so thankful God let me marry Jerod.  We met in an unlikely spot, Glorieta, NM.  We were long distance for three years~ a distance that spread two continents.  We dated a total of six years and now we’re parents together.  God has persevered us through eight years so far.  I pray we make it at least 42 more.