Our Experiment for the New Year

It's been a while since we've posted anything....the fall has been busy with lots of family and friends.

As 2010 comes to an end and 2011 begins we wanted to share what God has put on our hearts for the coming year. We read the book "Radical' by David Platt. www.radicalthebook.com Platt became the pastor of a mega church in Birmingham, AL when God started challenging him on what he and his church were giving their lives to. He found that the values of the American Dream (self-reliance, making much of ourselves) had become mixed in with the gospel to create an American Christian church which preaches a costless discipleship and separates the obligations of Christianity from its privileges . Jesus wasn't American and the values He preaches aren't what our prevailing American culture tell us to give our lives to. God blesses us to be a blessing to others to see the Nations reached. The gospel and our relationship with Christ shouldn't be us centered, but Christ centered first and foremost and second, others centered. To quote Radical:

The message of Biblical Christianity is not "God loves me, period," as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is "God loves me so that I might make Him, His ways, His salvation, His glory, and His greatness --know among all nations."

This rang true with deep convictions God had given us out of Gen 12:1-3 and Ps 67:1-2.

So, at the end of the book Platt gives what he calls "The Radical Experiment: One Year to a Life Turned Upside Down". In this he challenges the reader to give a year to these five things:

1) Pray for the entire world. The tool he suggests is the book 'Operation World'. It has every country listed with info and things to pray for broken out each day for the entire year. We are also going to be intentional about praying for our friends, family and missionaries we personally know as exhorted in Eph 6:18

2) Read through the entire Bible. Most people read portions, but most have never actually read the entire thing. I (Johnena) haven't actually read through the entire Bible. There are lots of Bible reading plans online.

3) Sacrifice my money for a specific purpose. Most people maybe give, but many don't give to the point of actually sacrificing anything. We give, but we don't really notice it's gone. It's just part of our budget. Ideas for this is not just a monetary amount, but giving up something that does have some financial aspect to it, but it could be something you place a value in or takes up a lot of your time that you could use for something else. Joe isn't going to spend any money on sports equipment, workout gear, races, etc. for the next year. It's not a lot of money, but it is time and something that is a sacrifice for him. We're going to give away all of our tax return. We want to show we put our trust in God for future finances instead of money and ourselves. My sacrifice is giving up cable. We don't really watch that much tv, but we do have shows we enjoy. During the time we would normally watch our show we're going to either pray, read one of the books we've picked out to read this year, work on Bible study, keep up with friends.

4) I will spend time in another context. Platt challenges one to give 2% or one week, of the next year to something outside of your normal context. His main emphasis is to go overseas, but realizes this isn't possible for some. Other ideas are prison ministry, soup kitchen, missions trip in the states. Anything to expand your outlook on life and allow God to speak to you in a new way. As most of you now know from our Christmas letter, we're going to Central Asia over Spring Break.

5) I will commit my life to a multiplying community. This challenge is to get involved relationally with other believers. This could be by joining a small group at church, a Bible study, etc. Allowing people/friends into your life to be real with them, to allow them to speak into your life, to pursue a deeper relationship with Christ together.

We are committing to these things for the next year. We are sharing this with all of you to help hold us accountable and to ask you to join us in this experiment for the next year. We'll update through out the year as to how God is using this in our lives to change us and make us more like HIM.

Our challenge to you, is to join us in this Radical experiment. For anyone who commits to implementing these 5 things we'll buy you a copy of Operation World 2010 and give $500 towards a short term missions trip (it can be in the states or overseas). We'd love to hear what you're committing to and how God uses this in your life too.

Happy New Year!

Pumpkin Patch

An fun part of living in CO is fall activities. It hasn't felt much like fall yet, but this last Friday we did go to a pumpkin patch farm with our friends the Bryant's and Drenth's.

Jessica and Caleb on the pony

Georgia loves other little kids, but she especially has been enjoying getting to play with Joah. I appreciate that although he's 2 years older than her he plays fairly well with her. She always squeals with delight when she sees him. Here are the two buddies.

'Ooo, Mommy, I'm so excited to go on this train ride!'

Woohoo! Let's go!

Georgia loves dogs, but she was SO scared of all of the farm animals. I think she was aware of how big they were and how small she is. Anytime I tried to get her to pet them or they would reach out of their pens, she would grab onto me tightly and arch her body away.

I couldn't get her to look at me for any pictures! She was just too distracted the whole time.

Misc. of Georgia

Georgia and Mommy

She's learned to sit on things like this train and the bottom stair on our staircase.

Georgia and Daddy

She loves taking a bath. She likes drinking the water though and even will dip her head down into the water to try and drink it.

Nana Visits

Joe's Mom, Nana, came out to watch Georgia for us while we went to the 'Doolie Retreat'. Georgia and Nana had a great time together. They played, read lots of books, went to the park. We're very grateful she was able to come out. It served us and was a great little break for me.

Garden of the Gods

We went to Garden of the Gods a couple of Friday's ago with some of our friends. There were 3 kids with us, so it was quite the leisurely stroll. We enjoyed the scenery none the less.

Hey, Clara, why don't you get out and play?

Um, Mom? I'm not so sure about this.

The little boy in the picture is Joah Bryant. Georgia LOVES playing with him. She gets extremely excited whenever she sees him knowing they are going to get to play together. He's 3 so he shows her the ropes. The funny thing is with their light blond hair and blue eyes they look like they could be siblings!

My Little Gardner

Georgia loves playing in the dirt. She digs in my flower pots and picks flowers to try and plant them in the empty pots I have. I think we might have a future gardner on our hands!

4 year Anniversary

This entry is about our anniversary/food critic column. August 19th Joe and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. We both think it's hard to believe we've only been married 4 years. It seems a lot longer than that, in a good way. We've packed a lot into 4 years. Lived in FL, NC and CO. Gone through two deployments. Had a baby. Visited LOTS of places. Overall had a great time.

For our anniversary we had planned to go to Shuga's for dinner and then a crepe place downtown for dessert. However, Joe was able to put his 'J-ness' aside and we changed plans midway through our date. We did go to Shuga's for drinks and appetizers. While there we decided to find some place else for dinner. We drove around looking for what sounded good. In Joe Brown fashion he saw the of the beaten path ethnic places and wanted to eat there. I humored him, as I often do, :) and we ended up at Rumi's Kabab, an Afgan restaurant. The food was excellent and we enjoyed getting to talk with the owner for a bit. By the end of the meal we were stuffed, so unfortunately we didn't have dessert. Crepes will have to wait for another date night. We had a really fun time together.

Shuga's: Shuga's is a hip, local bar on a quite street in downtown. The atmosphere is very casual and laid back with great outdoor seating. They are known for their drink menu. Joe had an IPA which he quite enjoyed. Don't let the can fool you. I had one of their mixed drinks. It was good, but I do think they are overpriced. The mixed drinks average $8 and are served in small glasses. The menu is fairly simple. They have a few appetizers to choose from, salads, soups and sandwiches. The food is well priced. We had the Chop Board. It was great and included plenty of food for two. We were actually kind of full after eating it. The board included two kinds of cheese, pancheta, salami, bread, spicy chipotle cashews and dried apricots. Overall we enjoyed Shuga's and will frequent there again.

Rumi's Kabab: Rumi's Kabab is located on Bijou St. downtown. They offer a large lunch buffet and full dinner menu. The food is mostly found in the Kabul region of Afghanistan. It reminded me a little of mexican with some of the spices used. There was cumin and cilantro in a number of dishes. We enjoyed hot black chai tea, lamb, rice. The rice was excellent. It was very flavorful and so moist. Joe's meal came with two kinds of rice. One was more traditional with cumin seed in it and the other had spinach mixed in. The lamb came in a spinach and red sauce. It was well cooked and moist. (Sorry! I didn't write down the names of what we ate!) Mine wasn't quite was I was expecting. The description of mine was it was ground lamb and veggies in a dough with sauce. I was expecting more like an empanada type dish, but instead it was more like an Italian dish. The meat was encased in a light, almost rice paper, noodle with a tomato based sauce with yogurt. It was only ok. Prices were reasonable about $12 for a dinner entree which came with bread and their chile dipping sauce. I think next time we'll try out the lunch buffet to be able to try out more dishes. If you're looking for something different to try for dinner that is also delicious, check out Rumi's Kabab.

Georgia is 1 year old!

*First off, disclaimer for so many pictures. The grandparents weren't able to be here for her birthday and had requested lots of pictures. Thus, there are lots of pictures below.

Georgia is LOVED, LOVED, LOVED by so many people. She had a great birthday. We went to the park and swung on the swings. She loves to swing. If I let her I think she would swing for an hour. I get done after 30 minutes or so. That evening we opened presents with her. I did wrap some of them, but she didn't really get the concept of opening them. Because I suspected this would be the case, I grouped many of her gifts together and put them in gift bags to speed up the process. I had planned a little party for her the day after her birthday, but she ended up having a fever and not feeling well, so unfortunately I had to cancel. We did still enjoy some yummy carrot cake.

The birthday girl waking up from her nap.

Nana came to visit in July and gave early birthday presents. This shopping cart was one of them. The other fun gift was a kitchen play set.

Georgia has become quite affectionate. She loves this angel bear, seen in the picture and her daisy duck Berni and Sarah gave to her.

Thanks Aunt Katie and Uncle Jeff, Uncle Thom and Issa for the neat storybook and Noah's Ark!

Georgia loves music and toys that are interactive. She always starts dancing whenever she hears music. This Winnie the Pooh train has all of that. Thanks Grandma and Papou!

Uh, Mommy...what do I do with this?

Sucess! The toy inside!

It was so cute! As soon as she got the baby, while it was still in the package, she immediately hugged the doll. She's also tried to give the baby her pacifier. It's amazing how early she's already understanding things like that.

Big Yiayia and Papou gave Georgia lots of fun things from Disneyland. This cup with Daisy and Minnie was one of them.

Georgia loves the bathtub and going to the pool. Mommy and Daddy gave her some new bath toys.

Daddy also got Georgia a special gift, an AF Falcons sweatshirt. We can't wait to cheer them on this football season. Go Falcons!

The morning after. So many fun new toys!

We've been working on blowing on food when it's hot, so I was hoping she might blow out the candle, but I ended up having to do it.

Sorry, no crazy frosting everywhere pictures. I hardly put any frosting on her cupcake. I didn't want to clean up the mess and I didn't want her getting sick from all of the sugar. As you can see from the photo, she did just pick the whole thing up and start chowing down.

Thanks again to everyone who sent her gifts!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Georgia! A year ago today you came into our lives. We love you SO much!

God, we are thankful for blessing us with the gift of Georgia.

What a crazy, life changing, amazing year it has been.

Here you are about a year ago.....

And here you are today!

Georgia Walking

This is so the grandparents can see their little one walking. :)

Georgia Loves to Eat

I realized we have lots of pictures of Georgia eating. Probably because she LOVES to eat and ever since she started to feed herself has gotten more and more entertaining (aka messy) while eating. She has a huge appetite. She often will eat as much as I do. People don't really believe us until they witness the devouring. For a few months she wasn't gaining weight or really growing much so I think these past few months she just been making up for the missing calories.

She eats just about anything. She doesn't like lettuce because she can't chew it or watermelon. Not sure on the watermelon. Crazy things she's eaten include cilantro, raw red onion, salsa.

Here we gave her a fork to use for the first time. She holds it in her left hand, while eating with her right one. She does a bit better when a food requires a spoon.

Tip for new moms: get a bumbo seat with tray. I didn't think early on I would use this much, but she sat in it to eat at home for the first 3 or so months of eating. We take it with us to people's houses for her to sit in to eat and still do that even now.

Eating out: she eats so much we order off of the kids menu for her

Her first time eating scrambled eggs and toast.