A-"Muse"-ing Thoughts

Swine Flu

I saw this picture today and thought it was SO funny that I had to post it on my blog. (NOTE: No, I am NOT saying that the Swine Flu that is infecting people is funny, I am saying this picture and caption is funny)

Time Flies

Wow.  Where does time go?  I guess one big answer to that would be: "To the Children."  It is so true that a lot of things have changed since getting our foster daughters.  Balancing time expectations is one of the continual challenges that I face every day. 

I have a lot of thoughts that I want to blog/journal more fully, but I thought I would give a few highlights since my last blog:

*  Got back to work on my doctoral dissertation.  At the moment of writing this I have 2 chapters written and about 15 pages on Chapter 3 completed.  This is my final year to finish the doctorate.  One way or another I am done after this.  I WILL write my entire project and pray it gets accepted by the committee.
*  May 2nd was the 3-month anniversary of Christi and I being foster-parents to two amazing daughters.
* Celebrated a wonderful Easter with my family - including the first time ever for easter baskets or easter egg hunts for my two foster-daughters.
* Celebrated Christi's 31st Birthday - treated her to a 3-hour spa treatment, lunch together, and then a fun dinner with friends.
* Had "Youth Sunday" at the church - which ended up being a wonderful day with the students doing an amazing job, and many adults giving us all very positive feedback.
* We are getting ready to celebrate our oldest foster-daughter's 4th birthday.  Should be a blast as we are having a "Princess Slip-N-Slide" party  (full of pinata and all)!!!  She is very excited, and so are we.
* We found out 3 days before the deadline that the bio-family of our foster daughters has hired a lawyer petition for adopting the girls.  Needless to say, this is a very heartbreaking thing for Christi and me, and we are praying that God would do what is best for these girls, but do it quickly, and if they are to be returned for him to cover our hearts.
* I am currently the only full-time program/pastoral staff person at the church.  Our Sr. Pastor retired.  We are hoping to hire an interim pastor sometime before September (yikes, that's a long ways away) and the search for a new Sr. Pastor will take approx. 2 years.  (YIKES!)  This has caused extra work for me and an extra element of trying to balance life duties and work duties.
* I have the most amazing and supportive wife that a husband could ever pray for.  Just have to say - Christi is a saint (she truly should be given sainthood status, but since we are not Catholics I am not sure they would accept my application for Christi's sainthood)
* At the end of April, beginning of May, I went on a "Walk to Emmaus."  It was powerful, incredible, and God is really working in my life and heart.  Lots to share about this one.

Well, I know there is more that has happened.  But that will give you a quick highlight of the things going on in my life since last blog in February.  Man, Time Flies!!!  I am going to try and blog a lot more details about some of these things, and some others that have been heavy on my mind lately as well.

LONG Sunday Completed

Sundays like yesterday are VERY exhausting for me!  It is days like yesterday which I am reminded of the HUGE blessing i have in my wife, Christi, who is there to encourage, support, care for, and help me in so many ways. 

So, I preached my sermon yesterday on Genesis 2:1-3.  I even did it in the 20-minute time limit.  When all was said and done I was very happy with how my sermon went.  I got a lot of very positive feedback, including a huge thumbs-up from the senior pastor who also was excited about the breadth of scripture I brought into my sermon and the way I tied it all together.  I also had many people tell me I shared something new about the Sabbath that they had never heard before or thought of.  And I even had six people ask me directly if they could get a copy of my sermon.  Those were all so very encouraging.  I felt good about my presentation and the material.  I felt like I communicated well, was clear, and gave the personal application I felt was so important. 

One additional hard thing about preaching is due to the nature of my job.  See, on weeks when I have to preach, the senior pastor has one element of his job that he doesn't have to worry about that week.  But for me, I don't get to drop any of my "normal" youth ministry duties.  So, I ADD work to my week, and add work to my Sunday.  This makes it a lot more stressful and exhausting.  In fact, the truth is that yesterday, after church, my wife asked me, "what are you teaching at youth group tonight?" and I had to admit honestly, "I have no idea, I haven't prepared that yet.  I have 4 hours to figure that one out."  OK.... I admit, this is NOT a good way of doing youth ministry.  Preparing 4 hours before you are supposed to teach is not wise.  I figured I would pull out one of my many lessons I have written over the last 18 years, and since I've only been at this church for 1 year now I have a lot of unused material that I could revise and recycle.  And this is when I love my wife.  She encouraged and suggested to me a plan for Sunday night.  She knew some material that I had that would be good to use and need only slight revisions.  And so, we got home after lunch and she put the children down for a nap while I began to revise some material to teach for Sunday night. 

We didn't have a large attendance Sunday night, but we had a good core of students there for youth group.  I had set everything up, got my lesson revised, and also had a nooma video set up as a 2nd "option."  The first option was giving them a worksheet I put together on how to prepare a testimony (both a salvation story and a growth story).  Most everyone did both options last night and at least three of the students asked if they could share their testimony at youth group (Praise God)!  So, by the end of last night, i came home feeling exhausted and energized.  I also felt HUGE appreciate to my wife, who not only gave me some great feedback on my sermon, great ideas for sunday night, helped lead sunday night, but also took care of the kids in between church and youth group so I could make my revisions, take a nap, and be ready for the night.  I can't say "thanks" enough to her or tell her how much I appreciate her leadership, friendship, help, and love.

Preaching Tomorrow

So, tomorrow I am preaching.  I am preaching on Genesis 2:1-3.  I have REALLY struggled with getting this sermon written and prepared for preaching.  I just put the finishing touches on it, revised it for the 4th time, and now am ready to print it and go over it a few times so that I can stick in my head what I am going to say. 

There are a few reasons that this sermon has been especially difficult for me.

• First of all, now having two little girls running around the house makes it way more difficult than it was before to work from home.  It is hard to concentrate when every 30-seconds I am hearing, "Ryan...Ryan... Ryan... LOOK at this!!!"   They are cute, but it does make it challenging.
• I struggle at times when I am assigned a specific passage to preach on.  I understand the desire for this - to fit within the sermon series that is being taught.  But I also struggle with it on a couple of levels.  First of all, I like to allow the Spirit to speak to my heart and be allowed to preach on something that the spirit has placed heavy on my heart to share with the people.  Secondly, I know that the Sr. Pastor has an idea in his head of what he wants communicated with each theme - and my sermon may or may not communicate exactly what he was hoping, or what he thinks is important.  This makes it tough.
• Third, in this particular church, the way the services are set up the individual preaching the sermon is given a time-limit of 20 to 22 minutes to preach the entire sermon (and going overtime is a HUGE mistake here and people get quite upset if you do).  Trying to squeeze into 20-22 minute the material that I have been studying and want to share on this particular sermon feels impossible.

I am praying that my sermon is not choppy, that it flow smoothly, that it make sense, and that it has some clear personal application to it.  I don't want to come across as "look at me, I went to  Seminary and here's what I can do."  I want to share from the word of God and make it applicable and meaningful to their lives today - There is a reason it is called "The LIVING Word!"  I don't want them to leave still having the question in their minds of "so what?  What does that matter in my life?" 

I have attempted to do that in my sermon.  I am finally feeling better about where it is at, but I am also very nervous about preaching.  But, soon it will be over and I can update you on how it went. 

Baby Steps

One of my favorite movies to watch is the movie "What About Bob" starring Richard Dreyfuss and Bill Murray.  If you haven't seen it, I would encourage you to rent it and see it.  However, this post is not actually about that movie.... but an idea in the movie.  In the movie, the character Bob is encouraged to celebrate and rejoice over "baby steps" that are made.  And that's what this post is about.

It isn't about one of my two little girls learning to walk - at the age of 3 and 1, they both know how to walk already.  However, as they have lived in our home, we have seen some "baby steps" that are being made which make us very excited.  A big baby step for me happened the other morning.

I went in to wake the girls up and spent some time in their room reading books with them and talking.  Christi was still asleep in our bed (or at least still resting).  After about 10 minutes I had to grab my stuff to head out to work, and Christi heard me and hollered for me to bring the girls into our bedroom for her to watch.  So I brought them in and they climbed up onto the bed with Christi.  I grabbed the rest of my stuff for work and got ready to leave.  I gave M.K. a kiss and said "goodbye, I love you."  Then I gave Christi a kiss and said "goodbye, I love you."  Finally I gave M.M. a kiss and said, "goodbye, I love you" and M.M. said "I love you too!"  WOW.  This was the first time that M.M. has used the word "love" at all - and was a HUGE baby step to me.  Christi and I both had a look of shock on our faces.  Christi quickly motioned to me "don't make a big deal about it, just go."  To which I said, "ya.. ok... bye"  But my heart has been a flutter ever since.  One small step for M.M.... one Giant Leap of the heart for Ryan.  :) 

Valentine's Day at the Zoo

Christi and I decided to take our 2 new foster-daughters, M.M. and M.K. to the zoo today.  This was also our first trip to the local zoo. 

It was a wonderful day of looking at the animals and seeing the awe of our two little girls.  We are feeling quite certain, from their reactions and expressions, that these two girls have never been to the zoo before. 

Our 3-year old, M.M. was a bit nervous at each new zoo exhibit though.  She had a hard time understanding that these big (and sometimes scary) animals could not get through the glass, or the cage, or the fence. 

Once she had a few minutes, she would then enjoy each animal, but most of them made her nervous to begin with.

I never would have thought of going to the zoo for Valentine's Day - and it was definitely a different Valentine's Day than I have ever celebrated before - but it was a wonderful day with my wife and two girls!!! 

Happy Valentine's Day Christianna

First Day of School

So, as you have read by now, if you have been following my blog, my oldest foster-daughter who is 3 years old is quite smart.  She is very creative, loves to "read", loves to tell stories, and often will talk about her school.  She was in a headstart program before she came to live with us.  We were encouraged by the social workers to get her into an other pre-k program because she seems very ready for it.  Christi and I totally agree.

So today was the first day of school for M.M. at her new school here.  She is in a Pre-K program that we are very excited about and will be attending school 3 days a week - Tuesday through Thursday.  I heard from her teacher today that she has been doing wonderfully, playing, learning and having a great first day.  Praise God.  Now if we could get our youngest, M.K, to stop throwing temper tantrums every time she doesn't get exactly what she wants we would be even happier... and the truth is that most all of this falls on Christi's shoulders because I leave for work.  My wife is a saint!!!!

Changes are HARD

So, most of my blog has been filled with news relating to our fost-to-adopt situation lately - and for good reason.  That has been a BIG deal in Christi and my life, and it is very important.... but there is a LOT more happening than just that, so I wanted to take some time to begin to share some other news too.

Often we like change when we are young because change is a reflection of our growth and the vitality inherent in our youthfulness. However, when we get older, change becomes more difficult to accept. Many times, change in our life comes about through tragedy, defeat, or loss. As I have gotten older, I have found that change in my own live has become harder and harder.  I used to look forward to it and get excited about it.  Now I seem to dread most changes.  I like the known; the consistent; the predictable; the safe.  But life just is not that way.

So one year ago I faced the challenging and difficult change of my Senior Pastor resigning from the church I had worked in for 9 years.  I was NOT excited about this change at all.  Within weeks God had another plan for me altogether - and called Christi and I to Texas to a new church, new home, new ministry and new friends.  After being here for 1 year and becoming VERY close friends (both Christi and me) with the senior pastor and his wife of our new church home - on Jan. 25th, 2009 - the Senior Pastor announced his resignation.  So here I am, one year later, facing the same difficult change situation of losing a senior pastor.  But, what makes this one a lot more nerve-wracking for me, challenging, and exhausting is the fact that I am currently the ONLY full-time pastoral staff working in the entire church.  And with everything else going on in my life, this makes me very nervous and questioning what exactly God wants from me and my life???

During this challenging time, I have had to continue to meditate on one particular scripture - Malachi 3:6 "I the LORD do not change. "

When we are with Christ, and He is within us, change may still be fearful or uncomfortable, but change can be managed. All of us can glorify God, even when we are exhausted and beaten down by change. In the silence of our response to changing situations in life, we can send our heart and our prayers to God and He will answer. We can ask Christ to use us through every changing circumstance and He will answer. In a world of change and chaos, we have an unchanging and constant friend in Christ.

Lord - PLEASE help me to remember this and hold on to this each and every day!  AMEN

Melting My Heart

Today was the first Sunday with our new foster-daughters.  They have never been to church before in their lives, so we were interested (and a bit nervous) to see how they would do.

We took them to our first service and kept them with us the entire service.  There were two red roses on the Piano in honor of them - that was VERY sweet.  The girls loved the music, and did quite an amazing job of keeping quiet and occupied for a 3 yr. old and 1 yr. old.  Afterward, Christi took them both to the Nursery.  They were a bit nervous so it took some time before Christi could leave them there alone.  But she did. 

After Sunday School I had a student leader's meeting.  Christi forgot I had that meeting and brought our girls into the FLC (family life center - which has a full-size gym as well) to play.  She was waiting for me.  About 1/2 way through she remembered I had the meeting, but decided that since the girls were having fun to just wait for my meeting to be over. 

One quick background bit if information for the end of this story to make sense.  M.K. - the 1 year old - is a very opinionated little girl and likes what she likes and wants what she wants.  If she doesn't get her way, she throws a temper tantrum.  Well, most of the time, she does NOT want me - to pick her up, to be near her, nothing.  Sometimes she is just fine, but most of the time she wants the female presence.  Although I have had some endearing moments, like teaching her in the car how to blow kisses, and she will often blow me kisses if I blow them to her first. 

Well, I walked out of the Student Leader meeting and Christi and the girls were sitting on the floor of the gym right nearby.  When M.K saw me, she stood up, held her arms up in the air and said, "daddy!"  My heart just melt.  Christi's jaw dropped and she asked, "did you hear what she just said?"  I had... and it was wonderful.  I'm waiting to hear those words again, but at least they were said once.... so I feel like I am making progress.

Man do I love these two little girls.  They are precious (although M.K. can be a bit of a brat at times to be honest - but aren't all kids that way at some point in time???).

M.M's Storytelling

Ok, M.M, our older foster-daughter is SO smart!!!  And I truly say that without bias. I mean she shocks me how smart she is.  One of the reasons I say this is because of her ability to be creative, to storytell, and to figure things out.  But, one of my favorite things is her "reading" - which for this three year old simply means holding up a book, looking at the pictures, and creating a story based on the pictures.  What amazes me is not only how creative her stories are and how they relate to the pictures, but also how her story will tie together from page to page.  I don't know that I could do that as well as she does!

Well, this morning I went in to wake the girls up.  They were a bit slow in getting up in the morning so I sat down in the room with them.  At that time, M.M got up and asked me if I wanted her to read me a story.  I told her I would love that.  She then got up and grabbed her favorite book that we have given her - "The Beginner's Bible".  She sat down and flipped open to a page and began to "read" me the following story:

"This is a story about a bunch of people... and Santa Clause.  This is where Santa Clause was working on making his toys.  <page flip>  And here is where Santa was looking at the map to figure where to fly to deliver all of his gifts to everyone.  <page flip> and this is where Santa was trying to figure out how to stuff this giant elephant into his little bag.  THE END!"

Now, this might seem like just a sweet story... and it is.  But what makes this story SO much more funny is a couple things:  First, she was "reading" the Bible when making up this story.  Now I realize she has no idea what the Bible is yet, but it still was funny.  Secondly, her story was based on the pictures she saw of Noah building the ark.  Finally, because she makes these stories up based on the pictures, her story makes a LOT of sense if you see the pictures of Noah.  So, I scanned them in to share them here.  Take a look and re-read her story... then you will see how creative, funny, and totally logical M.M's story is based on these pictures.  SO FUNNY!!!

 

 

Our Daughters

Well, my wife posted the following information about our daughters and since I felt like I could not say it any better than her, I figured I would post what she wrote:

I have given the girls initials because I can't post their names online.
Nor, can I post pictures at this point due to privacy issues. They are WAY
cute though!

M.M. is three years old, Hispanic, with long dark hair that curls at the
ends. She wears coke bottle glasses and has an impish grin. She is extremely
shy when she meets new people, but after a while she warms up just fine. We
have discovered that she likes meatballs, cucumbers with salt, and frosting
off of birthday cake. Yesterday she took the children's bible, randomly
opened it to the story of Noah, and began "reading" a story to Ryan which
involved Santa Clause, a lot of people, and an elephant. Her favorite color
is purple and she wears at 5T! Wow! By the way ... she likes to call me
"lady" like ..."hey lady can I have this?" etc. LOL

K.M is 17 months old and a chunkie chunkster! She is wearing a 3T. I only
mention their clothing sizes because it gives an idea of their size. She is
also Hispanic and has short curly dark hair. Her favorite word is "no" --
big shock right? :) She likes to eat everything, to pinch her sister, growls
like a lion, and has a great belly laugh. Both girls are most relaxed and
happy during bath time. M.M. says M.K.'s favorite color is pink.

We go to court on Feb. 26th to see what the social worker and the girls'
ad-litem will report to the judge about their removal. We will be able to
tell which way the wind is blowing in regards to adoption after that. The
girls' parental rights were severed, but they have been living with their
grandparents who want to adopt them, but who haven't lived up to the
stipulations of the guardianship they had with the girls. So we will see.

My Birthday!!!

Today is my 36th Birthday!!!  Things are a bit crazy in our house as you can imagine.  We spent last night and half of today trying to decide if we should cancel my birthday party tonight, because of our new foster-daughters.  We didn't want to overwhelm them or scare them.  But, at the same time we didn't want to totally skip my birthday.  We did decide that we needed to cancel my other birthday plans.  We were going to leave on Thursday to go to Austin and see the musical "Legally Blonde" - and then stay at a Bed and Breakfast for that night and return on Friday.  We just can't do that now - for obvious reasons.  We do NOT feel comfortable leaving the girls for so long when they just arrived. 

We decided not to cancel tonight's birthday party.  We had invited 17 people to our house for dinner and dessert.  We chose to go ahead with it since the girls were doing well today and we thought they might be fine. 

Tonight everyone came over for dinner and fun... and to meet our girls.  Everyone seemed to have a great time, and our girls did just wonderfully!  They seemed happy and comfortable around everyone.  At one point the older daughter seemed to get a little overwhelmed by all the people and Christi took her into the bathroom for a "break" - but then she returned and seemed just fine.

It was a wonderful birthday celebration - and the best birthday gift I could have ever asked for - two daughters! 

I'm a Foster-Father

WOW!!!  I cannot believe it!  The process began in California in April of 2007.  Christi and I started the process to become Fost-to-adopt parents.  About three months after we got married we found out we could not have biological children of our own.  Throughout our engagement, we had discussed wanting to be fost-to-adopt parents, but the discussion at that time was trying to decide if we would foster before, during, or after having biological children of our own.  But all of that changed when we found out we couldn't have biological children.  It has been a very hard process, in many ways, for both of us.  In a round-about way our decision was simplified as to when to become fost-to-adopt parents.... As soon as we could!

Well, a decent way through the application process God called us to move to Texas.  We transferred from California as much of the fost-to-adopt process as we could and then worked towards finishing all the many trainings, paperwork, meetings, etc. that were required by the state of Texas.  Christi and I had decided that we really wanted an infant under the age of 18-months, and that we were willing to take in a sibling set (right now of no more than 2 children).  We spent over a year completing the fost-to-adopt process in Texas.  Finally, last week, on Thursday, Jan. 22nd we were finished with everything and approved to be fost-to-adopt parents.  Then, the waiting game began to receive the call to be placed with a child.  We had no idea how long it would take to finally be placed with a child(ren).

One week later, on Thursday, Jan. 29th we received a call about a couple of girls who they were looking to place with a family.  The ad litem wanted to receive different individual homestudies to review and then choose who would be the best fit for these two girls.  Christi and I were called and asked if we would be interested in having our homestudy submitted.  We said we would love to be considered, and we were told that they would let us know one way or the other - but that it might take some time for the ad litem to review the homestudies. 

I went away on the Jr. High winter retreat on Friday, Jan. 30th until Sunday, Feb. 1st.  Then today, Feb. 2nd, at 11:30 am we got the phone call - the ad litem had chosen our homestudy.  They wanted to know if we were still interested in being placed with these two girls.  We said "yes", and they said, "Great... we will be out there in a few hours with the girls."  Yep - A FEW HOURS!!!!  YIKES!!!!

So here we are, on Monday night, Feb. 2nd, and Christi and I are officially foster-parents of two beautiful, wonderful girls....

And so the adventure begins.... more to come... I am sure!

Life is Full of Change

I led a devotional yesterday morning at our staff meeting.  I thought I would start this post by sharing that devotional - cause it will set up the rest of what I want to say.

Malachi 3:6 "I the LORD do not change. " (NIV)

Often we like change when we are young because change is a reflection of our growth and the vitality inherent in our youthfulness. However, when we get older, change becomes more difficult to accept. Many times, change in our life comes about through tragedy, defeat, or loss. When we are with Christ, and He is within us, change may still be fearful or uncomfortable, but change can be managed. All of us can glorify God, even when we are exhausted and beaten down by change. In the silence of our response to changing situations in life, we can send our heart and our prayers to God and He will answer. We can ask Christ to use us through every changing circumstance and He will answer. In a world of change and chaos, we have an unchanging and constant friend in Christ.

I never thought I would say it, but it does seem that the older I get, the harder change is in my life.  I used to love change.  It used to excite me.  I loved new adventures, new ideas, new people, and so much more.  Now, I hold on tight to the security of "non-change".  But, life continues to move on... and the truth is life is full of change - as much as I would like to avoid it, deny it or ignore it. 

This last year has been filled with changes in the life of me and Christi.  It began right around 1 year ago when we moved to Texas from Southern, California.  We also bought our first house!  (wow, and what a change home-ownership is.)  Along with a move like this of course came the struggle for both of us of leaving our friends, our family, the "known" and "familiar", the routine, the people, the job, the area.  All of these things.  And while those have been challenges, neither Christi nor I could have imagined some of the additional changes we would be facing one year later.

I can hardly believe that my first full year in my new youth ministry position is at hand.  There were times this last year when it felt like I would never make it.  But, here I am.  Now is the new struggles to work through the second year.  But that's not even the new challenges I am talking about for me and Christi.  Those have to do with both work and personal life.

First, work....  As of last Sunday (Jan. 25th) our Sr. Pastor (and my boss) announced his resignation.  I can hardly believe that in 1 year's time Christi and I have had to deal with 2 different Sr. Pastors at the two churches we have been a part of resigning.  This is challenging and scary in many ways for me.  The fear of the unknown is of course the main cause.  I knew when I took this job who the Sr. Pastor was, and what he was like, what his theology was, what his philosophy was, what his vision was, etc.  Now I have to sit back and wait to see what the new Sr. Pastor is like and pray that we meld well.  In addition, due to budget cuts, the only full-time staff at the church at the moment is: The custodian, the secretary, and me.  That makes for a LOT of additional work and challenges that I didn't imagine having to deal with a year ago when I was hired as the new Youth Pastor.  So, a lot is happening at work that is causing changes that are difficult.  But... as the scripture says in Micah - God does NOT change - and He is the one I need to fully rely upon.

Secondly, personally.... Christi and I are very excited to have completed all of the training and requirements to be approved as foster-to-adopt parents here in Texas.  Now we are waiting for God to bring us the child(ren) that he has for us.  Before Christi and I even knew that we had been approved we received a call for placement.  The call came in at about 4:30 pm for a 4-year old boy.  They told us they needed to know right away, and so we had about 10 minutes to decide.  And even then, there was no guarantee that in that 10 minutes someone else might not take him into their home.  So Christi called me and asked me what I thought - and after about 5 minutes of thinking about it we decided to call back and say "yes!"  So we called back to say yes to Christopher.  Our Social Worker said she would get back to us with information on the placement - one way or another.  Friday ended without word.  We knew that they were closed for the weekend and wouldn't do anything until Monday.  The entire weekend, though, Christi and I were wondering if we would be placed with Christopher and become insta-parents.  In addition, we realized we have been planning and setting up for an infant - so we have a LOT of baby stuff... but we don't have toddler stuff - including a bed and dresser.  So we need to buy those as well.  Well, we waited on pins and needles all weekend - wondering what it would be like to instantly be parents of a 4-year old.  On Monday after 4 phone calls and messages, I finally got through to a case worker to find out that Christopher had already been placed with another family on Friday.  That was very difficult to have spent the entire weekend wondering and stressing about what to do - when we weren't even going to get him.  But, this is encouraging that we are now getting phone calls for placement. 

So, Christi and my life have been FILLED with change this last year.  Change is not necessarily bad, but it does seem to be more and more difficult to face and deal with as I get older.  But God is still in control and I am trying to rest on that and not forget it.