2011!!

Well, we have already had an exciting 2011.  We've visited Arkansas twice and gotten to see so much of our family and so many friends, but of course we NEVER get to see everyone we would like, or have enough time.  Traveling with a 3 month old was adventure enough for us!  We drove back right after Christmas and were so blessed that Dillon slept most of the drive, except when we got stuck in a traffic jam.  The second trip was unexpected for my grandmother's funeral so we flew.  And we were again thankful that Dillon did so well.  He loved looking at all the people and was willing to stay on our laps the whole flight. 

We've been so amazed at how much he has grown in the past 2 months.  He can even roll over!  He's started babbling which has been so fun.  And every day he's becoming more and more expressive.   In the past couple days he's even gotten to play his own little version of catch and practiced trowing frisbees with his daddy.  We're so thankful for our little one and how big he's getting!!

Our church, Sojourn Community Church, is continuing to grow and our campus has had to split from one to two services!  One of the things we love about our church is that we have community groups that meet througout the week instead of Sunday School.  Our groups talk about the sermon from Sunday and it helps us apply what we've learned and dig a little deeper.  Since our church is growing, they are always in need of new groups to start meeting and Drew and I are hoping to multiply from our current group so that both new groups can have room to grow!  We are really excited about this opportunity to get more involved!

Another opportunity that we have is coming this summer.  We are hoping to be able to go with our church to visit our missionaries in Western Europe.  This is a unique trip to not only pray for the cities, talk about Jesus, and encourage the missionaries, but they will be sharing their vision with us.  The hope is that Sojourn can learn how to better partner with these families, and that those on the trip would catch their vision and decide to partner with their church planting team.  Sojourn has a great vision of not sending individuals or families on their own, but to send them in teams with other families and we might have the opportunity of joining an existing team in either Paris or Rome.  There are a lot of things that we need to work through, but we think that this trip will be invaluable to clarifying our call to missions.  A good friend has told Drew that he thinks our family could thrive in Western Europe and we want to take that seriously.  Even though it was once home to many Christian heroes, Europe is now a spiritually dark place, with less than 2% evangelical Christians.  The society is now post Christian, because the people see Christianity as a thing of the past and think that they have gotten over the need for religion.  It is clear to us that Western Europe has a desperate need for the Gospel.

The trip is at the beginning of June and Dillon will be 8 months old by then.  When you think of us, pray that we can be prepared to take an 8 month old all the way to Europe and that he will travel well not only on the long plane ride but as we travel between cities.  Please also pray for us as we raise support.  We can't go if we don't raise the funds for the trip, a big chunk of it over the next week.  If we don't go this summer, there may not be another good time.  We feel that it is important to go as a family and this is our best opportuity before Drew finishes school in a couple years.  Pray that we will be diligent and that God's people will be generous.