A short rest...

We got all the DTS students out the door and onto outreach. Our Justice &  the Arts DTS left on the 1st and our Surf DTS left on the 6th. Our surf DTS flew out of SLO, and apparently you can't check bags over 6'8". The surf team had two bags that were 10' and one that was 7', so i put there surf board bags in the van and drove down to LA at about 8 sunday night. I made it down to LA around 11 and met the team outside of LAX and gave them their surfboards. I was so tired that i ended up staying at a Motel 6 in Thousand Oaks. We have heard from the teams and they both made it to their outreach locations successfully. 

Lori, Eli and myself are going to be going and visiting the teams in May. We are going to be going and visiting our surf team in Phuket, Thailand for 10 days. We have never been to Asia so we are really looking forward to this trip.  We have 6 students and two staff that we are going to be meeting with, encouraging and ministering along side. 

From Thailand we are going to fly back to Hong Kong and then head down to The Philippines. 

We have a team of 16, 13 students (all girls), 2 girls and 1 guy staff that are there.  I think Cody is going to need some serious man time when I get there as he will have spent the last 6 weeks with 15 girls. We will have to go kill something or do something really manly. We look forward to seeing the teams it is going to be a good time. I think we are buying our tickets today or atleast reserving them so that we can buy the tickets in 7 days. We still need some money, but God is always faithful to provide.  

We are praying that everything goes smoothly as this will be the first time that we are taking Eli overseas. We are praying that he will be able to adjust to the time and the food. I'll try to keep this updated as we are heading out. 

Eli playing at the park...and home

So we went to the park the other day. We really should go more as it's about 100 feet from our front door, and it's probably even closer than that. Eli loves the slides and running around at the park. This is a series of pictures of him on the slide.

We thought this was pretty funy. His hair was so Stat-icky. (i think that's how you spell it.) It was like his hair loved the slide as much as he did. He is starting to talk more. Not really words but just babble. But it's fun to see him start trying to talk more.

We took some photos of Eli around the house the other day so here's those as well:

so serious...i loved the way this picture turned out though...

sitting on his fire truck

posing on the couch

playing with keys after lunch

pizza induced trance

Living your Values

So...this week I have been really being hammered. Lori and I last Thursday watched the movie Amazing Grace. It's about abolitionist William Wilburforce and ending the slave trade in England in the early 1800's. He eventually saw the Slave Trade Act passed in 1807. Watching this movie really stirred me as I have been starting my T-shirt ministry through YWAM Pismo Beach.

About a year and a half ago, i felt like i wanted to try and do something to help people overseas. When we went to Tanzania over 3 years ago. I heard stories of people that would die because they couldn't afford the 3$ malaria medicine. 

So i decided to try and do something about it. I decided i was going to start a t-shirt company. Some of thoughts i had were:

Hope to bring Change

Hope to bring freedom

Hope to bring life

Hope to bring a future

Hope to make a eternal difference.

So after going through all of this i decided on calling it Hope Eternal. All of the proceeds go towards buying medicine, food, clothing and shelter for those in need around the world. In December we printed 2 designs.

All of this to say I have been thinking a lot about living my values. I have this ministry that is trying to help ministries bring change to social injustices around the world. However in my personal life i don't think twice about the products i buy. So in one part of my life I'm trying to raise funds for ministries to stop these injustices, and in the other part of my life I'm totally supporting the injustice.

I started looking at some justice sites. I checked out stopthetraffik.org. It was crazy to see that even chocolate is using slave labor. In Cote D'Ivoire, 12,000 children have been trafficked into picking the cocoa beans for chocolate companies. 

So i know i need to change slowly, but i want to try and change. I know it won't always be convenient, but i want to try.

DTS Students '08

DTS 2008 Surf School

Andrew from Australia

Matt from California

Tyler from Minnesota

Benedicte from Norway

Maria from Norway

Kirsten from Florida

DTS 2008 Justice and the arts DTS

Abby from Australia

Betsy from Pennsylvania

Gabby from California

Jacque from Colorado

Mackenzie from Michigan

Mariel from Colorado

Natasha from California

Paulina from Sweden

Sacha from Canada

Sarah S. from Colorado

Sarah T. from California

Serene from Australia

Sue from Switzerland

Eli's first Birthday

Well I haven't posted in a little while. It seems like we have been insanely busy. I thought i would put some pictures up from Eli's birthday party. These pictures are from his birthday on the 7th. We had a party with my parents and lori's parents.


These pictures are from Eli's birthday party with a bunch of our friends. I think there were something like 20 kids there. It was insane.
Eli is getting so big, we are starting to see more and more of his personality. He is starting to talk more. It's still really just blabbering. But he it really sounds like he is trying to communicate with us. Here is one of my favorite photos of Eli and Lori.

tragic news...

Please be praying, as i'm sure you all have heard by now about the shooting at YWAM Denver. Please be praying for our friends that are on staff there and for the families affected by this shooting. It's crazy to think that someone walked into the base and started shooting people. Below is a letter from our friend and the Denver base director Peter Warren that i got off of another friends blog. This really sucks...Pray for peace, and comfort in this time of grieving for YWAM Denver.

Dear friends of YWAM Denver,

Linda and I just returned from the hospital at 6am. Along with a number of
our staff and students we were awaiting news of our four staff who were
shot last night. It's with a heavy heart I need to tell you we just lost
two of them. Tiffany Johnson and Phil Crouse passed away in surgery in the
early hours of this morning, Sunday December 9th. They were wonderful
young YWAMers in their early twenties. Dan Griebenow is in critical but
stable condition with a bullet still lodged in his neck and Chuck Blanch
has two bullet wounds in his legs but will be fine.

Thanks for praying for us. Our whole community has been uprooted as the
base in Arvada has been declared a crime scene and no one can return to
their beds during the investigation. We've relocated everyone up to our
mountain campus, Eagle Rock, for however long this takes.

Please lift up the family and loved ones of those who were lost in prayer.
We're so grateful for the worldwide YWAM family that is reaching out to us
during this difficult time.

Your brother in Christ,
Peter

It's raining it's pouring

Well it's finally raining here in California. I can't remember the last time it has rained here. It's been awhile. Hopefully this rain will help with the dry stuff down south of here. For those of you that have been wondering we are quite a way from the fires. So we are all good.

We went on vacation last week. It was a much needed vacation. We haven't been away just us, in forever. We are usually traveling with friends or visiting family. So it was a nice break to just get away and hang out together.

We went up and stayed at the YWAM base in San Francisco. It's not the nicest part of San Fran, but only 2 blocks from everything downtown. One of the benefits of being in YWAM is usually can call up any base in the world and see if they have any hospitality rooms availabe. So we went up on Tuesday, ate this Indian restaurant place we love called Naan & Curry. Then on Wednesday we went out to Alcatraz. Neither of us had been out there, so it was a neat experience. We got to go on this Myth's of Alcatraz tour that took us to all these parts you don't usually see. We got to go down where they filmed parts of the Rock. It was a good time.

We came home on Thursday and made a stop at one of Lori's favorite places on earth...IKEA. We were able to find some great things for our house. We don't have very good lighting so we found some things to brighten up our house. It's starting to come together.

On Friday we had our staff fun day out at Avila valley barn. We dressed Eli up as a cow. It was fun. We got some great pictures of him. Had fun with our staff out there, and then went and hung out at one of our staff houses. We went from there to a friends birthday party at this new karaoke bar. It was fun, i sang some fun songs. Now we are just trying to enjoy the rest of our weekend.

Me and my boy...

So this weekend Lori went to a ladies retreat with our church. She left Friday around lunch and came home on Sunday around 5 in the afternoon. I was kind of worried about the weekend and having Eli with just me. BUT...it was amazing. Eli is really a good little baby. We had tons of fun. We went to the park, and hung out. He slept amazing for me at night. It was really a good weekend. We got to watch some football on Sunday afternoon. He didn't make it through the whole game though. It was pretty cute though. He fell asleep on my lap. He slept for about 2 and a half hours. Which is also a miracle. I really love having a son. Even this afternoon when he didn't take a nap all afternoon, it wasn't as bad today because Lori is home again.

I have been feeling super creative lately. I'm in the process of starting a not-for profit business called hope eternal clothing. I have been dreaming it up for the last 2 years, maybe year and 1/2. This last week someone gave me (until i can get a better computer) their old pc. I was able to get photoshop on it. So after Eli went to sleep on Saturday I stayed up until 2 working on some designs. The idea of the company is that all the proceeds go to buying med's and food and helping people overseas. I will write more about that soon.