We saw this on a t-shirt today.

Well, I actually agree with this statement.  People shouldn’t be religious, instead they should love God through faith.  But I think the shirt is supposed to mean something else.

When I googled this statement, I saw Richard Dawkins post that read “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts… ” etc.  Interesting the list he mentions.  9/11 is more political than religious, the crusades were more a war about political power and plunder than religion.  Actually, all the items he lists are the result of evil men manipulating religions for their own sinful purposes.

But he left out the majority of what Christianity is and done.  Let’s imagine no hospitals (the majority of hospitals around the world are Christian founded non-profits), no education in the third world (China is hugely indebted to Christian missionaries who brought modern education to their nation), no clean water in the third world (Churches have been funding clean water initiatives for over a century), no orphanages (nearly all orphanages and children’s homes were funded by Christians), no elder care facilities (invented by Christians, previously old people had to beg on the streets), no housing for thousands of families (Habitat for Humanity as one example)… the list goes on and on.  Before it was hip to care, Christians were the only ones making a difference for the last two thousand years.

The scariest thing… imagine no God.  Imagine a life where there is no real meaning, where death should be scary because it is final, where we have no hope of escaping the evil, decay, and destruction around us.  Imagine a world where a loving, good Creator does not love every individual.  Imagine a world where we are completely alone, unloved, unprotected, and at the mercy of randomness.  I’m not sure about you, but that doesn’t sound great at all.

I got back yesterday from the LDI retreat.  6 of us LDI interns and Pastor Cor hung out for a few days.  We were joined by Pastors Steve and Seth the 2nd day of the retreat.

We spent a lot of time sharing our stories.  It was just so amazing to see how God has worked in all of our lives!  Although we all shared some themes, our stories were so drastically different… clearly pointing to the diverse way God comes into someone’s life.  Tom’s story especially pointed out how awesome God is.  Although he was not raised Christian, at age 7 he went to a Christian summer camp and came to know Jesus there.  I was just so touched to see God got a hold of him at such a young age despite other circumstances.

It was also really cool to think about how we are a group with a wide range of interests and backgrounds and probably would not have met or established deep friendships had we not been brought together by our love of Christ.  It is just so awesome how the love of Jesus bridges all barriers.

I’m stoked for this coming year.  I’m extremely excited to be hanging out with this awesome group of guys and cannot wait to see what God will be doing in all of our lives through this year.

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Luke and Daddy workin' on the computer

I thought this was just SO cute!  Paul hung out with Luke so I could take a bath last night and when I came out I found them both fast at work on the computer!  Luke was totally absorbed in the screen.  I still can’t believe this little guy just came out of me!  He loves hanging out with his Dad.

In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, most of my action shots involve feeding!  This little babe LOVES to eat.  My number one duty in life right now is feeding this baby.  But I just love him SO much!  I love him more every day.  I even kissed him when he woke me up for the 3rd time at 4:00 in the morning last night.  It is really awesome being a mom.  I’ve been thanking God every day for my lot in life.

We’ve been watching a lot of sermons this last week when Kaelin’s been stuck in the couch feeding Luke

Mark Driscoll did an awesome series on “Pray like Jesus”. You can view them all online here: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/pray-like-jesus

The Gethsemane Prayer is especially amazing.  It was really challenging me in how I pray for what I want versus what God wills.  The first in the series, “Pray like Jesus” is an awesome and powerful sermon as well.

Just crack and peel off. SO EASY!

After learning some tricks from my mom and after much trial and error, I have a recipie for perfect hard-boiled eggs.  Eggs are one of the best foods, and hard-boiled eggs are one of the best ways to eat them.  Hard-boiled eggs are a portable little package of protein!  Sadly, many people do not hard-boil eggs because the shells are tough to get off.  Well not anymore.  Here’s my process.

1. 

   Dropping eggs into boiling water

   1) Put water in a saucepan
   Fill it so that it covers the eggs with an additional 3/4 of an inch (or more) of water above them.  If you have too little water, the boil bubbles will knock around the eggs and crack them.  DO NOT PUT EGGS IN YET!

2. 2) Bring water to a boil
   Bring the water to a boil.  Many people try to put the eggs in and then bring it to a boil.  Yes, it is easier, but I have rarely gotten good, peelable eggs from that.  I think dunking eggs while the water is boiling does something to the shell.
3. 3) Put eggs into boiling water (tricky part)
   Use a spoon, preferably one with hole in it (see picture).  This part is TRICKY.  You have to submerge the egg QUICKLY.  If you do not, it’ll crack because one side is hotter than the other.  However, you also need to GENTLY drop the egg onto the bottom of the pan, else it’ll crack when it hits the bottom.  So basically quickly dunk it, then slowly pour the egg off the spoon.
4. 

   Running cold water over the eggs

   4) Boil for 10 minutes (set a timer!)
   10 minutes is perfect almost every time.  If you have a ton of eggs (like 8+) you may do 12-14 minutes.  If you only have 2 eggs, still do 10 minutes.

5. 5) Take Eggs out of pan and put into a bowl full of cold water
   Using the same spoon as before, take the eggs out of the water and dunk into a bowl full of cold tap water.
6. 6) Run cold water over the bowl
   Put the bowl in the sink and allow it to run over the eggs for like 30 seconds.  Once the water in the bowl no longer feels warm (the eggs will radiate heat into it) then take it out.COOLING THE EGGS is the key here.  We want the eggs to cool down as fast as possible.  This makes the egg shrink, releasing it from the shell around it.
7. 

   Icing the eggs

   7) Add Ice
   Now add ice to the bowl and let it sit for awhile.  I usually let them sit for 20 minutes or more.  We want these things to keep cooling down!

8. 8 ) Dry them off and Label them
   Labeling them doesn’t help make them easier to peel, but helps a lot with knowing if they are hard-boiled!  I write HB with a sharpie on mine.  I boil 6-8 at a time and put them back into the egg carton
9. 9) Enjoy them!
   I HIGHLY recommend getting an egg slicer.  They are like $2.  It makes it really easy to slice them and put the eggs over salad.
   

   Mmm, yummy salad

Luke getting weighed by the home nurse

Everything is doing well, although we are fairly tired.  We are so blessed for all of our friends and family who have been helping us out and bringing us meals!

On Friday we had a home nurse come by (included in our insurance, praise God).  She helped with a lot of stuff, especially questions about breast feeding and such.  Luke weighed in at about 8.7 pounds again, about the same weight he was when we left the hospital.  He should be getting back up to his birthweight soon.

Luke's first outing

We started taking him out and about for some walks.  On Saturday I used our Euro Carrier to haul him to the All People’s Festival in Elliot Park (just a block away) and got to chat with people there. On Sunday we brought him to church.  He did great through worship (slept) but then woke up at the start of the sermon, wanting to be fed.  Kaelin and I made a homemade MobyWrap on Saturday so that should could strap him to her body.  It was pretty simple, its just 6 yards of fabric 20 inches wide.  Kaelin used fabric she already had, sowed it together to make 6 yards, then we sowed a seam on both edges.  Viola!

We took him to the Mall of America yesterday to return something to Best Buy.  He got incredibly hungry, so Kaelin spent most of the time in the Nostrom’s women’s lounge feeding him.  It gave me some time to walk around the mall and pray.  Wow, what a crazy place.  They have a shop for everything, including a whole store devoted to farm toys.  It was pretty fun to stroller him around and take him places.

Luke is a party animal

On Sunday evening we took him to Kaelin’s cousin Josh’s birthday party.  Luke loves a party and got lots of attention!

Luke sitting up on daddy's lap

So today is the day we thought we were going to have the baby.  But (thankfully) he came 5 days early.  Although it rearranged our schedule we’re glad it happened when it did… we didn’t need him to be any bigger!

Although yesterday started out rough, it got much better.  Naomi and Eric Glidden dropped by in the afternoon.  Naomi brought us a wonderful dinner including pot roast and a big salad, which we also ate for lunch today.  She also helped clean-up and hung out with Kaelin for awhile.  Such a huge blessing!

Today has gone wonderfully.  Kaelin’s milk dropped today, so Luke is a happy camper because now he’s got lots of food!  mmmm.  Today he’s been quietly alert and is such a nice baby.  So now he’s eating, pooping, peeing, and sleeping well… so things are going well for him.  Thank you all for your prayers during this time!!!

He also slept like a baby (in a good way) last night, sleeping for 4 hours then another 4 hours after feeding.  He helped us out after not getting sleep Wednesday night.  He LOVES his Halo sleepsack swaddle (shown in the picture).  They had them at Woodwinds and gave us a $10 off coupon for one.  They are proven to reduce the chance of SIDS.  Luke just loves sleeping in it.  Here’s a link to it at target.

This day ended great as well.  Kaelin’s God-parents, Forrest and Liz, came by to visit and brought us some KFC.  Everyone was well fed today.

Momma and her baby at the hospital!

We brought Luke home on Tuesday.  We were excited to get him Home, although it was really awesome at the hospital.  We had him at Woodwinds in Woodbury, MN.  The nurses were SO nice.  Our nurse Linda gave us a hug on our way out.  The rooms were very nice as well, but the nurses are what we missed most when we got home!  Soon I’ll put up some video from the hospital.

Poppa and baby at the hospital

The first few days home were BUSY and kind of ROUGH!  But now I’ve finally  got a break to update the blog.  The week started out rough, as Luke was having a lot of trouble breastfeeding.  The boy can bite hard.  So that caused a lot of fuss for him and stress for us.  Poor Kaelin kept on it through, and put up with Luke’s continual feeding marathons.  He’s a big baby, so the colostrum was not enough to keep him full for long.  We prayed a lot that her milk would come in (prayer answered on Friday!)

On Wednesday night (1am-ish) he got into a huge fuss and ran up a high temperature.  We called the nurse support line and they said to go to the ER.  So we took him to the Children’s hospital in Minneapolis.  We prayed that God would heal whatever was going on, and of course by the time we got there his fever was already down and he was no longer fussy.  But they still wanted to check him, so we stuck around another 3-4 hours.  Kaelin slept in a hospital bed as she fed Luke while I attempted to sleep on a row of plastic chairs.  We got home at about 6:30am… absolutely exhausted and very discouraged, but relieved that he was okay.

Paul, Thursday morning after being up all night with only a few hours of sleep

Today (Friday) we got better advice from a nurse.  If he’s got a fever, calm him down, feed him, and wait an hour or two to see if he’s still running a fever.  He could just be dehydrated.

Luke is doing really well and looking good!  We’ll be in the hospital until tomorrow and then may be ready to see people later this week.

As I wrote yesterday, Luke had a little rough time coming out.  His head got caught out for about 2 minutes because he turned sideways and his shoulders got caught.  I was SO scared and praying fervently.  They pulled in a gang of nurses and got him out quick.  Despite all that trauma, he’s looking good and is not too bruised and all his bones are in tact (praise God!).  He’s eating and pooping and is not very fussy.  He’s a nice baby!

He’s a grabber.  He likes to hold hands.  Right when he came out I went over to the table to see him as they cleaned him up.  He reached out and grabbed my hand right away.

Kaelin is doing really well.  Considering she birthed a 9 pound baby all naturally, I’m surprised how energetic she still is!

Thanks again for all your prayers and the supportive calls, e-mails, comments, and texts!

Luke in a bundle, hanging out and looking around