It's shower time

I can honestly say that I have dreamed a lot of dreams in my brief life. In all those dreams, I can never once remember dreaming of having a baby shower, much less a twin baby shower. Well, welcome to reality because we are having twin baby showers. I'm pretty sure we are having 4 or 5 showers (Kendra is having some with work colleagues and her daycares).

The first shower was this past weekend with our amazing church family at Tuttle Christian Church. It is absolutely the biggest blessing in our lives to get to go church with our immediate families and for that family to be expanded by the grace of God and love of others.

We received so many wonderful gifts this weekend. We received clothes from preemie size all the way up to 18 months. We received butt paste, baby soap, and baby lotion. We received stuff to take care of our babies when they are sick and stuff to entertain them when they want to play. We received all of this as gifts from our amazing church family.

We also received our baby quilts from Kendra's grandma Betty. She makes each of her grandchildren (now great-grandchildren) a quilt when they are born and when they get married. A few weeks ago Kendra, her mother, her sister, and Grandma Betty spent at least 3 hours picking out fabrics to blend together into some beautiful quilts. Below are the baby quilts for Ian and Nolan.

Here is Nolan's quilt. Kendra did an awesome job picking fabric, and Grandma Betty made some beautiful quilts.

This is Ian's quilt. Slightly different, but still a beautiful quilt.

What was I thinking?

There's a popular country song entitled "What was I thinking?", you may know the tune or you may not. Either way the chorus of the song continually finds the singer asking himself "What was I thinking?". Well, I (Eli) feel about the same way. What was I thinking when I put together my schedule this semester? (Yes, I still measure life by semester because I'm a college minister.)

I scheduled 4 major events/trips this semester.

1) A weekend retreat with students in February. Check. That one is done. No major issues.

2) A 4 day trip to Atlanta with colleagues for research and writing. That one happens tomorrow, commencing with a 3 hour drive to DFW to catch a flight at 6 in the morning. This one will be a great trip with tons of fun and some great things will come out of it, however it's another thing on my agenda. (Ironic Moment: The focus of our shared research and reading will be on Sabbath. You know that day of rest stuff. Hopefully, the research helps. )

3.) A week-long mission trip to Panama over Spring Break. Yes, I am leading a group to Panama (the country, not the city beach). I am in charge of 11 people heading to a remote village in the rainforest, while my wife who will be 7.5 months pregnant with twins stays home. This one will be another awesome, once-in a lifetime trip but getting really close to these babies getting here.

4.)A weekend trip to the Passion Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas. This one is only 3 days, but it is really close to the babies being here. I mean Kendra will be 8 months pregnant and we will be hoping to make it to about 8.5 months. So I mean really close.

I continually ask myself "What was I thinking?" when I look at these trips. Then I remember that God has a wonderful plan for all of this and lives will be changed for the better because of them. Most of all God will take care of Kendra in my absence(s), I mean he really is the only one who can take care of her at this point. All I can offer is an occasional foot rub and to run some bathwater.

So, if you have some spare time say a prayer for us. God is good, all the time.