What is more fun then a Petting Zoo?

Nothing!

Well, at least nothing is when you are almost 2 years old. Ava got to go to a little petting zoo after church recently and had lots of fun. When we got there we ran into some good friends of ours, Casey and Summer, and Ava got to play with their son Colton. They had so much fun with all the bunnies, goats, etc..

Things sure have been busy around here. (This is Tony writing by the way.) I became the Coordinator for Church Relations (the department that I have worked in for 3 years) and that has been great. I have the greatest team of people that I get to work with and we are so excited about what the Lord is doing through us as we work with churches around the States.

I travelled to pastors conferences in Chicago and Dallas last week. To all of you who prayed, thank you so much. They went very well. The one in Chicago had over 2,000 pastors and staff and 95% of them had never heard of Gospel for Asia before. Those are the kinds of conferences that I love to go to. I was able to tell many of them what is happening in Asia and how they can get involved. I was able to give them a lot of material too. I was especially excited to give them a copy of our new GFA Speaker DVD. You can check out the 5 minute video here - www.gfa.org/church. There are also some good pastor interview/endorsements from Pastor Ken Ortize, Pastor Jack Hibbs, and Pastor Francis Chan.

Speaking of Francis Chan, have all of you read his book Crazy Love? If not, I encourage you to go buy it. This week. I'm serious. I think you will be very convicted and blessed by it. I have gone through it twice in the past 6 months and the Lord has used it a lot in my life. Pastor Francis recently came and spoke here at Gospel for Asia to the staff. It was such a timely and good message. At one point in his teaching he shared about a trip to China he had when he was a young man. He went over to see a lot of his family that he hadn't met before. He said (my paraphrase) "As I visited many parts of the country and saw family, I heard again and again 'You are so tall!' 'Wow, is everyone so tall in America?' I was the tallest person that I met my entire time in China. But after a while, because I'm really not that tall at all, I wanted to let them all know, "It's not that I'm actually soooo tall. But it's that all of you are soooo short."" We all laughed at that. Pastor Francis then shared "I find it's the same way with our Christianity. People keep telling me that I am preaching such a radical message and living such an extreme Christian life here. But is it really that my message and teachings are soooo radical? Or is it that really our spirituality and Christianity is so small and unbiblical. Is it that when we see even the smallest hint of real Christianity, that we feel like it is some radical message? When really all it is, is biblical Christianity." That has stuck with me since he was here. I thought you might be blessed by it too.

Enjoy the photos!

Colton went straight for the trucks. I think he pronounces the word "Truck" even better then I do. He had so much fun with that thing.

When I showed Ava how to "pet" the bunny, she took it to a whole new level.

Here, you will see that Ava has this bunny in the Vulcan death grip. This was the first bunny I have ever seen survive it. Tough tough bunny.

golden sunshine

can i keep her?

look at the above photo and add a caption of your own.

are you smiling yet?

do guys get any cuter than this?

this blows my baby photos out of the water.

(Beth Schwartz, I hope you enjoy this post. I expect a comment!) :-)

By the way... I think this is our 200th post!!!

Sunday is a good day for photos

-Tony-
I thought I would post a few photos, just for fun today. The first couple are from a little anniversary trip that we got to do a couple of weeks ago. I will post some more of those soon. We got to visit Austin for a couple of days and had a great time. I also wanted to post the last of my images from when my mom and sister visited a month or so ago.

Ava is getting better at opening doors and especially good at playing hide and seek. Yesterday, she took off running down the hall. I figured I would finish what I was working on and then go get her. When I went down the hall, only one door was open, our bedroom. I went in there and couldn't find her anywhere. I then began checking every room and all of her favorite hiding spots. She wasn't there. I started screaming her name as I kept looking for about another minute. She was no where to be found. The front door was open to let in some fresh air. I was almost positive there was no way that she ran out there... but now I was having a lot of doubts. I yelled for Teressa to come help from the kitchen and told her that I couldn't find Ava. Finally, I found her. She had gone into her room and shut that door behind her. Then in the darkness, she found her way into her closet and closed the closet door in front of her. Yeah... genius. I couldn't have done it myself without making more noise.

Chapel in Austin

Austin courtyard

Ava had a great time when we visited the zoo. In the picture above, she had just finished making lots of "oohs" and "ahhs" at the gorilla in front of her. She was delighted to make his acquaintance.

Napping by the window

Tress and my Mom

Ava loves to go down slides by herself now! It's great. I can actually take her to the playground and when I get tired, go and sit down, and she'll do:
(1) Stairs
(2) Slide
(3) Laugh
(4) Repeat

born to be a big sister

Well I returned to a super happy 21 month old little girl today. I have been in Arizona for the last 5 days, sharing with a church and visiting with pastors at a conference. Ava was sporting her newest prized possession t-shirt and is so ready to be a big sister! She decided to take her baby for a stroll, but that naturally turned into an off road adventure. The sidewalks are only good for a short time. Then baby must go on a safari through every part of the grass, flower beds, and especially through the swampy mud puddles.

She also surprised me on the drive home from the airport with some of her new words. My favorite is when she says "Bird." It may not be the cutest thing in the whole world, but it's really close.

It's good to be home. I hope the photos bring you a smile. :)