Here are some of the things that we’ve been up to lately…
Grace,
Brian
Lately…
Category Aaby Family
100five50 Update #1
We are one week in to the 100five50 Challenge and when I say “we,” I do mean that! I believe through comments, emails, texts, IM’s and personal conversations there is somewhere between 12 and 15 folk taking the challenge.
Here are my stats for the week (and believe me, I don’t have the expectation for others to comment on this post, unless they are feeling like they should for the sake of accountability and/or encouragement):
I got my five workouts in, each of them a bike ride and rode 37 miles for the week over five rides.
I’d give myself a B- on the eating, I did cut the carbs roughly in half, but I felt like I compromised on snacking a bit.
I am down 3 lbs to 217.
Overall, a good first week!
Grace,
Brian
Blessed Saturday
What a wonderful Saturday!
Started with a great breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, “67” at the Edgewater Hotel. Elisabeth’s folks are in town and we thoroughly enjoy doing the Edgewater with them. Over the years of going to 67 we have gotten to know one of the servers fairly well, her name is Marlane, she is from Haiti. We were able to ask her today about the Earthquake. Please pray for her, she lost a niece and a nephew (one a child of her brother, the other a child of her sister). Very tough. We had wondered about Marlane, after the quake, but this was our first opportunity to see her.
After breakfast we went over to the house of some friends of ours. They live right on a lake. We spent most of the afternoon relaxing lakeside and under the deck enjoying some great time talking, munching on some snacks and watching the kids throw rocks in the lake.
Late this afternoon I was able to take a 13 mile bike ride. The ride was fantastic, it was full of time praising God and asking for His provision as I/we move forward. I found that most of my thoughts were about this last year and seeing all the hard things about the Youthmark year as real learning experiences. It really created some cool (and new/creative) thoughts about this next year. I am prayerful and hopeful for what He has in store.
Amazing what one day of great weather can do for the soul!
Hope your Saturday was as a blessing as well!
Grace,
Brian
Speaking @ Seaside
Last weekend I was able to head south with the family to Seaside, Oregon, well, actually Gearhart, Oregon to speak at a “Beach Retreat” for Westwood Baptist church of Olympia.
The trip was a blessing on a few different fronts…
Will was SLIGHTLY fearful of the crashing waves.
1. I got to take my family. Though I came in to the trip pretty blitzed, coming off a six-weekend stretch of YMV Spring Retreat weekends and the writing completion of three books for this summer’s YMV’s, I was so very thankful to have time with my family. On Sunday afternoon we were able to go to the beach for a few minutes, where we discovered that Will was more fearful of the water than I am of my daughter’s being asked out on a date. After the beach (because it was cold and Elisabeth and Will were not all the happy at the beach) we quickly jetted off to downtown Seaside. Here we did the sights and sounds
The Girls loved the beach!
of Seaside, complete with homemade ice cream and witnessing people eat deep fried tweenkies and chocolate covered bacon (yes, you read that correctly). The afternoon became complete for the girls when we dropped off Will and Elisabeth (nap time… I think for both) and we went back to the beach.
2. The weekend was a blessing because I got to teach something fresh. After six weeks of teaching the same thing, though I was stoked about the “Live and Love Loudly” talks, it was a real nice thing to go through 1 Thessalonians. What’s nice, is that it provided the groundwork for the talks I will be doing this summer when I speak for the Colorado Baptist Convention (doing two camps out in CO this summer). If you have not read 1 Thessalonians, I highly suggest you do! The people of Thessalonica are an encouragement to me (as they obviously were to Paul). I see so many teens today living like the Thessalonians and I pray, just like Paul did, that their faith would ring out throughout their Macedonia and Achaia (their region)! Can’t wait to study more and preach it more this summer!
Here’s to a weekend at home! It will truly be a welcomed blessing!
Grace,
Brian
Dear Audrey,
My little girl, Audrey, turned six today.
Audrey has a grip on my heart. We love all three of our blessings the same, however, each one is uniquely loving and uniquely loved. Audrey, is our middle and holds that special place in our hearts. I am a middle child. Elisabeth is a middle child. Therefore, we have a special place in the middle of our hearts for Audrey.
Because Elisabeth and I both KNOW that is was the toughest being the middle child, we feel it is only fair that we treat Audrey the best.
I kid.
This little gift from God does hold a special place. She is so uniquely gifted and has a sensitivity that is different than Halle and Will. She has the desire to be alone at times, yet she clings tighter than our other two when she wants to be cuddled.
We all love you Audrey, thanks for the first six years of blessing your Mommy, Daddy, Sister and (and the two years of blessing your) Brother
I love you!
Daddy.
Grace,
Brian
Seems Like A Good Day to Pray
Sitting at The Met–a coffee shop–down in Renton. This morning I am doing some work on the new editions of RoadGrip, HomeBase and Merge. In just a bit I’ll be honored to grab some time with my friend, Dave Devries. Instead of just jumping into the writing and the meetings, I’m starting my day with some concentrated prayer time, I’d be much obliged if you’d join me by praying for the following:
- Pray for the many youth groups Youthmark has the opportunity to train for Mission51–being a missionary always, all ways a missionary! We have completed three of our six retreats, over the next three weeks we conduct our northwest/local retreats! The travel season was great, but it sure is nice to be home!
- Pray for my neighbors. We have several in our neighborhood who we have started to build relationship with. Pray that we’d be an encouragement to those who know Jesus and build relationship with those who do not. What an honor it will be to share Jesus with these friends-to-be.
- Pray for discernment. I am in the midst of creating/outlining/designing/etc. a ministry/business plan. I need to know where I am aiming in order to hit it.
- Pray for the lost. Do you have non-Christian friends, relatives, co-workers, etc.? Pray for them. Prayer=Care. The more prayer usually means the more care. As you care for these folk, I pray you’ll begin to share the Great news with your mouth. It doesn’t take much to start a spiritual conversation. Not in a cheesy, “your yard sure looks beautiful, but do you know what needs some work?–Your heart” type of a way. Genuinely loving and listening will provide entry points! Go for it! I am praying for this for you!
Grace,
Brian
Timing
The last several weeks have been filled with some very cool “God’s Timing” moments. Things that happened that it was just so evident that God was orchestrating that exact circumstance for that exact moment. For instance, I wrote about Brandon in Pine, AZ, who just happened to be pulling into the library at the exact time we were stopping in to ask about a church. Then last week it was just so obvious to me that Sitka, Alaska was to be the place that our team from Dallas, Oregon should go. However, the pieces did not fit and the day after they said, “not this year,” I heard back from Haines, Alaska who had not gotten back to me in three weeks. Their leadership voted unanimously to have the team from Dallas! God’s timing is perfect.
Well, yesterday He did it again. As I was listening to the Podcast of the sermon I missed last Sunday and after a much-needed 11 mile bike-ride while I was still cooling down, I thought I’d stop the procrastination and pull out our old lawnmower and begin the yard work for the year. Side-note: our lawn mower is old. It was old (used) when we received it in 1999. I had a hard time starting it this year and when it finally did start it would only go for about 30 seconds. So, needless to say, 15 minutes into my lawn-mowing experience the front lawn was only 1/3 done. It looked horrible. As Pastor John was preaching through my earbuds and as the lawnmower was sputtering I was thinking about how long this would take with the engine lasting about 5-6 seconds each time I started it now…
…John, in his sermon, was talking about being Jesus in our world. He literally had just introduced the point “share the Gospel” and was talking about our unsaved family, coworkers and our neighbors.
Over the light hacking of the mower and the proclamations of John I heard, “Hey, let me know if you need to borrow mine!”
My neighbor from across the street and a few doors down was inviting me to borrow his mower. I had never met, nor seen the man. However, this was a loud shout from God, not just a invite from a neighbor.
I love God’s timing. Elisabeth and I had committed ourselves to this being the year we really invested in getting to know our neighbors. We’ve seen some progress this year, but this was an unexpected blessing. I did borrow my neighbor’s mower, and way more important than the lawn getting mowed was the foundation of relationship we now have through the couple of conversations we had before and after the mowing.
We left the conversation with the hope of doing a barbecue together soon!
Jesus is Lord of time! He knew I’d be listing to that sermon at that time. He knew our cruddy ol’ mower would sputter at that time and he Thank you Lord for your timing!
Grace,
Brian
Family Meeting: Halle’s Poem
About every five or six weeks one (or all of our kids) will start running through the house yelling “attention, attention!”–which, is really fun to hear Will saying this right now.
Anyway, what typically follows is the announcement that we will be having a “family meeting.” These meetings normally are more of a Letterman talk-show filled with prepared or unprepared talent. Last night we had a family meeting. We all received awards prepared by Halle (I won “simply the best Daddy!”). On top of the prepared awards, Halle read to us her Poem about Jesus.
Enjoy…
We were blessed.
Grace,
Brian
Bloggable Will
Great dinner conversation tonight…
Girls had just gone upstairs to change for church. Will in his high chair, Elisabeth next to me at the table.
Me: Hey Will, should Mommy and Daddy make-out?
Will: NO!
Elisabeth: Why not?
Will: Yucky!
Grace,
Brian
Friday with Friends
Elisabeth and I had a great night with friends on Friday.
The evening started with dinner. It was decent. The window at the restaurant says, “Mexican Style Food.” Interesting. So was the food. It wasn’t bad, just wasn’t the best. Later, when I told a friend who works down near that restaurant that I had gone, he said, “yeah, we’ve all been there once.”
Then we made our way over to Calvary Chapel South where Tim Hawkins was doing a show. Tim is a comedian, if you have not seen him here is a one minute sampling.
We had a great night, lots of laughter. A much needed break.
Grace,
Brian
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