Here are a few things going on with us –

• Summer is here and I’m a youth ministry widow once again. Micah has been out of town a LOT this summer and I unfortunately haven’t been able to join him for much of it. I’m pretty sure this is the most challenging part of youth ministry and can certainly be discouraging at times; but hearing the stories from camps, mission trips, etc. reminds me that God has a purpose for these events. My loneliness is selfish, I guess. Still, I’m looking forward to things calming down a bit after August.

• Micah has leapt into the world of social media (ahem, with my help) and is keeping the world up to date via the Tallowood Students Facebook page and the Tallowood Students blog. I’m quite proud of his efforts and really pleased to see how this is developing into a new way to minister to parents of our students. As a “contributing editor” to both T-wood social media endeavors, it’s exciting for me too! Here’s a quick look at just one of the many videos he put together for the blog during camp –

• The whole word seems to be giving birth these days! Seriously, there is something in the Houston-area water and every female I know under the age of 35 seems to be catching the pregnancy bug. We went through the stage a few years ago where every friend was getting married, so I guess this is just the new stage. Until we’re ready, though, I think I’ll avoid drinking the Kool-Aid! With that being said, can someone make me a sandwich board sign that says “We’ll have a baby when we feel like it, so please stop asking me!”? That might not be well-received, though, so I’ll just suck it up.

• We discovered Netflix for Wii (thanks for the tip, Dad) and we are addicted! No more meaningless television watching for us. We now have a library full of movies, and better yet zero-commercial TV shows, available on demand! I’m pretty sure we’ve gone through four seasons of 30 Rock in the last month and a half. I’ve been queuing up all the latest chick-flicks and watching them while Micah is out of town. Ghost of Girlfriends Past = terrible, The Proposal = pretty cute. Up next is probably Sunshine Cleaning, but I may also have to reprise Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion – it’s a classic.

• Speaking of television (well, I kind of was), we lost both LOST and 24 this year, so we have turned to Glee for comfort. The show itself is cute, but I’m pretty much tuning in for the music. Yes, we own almost every cast song the show has released on iTunes. If you catch me at a red light, don’t be surprised to see me rocking out to Rachel Berry’s rendition of Don’t Rain on My Parade!” The show has also given me a new appreciation for Journey. Check this out –

• It looks like we’ll get to see the Tigers play their season opener at the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game in Atlanta! Woo-hoo!

That’s about all the “news” I have for now.

-Laura

I saw this commercial for the first time when I was a freshman in college, which was about the same time Apple was making its resurgence into the mainstream. At that point, all Macs were running OS 9 and many featured a colorful outer body like this one:

Since Ellen Feiss first endorsed the Mac after her computer went “bleep bleep beep beep beep” and she was “like, Huh?”, Apple has come a long way. At that time, iPods were still brand new and looked like this:

Now, of course, you can’t walk 10 feet without noticing someone’s white earbuds or maybe even see their fingers quickly navigating the touch screen of an iPhone (by the way, it has apparently been “confirmed” for the 547 time this week that Verizon will soon offer the iPhone. Fingers crossed!).

Ellen first got me interested in the world of Macs, but it took quite a few years to draw me in.

After multiple viruses and one lightning strike, we have discarded four PCs in the last year. Yes, FOUR! I know it sounds wasteful, but let me also add that two of those computers date back to 2001. One of the laptops is still in pseudo-working order, with the exception of some occasional nagging spyware and a large imperfection in the screen. That one is still with us, just not our computer of choice, for obvious reasons.

This past Christmas, we made the decision to buy each other a Mac Mini for our home office! Since we already had a nice, large LCD monitor, all we needed was the “brains” of the computer. A Mac Mini was the perfect solution, as the entire computer is stored in one tiny box that sits on your desktop. No more giant CPU that takes up most of your leg room and sends cords running all over the office. Think of it like the size of a brick, with the capacity of a two-story house.

Between the Mac Mini and Micah’s MacBook Pro for work, we’re now a Mac family.

-Laura

We had a pretty awesome Middle School event on Super Bowl Sunday.  Our video is here, but you can read my thoughts about the Middle School Bowl at http://tallohood.com.  Check it out!

-Micah

After a rough week for us here in Texas, it is hard to be reminded that life is “good.” Even after watching all the news coverage of the tragedy in Haiti a few weeks ago, it’s hard to look around and see a lot of good in the world. Romans 8 gives me some much needed comfort, though:

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Hopefully we’ll all strive to live in the center of God’s will, and to live the “good life.”

-Laura

During the large worship sessions, students heard from Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, Beth Moore, John Piper and Andy Stanley with an amazing worship soundtrack provided by the David Crowder Band, Chris Tomlin, Kristian Stanfill, Christy Nockels, Matt Redman, Charlie Hall and Hillsong United. Their messages and songs were both thought provoking and awe-inspiring. Although this list of names is a veritable “Who’s Who” of Christian “stardom,” their presence would have meant nothing had the Spirit of God not been moving.

In our small group setting, we witnessed students discussing hardships, sharing personal tragedies, asking deep questions of their faith and more. It was pretty incredible watching God move in their lives!

The part of Passion that had the largest effect on both myself and Micah was the Do Something Now center, a place for students to blend worship and justice. Walking into DSN, we watched students worshipping through artwork, by drawing on SmartBoards as their completed pictures were instantly projected on a giant screen for all to see. This awesome display was only the beginning. The rest of DSN was constructed to allow students and volunteers to experience injustice around the world, and give them the opportunity to do something about it.

We walked into a dark tin shack and learned about the reality of sex trafficking around the globe. Not for Sale is an organization building border outposts in Nepal to help stop criminals from smuggling victims across for sexual slavery.

We also learned the plight of the Dalit people in India, who are denied medical care and education because of their social standing. This endless cycle of poverty has left an entire people group living in the slums with no means to care for themselves. Operation Mobilization is building and staffing education centers in these communities to provide them with hope and a future.

We were struck by the injustice that many children deal with every day in Afghanistan. Those born with cleft palates or other facial deformities are rejected by society, but Cure International is providing corrective surgeries for these children.

We learned about the growing underground Christian church in the Middle East and how E3partners is providing seminary training for new Christian leaders.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There were too many causes for me to describe, but the true experience is what I want to stress. The environment was created so that you felt like you were getting a taste of daily life for oppressed, impoverished and needy people, in the middle of our comfortable American world. Students carried heavy water jugs a quarter of a mile around the exhibit hall floor to experience a small portion of what daily life is like for people in Africa who do not have clean drinking water in their town. We sipped on $2 cups of coffee that provided aid to orphans in Ethiopia. People walked in and out of tiny shacks that house large families in impoverished areas and heard from young adults who were once aided as poor children by Compassion International.

Obviously, we were not the only ones moved by the injustice we experienced. Students at the conference gave more than $500,000 to fund all 11 causes! As if poor college students giving that much as an outpouring of love wasn’t amazing enough, an anonymous donor MATCHED each donation! This marriage of worship and justice was unlike anything we had ever experienced.

-Laura

It has been pretty amazing to watch this family that we know so well as they follow God’s call in their lives.  I am constantly amazed at how God took them from serving in local church ministry in Louisiana to serving as foreign missionaries in Uganda – all in a little more than a year.  I’ve got to say that I just come away realizing that God is awesome and totally in control of our lives even in the most unexpected circumstances.

Laura and I have felt very blessed to be able to stay as close to Doug and Kat as we have.  When we moved to Houston two years ago, we thought that was signifying the end of our closely related lives with the Taylors.  We were now living in Texas and they were still in Baton Rouge.  We’d get to see them some at holidays, but we wouldn’t have the ability to go to their house two to three times a week like we did when we all lived in the same city.  Sad, but we knew what God was calling us to do – move to Houston.  Well… remember what I said about God being in control?  Less than a year after we moved to Houston, Doug and Kat were moving to Texas too!  And they were moving just down the road in Katy!  Pretty awesome.  Basically, we got a bonus year with the Taylors while they went through the IMB application and training process.

All that to say, we feel pretty blessed to have extended our close relationship with the Taylors for another year.  During the time they’ve lived in Texas Doug stayed with us while they were looking for a house, we got to meet up for Sunday lunches, Doug spoke to our Tallowood youth group, and we got to hang out a whole lot more than if they had still been in Louisiana – the kids really loved coming to our house for the Guitar Hero guitars!

Laura and I kept talking about how it just didn’t seem like they were really moving to Africa.  We just couldn’t wrap our minds around the fact that this family that had been such a huge part of our lives would be out of the US for at least the next three years. But sadly, despite our inability to realize it would one day happen, we had to say our goodbyes to the Taylor clan just a few weeks ago.  Fortunately, we were able to make a trip out to Kat’s parents farm out in Yoakum, Texas.  It was really fun to get to see where they had been staying after moving out of their house in Katy.  Laura even ran on top of some hay bails with all the kids!  Fun stuff!

I can’t even explain how great it was to see them and just hang out like we had so many times before.  We got to sit around and chat, see a video of the city they have moved to in Africa, play with their kids, eat lunch together, drive around the metropolis of Yoakum, and even meet some of Kat’s family.  It was an awesome day that eventually required a tearful goodbye.  Saying goodbye to dear friends that have influenced you so much is always hard, but knowing that you will not see them again face to face for three years makes it a little tougher.  So long story short, we said our goodbyes and headed back to Houston.

Though saying goodbye for now was hard, I want to make sure that I’m clear about how excited we are about what God is doing in the Taylors’ lives.  As Doug has explained, they are not doing anything that we couldn’t do.  All they are doing is listening to God and obeying.  So, I am more than happy to give them all the prayer I can and eagerly wait to hear updates about their life in Uganda.  And, if you want to see what is going on with the Taylors in Africa, check out their blog – http://www.tothebridgeandback.blogspot.com

So, Kat if you read this one night in Africa when you have Internet, just know that we love all of you so much and are proud to call you our friends.  We’re praying for you!

-Micah

We had a couple of pre-Christmas celebrations with the Cating family. First we went out to dinner with Micah’s parents and brother, followed by a grand Christmas present exchange at our house. Then on our way in to BR, we stopped in Lake Chuck for his extended family’s annual Christmas party.

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with the Patz family in Baton Rouge. Although the weather kept us from making our traditional trek to Gramercy, La for the Christmas Eve bonfires on the levee, we enjoyed several days with family and friends in our hometown. My dad also drew from both Micah and my brother-in-law’s media expertise/obsessions to help him mount his huge flat screen TV on the wall. The house I grew up in, which never had cable, has suddenly been launched into the 21^st Century.

Although the Christmas season is gone, you could say that every day is Christmas around our house. I could pretend to be super-spiritual here and say that I’m referring to our year-round celebration of Christ’s birth… but in actuality, every day just feels like Christmas around our house because our tree, garlands, nativities and all other decorations are still up! Yes, I know that’s pretty sad. It’s already mid-January!

Let’s just say we’ve been a little busy with traveling for Christmas, Passion 2010 in Atlanta, Micah leaving town for seminary and the beginning of a busy spring. Oh, and have I mentioned that I started a new job? So, yeah, we’ve had a little going on. Sorry for the absence, but we promise to make up for it with several new posts!

-Laura

Yes, I’ll admit that I am a Twilight fan. No, I do not have a Robert Pattinson poster above my bed or a picture of a shirtless Taylor Lautner as my screen saver, but I obviously care enough to know the actor’s names. Rest assured, though, I am not the only non-teenage fan. In fact, according to this article, some women out there are just as obsessed as the teen/tween girls I know. So obsessed that they have Web sites like www.twilightmoms.com devoted to the vampire book and movie series. And I’m willing to bet that some of these ladies actually do have posters and shirtless pictures. Without a doubt.

Obsession and hysteria over under-age boys? I think I’ll pass.

Well-written books with a great screenplay adaptation? I’m in!

I’ll let you know soon if New Moon sways me from Team Edward to Team Jacob. I know – you’ll be waiting with bated breath.

-Laura

-Micah

Enough with the sentimental stuff…

As part of our “staycation” a couple of weeks ago, we took a day trip to the quaint town of Brenham, Texas. Since it’s only about 1.5 hours away, I would still count it as part of the stay-at-home vacation. For all of you Louisiana folks, think of it as St. Francisville without the plantations. It is an adorable small town with several cutesy restaurants and quite a few antique shops. We fit in a leisurely lunch and some store browsing, but then headed to the main attraction – the Bluebell Ice Cream Factory! The 30 minute tour was a lot of fun for us first-timers, as we got to see the ice cream production process. Probably the coolest part was watching them make ice cream sandwiches. The day even provided a flashback for Micah, who worked briefly at Dreyer’s Ice Cream factory early in his college years. It definitely gave my sweet tooth a deep desire for a cold treat, so we were thrilled to discover that the tour ended with a free scoop of your favorite Bluebell flavor. It was the freshest tasting ice cream we have ever eaten!

Yes, we even got to wear cool hats. Jealous?

This past weekend was Fallapalooza, Micah’s major fall event for the Tallowood middle schoolers. This was something totally new that he created to replace the annual middle school retreat, an event that couldn’t quite come together because of budget constraints. What a huge success! A week before Fallapalooza, 40 middle schoolers had signed up. By the time the doors closed last Friday night, more than 130 students were in our youth building! Teenagers are always so last minute. The students played laser tag on-site in one of the church buildings, dodging behind inflatable barricades and existing doors and furniture. They loved it! The simple thrill of getting to play no-holds-bar in an area that is usually off limits to their routine activity was major excitement for these guys. Very fun for us old farts to watch!

Did I mention there was a 70′s theme? We’re not just a very groovy church… The addition of Beatles Rock Band certainly completed the retro theme!

-Laura