Pearly whites

We took Bright to the dentist for the first time this morning. We have the best dentist in the world! Of course, we are a little biased. Our dentist is our brother-in-law. Bright did great! He just let them clean all of his little teeth. He was so cute! And this other picture is our little Zion, sitting on his own. He looks too little to be doing this but he is 6 1/2 months old. All of his peers outweigh him by pounds, and probably always will. But we think he is handsome enough to make up for it! :)

What is life?

Last week we took the four-wheeler out to scout the perfect wild cedar on the family farm. It is still strange for me, a Michigander, to be cutting down a Christmas tree with no snow. Nonetheless, the smell of fresh cedar now permeates the four rooms of our tiny apartment, and the tree handsomely wears all of our most precious family ornaments.

The other night, as we sat in it's twinkling glow, I asked Daniel, "Is our tree alive or dead?" "You just asked one of the most debated ethical questions of the day," said my husband. "What is life?"

We went on to talk about the qualifications of life. Is it a pulse and brain waves? Is it the fact that the tree is green and drinking water, even though it has been cut from it's roots and will never be able to act like a tree again? It was an interesting question. What do you think, is our tree alive or dead?

Left behind

This is a picture of Zion a couple months ago, gazing at his cousin, Eliana...who he will leave behind. Her name means, "My G has answered" in Hebrew. She is Daniel's sister, Kerry, and her husband, Philip's daughter. Daniel and Kerry are so close. When we lived in Kentucky for three years, he called his sister every week, and they would chat like girlfriends. She is five years his senior and he has always thought she hangs the moon. I couldn't love her more, myself. And her husband is a wonderful, devoted man of God. Not to mention the kids' grandma, MoMo, and their great-grandma, SueSue. And of course there is Grandma and Grandpa in Michigan, and Uncle Kody and Uncle Jack and Aunt Denise and JJ, who will also be left behind.

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."

Last night, Daniel asked Kerry and Philip to be the boys' Godparents. Should anything ever happen to us on the mission field or otherwise, we have decided to entrust our most precious earthly treasures to them. They were absolutely honored. It was an emotional time. For that matter, it IS an emotional time. This is the hardest part of all of this. It sometimes keeps me up at night, thinking, 'Will the boys suffer very greatly because they are so far aways from their families?'

And then I remember the words of my dear friend, Laura, who is raising her two small daughters on a snow capped mountain top in North India. She writes, "Our children Kayla, yours and mine, will have a worldview!!! My children thank Dad for ELECTRICITY and WATER!!! They chat for the children on the streets they see. They know the world is not a suburban bubble! What I did not know at the age of 21, Sophia knows at 4."

So, chat with me now friends, I need it. "Dad, as we boldly go in 'ruthless faith,' as Laura puts it, bless our going. We desperately need your anointing, your provision, your Spirit. When these little boys find themselves on the other side of the world, may they know that YOU are their world. May they know that their citizenship is in Heaven, that they were put on this earth for one reason and one reason alone, to love you and bring you glory. May that knowledge help them understand why we've taken them away from family and country and...pizza. Comfort them when they cry for MoMo, when they long to see their Grandma and Grandpa. Comfort them when they are the only blond heads in a city of four million people. Make them strong, make them resilient, and most importantly, inflame their hearts with love for you. You are our hope. You are our everything. To you we commit our lives and our sons."

And His desire is for me.

I devote a day of each week preparing to teach the Song of Songs on Sunday, and today was the day. This week we're covering the last of the Bride's four statements of identity. In the first, she was consumed with herself, which made her relationship with Him very one dimensional. In the second, she began to think of what blessed His heart, although she still placed her desires before His. In the third, she began placing His desires ahead of hers. In the last, she totally surrenders every desire, good or bad, and begins to get totally lost in the desires of His heart.

Around eleven this morning my phone rang at the house. It was Kayla. She asked me if I had been outside. I hadn't. Apparently, the temperature dropped around 30 degrees and she thought it would be the perfect day for me to hunt the evening. Though she's done things like this before, it always surprises me because it puts a pretty big strain on her. She knows a change in weather means deer movement (because she's a stud, or should I say the wife of a stud). She also knows that I love to hunt the evenings, which is a rarity when one has small children. And she knows that I LOVE to hunt the cold. There's something about facing elements that excites me. So I loaded up my bow and arrows and enjoyed the evening from a cedar tree in the valley of Haggard farm.

I'm no psychologist, but it must be unhealthy to be totally consumed with yourself. Certainly, it must be unhealthy to be totally consumed with another. Full abandonment to anything is risky and detrimental. Unless, that is, you're abandoned and consumed with the One.

Some might think, "Boy Kayla, keep that up and you'll have a man that's consumed with hunting." Not so my friends, never underestimate the nature of divine love. What pleased my heart this evening, more than any weather pattern, scenic view, or late-rut hunting action, was that I could tell that she really wanted me to go - for me. And what that did was make me want nothing other than her.

His intention is to consume us with Himself. Just when you think you're losing it all, just when the professionals would advise you otherwise, you gain EVERYTHING. Turn everything over to Him getting what He wants, and come to find out that His singular desire is to possess and have YOU. Watch out Kayla Rupp, keep that up and you will have a man that's totally consumed... with you.


(By the way, these are my two all time favorite pictures of my wife.)

Men and their friends

My wonderful husband is hunting this weekend with his buddies, Tyler and Russ. Tyler is a pharmacist and Russ is a business higher-up. They both like to cook, and they both care about their clothes. I've even seen both of them wearing pink (at separate times, of course). The men my husband makes friends with fascinate me. They are usually very different from him. He has few friends, in fact, who are much like him at all. He is drawn to bachelors a decade older, or jokesters a decade younger, or men from other countries, or men with funny names, or men who don't say a word, or men who like the symphony...you name it. Of course, his closest buddies (like John Harrigan, pictured here) do share a lot of his interests. But he is always bringing home a new friend for dinner, and I'm always entertained by his choice.

Drive-in movie night

In these pictures, I am in my pajamas, sitting in a camping chair with a bowl of popcorn... and yes, we are outside. That is the beauty of not owning a TV. When your only option for movie night is your portable DVD player, you can get very creative. We called it drive-in movie night. The stars were twinkling above our heads as we watched Heath Ledger bite a man's jugular in Four Feathers. Very romantic. Our neighbors in the apartment complex teased us, but we didn't mind (they're just jealous). Of course, we had to have the subtitles on so we could follow the dialogue of the movie during the rumbling of a passing truck or the blast of the train whistle.

This is a such a precious season for us. The other night as we were clearing the dinner table, Daniel caught me up in his arms and we kissed and danced on the kitchen floor. We got to chuckling about it, because as he held me in his arms, he was holding a sippy cup of milk behind my back. The milk swayed in the cup as we danced. Precious, precious times. I really am thankful we live in this tiny apartment complex across from the football stadium. I'm glad we hear fireworks against our windowpanes on Friday nights when the hometeam scores a touchdown. I'm glad our neighbors aren't perfect...so glad they smoke and cuss and tell us about their problems. I'm so glad my baby son sleeps in our walk-in closet. I'm so glad we watch movies under the stars. If things were any different, I really think I might get bored.

Camp Potty: Day 3, and we are potty trained

Well, Laura Pinkstaff was right, you CAN potty train your kid in three days. Today he pooped in the potty twice and peed countless times...making it all the way to the end of the prize chart. That meant a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's!!! MoMo and Sue-Sue and Aunt KK and Uncle Philip and baby Eliana and little brother Zion and Mama and Daddy accompanied Bright for pizza and games - in his underwear! He asked to used the potty twice, all on his own, while we were there and he did great.

While he was sitting on the potty to go pee before bed, he said to Daniel, "Zion is Daddy's baby." Daniel said, "And Bright is Daddy's little boy." Bright corrected him promptly, saying, "Bright is Daddy's real BIG boy." And he's right. There is only one baby in the house tonight. Though I'm so very proud of him, I'm sad, too. I don't know where the time has gone. He sat there at Chuck E. Cheese, eating a slice of pizza, not using a booster seat, and not wearing a diaper, and I realized that somewhere in the last 36 hours he crossed a threshold, and we can never go back.

And just like that, the baby is gone.