Well, Faith and I are officially into our final trimester. Baby Dowdy is kicking, punching, dancing, and rolling around like crazy! He'll move for what seems like 10 or 15 minutes straight. He especially likes to dance to the music at church, as well as roll over and watch Lost with us. Further, he's become a huge fan of Dr. Pepper...just like his parents!

I never really thought I could become so attached to an unborn child. However, I find myself cherishing Baby Boy while becoming enthralled by his signs of life and personality.

I now see how parents can say that becoming a mom or dad gives them much-needed insight into the love of God. It seems that my baby will save my faith!

Please pray for us as we head into the unbearably hot summer months. The doctor is telling us George/Amani/Eli/Samuel is 2 weeks more developed than he is "scheduled" to be. (We're hoping this means he'll come 2 weeks early!

(Photos to come shortly!)

In college, one of my favorite professors once told us that if we ever found the perfect church, then we should immediately leave before we mess it up.

This has been a week, while busy, filled with sighs of relief:

First, Faith took her the last exam of her college career...

That same day I reached my 28th year of life (my hope was to start having children before I turned 30...I've got 2 years to spare! Hmmm, I wonder how many more I can have before 30.)

Faith and I stopped holding our breath on Wednesday as we found out she indeed passed all of her last classes--most of them with high marks!

I undertook a huge 2-day project in the orchard on Thursday that involved heavy machinery, various solutions to mix together, and lots of time. I've done this sort of thing before, but this time I was completely alone the entire time with no one to help and no one to relieve me. The results...I finished relatively unscathed!

And finally, today--in a culmination of 7 years of work, Faith will walk across a stage.

Whew!

(Baby boy and Kazakhstan, here we come!)

Gregory of Nicea once called St. Basil's faith "ambidextrous" because he welcomed pleasures with the right hand and afflictions with the left, convinced that both would serve God's design for him.

-Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God

Here at the farm, we've recently been talking about doubt and how to follow God even when He seems to be absent. My input in the discussion has been sharing some of Yancey's thoughts from his writings. Though I'm not completely familiar with Yancey and don't agree with everything he says, I have the utmost respect for the way he approaches faith and how he came to that faith.

In Reaching for the Invisible God, He reminds us of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel. We often merely look at the end result of the story--the 3 friends are thrown into the fiery furnace, a 4th "person" is seen in there hanging out with them, and they are miraculously saved. However, Yancey reminds us of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's response before they were even tossed to the flames:

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

The story becomes much richer when you consider the 3 friends' faith before they were even thrown into the furnace. They had faith that God could rescue them from death, but regardless of whether or not God showed up, they had made it up in their minds to follow and honor Him.

I'm reminded of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. When you read MLK's response to a group of white ministers, or even when you read or listen to most of anything else he said during this period, you can't help but acknowledge his incredible persistence. Moreover, I think of MLK's faith in a God that, on this issue, was seemingly absent for over 300 years. Though blacks in America faced slavery, racism, and second-class status, with no real answer from God, MLK and others demonstrated an unbelievable faith in God to stand up to and break unjust laws knowing what the results would be.

In light of Shadrach, MLK, and others, I have to ask myself whether or not my faith in God is ready to say 'yes' to God...even when I may be hearing nothing from Him.