a neighborhood wedding!

Sarah and I had the pleasure to shoot a beautiful little wedding right here in our own neighborhood this evening (only about 125 yards out the front door!). Here are two of my favorite shots so far. You can see a few more on my photography blog.

is this thing still on?

Wow, I feel like it's been too long. I've had a hard time as of late logging on and getting a chance to blog. This blogging stuff is therapeutic and I miss it! There's nothing like getting out deep thoughts for a million of your closest friends to see! Here's what's been happening:

1. I hit my blog-o-versary! That's right, as of January 13, I've been blogging for a year now. 181 posts later, I'm still running strong. When I first started, I thought this blog might end up getting trashed like a treadmill that someone buys and only uses twice. But like I said, I've found blogging therapeutic1

2. Photography is booming! That's actually the main reason I haven't blogged much recently. My free time has been taken up with photography - but I am certainly not complaining, I love it! I recently shot team pictures at my school, I'm shooting a wedding tonight (crazy story you have to read about!) and another in April. I've got a Bar-Mitvah lined up as well as a few other possible weddings in the spring and a few other gigs in the works. Not too bad for a side business. I truly feel blessed!

3. I'm planning out my first photography workshops! I've been having a lot of conversations lately with people who buy fancy new digital cameras but don't really know how to use them. So I've been cooking an idea of teaching several workshops this spring to help amateurs build their skills. I have a lot of it together except for the dates and the people! You can check the info out on my website. They're called Beyond the Snapshot: Surpassing 1,000 words with each picture and Going Further. If you'd like to attend or know someone who would, let me know! I hope to have it all hammered out by the end of next week!

4. The Philippines! We're still hoping to move this summer to the Philippines for mission work. We're putting as much money as possible from my photography towards our moving costs to help us get there. Our church, Next Level Church, also agreed to act as our sending agency and are willing to collect the money we raise! We did have one huge answer to prayer recently! Our good friends behind us told us that her brother is moving to Charlotte this summer and would possibly like to rent our house! Is that awesomely perfect God-like timing or what??? Keep praying!

new hobby...

The girls got some great musical instruments for Christmas and I think I've been having a better time with them than they have! I began by mastering the kazoo/guitar combo for a few days, then I moved onto the recorder where I sounded out "Stairway to Heaven" for a pretty rocking performance. My latest addiction, however, has been the harmonica. I quickly sounded out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Oh Susanna." I later moved onto "Bad to the Bone" and other various blues tunes. In trying to find some new songs to play, I ran across this video which gives me a whole new motivation! This guy is crazy on the harmonica. It's Buddy Greene playing in Carnegie Hall. He's the guy who co-wrote the Christmas song, "Mary did you know," by the way in case you didn't know that tidbit of trivia. If you can't sit through the entire 4 minute video, at least skip to about 2:08 or so and watch through the end. It's well worth it!

a God-sized task...

We had a great meeting yesterday afternoon with one of the pastors and missions coordinators from our church! They have agreed to act as our "sending agency" in that they can accept any donations made for our move which will make the donations tax deductible! There are some other little things along the way that they'll be able to handle as well. We are so blessed to have landed in this church with such generous people who are willing to help in any way possible!

So that brings us to the question, "When are you going?" Like my last post, you can always go to www.therewego.org to find out more about our move to the Philippines for missions. But I feel like this question deserves a little more attention. The short answer is that if everything falls into place, i.e. raising enough money, selling/renting our house, etc, then we would prayerfully move sometime early this summer. But honestly, that is a big "if."

That's where God comes in. Our pastor made a comment Sunday morning about the tensions of following Christ. He said that many people who look at God see someone who places a lot of demands on you and asks everything of you. Others look at God and think that if you follow God, you're suppose to be super happy and joyful all the time. Well, in reality, there needs to be a proper balance to those tensions. God does ask a lot - time, money, control of circumstances - but He asks for those things because He knows when you give them to Him, you will be free and can experience unthinkable joy. That struck me because my humanness tells me that if we're going to move across the world this summer, I need to hit panic mode and start running around like crazy trying to make it happen.

But the way I picture it is that God has called us to this mission. At times through the process, we have tried to rationalize it away as way too big for us to do. We've explored other options and pursued plan B. But this just keeps popping up and crying for us to do. So we have excitedly agreed and said we'll go. So now we just open up our arms and say, "God we've agreed to follow you wholeheartedly, now we need You to provide and to clear the way for us to go." Of course, we will be working extremely hard and not just lounging around, but the stress is gone. The burden is on God, not our hearts. If this really is God's plan for our family to move this summer, then He will do it. If it doesn't happen this summer, we have a few options like going next summer to pursue. But for now, we're running wide open for the summer and we're excited to see how God will come through!

therewego.org

If you've got some time and want to check out the website we just launched about moving to the Philippines, go to www.therewego.org! Thanks and have a great night...I am up way too late!