Thursday, February 16, 2006

Happy Birthday Dad!!!

Dad,

We all wish you a happy birthday. We tried calling several times today and weren't able to get a hold of you. We trust your day was great.

We love you!

The Abell Six...

Friends are Coming! Friends are Coming!

We have exciting news. Our bestest friends are going to fly their family out from good ol' Vancouver, WA to visit us next week. Trevis and Rebecca and the kids will be here next Wednesday. It should be a great time to catch up and share life together.

Also, in case you are interested, Pastor Piper had his prostate removed on Tuesday of this week. The surgery went "beautifully." He is home now and recuperating. Please continue to pray for him, if you think of it. You can read the update here.

The kids are having a blast watching the Olympics. We normally don't watch any TV anymore, but we all enjoy the Olympics, so we have had the TV on a lot lately. Chase really enjoyed the snow boarding. Shawn White is now a household name around here. The girls are enjoying the figure skating.

It is amazing to see their imagination: the games around the house now revolve around the Olympics. They fight over who gets to be Michelle Kwan or Emily Hughes or whoever. I don't even know all their names. Well, Chase gets to be Shawn White. He is not fighting over girl names. I guess it is better than role playing Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi.

Corny Jokes

Here are some corny jokes for you. These came in an unsolicited email. I think they are common enough that I don't need to give a source. Enjoy.

1. How Do You Catch a Unique Rabbit?
Unique Up On It.

2. How Do You Catch a Tame Rabbit?
Tame Way, Unique Up On It.

3. How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest?
They Take The Psycho Path.

4. How Do You Get Holy Water?
You Boil The Hell Out Of It.

5. What Do Fish Say When They Hit a Concrete wall?
Dam!

6. What Do Eskimos Get From Sitting On The Ice too Long?
Polaroid's.

7. What Do You Call a Boomerang That Doesn't work?
A Stick.

8. What Do You Call Cheese That Isn't Yours?
Nacho Cheese.

9. What Do You Call Santa's Helpers?
Subordinate Clauses.

10. What Do You Call Four Bullfighters In Quicksand?
Quattro Sinko.

11. What Do You Get When You Cross a Snowman With a Vampire?
Frostbite.

12. What Lies At The Bottom Of The Ocean And Twitches?
A Nervous Wreck.

13. Where Do You Find a Dog With No Legs?
Right Where You Left Him.

14. Why Do Gorillas Have Big Nostrils?
Because They Have Big Fingers.

15. What Kind Of Coffee Was Served On The Titanic?
Sanka.

16. Why Did Pilgrims' Pants Always Fall Down?
Because They Wore Their Belt Buckle On Their Hat.

17. What's The Difference Between a Bad Golfer And a Bad Skydiver?
A Bad Golfer Goes "Whack, Dang!"
A Bad Skydiver Goes "Dang! Whack."

Monday, February 06, 2006

Consequences of Homeschooling

Strange things are afoot at the Abell home. After a hard day of math, Mackenzie seemed to have multiplied, and Chase flat out lost his head.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Update: Jason

This last Monday through Wednesday was the Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. Over 1,200 pastors from around the world came to Minneapolis for this conference. The TBI guys all went as well. The theme of the conference was "How Must a Pastor Die." The point was that a pastor should be willing to die for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The various speakers fleshed that out with visions of missionary martyrs to local racially harmonized churches. It was a good and challenging time.

Pastor Piper, who was not the keynote speaker, did his usual biographical sketch of a hero from church history. He has done 19 or twenty of these biographies now. They are very powerful, as this one was. It was on William Tyndale. All of them are available in manuscript form at this site at Desiring God.

Tomorrow I am going to Iowa City with Pastor Tom Steller. He is doing a Perspectives on World Missions lecture and asked me to ride shotgun with him. He is my mentor during this school year. I am very blessed to have him spending time in my life right now. It is a five-hour drive each way. However, it will be fun to add another mid-west state to the growing list of states I have visited.

As for school, TBI is overwhelming. I am spending all my time on two books: The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle to the Romans. We are translating our way through the entire book of Hebrews this year, but in Romans we are only focusing on chapters 9-11 this semester. The theology in both is rich, but I worry that my time is so constrained that I am only grazing the surface.

God is good, and I am not complaining. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to study deeply. My hope is that my mind will kick into gear and begin to really understand what I am studying. I pray that my affections will also stay strong.

Tomorrow comes early. Off to bed.