away from home for the holidays

Like all years since we moved to Wisconsin, Sarah and I are not returning home for the holidays because we have a student conference that takes place after Christmas and before new years that we need to be ready for. A coworker set me strait the other day when we were all complaining about not being with family at this time of year (he is also from California, Northern California actually but we will not hold it against him) He said that serving these conferences is the perfect task for this Christmas season, yes we want to be with family but isn’t serving others exactly what Jesus did? Isn’t that what we are celebrating? I dug my toe into the warn carpet and thought about that…as hard as it is to accept, he is right, I feel that God has us right where he wants us, and for me that means driving a big truck down to Atlanta Georgia the day after Christmas to help facilitate and tech InterVarsity's Black Student Conference; and Sarah will be driving to Chicago to organize childcare at InterVarsit's Grad and Faculty Conference.

Stand by me

We first saw this on Bill Moyer's Journal about a month ago and I enjoyed it quite a lot. Short story is a guy went around the world for about a year filming and recording street artists playing the same song and then mixed it together later. I think because there has been so little on TV lately of an upbeat nature...this grabbed my attention. Enjoy.

new car

Many people have asked for a picture of our new car…well here it is. Since I (Matt) was in California this last weekend, I noticed that the Pontiac Vide (essentially a Toyota Matrix by the way) is not very popular out there because I didn’t see a single one, and they are pretty regular here…unfortunately.

Also for those of you that are still in shorts and sandals, this is a little taste of what life is like in Madison…that is not snow by the way, but ice. The 12 inches of snow that are falling today will not touch the car though; it is safely inside our underground parking.

Happy winter!

birdtracks

After almost a year absence, the many feathered birds of the Midwest are back on our balcony…I think it is mostly due to Sarah’s bird-feeder and its new treats. I haven’t seen any birds eating from its bounty yet but the evidence is conclusive that they have found the apricot strawberry goodness in the feeder and are liking the new nutrition.