Up and down and all around

Lots of emotions today.... The best part is that my nephew was finally born today!! He was due August 9th and I have been waiting very impatiently for his arrival. (Not as impatiently as my brother, mind you, but I am so excited about this!) The dismal part of it is that my brother and my sister-in-law (and baby Levi) live in CALIFORNIA, so I have no clue when I am going to get to see him. Blah. I did get to hear him cry over the phone, though! The minute I have pictures I will post them. YEE HAH!!

Going backwards from that, we had reps from Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Jesus Film Project and the Seed Company speak come to work and speak with us at lunch today. They shared this really cool video with a couple who had financed the work to translate the book of Luke into the native language of a people group in Ethiopia so that they (Wycliffe/Jesus Film) could show the Jesus film to the people in their native language. It was so moving to watch these folks watching the film and hearing about Jesus for the first time. And how cool to be that couple and been blessed to have played such a role in people hearing the gospel for the first time. Did you know there are close to 7000 languages identified, and Wycliffe has set a goal to have begun translating the Bible in every language that needs it by the year 2025? So cool to see how the Word is being spread to every tribe, tongue, and nation.

My day started with the kickoff breakfast for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. This is a fundraising walk the American Cancer Society has to raise funding and awareness for breast cancer research and programs. ACS has some wonderful support programs in place and they are always working to do more. One of their big goals is to see funding increased for a federal program that provides mammograms for free to uninsured Americans; but right now only one in every five women who is eligible to receive one can because the program is underfunded. One of the speakers this morning was a cancer survivor named Cindy Hart. She spoke about how cancer has changed her life, but also about some good that has come out of her cancer. How she was in the right place at the right time, for example, to save a man who was choking and she would not have been there at that time if it weren't for cancer. No one wishes for bad things to happen to them, but I love that she is blessed to see that all things do come together for good - whether they make sense overall or not. She even said that at one point she thought, "ok, God, I get it". I do not know where she comes from spiritually, but yeah, I think she gets it too. It was so cool to hear because this is one of my core beliefs - that God is always with us, and He will always take care of His people, and God has a plan for everything - sometimes we are blessed to see part of His vision and it makes sense, sometimes not - but that does not change His role or His love. (I am not very eloquent, but hopefully you see what I am saying)

Oh, and then just now, Jim took me out to see the baby bunnies! They actually look like little bunnies now. They are TOO CUTE! Not as good as a picture of Levi, but here are the bunnies.