number six on the way!

Hey friends, Christy is pregnant with our sixth! What a blessing. And, yes, I actually mean that. Children are a blessing from the Lord. The wisest man in the world (Solomon), inspired by the Holy Spirit, penned the following long ago:

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord;
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

A good book we'd both recommend for young folks (and grandparents) as they consider what Scripture says about families and having children is entitled, "Be Fruitful and Multiply".

some rats in the car

spring has sprung

Spring is well underway in the yard. Took these photos couple weeks back. I hit a nest of mice (at least 10) in the compost. The kids temporarily imprisoned a couple of them--both of which, fortunately, made good their escape.



And, the Schwartz's have chickens again. :) We were supposed to have five, but grandpa talked us into 10 and then he went and got his own! Oh well. I'm sure we'll find a good home for a few of 'em. (Freezer)

seagulls and kids oh my

We went to Lincoln City as a fam recently to feed the birds and find agates... and boy, did we fare well on all accounts. Plenty of birds to feed (five loaves gone) and about five lbs. of agates. Abigail found one about 3 inches long!

reality

(Lima, Peru) This boy sits in the cart of garbage his mom has collected and will sort to earn a meager living...

It's SO easy to forget the reality that we live as kings here in America. We live in a 100-year-old bubble of widespread prosperity and ease. And, at the same time, the reality for billions like this boy above is destitute poverty and, for many, little access to the Gospel or a copy of the scriptures in their language.

y-m-c-a...

The official start of Zach's YMCA basketball season! (He's the handsome one out there.)

ring around taco delmar

The girls playin with the Kochran girls after church outside Taco DelMar... the Schwartz "tradition" on Sunday. :)

subprime nation

Buchanan has a great article today at Worldnetdaily. He's talking about the recent headlines about Moody's warning of a possibly downgrade of treasury bonds.

We are thus in the position of having to borrow from Europe to defend Europe, of having to borrow from China and Japan to defend Chinese and Japanese access to Gulf oil, and of having to borrow from Arab emirs, sultans and monarchs to make Iraq safe for democracy.

We borrow from the nations we defend so that we may continue to defend them. To question this is an unpardonable heresy called "isolationism."

And the chickens of globalism are coming home to roost.

We let Europe to get away with imposing value-added taxes averaging 15 percent on our exports to them, while they rebate that value-added tax on their exports to us. Thus, the euro has almost doubled in value against the dollar in the Bush years, as NATO Europe begins to bail out on Iraq and Afghanistan.

We sat still as Japan protected her markets and dumped high quality goods into ours and China undervalued its currency to suck jobs, technology and factories out of the United States. Now, China and Japan have $2 trillion in cash reserves. The Arabs have an equal amount of petrodollars. Both are headed here to spend their depreciating dollars snapping up U.S. assets – banks, ports, highways, defense contractors.

America, to pay her bills, has begun to sell herself to the world.

I could not agree more. Read the full article...

mc cafe!

emmanuel

Our family opened our few small gifts a little early this year (like usual). It's nice to get all that fluff out of the way and be able to think and dwell together on the incarnation.

We sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. It's what we do for each other and those we love, so we decided to do that for Him. Then we talked about the mystery of Emmanuel (God with us)--of God coming to earth and dwelling with us. As Yoda would say, "Hard to understand, it is." :)

I hope you all have a peaceful time this Christmas in thankfulness to God. Being thankful for Him entering into our mess here and redeeming.

I've learned some things recently that have helped me re-focus my life on Jesus where it should be. I'm looking forward to this coming year as we, as a family, more earnestly share that hope, joy, and peace with others here in Gresham.

-John