The Things We are Thankful For: Dinosaur Soup

So, as Thanksgiving week is coming to an end and everyone is recovering from a Thursday of food, friends, and family, I must take the time to reflect on a major blessing in my life: dinosaur soup.

Some of you may be wondering what this is all about, so I did a little research on the actual "Dinosaur Soup Recipe" (which does exist...clearly because the recipe is online). You can also buy a whole book of such recipes at the always-classy Bobs Your Uncle Shop which I also found in my intensive research (completely limited to typing "dinosaur soup" in Yahoo). I believe the recipe is designed to make children eat their vegetables by calling it something more appealing. If you know me, this is still required for me to eat certain foods which are red (because that means they have tomatoes in them), green (peppers are gross), and crunchy (get them stinkin onions outta my food).

Ever since I have engaged in this activity which many of us call "marriage", my lovely wife and I have had quite an adventure learning about daily household chores such as cleaning, doing the bills, buying new pet fish when we kill 6 in one week, and cooking dinner. When I say, "we had an adventure", I truly mean, "Laura had an adventure" because I am a lazy man who refuses to believe that I don't live in a college dormroom anymore. While I could spend considerable time elaborating on the many chores which I didn't know existed prior to marriage, our story at hand is directly related to the chore of cooking (which leads to my chore of eating).

Each day since July 31st, Laura asks me one simple question "What do you want for dinner?" To be honest, at first, I found some power in answering this question as if I could just make some sort of genie-in-the-bottle type of wish and my table would be filled with my favorite O'Charley's soup and rolls. Well, I quickly learned my choices were basically beef, chicken, or fish. So, to spice things up, I quickly begun answering the question with "Dinosaur soup" (not knowing that any such creation existed....I just thought it sounded funny....remember, I still think I live in a college dorm). So, for the past three months, my wife makes a variety of dishes which I refer to as Dinosaur soup.

Now, you know the quick story. Why am I thankful for this? Well, to put it simply, because I have a wife that actually puts up with my "I'm married but I still act like I'm a single kid who refuses to wash his clothes" attitude. I am blessed to have someone with such patience and kindness in my life...and a pretty good sense of humor (which I test every day...I promise). While I know that I will be forced to grow up one day, she is only forceful about it on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Yes, it's a miracle I'm married. That's why I'm thankful, people! I'm thankful for Dinosaur soup and the woman who serves it to me daily.

Thankfully,
Steve

The Things we are Thankful for: Our Families

This year has brought quite a few changes for us in the family department. Not only are we a family now but we have each been blessed with a new extended family as well. On many occasions since July 31st we have talked about just how blessed we are to have these new moms, dads, grandparents, sisters, and brothers (yes, we are including brother and sister-in-laws so the plural of brothers is correct :-)). We know that we are in the minority to have such a solid loving family.

We want to tell you how much we appreciate you all but words just don't seem to do it justice.

Thank you firstly for the gift our our significant other. Without you, there would be no us. Thank you for raising us to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is our reason for living. Thank you for your support in us living for Him. Not many families would given their blessing to us. Moving across country to train in order that one day we can live on the other side of the globe. Your sacrifice is great and more than greatly appreciated.

As tomorrow quickly approaches we are reminded just how different it will be without you all. We love you and miss you all more than you know.

Happy Thanksgiving Bullocks and Reynolds'!

Love,
Laura and Steve

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/o2p3Z5NNZXMaPZeL (Happy Thanksgiving Moms and Dads!)

The Things We're Thankful For: Our Church

Laura and I are gearing up for our first "official" holiday together (Laura doesn't seem to count Halloween and my birthday as national holidays...the jury is still out). Although we are excited about the Thanksgiving break together, we are a little sad about the things we are missing. Such things on my list include the annual Thanksgiving fight between family members (which I usually start) and a deep-fried turkey (yeah, we fry everything in MS). I never thought that I would admit this, but I will even miss my grandma forcing everyone into holding hands and saying things they are thankful for in our lives. After spending several years in complaint, I have decided to embrace the Thanksgiving spirit and use the next few blogs to state things which we are thankful for this year. Don't worry, they won't be my usual "family" and general "God" answer that I usually give around the Thanksgiving circle.

I have decided to dedicate this first Thanksgiving post to our local church. As many of you may know, Laura and I were extremely weary of finding a new church home when coming to CA. We have both been blessed in our churches back home in MS (and we still miss you all!), and we knew we could never find such churches again. In the first few weeks of visiting churches in the Bay, God showed us that He is definitely at work among his people here! We were introduced to excited, vibrant churches with Spirit-filled worship and solid teaching. Things were looking up for the Reynolds' church hunt. After several weeks of visiting, I contacted a church which was searching for seminary students to do ministry; since Laura and I wanted to be involved in our church, we thought this was necessary. The church was a Mandarin (Chinese) church with an English ministry in the city. After a brief talk with the pastor, we decided to visit a Sunday service.

Upon arriving at the church, we were immediately welcomed by members of the church. But these weren't just the "greeters" of the church...these were the youth of the church! Now how many churches have youth which are openly willing to greet visitors?!? This surprised us both. During the "shaking-of-the-hands time" (an odd tradition which is always held by a good Baptist church), we could hardly find our seats through the eager greeters! The service proceeded into a time of contemporary worship consisting of awesome songs which I haven't sung since 7th grade (and I'm NOT complaining). After the service, the church went into its traditional time of refreshments (every church should have refreshments...nothing like donuts and bagels to help me get my praise on). Then, Laura and I went to the college class and enjoyed the fellowship of young leaders learning about the Lord. Since this day, the church has elected me and Laura to head-up this fellowship (which has been incredibly rewarding......by the way, I use ALOT of interjections in my writing, just to let you know). Finally, to tap off the day, the English and Mandarin ministry join together in Chinese meal....and I don't mean that Americanized Chinese stuff. It's great.

Now that I have gone through a typical Sunday service at our church, I will list the reasons why I am thankful for this church:

1) I am the minority. I somehow find it refreshing that I am the "odd man out" in this congregation. It reminds me daily that the world is not a white, middle-classed society of Southern men.

2) The leadership of this church is both loving and bibically sound. While this may seem to be a given, this is actually rare in our modern "church" culture.

3) Refreshments are awesome.

4) Even though we are the minority, we are loved and accepted in this church. We have never felt left out in any aspect of this church. We truly feel at home there.

5) We are challenged to be ministers for Christ. Many seminary students ignore the ministry while being students, but we thank God that this church challenges us to use what God is teaching us.


So, on behalf of Laura and me, thank you San Francisco Mandarin Baptist Church for standing in the gap and serving the relocated people of San Francisco. You are doing a ministry which is deeply needed in a country where the nations are gathering. We are proud to be a part of your ministry in reaching the nations.

In Christ,
Steve and Laura

Fall

It's hard to believe that Fall is finally in the air. We have not taken time to update you all on what is really going on in our lives recently (Sorry!) So since I am slightly ahead on my reading Steve has tasked me to do just that.

October was a busy month for us. We were excited to host our first guests here and test out our new air mattress (Thanks again DLocke!) We were shocked (and slightly jealous) to find out that it is bigger than our bed!

Spencer came out to tour the seminary and we really enjoyed having him. While he was hear we got to do some touristy stuff like the beach, fisherman's wharf, Lumbard Street, and China Town. It was encouraging to see how God is moving him towards a life of ministry. (We are praying you specifically Southern and Ole Miss students that God would continue to use you in ministry after college. If any of you feel the call to seminary on the west coast and want to visit here just drop us a line! We would love to host you!)

Kwangsu was our second visitor of the month if you couldn't tell by Steve's video post. He thought the class was a little dry... we agreed haha. I also had the pleasure of cooking him his first sloppy joe. It was hard to tell but I think he liked it!

We wrapped up the month with baseball fever (since the Dallas Cowboys are no longer worth watching...) as the SF Giants won the World Series. We may have confused a few of you with my facebook post on watching the games. Some of you believed we were actually going to a game when we were only watching it on TV. Unfortunately tickets started at about $400 to stand only!

November is promising to be just as busy and exciting. We are getting very involved with our Church. We have officially taken over teaching the College Sunday School and in January we will be meeting for a Friday night College fellowship. Please pray for us as we continue to brainstorm over what that will look like.

We are also dealing with the stress of school right now. We each have between 3 and 4 papers due in the next two weeks. We will be welcoming Thanksgiving break!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving we just want to remind you how thankful we are for all your prayers and encouragement of us. We miss you all!

Love,

Laura

A picture of our friendly neighborhood deer!

McDonald's and Theology

Today, my life was shattered by the incredible news that San Francisco leaders had voted to ban toys from being sold in McDonald's Happy Meals (here's the link). I can't imagine how many five-year-olds are at their favorite fastfood joint watching the "Man" steal away everyone's favorite display of Hotwheels and Barbies. This is seriously the worst thing that has happened since they ran out of the white PowerRanger action figure when I was eight (I'm still recovering from this life episode). Way to go, San Francisco! Moments after making everyone soooo happy with our World Series Championship, you make kids cry. Nothing is more inhumane than making a child cry! Do you have a heart?

Ok, now that I am done ranting, let's get to the serious lesson learned here. If I was actually eight years old, I would definitely be mortified by this infringement on my right to eat extremely unhealthy food for a toy which costs the company twenty cents to manufactor; the truth is, I really did love McDonald's just for the toys. And, as much as I don't want to admit it, this new legislation can actually teach us all a lesson.

The reasoning behind the ban on toys in Happy Meals is stated as being because the meals are "unhealthy". Basically, these toys are luring children into eating unhealthy meals with a reward. While this legislation makes sense when viewed from that angle, what about other things in our lives? Isn't this the way our heart works? Don't we like to see past the long-term consequences in view of something with immediate reward?

Last summer, I read a book by Timothy Keller, Counterfeit Gods, which focuses on the issue of idolatry in our lives. This book kicked my butt. While many of us may view idolatry as an ancient practice of bowing to statues, they still linger in our present society. Our idols (e.g. money and success) tend to act just like the Mc Donald's toy luring us into consuming something which will lead to our death. The sad thing is that we usually care more about our physical death by protecting our children from harmful food, but we totally ignore our spiritual health by chasing after idols. All the while, children watch our every move and grow up chasing the same things. Of course, Happy Meals are delicious, but those chicken mcnuggets will kill you if you eat them everyday. Idols usually look good, feel good, and taste good, but they are more deadly than we think. Our society is full of these types of things. Money, relationships, television, and sporting events all can make us lose our minds at times. Are we meant to live this way?

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. 1 Corinthians 10:14

When will we, as Christians, ban the toys from our lives?