One of the BIGGEST Decisions of my life

* Inviting Jesus to be part of my life and asking His forgiveness (8 years old)
* Telling Jesus that I would go wherever He wanted me to go, do whatever He wanted me to do, talk to anyone He wanted me to talk to (8th grade)
* Where I was going to go to college (Houghton)
* Who I was going to marry (Jeanne-Ann)
* What my first "real" job would be after college (youth pastor in Georgia)
* Moving to Salem, OR to take another job at another church (middle school pastor at Salem Alliance)
* Talking with Jeanne-Ann and deciding to have our first child (Kynzi)
* Having another conversation with Jeanne-Ann not long after (Karston)
* Deciding to leave my role as middle school pastor at Salem Alliance and heading to our district office to be the Director of Next Generation Ministries (December 2004 after 8 years at SAC)

These have all been major decisions in my life. We even decided that we were going to have more kids...6 years ago. We still don't have any more kids. It's weird, because almost the moment we decided to have Kynzi and Karston, Jeanne-Ann got pregnant. God has a plan. He reveals that plan little by little as we are ready.

On December 26, 2004 there was a great Tsunami that hit southeast Asia. It was devastating. We watched the videos and wept for the families who lost everything, including family members. It sparked a conversation that Jeanne-Ann had already started a couple of years prior to that. She wanted to know if we could adopt one of the many orphans that were left behind in the tsunami. I was not having anything to do with that. I would pray for them, I would even travel there to help if needed, but I could not imagine taking in another child that we didn't birth.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for adoption. I believe in it and am so thankful for the many that are willing to adopt. I just never saw it for me. Oh, I could go through a whole list of reasons why including the cost of adoption, future potential issues and starting all over (our kids are 8 and 10 and very independent). Back to diapers? I can't imagine.

Well, this summer we talked more and more about it. My sister and brother-in-law are adopting from Nepal. Then we had a serious discussion where I promised I would think about it and pray seriously about it. That night our friends Josh and Becca came over and asked us if we would be references for them as they adopt from Ethiopia. It was as if God was already speaking to my heart. I was a bit floored to say the least. Skip forward a few months and I am taking  three day time to fast and pray and seek God's heart. In the midst of that fast I was asking God to give me a crazy, out of this world moment where it was so obvious that this is what God wanted. I imagined a woman walking down the street and spotting me from across the way, coming right over to me and saying, "I don't know who you are or why, but I feel like I am supposed to tell you to adopt." Well, nothing like that happened. I was bummed at first, but I was committed to journaling during this process and I read one of my entries right after I wrote it down.

In this journal entry I wrote down all my connections to Africa including: a video I saw in 8th grade with a little African boy at the end smiling and saying thank you; 2 trips to Africa in the last 7 years. My experiences there were out of this world. My heart was so drawn there. I never sensed God calling me to be a missionary to Africa, but I knew there was a connection. I also read a couple of books on adoption. One of them was a couple's journey to adopt from Ethiopia.

As I read back over the journal entry I realized that was my "woman coming across the street to me." It was almost ridiculously clear. At the end of the entry I wrote a note to Jeanne-Ann that said, "Babe, let's do this." She was shocked She didn't know what to say after so many years of hearing no from me.

Well, I drove up to Dove International the next day and dropped off our application. We are now on our way to adopt. The plan is to adopt 2 kids. We are very early in the process. The whole deal should take 10 to 16 months. It varies a lot. This blog will be the best way to stay updated, besides talking to us. I will continue to blog about other stuff, but our adoption process will all be a part of this blog. We have talked about having a separate blog just for that and it may still happen, but for this moment it will stay here. Thank you faithful readers for your prayers and support. If you want to read more about it all I have posted more info on my website www.erikwithak.com.

There you have it. One of the BIGGEST Decisions of our Lives!

Top 10 Christmas Songs of All Time

I love top 10 lists. Every year around New year's great lists show up and I want to read them all. They are fun little wastes of time yet great insights into pop culture and where we are as a world. It's the end of a decade now and top 10 decade lists are already popping up. Did you know that N*Sync's No Strings Attached album was the best selling of this decade? Well here is the list of the Top 10 Christmas Songs of ALL TIME!

10. Have A Holly Jolly Christmas
9. O’ Holy Night – Nat King Cole
8. Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow – Dean Martin
7. Rockin’ Round The Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
6. It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year – Andy Williams
5. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Frank Sinatra
4. It’s Beginning To Look A lot Like Christmas – Perry Como
3. Christmas Cannon – Trans Siberian Orchestra
2. The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole
1. White Christmas – Bing Crosby

Do you agree? Are there any songs you thought should make it on the list? What's missing?

It's So Easy...It Makes a Difference

Have you ever thought about making an impact on your community? On your world? Ever feel like there is too much to do and you are just one person? Often that is exactly how some major movement starts. Just one person who decides they are going to do something. That person has a passion for it and it gets caught. Have you ever caught a passion from someone? They were so excited about something you couldn't help but to jump on the bandwagon.

This is how I feel about the dream of Give A Shirt. Whitney, a girl in our church, took the challenge from our youth ministry team to find a cause in our area and do something about it. Actually 25 students did. They each made a video to present their ideas and then it was voted on, the top 5 went before a panel of "judges" who asked some great questions and the top one was Give A Shirt. It was presented at our annual Reach conference.

Basically you buy a shirt for $15 and $10 goes to help homeless teenagers in our city buy clothes. There are over 900 identified homeless teenagers in Salem/Keizer and many don't go to school because they only have one outfit and get made fun of for the way they smell, etc. This is a great opportunity to make an impact on our community. This will be expanding around our nation soon. Maybe even to a city near you! Jump on board today, won't ya? Plus, the shirts are really cool. igiveashirt.org <---click here

give hope * restore dignity

V

You know I love TV. You may also know that I have been trying to cut back a bit. I may not have cut a lot of shows that I love by my choice (I have lost many shows to the dreaded cancellation), but I am trying not to add too much to replace those shows. A limited few shows have been added to my list this year. Flash Forward is one of those shows. What's crazy is until tonight, I have not had any Tuesday night shows this fall. That was until V.

I remember the original show from 1984 very well! It was completely different from anything I had ever seen on TV. It was amazing. I loved the concept. I think I have always liked alien shows/movies. I remember thinking how crazy it would be if it were true. Scary. Haha.

Did you know that the guy who played Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund,  was also the guy in the original series who was a very timid, mild-mannered alien? Watch it some time. Kind of weird to see if you have seen any of his movies.

Some other "alien" shows I have enjoyed over the years:
X-Files.
Surface - sea creatures
Roswell (where Kathryn Heigel got her start)
Invasion
Lost? Does that count? I am not sure. I will know for sure at the end of this next season.
of course...Mork and Mindy!

2012...End of the World?

I just got back from seeing 2012 with my friend Steve. It was a classic "end of the world" movie. Amazing graphics; story based on Mayan calendar; over the top moments all the way along. It was an interesting flick. What caused me to want to blog about it was the fact that there were moments throughout the movie that people dealt with broken relationships. this was dealt with because of the realization that their lives would likely be done soon.

We so often take for granted our closest loved ones. We let our time be filled with unimportant things. Well, things in the grand scheme of life that are unimportant. What is important is family, loved ones, others. Not work. Not entertainment. Not technology. Nothing. Knowing this is true does not seem to stop it. I know I allow life to get in the way. I don't want to. I need to spend time with my wife and my kids, with good friends. I need to make moments. I need to take opportunities. I need to make memorable moments.

Green...Ted Dekkers latest offering

Recently I read Green by Ted Dekker. It's called book Zero. According to Dekker you can read this final book in the Circle trilogy. Which is ironic as this is the fourth book and there are some other books that are connected to these books as well. Confusion aside, Dekker is an amazing storyteller. Quite possibly my favorite author in this fantasy genre. I recommend his books, although some of them can be a bit dark, this one included.

It is good to recall all the familiar characters from the other books, as it has been a while since I read them. It took a little reading before I felt like I was totally sucked in, but by page 100 or so there was no turning back. Gripping story. Excellent character development. Mind bending thought process. Reality jumping. This book was hard to put down. Of the Circle books, this is easily the darkest. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is interesting.

I would personally recommend reading this one last. I think that if you don't you will miss out on some of the great character development there is when you read the rest. It is a bit frustrating at the end as there is no real resolution, but perhaps there is some genius there? I don't know.

OK, Maybe I Should Quit

After reading this story
I have begun to rethink my eating competitions. Not that I enter real ones. They are with friends or my brother. Sometimes the competition is with the restaurant that charges me so much for their all you can eat meal. I want to walk away feeling like I got my money's worth and then some. It makes me feel like "I'm stickin' it to the man." or something like that. Haha.

After reading this you may feel like you should pass judgment on me. Please don't. You may envy me. Please don't. You may look at me in awe and wonder the next time you see me. Please feel free to. A few years ago I went to Red Lobster for their Shrimp Lovers Fest and beat my friend Matt by eating 153 shrimp. He actually was ahead at 152 and I had 151, but our server asked me who won and then she walked back and gave me 2 more on the way out. Todai's has held several eating fests for me (FREE on my birthday) 36 crab legs, 54 shrimp, 18 lobster tails (small) and 5 crepes. Not too bad. I once had a 5 patty, bacon, cheese, egg burger at Johnny Rockets. When they came out with it 4 or 5 staff came including the manager with a camera. No one had ever ordered that. I know. I was shocked too. It was in the picture they had on the table (showing you all the things you could do to make it your way). I definitely met with the Comcast people after that one! (sorry)

The creme de le creme happened this past week when I was on vacation in South Carolina with my family. We went to a Crab Shack and my brother, sister and brother in law each got the all you can eat snow crab legs. Wes taped out at 36, Nina made it to 60 (wtg sis) and my brother hit 95 and then went to the bathroom. While he was in there they came out with the last pail of legs and I plowed through some more and got to 103! My brother said he was done as he fell too far behind. I hold the crown! Yes, I am proud. Give me my moment would ya?

I know that these are few and far between, but I got scared when I read about the potential bursting of your stomach and all the other potential issues. Maybe I should slow down at the buffets. Typically I eat pretty healthy. Red Robin always delivers me a chicken Caesar salad with the Caesar on the side and no cheese. Every time. I don't know. Perhaps this will have only a momentary affect on me. I am pretty good at forgetting things. This story will probably soon be forgotten too.