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Our Beautiful Mess bio picture

Welcome.

We are a family of three on the journey of getting to know ourselves and our God. Our life is not neat and tidy. We are learning that it's ok to not always "have it together." Because, in the midst of daily life - the adventures and the mundane, the laughter and the tears, the discipleship and the diapers - God is there. And He is at work. God is lovingly bringing purpose in the chaos and redemption in the struggles. We invite you into our story.  We hope to give you an authentic and honest glimpse of our life as we navigate one day to the next. It is our hope that you can relate to our story, and can better find God and grace everywhere you look. Welcome to Our Beautiful Mess.

 

Author Archives: jason

Still Paddling

Many of you have been asking us how we are doing. I have tried to answer that question with an analogy that Donald Miller uses in his newest book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (and most of the time I give him credit, unless someone thinks it’s a really brilliant analogy, then I...

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Happy Birthday Shelby!

Our little Shelbs turned 2 today! If you would hang out w/Shelby on her 2nd birthday, you would learn that she: drinks agua, “pop”, “leche de vaca” (milk from a cow), and hot tea pretends to be a baby lion sings all of “twinkle twinkle little star” (or rather “tinkle tinkle little star”) by herself...

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advent: surprise! {dec 20 – 25}

Have you ever received one of those gifts that was so incredible and unexpected, that you talked about it for years to come? When I was in college, my parents, siblings and I spent a year in Bolivia, South America. Bolivia was a very poor country, and there were no familiar United States restaurants or...

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advent: silence {dec 13 – dec 19}

My dad is a high school vocal and instrumental music teacher. He always taught us that when singing or playing music, we should pay close attention to the “rests” (the silent pauses in-between the notes) because they are just as important as the notes themselves. If there were no rests, all the notes would end...

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advent: celebration! {dec 6 – dec 12}

We know this girl, Kristen, from Denver, who recently celebrated her 21st birthday. Her family threw her a huge surprise party. They secretly planned for months and months. They reserved a private room at a trendy sushi restaurant, decorated it, and invited 50 guests. They spent thousands of dollars to make this a special event....

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advent: intro

It seems like, every December, I find myself wishing I was more impacted by the Christmas story. Every year I swear that THIS Christmas is going to be more meaningful, more life-changing. But then I get lost in the craziness of it, and soon it’s gone. With the exception of some amazing Christmas gatherings at...

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crunching the numbers

Some facts about our year in Costa Rica: 4–number of times we went to the beach (I thought it would be wayyy more–I mean, it’s Costa Rica! But, not everywhere is like the touristy pamphlets and websites. Living in the capital city in the middle of the country and not having a car or much...

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35 – the new 25 (or at least the new 33)

Yep, I turned 35 this week (Monday). Still just a kid. Lindsey gave me a great present in the morning by letting me sleep in as long as I wanted, while she took care of Shelby. While I was in dreamland, they decorated one of the big walls in our apt., so it would be...

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we’re gonna make it!

So, it has been a little bit of a bummer missing out on normal family Thanksgiving activities, but we have had a good time w/new friends here. There is a team of missionaries (5 couples-all w/young kids, and one single guy) here from Texas, studying Spanish like us, and they are also going to Lima,...

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rainy days & rainbows

Today has been a sad day. We sent off our first visitor this morning and we have all been in a funk all day. Jason’s sister Andrea came to visit us this past weekend, and we had such a wonderful time with her. We did a little souvenir shopping, jumped with the waves at Punta...

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