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In my journal this morning, I wrote a prayer related to the time crunch we’re currently facing. We are expecting to receive a call to go to Korea to pick up our baby anytime within the next few weeks AND we are actively (frantically?) working toward finishing the first complete, 5-chapter rough draft of our … Read more
Shaping culture. That’s what we’ve been thinking about lately as we prepare to bring Ethan home in a few weeks. So far, we’ve talked about shaping a God-centered culture and a learning culture. Next up, we want to shape a high AQ culture. Behind this idea of a high AQ culture is an excellent book, … Read more
We just received the notice of approval of relative immigrant visa petition from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which is the *final* step in the process on our end. Now, we’re just waiting for Korea to grant approval for the baby to travel. Once that happens, we will be informed that he’s … Read more
Tricia Lawrenson, wife of Nathan Lawrenson, who is the son of Rick Lawrenson, lead pastor of Nags Head Church (a great church to visit when vacationing at the Outer Banks of North Carolina). We’ve attended Nags Head Church once and have shared a couple meals with Rick and his wife Gail. Other than that, most … Read more
Today in our worship gatherings, we announced that we are both receiving parental leave upon our return from Korea, where we will pick up our adopted son. Here’s the announcement … News About Randy & Joleen’s Parental Leave As you know, we are adopting a baby boy from Korea. We expect to travel to Korea … Read more
Regular readers of our blog will know that we are thinking a lot about parenting these days as we prepare to bring Ethan home from Korea. Part of our thinking recently has been about how best to pray for him — now and in the years to come! Randy recently posted several prayers for the … Read more
Over the course of the last several weeks, we have both conducted field research for our dissertation work. Between us, our travels have taken across Pennsylvania, as well as to New York and Ohio. In our last D.Min. update, we announced our topics. Joleen is studying integrated small groups and Randy is studying how leader/communicators … Read more
After a lot of deliberation, we have finally settled on a name for Baby Willis. That’s a good thing, because as someone pointed out to us, he probably wouldn’t want to be called Baby Willis forever. 🙂 Anyway, his name will be called: Ethan Quinn. The photo here was taken when he was almost 5 … Read more
One of the best things you can do is to learn from other people’s experiences, including their mistakes. Learning from others and their mistakes is certainly a good and necessary habit for leaders. Someone put it this way … Learn from the mistakes of others — you can never live long enough to make them … Read more
Do you ever need God’s direction for your life? More than a decade ago, I started collecting prayers in the Scriptures where the pray-er asks God for help on the journey of life. I started this collection at a time when Joleen and I really needed God’s direction in our lives and ministries. Show me … Read more