Top 11 things from 2011

Here are 11 of my favorite (random) things from 2011.

1) Favorite Album:
Josh Garrels Love & War & The Sea In Between
p.s. - It is free. Go download it. Seriously, you are foolish if you don't get it.

2) Favorite Vacation:
Acadia National Park, Boston, and NYC







3) Favorite TV Commercial:



4) Favorite Blogger:
http://www.tylerstanton.com/

5) Favorite Nature Moment:

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

6) Favorite Board Game:
Ticket to Ride Germany

7) Favorite Amazing Thing:



8) Favorite Additions to the Family

Ava Thompson, Kenzie Miller, & Lily Ruffner!





9) Favorite Comedy Bit



10) Favorite Prank



11) Favorite Personal Accomplishment

Running the Indy Mini, my first half-marathon, at 01:57:52, coming in 6,985th out of 35,000.

Oh me oh my, it's been since July?

It's been awhile. When life gets busy, blogging takes a back seat. Sorry people who don't live near us and know what we are up to. (You could just move to Akron, you know...)

And a lot has happened in the past four months. Here's a brief overview:

1. Three Year Anniversary: We celebrated three wonderful years together with a weekend in Canton. We stayed at the Football Hall of Fame hotel, caught a late night movie, and played some tennis.



2. East Coast Trip: We met up with our friends Daron and Rachael and spent a week traveling the coast. We visited New York City, Boston, Acadia National Park, and several smaller coastal towns. Some highlights of the trip were walking the entire length of Manhattan in a day to see all the hot tourist spots, visiting Fenway Park for a Red Sox vs. Indians game (which the Tribe won!), hiking the Precipice Trail in Acadia, and gnawing down a "lobsta" dinner. We are grateful that Daron is a professional photographer, so we have LOTS of incredible pictures from the trip. Here are just a couple:






3. School-Year Begins: I (Kristi) am still teaching 8th and 9th grade English at CVCA, and this year I added Junior High Spanish as well. I love teaching there, and am looking forward to continuing to build relationships with the teachers and students. The youth programs at Goss are also up and running for the school year. We have seen a larger number of students on Wednesday and Sunday nights, so you can pray that they start coming consistently throughout the year!

4. Rock the Road: This yearly mystery road trip is a partnership between Goss and First Glance. The kids sign up, and literally have no idea where they are going. This year Josh knew where we were going, but I didn't. We took 30 students (+ one simulation baby for a high school project) and began with an Amazing Race type scavenger hunt. (I'll note that my van of girls won, for the second year in a row!) Then we headed to Cincinnati for some laser tag, go-karting, and the zoo. We spent the night in Kentucky, then hung out at a park in Dayton and went to a fall festival near Columbus. We even ended up spending the first night at a church near my hometown, where my dad and mom surprised me by showing up to make snacks and breakfast for us! It was an amazing weekend of hanging out with students and building relationships with them in hopes of showing them more of who God is and how much He loves them.



5. Garden: Our first year of gardening didn't go as well as we had hoped, but it was an enjoyable experience. We were able to freeze some broccoli, green beans, and carrots, and we canned some jars of pizza sauce. Our lettuce did really well too. After some soil tests, we have figured out one of our problems = No Nitrogen. Oh well, better luck next year!




Hopefully we'll be back blogging sooner than last time!

The Hall's Walls

Two posts in one week. We're on a roll. A year in our new home and we are finally finished with our last paint project! We ripped the wallpaper off the walls in the hallway the day we moved in. Then we realized it was not drywall under the wallpaper, but plaster, and much of the plaster was ripped off with the wallpaper. We spackled and sanded about 9 months later, and that brings us to yesterday when we painted.

Our hallway when we moved in:

Our hallway today:

Then we celebrated by dressing up like cows and heading to Chick-fil-a for free value meals!

The Month of June - Gone So Soon

It has been an exciting month! I realized this morning that in the past two weeks, we have only spent six nights at home in our own bed. I cannot believe that July is already here and I will be heading back to school in a month. At the beginning of summer I always have high hopes and big dreams of everything I am going to accomplish. I just opened up my "Goals for Summer 2011" document to realize that I have only accomplished one of the twenty goals I set. I deleted some to help me feel like less of a failure. But looking back, it was a full, adventurous month! Here is a brief overview of our June.

June 4: Ben (Josh's brother) & Kenzie's Wedding - We added another Miller to the family! Josh was the best man and I read scripture for the ceremony. In a way, it seems like Kenzie has always been part of the family, but we are excited to have her as a sister and are glad to be back in the area to spend more time with them.

June 9: Camping at Salt Fork - Katie and Courtney are two of my childhood friends from church. During college, we took a road trip to Florida every summer. Now that we are married and have jobs, we have kept up the summer trip tradition by going camping in Ohio with our hubbies. We decided to upgrade a little this year and rented a very small cabin. Kurt (Katie's husband) got carried away with the idea of camping in luxury and brought a window air conditioner.
Believe it or not, this is the most normal picture we took while camping.

June 19: Project Shine Week - Project Shine is a local mission trip to Akron based out of our church. Several churches bring youth to work on houses around Kenmore and to have a week focused on spiritual growth. It was a really exciting week, full of scraping, painting, laughing, and worshiping. The highlight of the week was that one of our youth asked Jesus into her life. Josh and I spent a lot of time talking with her throughout the week and helping her understand what it means to follow Christ.

June 29: Ava Grace Thompson is Born - Cory (my brother) and Michelle had their second child! Josh and I love being an aunt and uncle!

June 30: Camping in Canada - To wrap up the month, we headed up north to camp with some Huntington friends. Nothing like celebrating the Fourth of July in another country, eh?

You Reap What You Sow... Now It's Time to Grow!

After two straight months of rain, we finally had a rain free weekend at just the perfect time. PLANTING TIME! We spent our Memorial Day weekend planting flowers and creating a garden space in our backyard. My parents came up for the weekend to help us with our landscaping projects. Here is the progression of our garden/backyard.

-This was our garden two years ago when we were renting a house in Huntington, IN.

-Our new house in Akron came with a swimming pool in the backyard.

-But we had a vision to plant a garden so we removed our pool and sold it to our new neighbors.

-We ordered three different dump trucks of dirt to fill the hole.

-Then a professional landscaping company put in our retaining walls.

-After laying a tarp down over our garden area and planting grass last fall, we decided to move our garden to the other side of our yard where it would get more sun. So Josh tilled up our new grass and planted grass seed on the other side. Here is our garden area!

-We measured out our "square foot garden" and laid down our weed mat over our pathways.

-Ta da!!! Our finished garden!

-With the grass seed planted, our whole backyard is finally ready to grow.


We planted tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, red onions, white onions, romaine lettuce, baby romaine lettuce, green beans, carrots, broccoli, and soon to come a strawberry patch!

It doesn't look very big, but the square foot gardening method is supposed to produce a high yield in a small space. We shall see if our research, planning, and hard work will pay off.

It's exciting to see our garden vision finally become a reality! Now it's time to keep the critters away!

The Death of Osama Bin Laden

Proverbs 24:17 states:
"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles"

Father Federico Lombardi from the Roman Catholic Church stated:
"Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of everyone before God and man, and hopes and pledges that every event is not an opportunity for a further growth of hatred, but of peace."

We can all remember where we were when we learned that planes were high-jacked and deliberately crashed into the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001. It was all we would talk about in the days to follow. As information came out after the attacks, we found out that a group called 'Al-Qaeda' was behind it, and their leader Osama Bin Laden became the most wanted man in the world. I distinctly remember conversing with my friends in honors study hall two days after the attacks, and we took bets as to how long it would take for the U.S. government to track down and find Bin Laden. I guess I won the bet, and everyone's 5 dollars. My prediction? 4 months. Everyone else predicted less than that. It's hard to believe it took us 10 years to find the man, and I want my 25 bucks.


On Sunday night, President Barack Obama so boldly interrupted 'Celebrity Apprentice' to make an important announcement to the nation (probably much to possible presidential candidate Donald Trump's disappointment). After announcing that the U.S. government tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden, I imagined in my head him throwing down the microphone and strutting back into the White House much like a rap artist after free styling a sick rhyme. After almost a decade of hunting, the U.S. government had killed Bin Laden, and they have to feel pretty good about it.


In less than 48 hours of the announcement, people around the world have already formed their thoughts and opinions about the events of the past decade, and I suppose I am no different. I am very torn in my thoughts about the assassination of Bin Laden, and I hope you will join me in the conversation, because I believe it matters.

I will start with common responses that I have read or heard:

-"Osama deserves to be in Hell."
To this, I would agree. I cannot fully grasp the hate, evil, and blatant rebellion against God that was embodied in Bin Laden. But don't I deserve hell too? Don't you? To say that someone deserves to burn in hell is to say that someone needs air to breathe. We all do. How easy it is to say that someone else deserves hell and to forget that it is only by the grace of God that we are saved from the flames.

-"Osama was the modern day Hilter, and we should celebrate."
This comparison is legitimate, but does not have much meaning to me. Wasn't the apostle Paul the Hitler of his day? What a story of redemption Paul was. Was Bin Laden beyond God's redemptive power? I can't believe that he was beyond redemption, though his heart may have been so hardened that he never let the love of Christ change him.

-"God brought about justice through the U.S. armed forces."
Nine years ago, I would have believed this. Today, I am not so convinced. Does God bring justice through the sword? Through violence? Through murder? Is there a difference between what we perceive as justice and what God perceives?

-"Osama’s assassination was designed by God, and God directed the U.S. operation".
For those that take this stance, you must also believe that God directed Osama's actions in orchestrating the attacks on September 11th. A Calvinistic, completely sovereign God is in control of everything - both America's actions and Al-Qaeda's actions fall underneath a God who is in complete control. If you believe everything is predestined, you have to believe everything. Tough pill to swallow...

-"I am celebrating Osama's death because it is justice!"
Celebrating justice is one thing, but celebrating someone's death is another. To me, the videos and photos of people dancing in the streets, jumping in the fountains, and drinking in celebration are no different than the celebration in the streets in the Arab world after the September 11th attacks. For people who feel this way, would you still feel this way if Osama was captured and locked up for the rest of his life? Or would you hunger and thirst for his suffering and death? I suppose this is getting into the death sentence debate, in which I am against the death sentence in every situation. It's simply not Biblical.

Here is an example of an exchange (or lack thereof) I had with a well-known voice in the Youth Ministry community over Twitter.


Right. Let's not use Scripture to form our thoughts. Let's just give high fives. Give me a break.

(Ezekiel 18:24 reads: "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?")

Further things to consider

Two Kingdoms
For us as Christians, there are always two kingdoms. The kingdom of this world, and the kingdom of heaven. The assassination of Bin Laden appears to be a good thing for the kingdom of this world. In the heavenly kingdom, it is a loss. A sinful soul has crossed over into eternal damnation. Can we celebrate that? Which kingdom is more important to us?

The dangerous union of Church and State
For years I have struggled with the union of Church and State in our country and in our churches. I hear things like 'America is the greatest country on earth', 'America is God's country', and 'America is a Christian nation'. Last time I checked, America was founded on freedom of religion, not on the Christian religion. You cannot have both. Combining Church and State, in my mind, has very dangerous consequences. In believing that we are 'God's nation', we imply that we can do no wrong, for God is behind our actions. Does America really have the hand of God behind us in war? Can we do no wrong?

If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword
In Matthew 26:52, Peter draws his sword to fight and save Jesus from his capture. Jesus says, "Put away your sword...Those who use the sword will die by the sword." Osama Bin Laden did. He lived by the sword and therefore died by the sword. When we fight violence with violence, however, don't we live and die by the sword too?

The circle of violence
When does violence end? In Matthew 24:6, Jesus reminds us that there will always be war? How does he know this? Because he knows all, and he knows human nature. The circle of violence never ends, does it? Do we think there wont be retaliation from Osama's death (however pleased we are from it)? Hate cannot defeat hate. Violence will never be defeated with more violence.

Was it worth it?
I do not know claim to know the answer to this, though I am troubled by the amount of deaths that has led up to this. We must ask ourselves, has the money spent and number of lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan wars been worth it so far?


Source: http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html photos

The major distinction
We must make the difference between the following:
1) Seeking justice and being grateful that communities may be safer today than they were yesterday.
2) Celebrating and rejoicing a man's death.

Can we possess both an attitude of peace, love and reconciliation AND war, hate and revenge?

Closing questions

Would Jesus Christ have pulled the trigger, killing Osama Bin Laden? Would Jesus ever ask his followers to do something that He himself would not do?


Are there any examples in the New Testament where celebrating our ‘enemies’ death resulted in salvation or in bringing God pleasure?

What is the difference between earthly justice and heavenly justice? Which ‘justice’ is this death?

Do we truthfully, honestly even care if people are going to hell? If so, why haven't we mourned over the thousands of Al-Qaeda members, and tens of thousands of Muslims who have died this decade not knowing the redemptive love of Jesus Christ?

After all the murderous atrocities Bin Laden orchestrated, is our desire that he burn in hell for eternity? Or do we wish that he came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ at the end of his days?

Concluding thoughts

-I am so torn about this event. I so desperately desire peace and justice in our world. I also desire for it to come about in nonviolent ways.

-I wish 9/11 never happened.

-Jesus commands us to love our enemies. I don't know why, and it's one of the hardest things to do, but we must DO IT if we want to follow him.

-In order to be consistent with anti-violence, I must be against this assassination. It would be much easier to be supportive of this action. I am fully aware of the despicable acts Osama Bin Laden has committed, and a part of me hates him. So I have a decision to make. Am I filled with hate toward him, or do I mourn the perversion of a soul that God himself created and at one point called ‘good’?

Thank you for reading.
-Josh

We got caught. The blog we forgot...

Things that have happened to us since February 1st (our last Blog post).

-We forgot about blogging

-Kristi went skiing with some friends.





-We took the youth group to the Breakout Youth Conference.



-We took the youth group and lots of students from First Glance to Kalahari for the Tunnel Vision Retreat



-Kristi planned a secret date weekend. We stayed in a castle. It was incredible. Check it out here!





-Went to West Jeff to see our cousin perform in a musical. In the same trip went with my brother and sister in-law and our nephew to the zoo.





-Kristi went to our soon to be sister-in-law's wedding shower. Come June 4th there will be another Miller! Wahoo!!

-Easter services. Lots of them. They consumed me for a bit, but I really enjoyed them, both behind the scenes and being a part of them.

-I made a video for the Sunrise Service. You can check it out on YouTube HERE!

-More work on our backyard, only this time we had to bring in the professionals. We hired a landscaping company to put in two retaining walls to protect the foundation of our garage and patio area. We are getting ready for planting season!





-If you are interested, I blog every Wednesday at Goss Memorial's Blog about God related things.