Merry Christmas!

Angie made me wear the hat! Angie, Braxton, and I hope you had a great Christmas. Although we are 6,000 miles from our families, technology helps us feel closer. We also had a nice Christmas dinner with our teammates Isaac and Elizabeth. I don't know why but Braxton wanted to sleep through the gift opening. Braxton is now 13lbs. and nearly 23 inches long! We hope you all were reminded this Christmas of what a great gift God gave us in His Son Jesus. What an amazing thing to think that God loved us so much that He would give His only Son to save us! It is that gift we want to give to the people in Turkey.

Earth Shaking News!

Here is another picture of Braxton. He is now 4 weeks old. The fact that we gave him the middle name of Emre has been great so far. The Turks love it and they always ask why. So it always gives us a good opportunity to meet new people.
Well we felt our first tremor yesterday. That's the earth shaking news. I was sitting having my Turkish lessons when the ceiling fans in our apartment started shaking. I thought well its no big deal and the house just kept shaking. Right about the time we were getting ready to go outside it stopped. The actual earthquake took place about 60 miles southeast of Ankara. It was a 5.7 earthquake. There were no deaths just a few houses were damaged.
Yesterday was also the first day of a four day holiday called Kurban Bayrami, which is the Sacrifice Holiday. Meaning Turks will buy a sacrifice and have it slaughtered. They were showing all kinds of lambs, goats, and cows on the news yesterday. I was thinking they have no idea what they're in for. Our neighbors actually brought us a whole bag of freshly slaughtered lamb. It was a very nice gesture. Traditionally the family that sacrifices is not supposed to eat of the meat. They are to give it away. Nowadays though most people in Turkey sacrifice and put the meat in the freezer for later on in the year.

Saying No

To all you millions who read this blog, I'm sorry it's been so long. Little Braxton is very healthy. God has provided him with a very good set of lungs. I mentioned that I had a possible job opportunity as a part-time English teacher at a very well known company. It seemed like this was a great opportunity to get a work visa. So I started the training process. This is a great company. There were a lot of pluses to this job. There were also minuses to this job. Bottom line, God showed me that this isn't the right time. Angie and I don't need a work visa until April of 2009. Who knows what God will do in the time between. I need to focus on my language. My language is my job at this time. I'm here to communicate the Gospel. I can't do that well if I don't know the language inside and out. In the end, I had to call my potential boss and tell her the situation. My allegiance is to God, not to some company or to a process. When I think of eternity, things become very clear. A friend told me that sometimes what is good is not always best. I look forward to seeing what God's best is for us. I said no to a good opportunity in a lot of people's eyes. Sometimes saying no is what God wants.

Thankful for what?

Our new born son may not remember this day, but I'm going to remind him when he's older. He will be forever thankful to his parents for the procedure we had performed on him. Braxton was circumcised today. Now you might ask why would he be thankful to us for that. Well in this culture a boy is circumcised generally between the ages of 8-12. Yes that's right. You will definitely remember at that age. You get a beautiful prince costume that you wear and when the procedure is done people stop by and put money under your pillow. It really is a huge ceremony. Well the funny thing about today is we left the hospital with a souvenir. The nurse handed me a tube with the foreskin from his circumcision. I didn't know what to say. So I said thanks. What memories were made on our first Thanksgiving here. Hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

OUR BABY BOY

Most of you may know by now, but here are the details in case you haven't heard.
Braxton Emre Reinhardt was born on NOV. 19TH, at 5:40 in the evening. he was 9lbs. and 19.5 inches long. I have more admiration for my wife now more than ever. After seeing the pain of labor, I was especially grateful God chose to let women have babies. It was an amazing thing. We feel so blessed. Click on the link to view an album we started for him. We will be updating it regularly, so you might want to save the link. See more of Braxton.

Having this son really made me stop and think about my Savior, Jesus Christ. He was a baby boy just like our baby boy. He went through everything our boy will go through. Why? Because He loved us. Amazing love, isn't it?

Turkish Sign Language

I met with some of the deaf guys that I wrote about yesterday. Three of them came and we went to a cafe, drank cay and tried to communicate. They showed me a lot of signs. By the end of our 2 hours together my brain was fried. I thought it was interesting that the sign for Christian is to, "use your pointer finger and move it in a circular motion around your face and then do the sign of the cross like the Catholics do." Again whether in spoken or unspoken language the term "Christian" in this country is synonymous with Catholicism. These guys have a very hard time getting a job because no one wants to hire a deaf person. Two of the men lost their hearing when they were very young. One when he was three months old and the other when he was one year old. In both of their cases they said it was from a high fever that they lost their hearing. One of the young men is actually 11th in the country in long distance running. He ran 5000 meters in fifteen minutes. That's just over three miles. I had a great time getting to know these guys and trying to learn unspoken Turkish. Lord willing we will meet at least once a week, and they will teach me their language.

Second Chances

It's been an interesting couple of days. Saturday I was coming back from my friends apartment which I am taking care of. I was sitting on the metro when a couple entered. I thought I'd be nice so I moved across the aisle to another seat and let them sit by each other. Well it so happened that the lady sitting beside me was speaking English. I struck up a conversation and long story short she is a director at a well known English learning center. She told me to stop in some time and apply and she would see what she could do. I found that very interesting. Now the same day just minutes later I got on the bus to our house. There was one seat available. I promptly took my seat. Seconds later I noticed the three girls around me were signing. Now this struck me as very interesting. I was thinking to myself, "How can I communicate with them?" I wanted to tell them about my wife who knows American Sign Language. Well I blew that chance. I asked God to give me another chance. Today I got a second chance. I was sitting on a bench after my language lessons in a busy part of the city. Five young men walk by me and they are signing. I said, "I'm going to talk with them. I don't know how, but I'm going to." I called my wife and asked her to tell me how I could sign, "I know sign language." Now granted Turkish sign language is totally different than American Sign Language, but it was worth a shot. So I waited until they came out of the store and I just went for it. I signed my signs and they just looked at me. I figured this is how it would go. So I noticed one of the guys sign to his friend that I wanted something. His friend turned up his hearing aid. So anyway we were able to set up a meeting tomorrow and I learned a few Turkish signs. I thank God for this second chance. I had a chance two days ago and I blew it, but God is so gracious. We will see what God wants to do with this.