Spring | T4G Recap | Basketball

This has been one of the busiest seasons of my life, which is why I haven't been blogging very often. There have been things to write about (so I may be posting some tardy news here in the coming weeks), but I haven't carved out time to sit down and jot them down! Spring is here in Seattle and the cherry blossoms KNEW the very first day it began & came out everywhere. It's awesome, now when the wind blows it looks like it's snowing outside my window because all the blossoms are fluttering everywhere. There are white blossomed trees that look like cherry blossoms too, what are those?

VIDEO: DCC 1 Year Later

This video was shown at DCC's 1 year Birthday Celebration on Sunday, April 1st. It's an incredible testament to God's powerful, thorough grace in the lives of those planting this church and loving their neighbor so that the gospel may go forth. It's about 6 1/2 minutes long, but it's worth every second. Plus, the video editing and city shots are phenomenal! Enjoy & praise God for his goodness!

Giulian's in Louisville!

I bet you're wondering why...I sure was when I found out Louisville was the destination. He is there for the Together for the Underestimated Gospel Conference, a huge privilege! He and 3 of the other leaders of DCC had the opportunity to attend this 3 day conference that only takes place every other year. I'm only getting bits & pieces from him so far because this conference is seriously jam packed with speakers, they're in there from like 8 am - 10 pm. But, I do know that he mentioned that CJ Mahaney's talk today, The Sustaining Power of the Gospel was super encouraging, he recommended it. One of the first things he said to me though was how overwhelming it is to be in the middle of the sports stadium with 8000 voices around you singing out in a cappella worship to God. Wow!  We'd definitely appreciate prayer as the the leaders of DCC get away & seek God's guidance for our 2nd year as a church plant.

-Christy

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Image courtesy of @challies

Easter BBQ Sign

Missional lesson number 1: The graphic is key in catching the neighbor's eye.

Excited for this Weekend

Incredible Sunset

Wednesday night brought the most insanely unexpected sunset. It was intense! Such a delight. I'm so thankful for the great view our apartment building has.

The sun looked exactly the same in person! Like it was in front of the mountains.

Almost dipping behind the mountains. Beautiful ferry always gliding across the Sound.

I tried to make a panoramic w/ 2 shots...they almost fit! After setting, the sun lit up the clouds in such an unexpected way!

Happy Birthday Giulian! (Then & Now)

Saint Patrick's Confession

Read the rest of the compelling story God wrote through Patrick for free here.

The city, the church, the Christ.

Are you comfortable? This sermon from Acts 8:1-8 that Pastor Adam gave in January reminded me of how uncomfortable it is to live in the city. It's HARD. Our neighborhood is particularly difficult. The other day when I walked through my neighborhood to "my office" (Grand Central Bakery - big tables and free coffee refills!), I counted only 10 women out of dozens of men. The women I meet here don't live here. Women are leaving the neighborhood because they feel unsafe. Our friends in our neighborhood are almost all men. After pulling up roots and leaving friends to move here, it's easy to feel lonely. WHY are we here?

A Tool to Share

I'm seriously thankful to the men of Humble Beast for consistently putting out free quality hip-hop albums. Now I'm even more thankful to them for producing tasteful Bible listening featuring talented spoken word artists and scored by talented producers. This is Genesis 1-6 and the entire book of John, FREE! I'm excited to listen.

-Christy

Encouraging Concert | Trip Lee & Jimmy Needham

So my sister told me last minute the other day, "hey! did you know trip lee is in seattle?" I was stoked because I check the Reach Records website all the time and they never schedule to come to the Northwest! The concert was the next night and we happened to be free so we hit the road and drove 30 miles north to Everett. It was a super encouraging concert, and not only because of the good music, but because of the gospel preached so thoroughly and intentionally. I really appreciate these artists on a whole new level now. Andy Cherry's great vocals supported the headliners, Trip Lee and Jimmy Needham, but it was made abundantly clear that Jesus Christ was the only Headliner in that theatre. Praise Him!

These were my favorite shots from the evening, as well as a video snippet of our favorite song performed that evening that is to be released on Trip Lee's upcoming album. We were actually the first audience to ever hear it! Plus I have to give a major shout to Mimi Taylor and her friend who sign language interpreted the ENTIRE 3 hour concert, including the rap lyrics! Holy cow, I couldn't stop watching her!

-Christy

Video from our church's last baptisms!

Our church, DCC, celebrated our second baptisms on December 11th, and Giulian had the extreme privilege of baptizing our neighbor, Xuan Gong, as a professing believer in Christ!! Man, it was such a glorious day.

Giulian likes to share that when he was discussing with Xuan about the gospel during their weekly meetings, one analogy he borrowed from "Helping Children to Understand the Gospel" was particularly helpful. If you're baking cookies and you leave them in too long, you're going to have burnt cookies. You can't just take the burnt cookie, and make it soft again. What do you need? -To which Xuan proclaimed- "New cookie!" Now Xuan is a "new cookie" in Christ and for that we rejoice!

We hope you enjoy the video below that some talented folks in our church put together to remember that day. Praise God, the Giver of new life!

-Christy

We're Famous!

...well sort of. At least we made it on to Leah's blog! Our story is featured on Rough Hewn, the blog of a very talented designer in the Seattle area who also happens to be our friend! :) Go check it out, then check out the rest of Leah's work because it's super inspiring! You know, when she sent us the questions it actually ended up being so fun to reminisce as we worked through them. We sat at the bar at Olive Garden eating our never-ending breadsticks, chatting about God's sovereignly-ordained love story in our lives. Thanks for the idea and opportunity Leah, we love it!

Your Groundhog Day Giggle

The Home at the top of Smith Tower

I just have to share this. I've told so many guests and friends that I read somewhere how a lady designed a living space for her family at the top of the historic Smith Tower in Pioneer Square and is living there still, and I just came across the NY Times article where I read that! It has incredible photos of what they've done to that space. This building you've seen in LOTS of my pictures, she and her husband and two daughters live at the top triangle of it! NUTS!

-Christy

Today, I walked on the parking lot less traveled.

Right there in the middle, do you see my snow angel? Walking home from my Women's Discipleship Group this morning I noticed the parking lot on my hill was completely untouched and blanketed white. So I decided to stomp through it, the first footprints to touch the snow! Half way up, I had a sudden urge to fall down in the snow and make a snow angel, it was exhilarating! There is some crazy, swirly snow action going on up here. Hoping to capture some video soon of crazy, snow drivers...we'll see! More pictures posted below.

-Christy

Three Years and Counting!!

Last Monday, the 2nd, marked our third year of marriage. What an accomplishment by God's grace! For obvious reasons we never celebrate on the weekend prior, so we're leaving today to enjoy a weekend together out of town.  This blog post is mainly dedicated to all of you friends and family that attended our wedding and never saw one picture come out of it. You see, after the wedding our photographer gave us 1000 unedited images to sort through, so naturally I put it off...until last Christmas! We wanted to give our poor parents a photo book for Christmas so I set to sorting them and editing the ones we liked. Here's the finished photo book that I created for us that should be coming in the mail today! You might just catch yourself dancing in a photo or two...Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger

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