Friends, I just got some really exciting news when I opened my email Inbox last night. Here’s what it said:

The Indie Emporium committee has reviewed all of the applications and you have been accepted as a 2010 vendor! Congrats friends!  We had more applications than ever, so you should be proud of your stellar work!

The Indie Emporium is this super cool/hip craft fair that happens here in Tulsa. This will be it’s 3rd year. I went last year, just after we moved in (one of my first Tulsa experiences, in fact.) And it was wonderful. And this year, I get to be a vendor! Seriously, I’m so pumped about this. Especially because I get to share it with my good friend, Leah. Check out her stuff here.

And make plans to come to Tulsa to check out the Indie Emporium!

(This is the booth we shared at a craft sale a few years ago.)

So, remember how we mentioned that we really love living in the city? Well, we do. For the most part.

Not so much last night when they turned off our water at 8pm & proceeded to dig up the street right in front of our house to try to fix some sort of water pipe problem. But that part wasn’t so bad, really.

It was at midnight when they started digging up the pavement with a backhoe. And continued to do that until at least 2am. That’s when I finally was able to fall asleep. Do you know what that sounds like? Basically they were using the backhoe as a sledgehammer. Which is not really a pleasant sound in the middle of the night.

This morning the water is back on, the street is mostly put back together, and there is a giant hole in our front yard.

(This isn’t meant to be a “complaining” post…  just a “we’ve been wanting to blog more often & well, this is something significant to tell you about” post.) Honestly, I’m grateful for those guys who were out there working all through the night-away from their families & probably really frustrated that they couldn’t find whatever they were looking for.

I am working on a little project for church where we are going to illustrate some specific themes from the Bible using short movie clips. Want to help me think of good scenes to use? I’m going fo un-obvious. For example, i will not use The Passion for the crucification…but a complex Christ character would be great (say the green mile). Here are the chapter names and the focus that i am looking for:

• The Beginning of Life as We Know It (creation)
• Deliverance (exodus and moses)
• New Commands and a New Covenant (moses and the law)
• The Battle Begins (joshua and invading the promised land) – ok, i might go a bit obvious on this one…it hard to pass up the lord of the rings for beginning battles.
• From Shepherd to King (david)
• A kingdom Torn in Two (the division if israel)
• The Return Home (ezra)
• The Birth of the King (Jesus)
• No Ordinary Man (jesus)
• The Hour of Darkness (jesus crucifixion)
• The Resurrection (jesus)
• New Beginnings (early church and pauls journey)
• The End of Time (2nd coming, etc)

Any ideas? Let me know the movie and the scene you are thinking of.

Have you heard about this? Garnett is going to be a host site for this FREE online conference this year. I’m so excited!

Want to join us? Just send me an email or give me a call!

About 10 months ago we moved to Tulsa to work at a new church, live in a new place, meet new people, and see what God has for us as participants in the Certificate in Missional Leadership program. You might remember that the program lasts 10 months…which means we are done. Its been a good 10 months, we have learned a lot, experienced some new things, met new people, seen different ways of doing ministry, and grown in our understanding of ourselves.

It’s kind of hard to sum up 10 months into an email, so we are not really going to try. We do want you to get an idea of what we have been doing though, so we each did a little project that tries to capture a bit of what we have been up to. Beth’s project is a pdf that you can download. Ben’s is a video which can be found here: http://vimeo.com/13713546. The video is about 30 minutes long…be warned!  If you want to get a good idea of what the last 10 months have been like for us these are a great way to find out…or, stop by sometime, we would be glad to take you out to coffee and talk about it.

The big question we have been asked a lot recently is “what’s next?” For now we will be staying in Tulsa. We will both continue to work part time at Garnett Church of Christ. Although at the beginning we were a bit unsure of what our time with Garnett would look like, and even wondered if we’d enjoy worshipping there on Sundays-we are excited to stay involved. We have been blessed by Garnett & were welcomed in right away as members of their family. Beth will also be working for Chris King doing administrative work for CQ Missional. She will be focused on a program called GPS Tulsa (http://www.cqmissional.com/gpstulsa/). Ben will be doing a couple of things, including freelance graphic design and working for Challenge Quest (the “CQ” part of CQ Missional) on their new zip line canopy tour at the Buffalo River in Arkansas (http://www.buffaloriver.com/blog/default.aspx?id=136). For now that’s the next chapter.

We really do want to thank you for the support you have given us over the last year. Your financial support, prayers and encouragement have been a huge blessing to us. We are very thankful for all of the people who are a part of our lives, and are honored to count you among our community.

We are excited about the adventures to come, we will continue to blog at www.benandbethwest.com, and we might send out occasional emails. We would love to keep talking with you!

Thanks again for your involvement in our lives! We will keep you up to date as we continue to work here in Tulsa, or wherever God takes us.

Ben and Beth

We spent the last week of August with some incredible people, in some incredible places.

We had the opportunity to go with a handful of the youth at Garnett to visit Dry Bones Denver. We got to experience the mountains in a whole new way this time around. {And yes, we still left saying, “Why don’t we live here already???”}

The first part of the week was spent backpacking around Arapaho National Forest [Englemann Peak 13,362 feet]. We hiked in on the first day & camped, hiked a little farther the second day & set up camp, summitted the peak the third day and hiked all the way back down the fourth day. It was wonderful to be in such a beautiful place-surrounded by mountain peaks.

And the second part of the trip we spent in downtown Denver. Dry Bones is a pretty unique ministry. They focus on befriending the street kids [homeless youth-ages 12-30ish] of Denver. They provide some meals, and can help people find things they need [a backpack, a sleeping bag, an ID, an apartment, etc.] but that isn’t their focus. Their focus is to befriend the street kids [what they call themselves] & let them know that they are there for them. Part of our time was spent bowling with them, and taking them to a movie. Giving them some opportunities to experience “normal life” for a little bit.

It was a blessing to be around the Dry Bones staff & to see them simply walking around the downtown area & giving the street kids a look in the eye, a smile, and the time of day. And a challenge for us to find ways to interact & love the people we see on the streets each day.

Here are some pictures from our week. We didn’t take many pictures of our time downtown-partly because we were “on the go” the whole time, and partly because we wanted to be sensitive to those who may not want their pictures taken. But if you visit the Dry Bones website you’ll see some of the same faces we saw & will be able to read about (or watch) some of their stories.

With our packs on Day 1:

At the top of Engelmann Peak:

Ben in his element (mountains):

Beth in her element (mountains + french press coffee):

The whole gang:

I celebrated a milestone yesterday. 30 years old.

I sort of freaked out about turning 25. {because 25 is practically 30-or at least that’s what I told myself.} It just feels like the expectation to be more adult-like is there now that my age starts with a “3″.

But I’ve been blessed with 30 really great years-and that is a reason to celebrate. {not freak out.}

And so-that’s what I did!

I bought a fun new dress {thanks to the fabulous Laura}, enjoyed a lazy day at home with Ben, got a haircut & shared hobos for dinner w/ some of our new friends. {complete with chocolate cake baked inside hollowed out oranges-YUM!} And there’s more celebrating to be done! {I’m all for extending the birthday celebrations as long as possible…} 

These 2 news stories are unrelated, but I heard both of them this week & found them pretty interesting (to say the least).  What do you think?

1) Pea Lung?  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129155683

2) Gulf Caravan http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129158245

The first one just has some shock value. But the second one I just really love. A unique idea & a way to not only help practically (investing in the economy in the gulf) but also to invest in people’s spirits. To give them a good sales day probably means more to them than most of us can imagine.

I used to be a student of design. I spent a lot of time looking for inspiration, reading magazines, stuff like that. somewhere along the line I kind of list that, so i am recommitting to seeking inspiration. Here are a couple videos i found tonight:

The Attenborough Design Group from Tom Judd on Vimeo.

and

Freedom Rodriguez is a friend of ours from Siloam Springs. Freedom spent some time in Uganda at an orphanage & has fallen in love with the children there. To help raise awareness & share their stories he has painted over the covers of 100 discard children’s books with faces of the children he met over there. Freedom was here at Cafe Mosaic last week with all 100 books. It’s truly a beautiful project that he’s done…and it’s so much more than simply a “project.” It is his heart, and God’s heart & inspires others to love & care. I think that’s a good thing.

Here’s short word from Freedom about this project:

The desire to paint 100 faces is an expression of the life changing memories I have of my visits to Africa. With this collection, I hope to raise awareness of the needs in Africa and help fund our full-time arts ministry. These faces represent the increasing burning in my heart to serve those in need.

Each painting is done in acrylic on old discarded children’s books. The series represents the millions of orphans that have been discarded or abandoned. Many have been given over to orphanages for the chance of a better life. Nevertheless, these children need to feel and know that they have a story still worth reading about. No matter what they have gone through, God still desires them to live fully and with the purpose God created them for.

Here’s a link to Freedom’s website