Shazam! ... and Happy New Year

Happy New Year! We hope you like the new Shafer family blog, at its new address: http://akindofcrazy.blogspot.com/


Ok.... what's the "SHAZAM" stuff all about? Well, Kim and I were talking about what needed to be written in this first post on our new blog address. Kim's words to me were, I believe, along the lines of "You'd better write something good."

"Ohhh ...." I said, "It needs to say Shazam!" (and then it was all downhill from there.)

Shazam, you'll recall, is a comic-book character who transforms from his mild-mannered alter-ego by uttering his name, which also happens to be a kind of magic word.

If only real life challenges could be addressed so easily! If only we could transform our own mild-mannered lives with a single magic utterance. Shazam! Poof! Presto! Real life is not so easy, I know. It's just as well, since I really have no desire to wear red spandex.

Still, Kim and I do believe in a super-natural God who continues to be in the business of (sometimes dramatic) real-life transformations. Consequently, Kim and I are coming into 2011 with some pretty high expectations. We want to share those big dreams of ours with you. But, before we go into any sort of detail I want to quote a bit from our most recent family Christmas letter. At least from this you'll understand that these ideas have been simmering in our thoughts and prayers for a while now.

Just a short while ago I wrote: "In the infant Christ, God made Himself a gift: a tremendous gift, a stretching-the-very-bounds-of-credulity gift. God help us, we want to give like that too. We want to live like that. God help us, out best efforts to do so fall so very short of God’s perfect example.

So, maybe we are a little crazy for asking 'O.K. God, what next?' But in the light of God’s crazy love for us, it seems like the right sort of question to ask!"

So, what's next? ... drum-roll please ... here are our two God-crazy ventures for 2011.

1. If all goes as planned, I (Jeremy) will be going on a 2-week missions trip to Zambia this March. I am looking forward to this adventure!
   
   I'd be lying if I said I totally understood all that I personally hope to learn and accomplish in doing this. It seems like an awfully big expense, both in terms of time and in money. Still, I feel led to do it. (All this from a guy who is most uneasy about being led by feeling anything.)
   
   It is a kind of experiment I suppose. I want to find out what sort of a contribution an IT guy like me can make in a setting like this. There's more to it than that, I am sure. I am just waiting on God to find out the rest!
   
   
2. Sometime after I get back from Zambia, Kim and I will begin the process of adopting again. We expect that "the process" (whatever it is this time) will extend into 2012. Hopefully it won't go beyond 2012 ... but only God knows for sure.
   
   Do we know where we will adopt from? Not really. We have a strong inclination towards China, but it is too early to say. Will we adopt another boy? Yes. Are we open to another special needs adoption? Yes. Have we got all this figured out and know exactly what we're doing? Not hardly.

So that's what's next. We don't share these things because we claim any special insight or endorsement from God (outside of that which is common to all Christians.) We don't share these things because we have everything all nailed down and planned out.

We share these things because we need the prayer and support of others. We also share these things with the hope that God will indeed do some amazing things along the way.

If He does indeed show up and do the amazing (and we believe He will) then we want to be able to share those events.

Our old blog was called "Journey to Jonathan" because it was all about Jonathan coming home to us. This new blog is called "A Kind of Crazy" because it is about our whole family and what God is doing in it ... even if it looks ... a little ... crazy ... on the outside.

Happy New Year!