Sue is Awesome

Sue had a job interview yesterday with Westminster Christian Academy here in St Louis.  They are in need of a permanent sub for the remainder of the year for two English teachers.   They called her today to offer her the job and she starts tomorrow.  Nothing like jumping right into the fire.  Gives her less time to worry about it. : )  

My wife is amazing.  Hasn't been in a classroom for almost 10 years and I can say without a doubt she'll be back in Mrs. Kraft mode in no time.  She is an amazing teacher and the school and kids are going to love her.  Well.... the students will love her as long as they stay on her good side.   Trust me...I know.

You can send Sue good wishes and congratulations at sue@marriagelinks.org

Update on the Krafts:  We are sleeping in our new home tonight!  First night in the new place.  The kids are actually sleeping in their bunk bed as I type.  Ahhhhh  As much as people joke about mother-in-laws, Sue's mom has been the BEST!  We are forever thankful to MaMa for putting up with us for so long.

Update on Marriage Links:  We met with the Bridget from St Louis Healthy Marriages yesterday.   They are a federally funded marriage education organization.  Bridget wants us to consider being trainers for their marriage prep program.  It sounds like an awesome opportunity and we look forward to talking with her more.  

Update on Cedar Tree Bible Church : What is that? Some of you might be asking.  We are going to start gathering  a group of folks on Feb 8th here in Kirkwood.   We'll talk about that more soon.

Thanks for your prayers.  God is good!

Christmas Time

I hope you had a great Christmas. We had a blast. Will and Luke were "doing" advent every night building anticipation towards the arrival of Baby Jesus and Santa. Two of their favorite people arriving on the same day. ROCK ON!
We baked cookies during the day on Christmas Eve and surprised some friends and neighbors with cookies and Christmas caroling later that evening. We even made all of the firemen at the firehouse come out and listen to Luke and Will's version of Jingle Bells. It was a lot of fun and a tradition we look forward to building on every year.
Gifts were simple this year and nobody cared. Will figures the reason Santa didn't need to bring him a Wii was because Grandpa and Grandma already had one that he could play with. What a cool kid.
We went to Iowa after Christmas and got to enjoy some snow and time with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandpa and grandma.

update - - We are hoping to find a place of our own very soon. Looking at a lot of homes as we decide between renting and buying. Yikes.

Fight to save marriage

There is such a call right now to "save marriage". Prop 8 in California was a fight to keep the definition of marriage as that between a husband and a wife. While I agree with that definition completely I think this "fight" is taking our eyes off where we should be focusing.

We are fighting to save the definition of marriage but we aren't fighting to save marriages. As we are so willing to take up the torch to fight against men marrying men and women marrying women, our marriages in our churches are failing more than they are succeeding. Some couples are just going through the motions of marriage while others are just giving up all together.

Maybe we should be focusing on providing society with a good model of what marriage is. If I was on the outside looking in right now why would I want to be married? Here we (Christians) are telling the world what marriage is supposed to be but we aren't living out what we are talking about.

It just isn't right. I think Satan is having a ball with this and laughing as the Christians end up looking like hypocrites again as we tell the world what marriage is supposed to be.

Ministry Pains

Sue and I made a decision to follow our passion and make a run at starting our own ministry. It has been a journey and a huge learning experience. It has taken way longer than we thought it would take and has been way harder than we thought it would be. Aren't there a lot of things in life that seem to go that way?

We just want to have an impact in people's lives and can't believe how much front end work there is to do. Meeting with pastors, meeting with other ministry leaders, talking with couples, putting together boards, sitting with accountants, going back and forth with attorneys, on and on.

Then just as we start a ministry that counts on people donating money, the economy crumbles and people tighten their purse-strings. It makes it all very interesting.

There are great things happening in the midst of all the questions and tough times though. We have one church that has invited us to come in and do a 6-week marriage focus in February. We have a retreat in the works. We'll be starting a pre-marriage group in January. We have another church hoping to do an extended focus on marriage. We have some great meetings scheduled in the next couple of months. So we are thankful as we move ahead.

Thanks for reading. We covet your prayers and ask for God's provision.

Pray for Aidyn

Matt and Kristin Wooley are close friends of ours from Colorado. They taught our MarriagePlus course. We got some horrible news yesterday that Aidyn, their oldest daughter, has a tumor at at the base of her brain. The doctors believe it is cancerous. She is in surgery as I write this. They are the greatest family and I just can't imagine what they are going through.


Please stop and say a little prayer for them.

Also, hug those around you that you love a little harder today.


I wish you a blessed Thanksgiving.

Here is a link to Aidyn's blog http://www.prayforaidyn.blogspot.com/

Will turns 6!

Our family celebrated Will's 6th birthday at the St. Louis zoo Build A Bear workshop. It was a chilly day, but the cold couldn't dampen our son's enthusiasm for exploring the zoo and visiting all his favorite animals. The memories made that day will surely stay vivid in our minds for some time. Typically on Will's birthday, Barry and I reflect on God's goodness for changing our lives and making us parents. Parenthood has stretched me and challenged me in ways I never thought possible. I often reflect on what God teaches us about His character through the journey of parenting.
Ephesians 3:18-19 says "And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God."

Isn't it true that we as parents can't quite understand the depth of our love for our children? God's love for us is perfect and the model we are to take in loving and raising our boys. What a gift! What a privelege!

Trick or Treat

I hope you all had fun trick or treating. Our boys are at a perfect age. They still think it is cool to hang out with mom and dad and I can still convince them to give me half of their candy. We had a blast going from house to house. Our boys practiced their "trick" all week to get ready for Friday night. Will pulled his thumb off about 50 times and Luke perfected the amazing talent of hopping on one foot. Pretty awesome stuff.

For the parents out there, cherish "big moments" with your kids. Even though our kids are only 6 and 4, I can see how fast our kids grow up. I figure we only have about 6 more Halloweens with our kids. I hope they never forget these times. I hope we are doing the right things to make their childhood something they can look back on and remember all the laughter.

update - An amazing encounter on Sunday. We visited a church in St Charles for the first time. I overheard the pastor talking to another new couple that said they just moved from Parker, CO (same place we lived). I introduced myself and we ended up sitting next to them. After several questions we realized we went to the same church and after more questions realized we had several mutual friends and finally realized they had been through Marriage Plus. About 100 people in the entire country have been through Marriage Plus. I imagine there are only two couples in all of St Louis and we just happened to walk into the same church for the first time on the same Sunday and run into each other. Pretty amazing "coincidence". We look forward to following up with them.