This just in - Christians believe in Christianity

So I'm reading a news site and I see a headline titled Coulter: Jews Need to Be Perfected with a subtitle of "Columnist's comments about Jews, that America would be better off if we all were Christian, stun cable talk show" The article starts off with "Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be 'perfected' by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian."

Reading the transcript of the interview, I am more shocked by Mr. Deutsch's apparent incredulity that a Christian (Ms. Coulter) would believe that the world would be better off if everyone were a Christian. What?!?! You believe you are right?!?! And you think everyone else should have faith in the same Savior who died for your sins to provide forgiveness and peace with God?!?!? But what about all those other ways to reach God?!?! What!?!? Sure, Jesus says he is the only way, but you're "too educated" to believe something like that!

I realize that, for many, suggesting anything as shocking as the idea that the Jewish faith is wrong on national TV (in America, no less) is equivalent to declaring there was no holocaust, or that there should not be a Jewish state in the middle east. Notice from the transcript that Mr. Deutsch actually inferred that Ann Coulter was proposing wiping Israel off the face of the map...

Now, I'm not saying that Ann Coulter expressed her opinion in a way that was clear and concise, or that she defended her statements well. Of course, I've only read the transcript, and didn't see the dialog unfold, so I'm not going to attack too stridently. She might have taken time to provide more context. She might have pointed out that many religions (including Judaism) believe they are the only true faith. She might have pointed out that a failure to want everyone else to have that true faith is equivalent to wanting others to be misled and spend the afterlife in a place other than the one in which the believer is wanting to spend the afterlife. But of course that would not have done anything to diminish Mr. Deutsch's accusations of anti-Semitism or equating Ms. Coulter to President Ahmadinejad.

In the end it's just a reaction to the belief that there is objective truth, right and wrong, and a God who has revealed Himself and provided one way to salvation. And as such, it's certainly nothing new under the sun, even if Mr. Deutsch is "too educated" to know better.

Nine wonderful years

Nine years ago today, Amy became Mrs. Bredenberg. Or Mrs. Dr. Bredenberg. Or Dr. Mrs. Bredenberg. Or… whatever…

The point is, I want to say Happy Anniversary to my wonderful wife! Thank you for the all of the love and hard work. I pray God blesses us with many, many more wonderful years together.

I love you, sweetheart!

Define Satisfaction…

Do you enjoy getting phone calls asking you to give your feedback on customer satisfaction? Does anyone enjoy these? I suppose if I had an axe to grind, I might relish the opportunity to give feedback, but most of the time it is just plain annoying.

Why is it then, that the Volkswagen dealership where we take our car for service feels a compulsion, bordering on obsession, to get our feedback every single time we have the car in for any type of service? If we take it in for warranty work, they call to get our opinion. If we take it in for regularly scheduled maintenance, they call until we relent and give them our input. Even the odd oil change when timing and convenience leads us to take it there rather than a local shop triggers a barrage of phone calls that has begun to cause paranoia in yours truly. I know their caller id listing. They call me at work, they call my cell phone, they call at home. When I walk by a phone booth and it rings, I break into a run…

I mean really, what’s so hard about this? I obviously keep coming back. Does that sound like dissatisfaction to you? If I ever decide to go elsewhere, one of the reasons I’ll list is the terribly annoying phone calls. Sure, I could answer them the first time and get them off my back, but really, I have better things to do while at work than to pick up the phone and answer, on a scale of 1 to 5, 20 questions covering topics such as how easy it was to make an appointment, how clean the lobby was when I picked up my car, and whether the music playing at the cashier’s booth was pleasing or not…

Maybe the next time they call, I will pick up the phone, ask them not to call me anymore, and tell them that if I get another call from their silly customer satisfaction survey folks, I’ll never set foot in the dealership again.

Can I get an amen, or have I gone off the deep end?

More wisdom of Sydney

Passing on something humorous that Sydney has said is always one of my favorite reasons to write on this site. In fact, I could really do that almost every day, but some gems stand out and just have to be posted no matter what else is going on. So here goes…

I was driving with Sydney the other day and the sun had set by the time we started home. It was one of those days on which she had fallen asleep during her quiet time and so bedtime was later than usual. In addition, I wanted to give Amy a few minutes to breathe at the end of the day, so Sydney got to join me for some late errands. As we drove home, Sydney commented that it was dark outside. I agreed with her and, recalling other conversations where she linked darkness with the Sun going down, I asked her why it was dark. Her response?

"Because… For God’s own glory!"

Now who’s going to argue with that?

You may recognize that as the answer to the kids’ catechism question that asks why God made all things.

I can tell that Sydney is really starting to work at figuring out God’s place in her world, as His name comes up more frequently when she’s reaching for an answer. The other day I asked Sydney (as happens entirely too often in our new house as we organize and get settled) not to get a particular item down on her own, and to ask Mommy or Daddy if she wanted to use this item (I can’t even remember what it was…).

Her response was to look at me and say "Or I can ask God." Umm… well… no. I mean yes, but no! Yes, we ask God for many things during our prayer times, but… In the end I just said "No, you have to ask Mommy or Daddy." I can see God becoming the equivalent of an imaginary friend who authorizes any behavior for which Sydney feels the need to blame someone. But boy, did she throw me for a loop when she dished that one up!

Settling in

Yes, we’re settling in to our new house! Despite a few issues last week, everything ended well, and we had time to clean up the old house and get it ready for its new owner before the handover on Friday.

The biggest snag was that the movers did not show up on Wednesday as had been agreed upon over the phone. When I called them to see where they were, they said they had us on the books for Thursday, and that there was no way they could scratch a crew up to get us moved Wednesday. I don’t think they entirely believed that they had made a mistake, they were so confident that their notes had to be complete and accurate. But, we made the best of it (after Amy convinced me not to rent a truck and do it myself…) and spent Wednesday organizing what we had already moved to the house ourselves and moving a few more things so we could spend the night there as we had planned. I also took the opportunity to wire the key areas of the house for our network so we’d be up and running once Verizon paid a visit on Thursday. Between a surprisingly comfortable air mattress, a stack of blankets and pillows for Sydney, and a pack-n-play for Peter, we enjoyed the night in the new, almost entirely empty house.

Thursday morning the movers showed up, and in no time flat (they said we were their favorite move of the week because we had things so well organized, dressers emptied, crib disassembled, etc) they had us loaded and we were off to the new house. Amy and a friend from church went to the old house that night to clean up while I moved over all of the computer equipment and network gear.

Let me stop here and just say that we had a tremendous amount of help with this move, none more appreciated than all the time my Mom selflessly gave both watching the kiddos while we moved as well as helping Amy unpack and get the new house ready to live in. We couldn’t have made this move without her! A handful of folks from church also helped us with the things we did not want the professional movers to handle as well as all the prep work on the old and new houses. And our first houseguest, Matt Reichenbach, was pressed into service this weekend on a number of tasks such as getting the garage organized and ready to park a car in. He didn’t complain once! Our heartfelt thanks to you all!

The new owner of our old house made a comment that "moving is a lot of work, and not fun!" While I heartily agree with that comment as it affects packing, moving, and cleaning, I have to say that unpacking and arranging things in our new house has been fun, though still a lot of work. We love the new house and the extra room it affords, and it has been fun to think about and execute on an organization scheme that does not require as much creative use of space (think kids’ clothing and toys…)

I hope to put up some "before and after" pictures to compare the two houses, but since we didn’t think to take fresh pictures of the old house before we moved, I’ll have to go back through my files and dig out pictures we took when painting, etc. In the meantime, we’d love to have more visitors! We had our small group study over last night, and we’ll be having our church fellowship group over this Friday for dinner, followed by some friends and their kids on Saturday morning. If that doesn’t indoctrinate the new house, I’m not sure what will!

Housing update

Well, dear readers, a few more days and we will be in our new house! We closed yesterday on the sale of our current house and the purchase of our new house, and we will be moving everything out tomorrow and cleaning things up to hand over the keys on Friday.

There is so much I could say about the process, the people we have dealt with, and the excitement of being in a new place. We already have a list of projects and improvements for which we will be saving our lunch money. We even have our first visitor lined up for this weekend! A friend who is in town from DC for a conference stayed with us last weekend as the last visitor in our old house, and he'll be back this weekend as the first visitor in our new house.

While much of the house will still be in various stages of being unpacked and settled into, one feature will be ready for immediate use and will most likely receive a lot of attention as we relax and take breaks from the all the work in front of us. What is that feature, you ask? The Pool Table!!!

Yes, I feel like a kid in a candy store! Since high school I have dreamed of owning a pool table, and the day my residential college bought a pool table for the commons area was a giant leap for my free time (though a small step backwards for my studies)! Clearly, it is not easy to fit a pool table in to an apartment, or even a house the size of our first home, so I had to bide my time. The dream waited quietly, yearning for the day it could awaken and find enough loose change under the cushions of the sofa to become a reality. This new house, however, has a game room for which we currently have no furniture. This poor room would sit empty and alone but for the fact that the seller of the house had a pool table (a nice one, from all I can tell) up there that he did not want to go to the trouble of moving. End result? Free pool table for the Bredenbergs, and the dream lives! (Commence happy dance!)

Between the table and a treadmill we have been offered by family members, the game room will at least not be totally empty.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I'm practical enough to realize that we won't always have the luxury of using that space for the pool table, and at some point as our family grows we will likely turn that into a bedroom or additional usable living area. For now, however, I'll bask in the warm glow from the neon beer signs and the velvet artwork involving dogs playing poker and enjoy my pool table.

Ok, ok, there are not and will never be neon signs or velvet art in there, but you get the idea. One thing that might show up at some point is one of these. Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?

What, you’re still here?

So I think that with this last 2-month silence on our site, most of our readers have probably headed for greener pastures. I may be writing this for my own benefit…

But if anyone is reading this, know that we have lots of stories to tell from the last two months, and that we fully intend to post them and try to get caught up.

In the meantime, I’ll give you a teaser of what has been going on. Yesterday evening, we signed a contract to sell our house! Anyone who has gotten their house on the market and sold it will appreciate the time demands of that kind of effort. I’ll provide more details soon, but we were truly blessed in that we only had four showings in the three days it was on the market before an offer was made and accepted, and three of those four were visits by the party that ended up making the offer! The inspection is happening today, and if all goes well, we’ll be homeless soon. Well, in a manner of speaking… obviously we’re looking for a house to buy…

We’ll miss our first house and all the work we lovingly put into it over the years. It is very gratifying to see it snapped up by someone who loves it and likes the way we painted/decorated/landscaped. Small as our backyard is, we will miss the welcoming environment it became over the years with loving care and our collective green thumb.

It is exciting, though, to go out looking for something bigger to hold our family as it grows. And yes, both Sydney and Peter are growing. We have not found a Pause button anywhere on Peter to keep him infant-sized, and he’s already making great strides in flipping himself over, making noises, reaching for toys to put into his mouth, etc. His lungs are also developing well, as is the temper he graces us with from time to time for seemingly unknown reasons. For the most part, though, he is an easy little guy who loves to smile and who, Amy swears, laughed the other day for the first time.

Meanwhile Sydney is learning and watching everything and wants to have every conversation repeated so she can understand it. She is the most social little girl I have ever seen, and she had a blast directing the painters who came to do some work we didn’t have time to get done before our agreed upon deadline for putting the house on the market. She is still in that rough stage between taking a nap and really being able to make it through the day without one, but since a nap causes her to stay up until 9 or 10 before she can fall asleep, it is the rare day that we end up turning her “quiet time” into a nap and dealing with the ramifications.

We are still proceeding with a second adoption for a third little Bredenberg, but at this point the most accurate we can be on the timing is “sometime next year.” Our paperwork has been in China for over a year and a half, but the process has slowed down so much that we’re just waiting and watching to see when a referral might be coming our way.

Well, that’s about all I can say without spoiling some of the individual stories we want to tell here soon. Now that the house preparations and showings are over, we hope to have a little more time to sit and relax and think about things we’ve been neglecting for a while, so come back soon for more!