Heading to Iowa…missing Chris Tomlin and my wife

Hey friends, I (Andy) am heading to Iowa in just a few short hours to visit my dad, sister, brother-in-law and nephews in State Center. We're heading there to see the first football game of my parents and my sister's alma-mater Marian College in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm going to be missing my favorite worship leader Chris Tomlin playing tomorrow night at Lifelight (Huge Christian music festival here in Sioux Falls – apx. 250,000 visitors over three days). But, it'll be good to get away and to spend some time with my family. I'll also be picking up my old dog Surrey! (The black dog below)

Sara will be hanging at home, making lots of greeting cards and finishing a scrap book for one of her lucky customers. I'll try to post some more pictures of her cards since some of you mentioned you'd like to buy some. She has to hold on to her inventory until October b/c she has a huge trade show on the 19^th and will also be hosting a booth at the Sioux Falls Sidewalk Arts Festival next weekend (Sept 9^th). She'll have Maggie (brown dog) to keep her company. Here's to safe travels, old dogs, great family and productive scrapbooking…

Thoughts from a lonely soul

Maybe it's because I was raised watching Oprah, Dr. Phil, Phil Donahue and Ricky Lake, but I want to talk about how my life is going and I want an audience. I don't want a studio audience with one of those signs that lights up "Applause" when they're supposed to clap. I want trusted friends around me who will listen to my experiences and honestly share theirs as well. I need kindred spirits. Maybe the Book of Acts is like a sitcom, full of unrealistic living that we all just idolize but can never attain without television magic. Maybe the Book of Acts is true. Maybe the early Christians, with their tightly knit Jewish culture still fresh in their minds were able to achieve something that we can't achieve in our church, community. Nobody knows exactly what it looked like but we have an idea.

"All the believers were one in heart and mind." – Acts 4:32. I don't know if that means they were all Democrats or Republicans. I guess that's how some people view Christians today, they all have to love George Bush and believe that Al Gore is as honest about the environment as he was about inventing the internet. To have the same heart though, goes way beyond Donkeys and Elephants, it gets to the core of our purposes. What's our purpose for giving to our church? What's our purpose for owning things? What's our purpose in paying taxes? It is what is in our heart that motivates us to take action. The beautiful part of the early church is that people KNEW what was going on in each other's hearts. Today, we have no idea.

There isn't time in between services and there's no talking out of turn during the jumbo-sized Bible Study classes/lectures to actually converse. The service is just that, something to do. Maybe the Sunday service is just supposed to be something you attend, but what of the rest of our energy? What do we do with the rest of our resources? (I'm talking about our prayers, our people and our possessions). I say we agree that we're supposed to have the same heart of Christ and then we decide what to do with those resources. It seems like our plan instead is, "What's been done before?" "What got us to where we are today?" The problem with that thinking is that the world is always changing. My father's generation doesn't trust psychology and expected to work for one company their whole life. My generation is overmedicated from too many Dr.'s visits and we change jobs every 3.2 years. My generation is transient, mobile and ready to pick up our roots. We don't need a building, we need a Church. A catholic (notice the small "c") church, one that is truly universal.

Do you know that Christian leaders actually criticized Rick Warren and some other pastors for focusing too much on the AIDS situation in Africa? They actually argued the point that some people were caring too much about people dying from a preventable disease that has left a generation of children orphaned! They said that the focus on AIDS took away from more important issues like salvation. OK, well then how about the critics go over to Africa and try to get kids who are 8 years old and are running their homes to listen to them talk about Jesus? Or maybe we could feed those kids first and toss in a little medication that could prevent the spread of AIDS and THEN talk about Jesus. It is truly disheartening to see how far we are from all the believers being of one heart and mind. We cannot expect people who's needs are not being met to be good listeners. An empty grumbling stomach is always louder than any other noise.

I am so sad and so tired of wanting and of needing a safe place to worship, fellowship and serve and coming up with pink walls, polite greetings, dressed up souls that weep under their Sunday's best and an expectation that church is the Church. I know I need the Church and I that I am the Church. I want to be a part of the solution, not one of the crabby, "I've got it all figured out" whiners who spend all of their energy complaining. I want to help. I want a voice. I want us to reach out people who are too afraid or angry to walk through the doors of a building that says church on the outside of it. I want to connect the people inside of the building with each other because when we love one another the world knows that we are followers of Christ. Our Leader said this, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." – John 3:34,35 He didn't say have another Bible study, give another sermon and make sure your kids go through confirmation. He said "Love one another." Why aren't we doing more of that and less of the stuff that keeps us busy while we're in our church building? What if we did less good things so we could do fewer but greater things? The greatest thing we can do is show people that we love Him, and we do that by loving one another. God, help me figure out how and where to do that. I feel very lost.

Recuperating...kinda

They put in an IV, I remember talking for about 2 minutes and I woke up an hour and half later with two less teeth. They were two extra teeth so that made it worth it. My recuperation has been awesome, with Sara hanging out with me almost all the time while I eat/slurp soup, yogurt and apple sauce. This is the life!

Sara's been working hard makings lots of cards. She has a goal of making 30 a day for the next 60 days so she's ready for her big trade show in October. She's gonna do great! She has a few scrapbook jobs lined up as well before her sidewalk arts festival booth in September.

Sara is so gifted at her scrap booking and card making. You can scroll down on this page so see pictures of her work. Have a wonderful day!

Andy, Sara and baby to be named

Getting Settled at Home

Coming Home and Cleaning Up!

Sara and I have been home for a few days from camp and have had a great time getting settled. We've spent a lot of time together and that's been a great change from camp where I had to work about 15 hours a day (loved every minute of it though!). We've spent the first few days home not working (since we worked 18 days straight at camp) at our jobs and more working on our marriage. Since we spend so much time at home we thought we'd go ahead and clean up our clutter a bit. Yes, that's an uncluttered desk...for now.


Sara's Showing!

Sara is officially showing now and here's a picture to prove it. She also wanted me to remind anyone viewing this picture that she ate a large piece of lasagna before the picture was taken:) She's in our fourth month and is feeling well, other than the daily naps and occasional headache.



Major Furniture Sale

There's a furniture store here in town that we like to go browse at...but never buy anything there...until now! We bought the piece of furniture for our front entryway that we can store all of our shoes in as well as hang all of our jackets and hats. We got it for about 60% off so we were pretty pumped about that deal. We also bought a small recliner for Sara to rock the baby in. It's small so it'll fit in our baby room pretty well since it's not any bigger than our bedroom.




Sara's Upcoming Arts Festival

Sara's going to be showing off her card-making skills at the Sioux Falls Sidewalk Arts Festival(Click link for more information). She's going to be sharing a booth with her friend Sara Rasmussen, who is a very gifted artist herself! Please stop by the arts festival on Saturday September 8th anytime between 9am and 5pm!




Transitioning Out of Young Life

I'll be done working for Young Life at the end of the month and will be working on getting things ready to hand off to our committee as they work on who is going to run the area next. We're still working out how much we're going to be involved in the next year as we start a family and I start my new career but at the very lease we'll most certainly be following up with kids that we went to camp with this summer as well as kids that didn't go to camp but are still keeping in touch with us throughout the summer. Their school year starts Monday morning!


New Job, Here I Come

I start with Thrivent Financial on September 1st and am really, really excited about my new career! I get to help people make great choices with their finances and give them peace of mind through the products I'll be able to sell to members. I'll be working with a friend named Bryon Meyer and he's really good at his job and I'm so excited to learn from him and the other people at Thrivent. I truly believe this is a great fit for my gifts and passions and am looking forward to helping friends, family and strangers find peace and growth in their finances.

We love you,

Andy, Sara & Baby to be named Traub

Coming home soon

Dear friends,
It's been a wonderful 17 days here in Minnesota. Sara and I have made many new friends and we've both been working hard at our jobs. Sara's been frustrated that she has to take a few naps a day b/c of the baby, but she's come to realize that right now nothing is more important than for her to take care of herself and through that our child.

I'll post a few pictures of my characters that I've been playing (Dale Dowinski, Kickflip the skateboarder, Mr. Safety and Skip Holiday the game show host). I hope to post some of the video we took to YouTube as well so you can watch some of our performances. Young Life camp is an amazing operation and b/c of that we've been working very hard and had little time to update our page. Now that we're heading home and taking a few days off and then transitioning to a new job for me (Andy) I'm sure we'll have more news to share with you.

Please pray for safe travel for us home to Sioux Falls tomorrow and we'll post some updates in the next few days.

Take care and drop us a note if you'd like!

- Andy, Sara & Unborn Baby Traub

Where we live!

Here's some pictures of where we live (the one with the large porch) as well as the Adult Guest Lodge here at Castaway Club in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. We'll keep you posted. Feel free to leave us a message!
- Andy, Sara and baby to be named Traub

Here are a few pictures from a meal here at Castaway. We've got one week of Young Life behind us and we're on to WyldLife so we'll keep you posted on this week's progress. We'll have more time to update you so stay tuned!!
- Andy & Sara & Baby to be born Traub