Happy New Year to everyone. We are so excited to launch our brand new logo and webpage today on 1/1/11 at 1pm. Want to have a look? You can check it out here. I hope that everyone has made time to reflect on years past and dream towards the future. Here is to good times in sharing hope for 2011! I would love to hear what your dreaming for 2011 if you care to share.

What an emotional weekend we just came off of. We had our New Rhythm Christmas Party, we celebrated our last Sunday at Georgetown, and we had a birthday/open house party on Sunday afternoon. It was a lot of fun but a lot of emotions as well. Shelly and I have been reflecting on the past year and we are filled with great hope for what is to come. It has been a tough year for sure but where there is pain there is gain so we wouldn't trade it for anything. As the proverb reads, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." We'll share updates really soon on where we will be focusing our energies for 2011. For now, enjoy your holiday and focus on some R & R!

We are gearing up for New Rhythm's first annual Christmas Party. It was a year ago this month that God birthed this vision inside our hearts. Shelly and I gathered up a few of our close friends for a dinner and we did our level best to vocalize this crazy idea about an organization that would travel the world and rescue orphaned and abused children and place them in families. We weren't even sure what it looked like or if it even made sense. We all agreed we would keep it in prayer and hoped to have details and ideas secured for  us to begin to move forward. Well this year we launched New Rhythm Project in August. We have built some great relationships and developed critical partnerships. In just five months we are in the process of three adoptions from Haiti, we have partnered with BestKids of DC to facilitate mentors for DC Foster kids, we are recruiting a number of Fosters Families through small groups and mini forums, and we are running a Foster Care & Adoption Initiative with a couple hundred families in just a few weeks. We have been so humbled and honored to walk along side individuals and families as they find their role in defending the cause of the fatherless. We are so blessed and very grateful. So tonight well reflect on God's faithfulness and celebrate the future as we look ahead with great anticipation. In the words of the great Tony Bennett, "The Best is Yet to Come!"

It was two years ago this month when our team sat around a table at the Cheescake Factory and I had an idea. Everyone of us gets tons of Christmas Catalogs that encourage us to buy more things that we don't really need. What if we created a catalog that coincided with our missions projects and people could purchase goods in each area of the globe that we were working with that year. As a result, over $100,000 has been given to missions in just two years. We have just started our third marketplace catalog and I cannot wait to get started purchasing some gifts that really matter to the one who is receiving. Feel free to check it out and see if there is something that perhaps you may want to purchase. It's a great way to gather your friends, family, staff, and other networks too. You can come together and make a huge impact this Christmas from just one click!

Shelly and I will head out to Williamsburg during the last week of December for our family planning retreat. I view this as the backbone of our family. Every decision we make throughout the year depends on whether or not it fits the plan. We go into this with much prayer and anticipation. I For what it's worth to you, we plan and/or set goals in five different areas: Physical, Mental, Financial, & Fun. t has been a great way to track God's faithfulness throughout the year and identify where we are in the journey that we feel like God has called us to. A year ago we wrote down to make a decision whether or not to purchase a home or keep renting. We happened to moved into our new home this summer. A year ago we wrote down to finalize all details, board, mission, vision, branding, & contracts for our non-profit. We are so grateful to have launched in August and the organization is thriving. So as we look in to 2011 our hearts are encouraged and our faith is stretched to believe God to more than we could ever ask for, hope, or imagine. And oh yea, there are those things that happen throughout the year as well that you just can't plan for and God's faithfulness is always there to sustain you. Give it a shot this year. You can do it individually or with your spouse and children. You will be amazed at how much it helps you to stay focused and see God's hand at work in your life.

Have you ever notice how different you feel when reading a book in a stylistic coffeehouse with comfortable chairs and warm colors on the wall than reading a book in your office at your desk? Doesn't it also seem like you can day dream a little longer and more creatively in that coffeehouse or away at a scenic cabin with the fireplace going and the snow falling outside the window with a hot cup of cocoa? What am I saying? Environment is everything. Sometimes you have to step outside of the office to let the neurotransmitters go. A change of environment creates some space for creativity and imagination. I have been dubbed around the office as the "candle guy". For some reason I am so much more productive with the candles lit and the jazz music playing in the background. Try it sometime. Your environment is important to your productivity and creativity. Maybe you need to get out of the office for an offsite brainstorming meeting or reflection time? Maybe you need to add some paint to the walls and maybe some warm feeling decor? Give it a shot, I bet it helps. PS- Christmastime seems like the best time for this. The Christmas decor makes for such a warm environment dripped with imagination.

Thanks for your prayers. I am back in the office this week. We are full steam ahead in end of the year evaluations and new year planning. Some very cool opportunities are waiting for us on the horizon. I am not at liberty to share at this time but certainly will as time permits. I am healing well and should be 100% by Christmas hopefully. Thanks so much for your continued prayers and support. Keynote: seek the Lord, not opportunity. Opportunity inevitably comes after one has sought the Lord!