Our Growing Family 👶

This month has been quite crazy, and yet, not much has been done in TFC land. Just, ya know, two mission trips, a staff retreat to work on our plans for the next year, and a whole lot of TFC camp planning! We just made part of the rules video, and I've been working on my seminar for camp too. But most of this month has been spent celebrating the incredible new addition to our family! Welcome Titus Lawrence Cochrun! We are calling him Ty, and boy has he been fun and tiring!

And that's the thing with this job, it's a lot of the same thing as raising kids and having a family. There are a lot of very exhausting things that happen all the time. Just the last few nights, at some point, I've had to get up and grab Ty and rock him back to sleep. And on occasion, I've fallen asleep in the rocking chair trying to get him to sleep! Then there are those moments that just exhaust you mentally. Like when Luke, who is quite potty-trained, can't quite make it to the toilet in time. Every. Single. Morning. It's become a bit of a routine too! Or when Luke thinks it's time to wake up in the morning and it isn't… I tell him he's supposed to wait until the fan turns off in his room. But he decides he'll just turn it off himself! "My fan is off!" "No, I meant that you have to wait for it to shut off on its own!" The goofy kids are exhausting.

And yet, these are also days filled with such sweet moments too! Like how at every meal when we ask the kids to share their memory verses, Josiah can say from memory more verses than most adults I know! Or how Luke comes running to me and gives me a giant hug when I get home in the evening. Or when he's just about asleep, Ty will occasionally grace us with the cutest smiles!

And that's what we've been doing. Shaping a few young boys into men of God, one moment at a time. To be honest, it's a job harder than TFC. Raising children of any age is an extremely difficult thing. And I am sure no one really knows how difficult it is until you're doing it and thinking you've just ruined your life by inviting chaos into your home. But also one that is even more fulfilling. Watching children go from knowing NOTHING, to being young men and women who love Jesus and show Him to others is the most incredible gift and one that God wants for all parents.

Scripture is clear about the role of a parent. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." It's one of those little verses that promises something but isn't clear on what to actually train the child in or how to do that, just that it should be done. And so begins the great mystery of parenthood. I do my best to train my child, to teach them about Jesus, to bring them to church, and to include them in as many Jesus opportunities as possible so that they know Him well. And yet sometimes they stray.

So where does that leave us? Well, for Abbie and me, that means every day doing what we can to teach our boys to love Jesus. Reading to them about Jesus, teaching them why certain things are sinful and certain things aren't, and helping them to know and love Him. In the evening, we've been reading through a picture Bible that tells the story very well. One of my favorite things about it is that it tells the story quickly and straight to the point, but it doesn't leave anything out. When Jesus dies, it makes it clear that it was a punishment for our sin. It's our prayer that we can help our boys know that Jesus loves them so much and that our house serves Him, not because "that's just what we do", but because Jesus is incredible and He chose us and loved us first. That's why we do it.

It's an eerily similar story for teens in our ministry. TFC's whole goal is to change the world from the heart of America by providing disciple-making opportunities that serve communities where student ministries are limited. And we do that by connecting teens with the truth of Jesus Christ…teaching and equipping them to live out the Great Commission. It's our heartbeat to make disciples, and for Abbie and I, that means our children as well. And it's a perfect every-day practice to be able to do that better with teenagers as well.

Camp is coming fast! As I'm printing this off, we are only one week out from needing to go up there and set everything up for two full weeks of camp! That's crazy! We have lost a week from normal because of how schools around here are starting earlier, so please pray we have the time to get everything ready!

In other news, we are still looking for some food items!

• Ground Beef - 85 pounds
• Ground Sausage - 50 pounds Bacon - 40 pounds
• Boneless Chicken Breast - 80 pounds
• Spaghetti - 28 pounds
• Macaroni - 28 pounds
• Rotini - 28 pounds
• Brownie Mixes Cookies/Brownies/Rice Krispy Treats

And finally, I am still looking for two more donations for camp scholarships! If you are able, send $100 to help send a NV kid to camp!

June was full of so much Ty, Luke, and Josiah! We had much fun with these boys and so to celebrate, from fireworks this week all the way back to June 5th when Ty was born, take a look at our cute boys!