Quick Update

Hello peoples! I'm back as promised...and I'm going to try to give you the thumbnail update (did I use that term properly? Maybe that only applies to pictures...whatever) on the fam. Let's go youngest to oldest: Jesse Daniel Spencer just turned 7! He is the greatest 7 year-old in the history of 7 year-olds (oops! don't tell the other kids) My sister summed Jesse up recently when she said, "isn't it great that he just makes his own sunshine wherever he is?" That is a great picture of our guy. He sings constantly, and when he isn't singing he is talking - to someone or to no one - it doesn't really matter. His interests are lego magazines (like Mom, he'd rather just look at stuff other people have made and dream about having it!), Nintendo games, reading, and sometimes crafts. Mainly, he just likes being with his siblings and doing whatever they are doing.
Jacob is a 6th grader, and in Burleson Texas that means Middle School. He plays the french horn in the beginning band, and has just this week noticed that we have a piano on which he has already taught himself several songs (yea, didn't see that one coming!) He is a part of the Ruben Martin varsity Judo team (has earned an orange belt), and after years and years of making swords out of everything still gets out in the backyard to play ninja/jedi/samuri warrior! The thing I love most about Jacob is that despite being the middle child he has the most compassionate heart which shows up most when he is around little kids. He is a big 11 year old, and will probably man-out pretty large eventually, but I can easily see him working with little people - maybe - trying not to plan his life...just saying...
Carrie, our lovely princess is a freshman at Burleson High, and has broken all the shock-your-parents-with -new-interests records this year. She plays tennis for her P.E., and is in choir & drama. She has just started rehearsing the Spring musical, "Meet Me in St. Louis". She is involved in a church youth group that she LOVES, and has blossomed into a young lady overnight. (yes, I did just say that - I know it was dorky) She really likes having Mom on the same campus to keep her stuff and microwave her lunch periodically.
Joe - the firstborn man-child. What can I say about Joe??? Joe has made us better parents - that's all there is to it. The moment he got his first drumset at 13 he became himself. At first it was "cute" how he tried to play Fall Out Boy and other Pop-style teen music. Then, he wanted to grow his hair out. Then he liked harder music. Then he grew his hair longer. Then the music got more metal. Then he got in a band. Now, three years later his band is doing really well (just about to release an "EP" (???), and has taught us all we needed to know about letting go of stereotypes and subconscious expectations. For that I will always be grateful.
I've run out of time. The next blog will be all about ME!!

N.Y.R. #1: Reconnect

Happy New Year Friends! As the title indicates, I have determined 2009 to be the year of reconnections. It occurred to me recently, as I was lamenting my failure to send out Christmas cards...again, how ridiculous it is that I haven't just started a blogsite for news - duh! So here I am approaching the on-ramp to the blogosphere! I will return later to give a lengthy update on all of us Spencers, but for now I just want to say hello to all of our friends far and wide - we look forward to catching up!

John's thoughts

Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things works. –Robert Farrar Capon

I have had the incredible privilege to walk along side so many amazing people and see many aspects of the Kingdom – it is an ongoing task to separate my home culture from the Gospel of Jesus. Coming back to America and the faith expression I grew up in has too often felt like putting a shoe that a size too small, I can get my foot in but there not enough room. I am deconstructing a lot of assumptions I grew up with and trying move beyond “Americanized evangelicalism”. I am desperately following after Jesus in an attempt to discover what it means to be vitally connected to Jesus. There is a spirituality that we [I] have missed along the way, a spirituality that has Jesus expressing himself through us in an authentic love centered form. To me that is the practical expression of Galatians 2:20.

Love Wins!