I am working on a new family website to keep everyone updated on our family and Ministry. Check Back Soon! It’s going to be good. =)

Love, Hope, Joy…and its all ours because God sent his son Jesus to this earth. He was born for us, He died for us, and He rose for us. This has been a fun Christmas to see Caleb begin to understand that Christmas=FUN! Today Lindsay was taking Caleb to the store to get ingredients for sugar cookies. Lindsay said to Caleb, “we are going to make cookies for Papa, mommy and Caleb”. Caleb followed that up with, “Make cookies for Santa”. Lindsay was kind of puzzled because we have not been putting too much emphasis on Santa. in fact I think we have mentioned Santa to Caleb on only one or two occasions. Caleb continued by saying, “Santa likes cookies, too!” The world is telling us and our children to put Santa at the center for this holiday. Santa is not the one bringing love, hope, joy and peace. I would trade all my presents for those gifts! Wouldn’t you? Merry Christmas to all of you. Thanks for keeping up with us. God is good. Here is a picture of Lindsay and Caleb making cookies a year ago.

From a man who was and still is after all these years respected by many of our leaders, republicans and democrats alike.

Billy Graham’s Prayer For Our Nation

‘Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.  We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’  but that is exactly what we have done.  We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.  We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.  We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.  We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.  We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.  We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.  Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!’

As Christians it is our God given responsibility to come together and pray for our nation and it’s leaders. Let us cling to our Bibles and pray that God would heal a nation that is so broken and needs Him desperately.

11 Strength of My Heart.mp3
Song from the album “Praise The Living God” - Grace EV Free Church

1 Timothy 2-4
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

October 13th 2002. Eugene, Oregon. Man how time flies. Six years ago I was standing….anxiously waiting for my bride to walk down the isle and become my wife. I met Lindsay at Biola during my 5th year. My roommate was always trying to point out the perfect girl for me. One day he pointed out Lindsay. This cute blond always walking around with a smile on her face. I took notice. Our paths did not cross too much, I was busy playing baseball and working on my Senior Art Show while Lindsay was putting in mad hours in the music building preparing for her Jr. Recital. I knew I had to make a move, so one day I saw Lindsay sitting at a table all by herself. We had never met but I felt pulled to go talk to her. So that’s what I did. As I turned to walk in her direction I could literally feel my heart drop into the pit of my stomach. I knew that I couldn’t turn back now. She could feel me coming. From there everything seemed to be a blur. I remember wearing her out with a ton of questions. From that point on life seemed to be going a hundred miles an hour for both of us. I attended her Jr. Recital, she attended my Senior Art Show, but other than that we did not really connect too much the rest of the year.

It wasn’t until the next fall that we both happened to attend a Biola volleyball game. Lindsay made the move this time. She came up and said hi and even grabbed my hand, that was enough for me to ask her on a first date.  So there you have it. It did not take long for Lindsay and I to figure out that we needed to be together. It was only about four months later that I asked her to marry me. It was either leave for the baseball season with thing up in the air or make sure I had her with a ring on her finger. It wasn’t a difficult decision.

Fast forward 6 years. Life is good. God is good. We have made some great memories together. We have made a cute baby. We love eachother so much, but we know that our love for one another is not good enough. We have both failed eachother, time and time again, but we know that because of Christ’s love for us, our love is made perfect for eachother. I love you Linds. Hear is to six more years…and six more years after that…and and 50 more years after that. =)

The second Saturday every month Lindsay and I attend a Bible study at our good friends the Munoz’s house. Usually Caleb gets the royal treatment at Grandmas and Grandpa’s house. The night may include a walk, playing in the sandbox made just for Caleb, and sometimes he gets one of these, and always gets one of these. Going to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s is one of Caleb’s most favorite things to do. Last night Caleb had a different kind of fun. Uncle Sam and Auntie Kristen decided that they wanted to take Caleb out for an evening of spoil me fun in celebrtion of his recent birthday….and that is just what they did. Spoiled him rotten…in a good way =).  From the report it went something like this.  At 4:00 they left for the park, but not just any park…..Heritage Park. I have never been there myself but I hear it is amazing. After that they hit up Chuck-E-Cheese in La Mirada. This was Caleb’s first time, and after playing the games, shooting the ski ball, a belly full of pizza and 37 tokens later it was time to cash in for the big prize. Caleb picked out a dinosaur, but the fun did not stop there. After finishing off the pizza and saying good-bye to Chucky they all walked down for what was the highlight of the night. They hiked over to Albertsons and purchased a good old American past time…Dippin’ Dots. Oh yeah, yet another first for Caleb. We heard all he would say on the ride home was, dots….dots…..dots! They finished off the Dots while watching the Pixar movie “Cars”. What a night. Caleb was out like a light when we got home. It’s great to know that your child is loved so much. It’s fun to have lots of aunts and uncles. Thanks Sam and Kristen for loving Caleb. =)

For another twist on this story click here.

Today I checked my facebook and our youth ministries pastor sent me a link to a new CD our church is releasing. Walt Harrah from Haven back in the day is our music pastor, and he wrote most the songs on the new CD. It’s going to be awesome. Here is the cool part. Lindsay was asked to play her violin as part of a small strings section. You can here a sample of her beautiful sound in this song. Listen close. One of my favorite songs on the CD is this shakin’ song. Well, I just wanted to post this because I am so proud of the awsomeness of my wife and the gift that she has as a violinist. You all know she was the Concert Mistress for 2 years at Biola right?!! I think she sould play more around the house. I love this picture of her and Caleb making music in the living room. Oh by the way…if you want to check out Walt’s website and listen to more of his songs just visit his website, it’s called Seedsower Music. He writes a lot of meaningful stuff with lots of depth. Adios!

P.S. Lindsay finished her fall project. Check back in a day or two and I will post pictures of the final product. It looks totally classy and fallish!

Well I woke up a 5am to head out to the MAI 7th Annual Golf Classic. As I walked out the door I was remembering where I was exactly two years ago. I missed the 5th Annual Golf Classic for a much bigger event. At 5am two years ago I was attempting to help Lindsay through her labor at Whittier Presbyterian hospital. At 8:36am out popped Caleb Matthew Orr. Life would never be the same, life would never be as calm, and life has never been better.  It is amazing how a life can change so fast in just two years. Yesterday Caleb had his first full conversation on the phone, all by himself! Walking around the house just shooting the breeze with Grandma Orr. We were cracking up. To the left is a picture of Caleb I took today. We taught him how to hold down his ring finger so that he could make a number 2 with one hand. He learned how to do it in about 30 seconds. We will be celebrating Calebs birthday this year with a small family party in about two weeks. It’s going to be a Woody birthday party. Grandma and Grandpa Gray will be coming down to celebrate with us. We are excited for that. Well,  I want to end this post with a prayer for Caleb.

Dear Jesus,

I pray that Caleb would grow up to be a man who will strive to serve you and love others. I pray that through Caleb’s most proud moments he would keeps his eyes on you, and in his greatest failures may he understand your loving mercy and forgiveness. Give Lindsay and I wisdom to raise him up in the way of the Lord. God call on his name and tug his heart so that he would ask you to be the savior of his life. Protect him all the days of his life. Lord, surround him with your angels. Amen.

For great pictures of Caleb click here.
For one of his papa’s favorite pictures click here.

Well fall is here and Lindsay is pumped. About a month ago I came home from work and I noticed a few changes around the house. Little pumpkins started popping up out of every corner of our house. Fall leaves started appearing on the mantles, and candles started to be lit. I can bank on it that every fall Lindsay will have a new project inspired by the latest decorating trends featured in magazines like Cottage Living, Martha Stewart, and in this case this magazine. So being the creative that I am Lindsay likes to take advantage of my “skills”, which means I have a new fall project too! I think I have the easy part this time around. My job is to print out these leave templates(click on the link if you want to start your own fall project). Lindsay will take the project from there, whew! What I think she is going to do is trace the patterns onto felt, each one on various fall type colors. I think she picked the fabric up from this store. After cutting out the fabric she will hand stitch some yarn for a more detailed look, then string them together and make some sort of fall garland for our fireplace. Usually I am skeptical at first of these crafty projects but they always turn out pretty classy. My wife has an eye for this type of thing. If she wasn’t such a darn good violin teacher I’m sure she would be a high end interior designer/decorator. Well, I will be sure to post the final product. Stay tuned!

Well, when I did the redesign of benandlindsay.com I stopped blogging. The site wasn’t really set up for that anyway. So here is our new blog! Hope you enjoy the many updates to come on the latest happenings with Ben, Lindsay, and Caleb. Enjoy!