Off-Roading on Isaiah's Birthday!

Isaiah turned 2 on Tuesday and to celebrate Ramin and our good friend Ben Huntoon took Isaiah and John (Ben's son) off-roading in the FJ Cruiser.  The boys thought it was the coolest thing to be going on an adventure with their Daddies. I loved watching Isaiah treasure time with Ramin. It's amazing to me how essential the father/son relationship is even at 2 years old. Here are some fun pictures of their time together. 

Ben scrambled up the cliff to take this picture of Ramin and the boys winding around the Switzerland trail. 

The FJ in it's natural habitat :)

Our sweet 2 year old hiking. Ramin said that the whole time Isaiah was saying things like, "you can do it Sonny," "good job Sonny." There's nothing like a good old personal pep talk.

Isaiah heading toward their "snack spot." They were going to build a fire and grill hot dogs, but there was a fire ban.

Ramin, Isaiah and John hiking along on their big adventure.

Ramin and the boys looking cool in the wilderness with their 4 wheel drive :)

Unity is Beautiful!

I usually take most of our blog space to fill you in on Isaiah and all that's happening in his world. I realized the other day, though that a huge part of our current life, I've failed to write about. We planted Roots (our church) a little over 3 years ago and we praise God for His faithfulness to us as a community. We've gone through a lot and have learned so much. Among the things we've learned, one of the greatest is that we're not alone in wanting to bring the Kingdom of God forth in Boulder. We are surrounded by followers of Jesus who desire the same thing and as God has brought that reality into full view, something beautiful has happened. Our church community has merged with 2 others in town to form what we're calling this summer, 'The Collective.' Ramin, Brad Riley and Keenan Thompkins (the pastors of the other communities) started to experience a kindredness with each other about a year ago that lead them to start dreaming about what it would look like to partner deeply with one another. As they walked forward asking those questions God revealed that our partnership would be taken to it's fullest potential and that we would serve the city we love best as one unified body. As we were navigating what togetherness would look like we did a lot of servanthood projects together and worshiped together often, but our official togetherness began at the beginning of July. The whole process has been incredibly exciting for all of us and we're full of anticipation at what God will do as we walk this road together. The website is still entitled www.originscommunity.com because we haven't decided on a name yet to take the current website's url. The content, though is reflective of our 3 communities now together.