Dan and Sarah Roeber

I’ve spent some time over the past few years reading John Calvin, or people who follow in his footsteps, like Jonathan Edwards and John Piper. Even though my name isn’t John as well, I think their theology is on the right track. Apparently, I’m not the only one.

I recently had lunch in a hole-in-the-wall barbeque restaurant near the seminary. It’s these of restaurants that either have really bad food or really good food; I think they have the latter. I saw a couple walk in, each carrying their favorite Starbucks’ drink, trying to balance their java and their bar-b-que. This was an odd sight to me at first, but then I thought it to be a good picture of Dallas as a whole: a juggling of two images: one, the distinctive Texan ambiance, and two, the modern trappings of the city. That’s what I like about this city. It’s got the best of both worlds.

What I don’t like, however, is the weather. It’s March, and we’ve already had several days of 80+ degree weather. Of course, we’ve also had temps in the teens a week ago.

I’m on break now, of sorts: we have our World Evangelism Conference this week at DTS, and next week is Spring break (read: catch-up time). I’ve been looking forward to reading and listening to things I am not told I have to read and listen to. I’m going to read about how we amuse ourselves too much; I was sent a link to a speaker talking about how we’re over-mediated. Considering I’ve given up television shows for lent, this seems like a good time for these subjects.

OK, it’s not exactly the “New Year” anymore – I could use the excuse that it’s Chinese New Year, but even that holiday was over two weeks ago. I guess there’s no excuse – I just haven’t been updating. It’s clear that it wasn’t one of my resolutions for 2009. Hopefully this post will get me back into the posting habit.

Sarah and I have been keeping very busy over these past months. We had a nice break over Christmas with Sarah’s family in California, and my parents were able to visit with us in Dallas for a long weekend in January. We are also getting used to a lot of new things: we’re in a new year; I’m still settling in to my “new” job (as of November); I’m in a new semester in DTS; we’ve got a new President; Sarah has taken on some new piano gigs.

You can’t see any news these days without hearing about the stimulus package. Considering my generation (and my kids’ generation) will be paying for it, I feel like I have a vested interest in what’s going on. I don’t feel like I should read the 1,079 page document (Seminary gives me enough reading as it is), the National Review had this to say:

The House and/or Senate stimulus bills would undo the 1996 welfare reforms, explode entitlement spending by a cool quarter trillion dollars, lay the groundwork for the federal government’s takeover of our health care system, double Uncle Sam’s already overbearing role in education, require taxpayers to pick up the bail tab for potentially dangerous felons, allow unemployed Wall Street executives to qualify for Medicaid, and reignite the fires of trade protectionism, thereby risking a global trade war.

Not bad for the first month of unified liberal rule in Washington, eh?

Check out the entire article for more information. I’ve been saddened, though not surprised, to see politics back to normal.  While I don’t agree with President Obama on many things, “choosing hope over fear” is a laudable thing to work for. That being said, President Obama has been in office for less than a month, and he recently made this comment:

[If the stimulus isn't passed,] our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some point we may not be able to reverse… If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four.

So much for hope, huh?

On a brighter note, I want to congratulate my Uncle Matthew and Aunt Julie on reaching the end of the adoption process. Julie recently returned from Ethiopia with their new daughter, Rebecca, who experienced snow for the first time.

Congratulations, Matthew and Julie! Welcome to the family, Rebecca!

We’ve uploaded our Christmas letter – if you’d like a summary of our whirlwind year, you can find it here.

If you want to hear a great arrangement of the 12 days of Christmas, check it out here.  UPDATE: Try this one.
(We just downloaded the group’s new Christmas Album – if you like men’s a capella music, you should too.)

I had forgotten how much “fun” school could be… until the last two weeks.  5 papers, 4 finals, 2 reading reports, and a partridge group project later, I’ve come to the end, save some loose ends on the group project.  I think I’m ready for a break; good thing one’s coming up.  What holiday is it again?  Oh, yeah…

Sarah and I’ve been able to make the best of a student’s schedule.  Sarah enjoyed setting up Christmas decorations in our home (in the US for the first time!), and we took a friend to go see a massive Christmas performance with John Tesh.  No joke, there were more people in this church’s choir than there are in my church’s congregation. 

We head to California on Sunday for some time with family – it’ll be nice to take a break!

I posted this on facebook already, but I enjoyed this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal – I keep up with this guy’s blog as well.  He has an easy writing style about him.

I think it’s time to go sleep now.  Merry Christmas!

I haven’t posted anything in a while – things have been busy. Very busy. The end of the semester at DTS is rapidly approaching, bringing with it many due dates. And said due dates are very close in proximity to each other.

Such busyness has been weighing on me this year. This time of year needs to be a time of reflection. After all, my life has been radically altered by what happened some 2010 years ago and we mark on December 25^th.

Anyway, I’ve got to keep on working on a research paper. But I thought you might like to know that Jesus was actually born in June (at least the astronomers say so), and even though the economy is going down the tubes, it’s important to have a proper perspective on the whole thing.

Back to the paper writing…