MikeZook.com

We're Moving Back To The Northwest!

www.thezookcrew.com

Well it's official...Brenda is blogging (and I will be a co-blogger with her) at our new site www.thezookcrew.com.

This site will be our family site where we will chronicle our journey into full-time missions. Check it out. There are several tabs at the top that you can click on to find out more about what we will be doing in mission.

Also for those of you that have this blog linked under "Mike & Brenda," you may want to change the link to be www.thezookcrew.com. This one really is my own rantings and if you keep me as a seperate link then I would suggest that you link to www.mikezook.com since I may change host sites some day and I can take www.mikezook.com with me.

What A Woman!

Brenda insisted that I let her shovel the driveway this morning since she wasn't going to the gym to work out. She did a great job huh? Almost finished. (click on each picture to enlarge)

Then all of a sudden, along came her knight in a shinning chevy to her rescue...and cut her work out short. They wouldn't accept money but did take a couple of cokes! (Check out Davey's reaction from acorss the street)

Merry Christmas from the Zook's

New Orleans

Heading down to New Orleans for the week. After traveling every week for the last two months I am looking forward to getting away with my family and resting, serving, eating some cajun food and hanging out with Mike and Chad and their familys! Oh by the way, we're driving.....14 hours.....leaving tomorrow morning at 5:00am!

Locks of Love???

Setting: Friday night family dinner. Sitting at the table.

Makenna: "Daddy, I want to cut my hair and give to Locks Of Love so they can make it into hair for someone else"

Daddy: "Really??? Why do you want to do that?"

Makenna: "Remember when we went to breakfast the other day?"

Daddy: "Yeah."

Makenna: "Well, we saw that girl with no hair and you told me that she was probably sick and her medicine made her lose her hair."

Daddy: "Yeah."

Makenna: "Well, she needs hair."

Daddy: "Wow! What made you decide this?"

Devin: "Because she is a Christ follower and God is calling her to do it!"

I think they are starting to get it! By the way, she told me tonight that all she needed was at least 10 inches to do it, so she was going to go measure her hair. Now based on her determination here and the fact that Brenda and I absolutely love her heart in this, I'm sure there will be an update sometime in the future.

A few favorite Pics from Vacation

Devin showing off his new Tat - looking studly....

Makenna looking as cute and sweet as ever....

Devin getting up on a wakeboard on his first try....

Gandolf the Grey (Parker) and Frodo (Makenna) ready for the journey to Middle Earth....

Safeco Field - Home of the Seattle Mariners. Currently 4 games behind the Angels in the American League West. I get to see them play August 11th against the White Sox...

My First Daddy/Daughter Dance

Last night Makenna and I attend our first Daddy/Daughter Dance together! We danced, ate pizza, danced the hokie pokie, ate cookies, did the chicken dance, did a craft together, danced some more, did another craft (sugar stick), danced some more and laughed a lot together. She was so much fun to be with! 

A lot of girls didn't want to dance with their Dad's, they wanted to dance with their friends while their Dads stood to the side and watched.  Not Makenna. She talked and danced with her friends, but she always wanted to make sure that I didn't get out of here sight. And she always came up to dance with me throughout the whole night.  In her words as we were walking out to the car together, holding hands, "Daddy, that was so much fun! That was the best day of my life!" I looked at her and smiled and and said, "Me too honey, me too!"

Click Here for more photos....

A Moment of Dying

I picked my kids up at a birthday party yesterday.  It was at one of those pizza/video game “fun” places.  You know the kind where you get tickets out of a video game for playing (It’s a clever way to feed our addiction to want more).  Anyway, I was helping my daughter pick out a toy with her 220 tickets when my son walked up and said, “Here Makenna, I spent all my tickets on you.”  He then handed her a cute little pink purse that had a couple of purple, star shaped erasers, a gold ring and a blue Chinese finger cuff.  She took this gift and stared at it with amazement and disbelief.  She finally said, “Thank you.”  “You’re welcome,” Devin said with a smile. And with that, he turned and walked away to play with his friends.  Makenna stood there for several moments just looking at this unexpected gift that was just offered to her, with love, no strings attached. After several moments of contemplating how to respond, she looked up at me and said, “Daddy, I want to spend all my tickets on Devin.”  I smiled and said, “I think that’s a great idea honey.”  So we spent the next few minutes picking out a few items so she could love Devin the way he loved her.

Although I witnessed this unselfish act between my children, I couldn't help but be reminded of our human depravity toward narcissism this morning when I read a poem by literary critic C.S. Lewis:

            All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

            I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

            I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;

            I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

          

            Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

            I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;

            I talk of love – a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek –

            But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

The selflessness my children displayed did not come from their nature or from clever parenting on my part!  It came from Jesus Christ, who was permitted to be alive in them at that moment.  First in my son’s heart and then in my daughter’s.  You know, there is something beautiful about dying to our corrupt nature and allowing Christ’s love to live during those moments in us.

By the way, my kid’s behavior turned to self-interest about whose gifts from Christmas were whose, as soon as we got home. We need to be on-foot; in battle to war against our nature.  It reminds me of the dodo passage in Romans, Chapter 7 verses 15-25.