Part Time Planting

Hello, friends!

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, I had the pleasure of gathering together with 9 other staff from around the Region (Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri) to do some training and workshopping about part time planting, which is what I'm going to be doing at Lincoln this year.

Part time planting is in some ways a new concept but in many ways it is an old concept too, one that has unfortunately been forgotten over time. Our hope in this team is to be able to recapture the magic and find best practices for a new generation of part time planters in the 21st century. Much of what we're going to do and try isn't new (it's happening with great success in many other parts of the world) but it's new to us and to our context.

The full time planting model that we are used to implimenting is one that I was taught and have embraced for years. The name of the game is total immersion. You spend as much time as you possibly can on campus, in that community, building relationships and casting vision for the group. In my case with ACF, it meant moving to Columbia. For others, it can be moving even further or just changing your commute. Either way, it's a method that is high investment and definitely has its strengths. I'm so glad that I was a full time planter for ACF and I wouldn't change that experience for the world.

On the other hand, part time planting focuses on People of Peace, folk who are ALREADY invested in the community, who ALREADY have a vision for the campus, and who just need a little empowerment or coaching to get things done. What I love about this model is that it allows for students, staff, faculty, people in the community, and the like to take on a majority of the load for a group of people with whom relational trust is already built. Another thing I love is that it allows for a greater reach by the staff. Instead of spending 40/week on one campus, I can plant of 3-4 campuses simultaneously, increasing the scope and influence of InterVarsity and the Gospel.

This idea is hardly novel. In Ethiopia, our sister movement EVASUE has a  student to staff ratio is 1000:1, compared to the 35:1 ratio we have here in the US. Back in the day, when InterVarsity first came to the United states, there were 8 staff covering 90 campuses. Somewhere along the way, we changed our model. Some of the change has been good but some of it has led us to miss a lot of campuses that are right in our neighborhoods.

Ultimately, I'm really excited about this team and this experiment. It is going to require a lot more intentionality and a lot more dependence on Jesus to do the work that needs to be done but I am confident that he is willing and able. My role is going to be less "centerpiece" and more facilitator, which will be different for me but something that I think I am looking forward to.

Friends, please pray for me as I embark on this new journey. Pray not only for fruit at Lincoln in limited time but also for peace as I plant and for eyes to see where he is moving. This is an experiment that we are hoping will go national in a few years so please, also pray for eyes to see what is happening from a structural level and words to describe my experiences clearly.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

The Baby SuperBlog!

Hello, friends!

In case you haven't heard, Ezra Adam Leong was born on July 5, 2015. I've taken the past 2 weeks off to enjoy being a father and hanging out with the little guy. I knew that I wanted to blog about my new experiences but there are so many new and exciting experiences that I knew I couldn't get it all done in one shot.

So, here's to another SuperBlog! Much like my Cambodia blog from last year, this is the homepage of sorts. Below, you'll find a bunch of blogs on a bunch of different topics related to the miracle that is Ezra (RaRa). I hope you enjoy!

Have an excellent day!

~Adam (and Megan and Ezra)

My wife the rock star
What's in a name?
On Family
Saying Goodbye
Things you can do while holding a baby
Useless Training
Back to Work
Things I've Learned

What's in a Name?

Hello, friends!

One of the things that has surprised me the most about the response that we've gotten to Ezra is how many people compliment our choice of name. I'm sure that no one would say, "Man, that name is terrible!" to our faces, but folk have been genuinely excited to hear him called Ezra. I figure now's a good of a time as any to go through the naming story.

When we were first trying to have a baby, Megan was hanging out with Jesus one day and was in the book of Ezra. I'm not sure of all the details but she heard very clearly that we were going to have a baby boy. Mind you, this was when we didn't know that she was pregnant yet. When we found out that she was pregnant, we looked at the calendar and realized that she got pregnant right around the same time that she heard from Jesus that we were having a boy. When we found out at 20 weeks that we were in fact having a boy, that made things even cooler.

However, Ezra was not a lock for the name. We had a whole list of names that we considered. I liked some that she didn't. She liked some that I didn't. We knew that we wanted a name that would strike a good balance between sounding good, having good significance, and not been TOO common. Eventually, we decided that we would have our top 3 names and make a decision once he was born. We did this for 2 reasons. 1) This gave us more time to pray through the names and 2) it allowed us to honestly tell people that we didn't have a name yet when everyone asked. We wanted him to be the first person to hear his name.

After he was born, both Megan and I knew that Ezra was his name. It couldn't be anything else. We're holding onto the other top 2 options in case we have more boys but this little guy is Ezra. =0).

Of course, he wouldn't be my son without a kicking nickname. In fact, one of the reasons that Ezra stayed in the top 3 for me for so long was because I liked the nickname possibilities. Without further ado, I present to you a current list of nicknames for Ezra Adam Leong.

Ezi - This is what his mother will be calling him. It's simple and it makes sense. I anticipate this being the most popular of the nicknames.

RaRa - This is what his father will be calling him. I wanted something a little unique. Also, I love how every time you say it, it sounds like you're cheering for him.

Little E - This is what his grandfather (Papa John Leong) will be calling him. My nephew's name is Elliot so Papa has decided that Ezra will be Little E and Elliot will be Big E.

Brother Ez - This is what his other grandfather will be calling him. It's a play on words from Brother Iz, who's the guy who sang that version of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" that everyone likes.

AJ - This is what my younger sister has been calling him. I've been told it stands for "Adam Junior" because he looks so much like me.

Ez - This is what a few folk with the name Ezra guess he'll be called because that's what they're called. Again, it's simple and makes sense. I prefer Ezi myself.

Eazy E - Also acceptable would be Dr. Dre or Ice Cube. (Just kidding… sort of)

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Useless Training...

Hello friends!

One of the things I heard over and over from folk once we told folk that we were having a baby was that I needed to get as much sleep as I could now because once the kid was born, I was going to miss all that sleep. My thought was to actually move in the opposite direction. I figured, if I spent time during Meg's pregnancy getting LESS sleep, I'd be better prepared and less affected by the lack of sleep that came once RaRa was born. Well, here's how that went…

From my research on the internet, there were two themes that emerged. One, in order to learn to function on less sleep than normal, the best method was to set a normal sleep time and a normal wake time that never changed. The theory is that no eventually the body would get used to the new rhythm and would regulate itself. Well, looking at my calendar, if I wanted to set my alarm for the same time every morning, it meant that I had to look at the earliest I would have to get up on any given day and resolve to get up at that time every single day. Looking at my calendar, that meant getting up @ 5am every morning to make it to my 6am men's small group on Tuesdays… oy.

Getting up at 5am every morning was hard and I didn't succeed every morning but there was one added benefit. Most days I didn't have something to do right away so I got to fish more. =0).

The second theme that emerged from my internet queries was that while it is possible to function on less sleep, it's not a smart proposition. I think I saw this as well. I didn't get deathly ill or anything like that. I didn't end up with more migraines or a weaker immune system. But, I could tell that I was more tired and that my body was struggling. I was surviving on less sleep but I wasn't thriving. Still, in my mind, if it made me a better father, then it was worth it.

Well, fast forward to RaRa being born and here's what I've learned… all my training was pretty useless. It isn't so much that I needed to learn to function on less sleep. Actually, what I needed to do was learn to function on shorter spurts of sleep. RaRa has been feeding every 2-5 hours. Those first few weeks, I was up with Megan to help her with the feedings, which means that I was up every 2-5 hours. It's actually possible to get 8-10 hours of sleep in a day. You just have to be prepared for it to come in 3-4 sleep sessions, which was not part of my training.

So, here we are. I'm still glad that I tried the experiment, if for no other reason than because I got to fish more. Still, as a word of warning to all those soon to be fathers out there: don't try to game the system. When people to tell you to get as much sleep as possible before your baby is born, take them up on it.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Things I've learned...

Hello, friends!

I've been on this earth for over 30 years and so I've learned a thing or two in my day. Still, fatherhood is a new beast entirely and throughout this process (pregnancy, birth, and being a dad) I've learned more than a few new tidbits. Here are a few of my favorites.

God covered all the bases when he made the human body. So, apparently, when a woman becomes pregnant, HER BODY GROWS AN ORGAN SPECIFICALLY FOR GROWING A BABY. The placenta essentially feeds the baby for 9 months then at birth it exits, only to grow again when another baby comes along. Does anybody else find that fascinating?

Rapidly Involuting Congenital Hemangiomas are nothing to be worried about. When RaRa was born, he had a big purple bump on his left leg. Being a first time dad and medical novice, I was super concerned. Was it a tumor? Would we have to amputate the leg? What event should we start training for in the Paralympics? Well, it turns out that what he has is a Rapidly Involuting Congenital Hemangioma, which means he has a cluster of blood vessels that look like a bruise but will eventually go away and may leave a little birthmark. Again, God covered all the bases when he made the human body.

Eating is not intuitive. For someone who loves to eat, and I mean, I LOVE to eat, it boggles my mind that eating doesn't just automatically happen. Well, babies need to learn to eat, and that includes RaRa. He's already gotten so much better but at the beginning, we had to feed him every 3 hours so that he'd learn to eat and that Megan's milk would come it. The process itself, waking him, calming him because he was mad that we woke him, changing his diaper because when he got mad he wet himself, then getting him to actually eat, took an hour or more, so it was definitely a process. Don't worry folk, he's growing like crazy. =0).

Fatherhood is the best. Y'all, it's pretty ridiculous how great fatherhood. RaRa doesn't really do anything yet. He sleeps, eats, and poops. He hasn't learned to smile or anything like that. Still, I could spend hours upon hours just staring at him. Every move he makes is amazing. This is pretty much the greatest thing ever.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

My Wife the Rock Star...

Hello, friends!

Ezra was born July 5 but his due day was July 3, so he was a few days overdue. By the end of the pregnancy, both Megan and I were definitely ready to meet the little guy. Alas, these things take time. Let me give you a blow by blow of what went down on July 5.

12:30am - Megan begins having contractions. I'm definitely asleep.
1:00am - Megan wakes me up to tell me that she's having contractions. We begin going through them together.
3:00am - Megan tells me that she'd rather have me awake and alert later so I should sleep now. I'm far too tired to protest.
6:00am - I'm awake again and we begin the home labor process. This includes a few walks, lots of counter pressure, a bath, and more than one breating exercise.
2:00pm - We decide to go to the hospital. We wanted to do as much from home as possible so the plan was to check in, see how things are progressing, and leave if things weren't going anywhere.
2:30pm - Arrive at the hospital and check in.
3:30pm - We decide that things have progressed enough that we're going to stay. I text all the family members and let them know that it's going down.
4:00pm - We move down to the labor floor at the hospital and labor begins in earnest. This means lots more breathing, a bunch of heat packs, a few walks up and down the hosptal halls, and a lot more counterpressue to combat the back labor.
7:00pm - Women's world cup final starts. I have no problem admitting that I watched the first half while helping Megan through labor. Don't worry, I asked Meg for permission first. =0).
8:00pm - The doctor on call arrives and we move into transitional labor, meaning it's time to start pushing and it's time to have a baby!
8:24pm - Ezra Adam Leong enters the world and we all rejoice.

A few notes:
- The hospital staff was AMAZING! We couldn't have asked for a better nurse or experience. They took our birth plan to heart and were nothing but supportive of us. It was a really great and relatively stress free experience. I was prepared to fight to stick to our birth plan but they were 100% supportive.

- I think one of the reasons they were so supportive was because we were going for a 100% natural birth. There was going to be no epidural. We weren't going to induce labor and we were going to wait as long as possible for the water to break on its own. Apparently only about 5% of the labors at our hospital are done naturally so I think the staff was excited to see if we could do it.

- My wife is an absolute rock star. 20 hours of labor on only 1 hour of sleep without any medications or interventions is nothing short of a miracle. I loved being with her every step of the way. She said I did a good job coaching her, so that's nice too. =0).

- Coaching labor is hard work! The hardest part was definitely the counterpressure, pushing on her hips during a contraction, at least from a physical standpoint. My arms were definitely sore by the end of it. Of course, I'm not complaining, compared to what Megan went through, but still, it was more of a workout than I thought it would be.

- Jesus was with us every step of the way. During contractions, Megan kept reciting Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Every part of our process had the peace and strength of God in it. We were blessed by a great team, a great labor, and a great little boy. Praise Jesus!

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

Back to Work!

Hello, friends!

So, I'm writing on the blog, which means I'm back at work! I took 2 weeks off so I could get to know Rara and help Megan with all the stuff that needed help. It was an amazing 2 weeks and I'm bummed to go back. Here are a few thoughts on getting back into the grind.

Taking off time really puts you behind! Over the course of 2 weeks, I accumulated over 200 emails. Most of them didn't need to be answered but it was definitely a little overwhelming to check my inbox Tuesday morning and see a big fat stack of unread emails.

Not working wasn't all that hard. As a workaholic, I was certain that it was going to be nearly impossible for me to not think about work. When added to all the different projects that I'm working on, things are looking bleak. In actuality, it was easier than expected. All I did was turn off auto-sync on my email for my phone and it was definitely "out of sight, out of mind." Of course, it didn't hurt that I pretty much wanted to spend every second with my new son.

There is but there isn't a lot to do the first weeks of a baby's life. On the one hand, the first few weeks of parenthood have been intense. Between feeding, changing, and rocking to sleep, there are times during the day when there's a TON to do. But then again, babies sleep a lot too. I'm not complaining about it, and Rara definitely knows how to sleep, it's just interesting to me that there's a little more downtime than I had anticipated.

Going back is hard but also great. I've actually enjoyed the past few days of work. It's good to get back into the swing of things. I've enjoyed catching up on projects and preparing for the year ahead. It's good that apparently I still enjoy my job. =0).

Once the school year starts, things will be significantly different again. Right now most of my work can be done from home so I can still be around. Once students return to campus though, then we'll really see how I can handle being away from the house for so long.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam