Traveling M.E.

Dear friends who read our musings and fairly irregular updates,

If you have not already heard, I (Tyler) am going to be traveling to the Middle East in just over a week.  I will be gone for a week and a half visiting some close friends of ours, encouraging them and bearing gifts from our church .  I’ll also be strategizing our church partnership in this area and praying about the possibility of my family working in the region.  Though this support letter is a couple of months old (e.g. John Elliot is now 6 months old, not 4!), I wanted to post it and ask for your prayers.  Pray especially for Danielle as she becomes a single mom for a week and a half.  And if you happen to have some spare change lying around, feel free to send it along because we can still use the financial support!

ME Support Letter (Glodjo Update)

~ t

Little John Gets Talkative

I wonder what his first words are going to be…

~ t

Little John’s Happy Dance

We discovered this week that Little John enjoys dancing just as much as his parents.  He may not be able to walk yet, but he still likes to move.  The following is a video I put together to give you a glimpse of his mad dancing skills.  He may not be making it to the club anytime soon, but at least he’s happy!

~ t

Little John’s First Giggles

Parenting gets better each and every day.  I can’t believe how much I am getting to know my son, and even more, how I love him above almost everything in this world.  Each day it seems that John Elliot gives us a new glimpse of the boy he’s going to become, and though most of these moments don’t get caught on video, I sure am glad that we got this one.  God has indeed blessed our family with little John!  Hope you like the video.

~ t

John Elliot’s One Month Update One Month Late

We figured that we should probably blog about our first month as new parents before we finish out our second month!  So if you’ve been waiting, sorry.

John Elliot Glodjo was born on September 15, 2010 at 9:23am.  He weighed in at 7lbs 5oz and was 21in long.  This was of course after Danielle had been in a hospital bed for 25 hours.  She was over a week past her due date, and since insurance was up in a few days, we decided to induce.  We went into this process extremely scared and nervous, initially planning on doing everything naturally, but as you can now see, the Lord pulled us through with a healthy mom and baby boy, and that’s all that matters

We are extremely thankful for the love and support of our family and friends, and our church family at City Fellowship, who continue to really help us adjust to being new parents.  We literally went six weeks without going to the grocery store.  Amazing.

Expect actual reflections on our new roles as parents in the next update.

Here are some of our favorite pictures from John’s birth through his first month:

~ t & d

Baby Boy Glodjo!

Just to update those of you who may not know already, Danielle and I found out that our little one is a boy!  For the past few weeks Danielle has been preparing herself for a boy, and on the morning of the ultrasound I was preparing myself for a girl!  You can probably guess what each one of us was hoping for   Either way we are truly blessed.

As for his name, right now we’re considering John Elliot Glodjo.  We both want to choose a name that has meaning and will also point this child to his savior.  “John” is Danielle’s grandfather’s name, and we would like to honor him for the godly patriarch he is to his family.  “Elliot” is taken from Jim Elliot, the missionary martyr in Ecuador who said “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”.  From this name we are hoping that little Glodjo will become a godly family man who loves nothing more than Christ himself, not even us.  Danielle and I desire for this little one to abandon all things for Christ and preach the gospel to those who have never heard, even if it would eventually cost him his life.  Please pray for us as we seek to be godly parents that will saturate our child with the gospel for his good and God’s glory!

Lastly, here are the ultrasound pics for you to look at:

And this is the one that let's us know it's a boy

~ t

Dear Central Asia, Can We Come Back?

So we’re back from Central Asia.  It was an absolute blessing to be charged with leading a team of college students across the world to serve and encourage missionaries working in a predominantly Muslim nation.  Last year Danielle and I were privileged to lead a team to do urban home repair in Memphis, so how Union University decided we were qualified to go from Memphis to halfway across the world, I don’t know!  But, at least from my limited perspective, the trip was an exhausting success.

Our main priority on this trip was to lead a youth retreat for MKs (missionary kids) in the region.  We developed our own curriculum entitled: Where’s Jesus? Finding Christ In The Old Testament.  We walked through the entire Old Testament looking at how everything points back to Jesus Christ.  Our primary focus was Jesus as King in the creation and fall of man, Jesus as Prophet in the Exodus narrative, and Jesus as Priest on the Day of Atonement.  I had the opportunity to do the first sermon on Christ throughout all of scripture and the last sermon on Christ in the Day of Atonement.  This trip really solidified my passion and calling for preaching the gospel publicly.  I would like to offer you an audio of one of the sermons, but unfortunately, my recorder stopped midway through (at 32 minutes!).  I’m so thankful that God would use our group to encourage and admonish young missionaries, as well as exercise our own spiritual gifts in the process.  I think the entire team was blessed from having experienced this retreat together.

Our second priority on this trip was to be servants and encouragers of the workers already on the field.  This was done by teaching their kids for a week, bringing over 90 lbs of textbooks in our luggage for the school library, and lastly, by bringing 10 bags of luggage back for a family returning to the US in a couple of months.  The phrase the missionaries used to describe us was “International Beasts of Burden”, and we were glad to be an encouragement in that way.  Though however much we were able to serve the workers on the field, they served us in innumerable ways by inviting us into their lives and work, sharing their stories with us, and exemplifying Christ to us in very tangible ways.

Lastly, we couldn’t go to Central Asia without seeing some of the historical sights – such as Ephesus!  The touring was probably the smallest yet most exhausting part of this trip.  We were blessed to walk through the ancient city of Ephesus and see where the Apostle Paul would have lived, preached, and said his farewell to the Ephesian elders (and where he would have most likely used the restroom!).  Upon our return to the big city, we also visited the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and the Grand Bazaar.  It is surreal to walk through a place with such an ancient history.  We are definitely a poorer people for not having such sites in the US.

You may be wondering where all the Muslims are in this story.  Well, we did not have much one on one contact with adherents of Islam since our primary ministry was to the missionaries and their kids.  We were not there to get in the way of ministry already taking place, but to encourage those who have given their lives to such a ministry.  We did, however, meet one Muslim background believer named S*.  She was from a small village, became a believer in Christ, and fled to the big city due to death threats from her own family.  It is culturally strange for a young woman to live by herself in this country (most women remain at home with their families until they are married), but this is just one way that S had to “count the cost” of following Christ.  May her faith be an encouragement to you, and a reminder to pray for her and her walk with Jesus in such a difficult context.

You may also be wondering how my baby mama did throughout all of this.  She was a spectacular servant to the team and wife to me during our 7 days abroad.  The trip itself was extremely exhausting for her (especially the travel and touring) but she persevered through it all, and baby Glodjo is doing just fine!

If you have any questions about this trip or anything I have said, please feel free to ask in the comments and I will do my best to respond in a timely manner.

To conclude, I’ll share a few photos from the trip . . .

The Ancient City of Ephesus

This is the public bathroom of Ephesus. We were hoping to sit where the Apostle Paul would have sat nearly 2,000 years ago!

Our teammate Rob sang Amazing Grace in the Ephesian amphitheatre. The acoustics were amazing!

At the end of this pier is where Paul gave his farewell address to the Ephesian elders.

Our spectacular team. From left to right: Rob, Legon, Nate, Matt, Kate, myself, Danielle, Emma, Kendall, Kara, and Stephanie

My Greek beauty!

You're probably wondering how a guy like this got the girl in that previous pic . . .

All that remains from the Temple of Artemis.

The Blue Mosque

One of my favorite pics of baby Glodjo

The Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom")

~ t

* For security purposes I have chosen not to use this person’s full name.

Introducing Baby Glodjo!

Dear friends and family,

If you have not already heard, we’re expecting a baby in about six months!  This news makes us both overjoyed and fearful at the prospect of becoming parents, but we know that God’s good hand is upon this pregnancy and that his grace will allow us to be successful at whatever he puts in our path.  The last three months have been exciting getting to share the news with our close friends and family.  Tyler has tried to be the good husband going on ice cream, Pop Tart, and Popeye’s runs.  Danielle now has to carry a jar of pickles with her whenever we’ll be on the road for more than 15 minutes.  And dinner time has become monotonous with the themed Mexican weeks – though Tyler did thank God that Danielle was able to stomach Chinese food last week!  We are truly blessed to be able to celebrate the creation and growth of this little life together with so many loving friends and family.  And because of that, we would like to share with you baby Glodjo’s first pictures, so enjoy!

This is baby Glodjo's full-body profile.

Baby Glodjo decided to say "Hi" to the camera. There's still a running bet whether this is a human baby or some sort of extra-terrestrial.

Yay for five fingers!

We cannot explain all the emotions we felt as baby Glodjo was on the screen moving and kicking around.  Our God is truly a good and gracious God!

And in case you’re wondering, we don’t know the gender yet.  Tyler says it’s a boy, but Danielle says girl (though she’s wavering on that now after the ultrasound – but Tyler just says that’s because she can’t imagine a girl looking like ET, but for some reason it’s alright for a boy).  We’ll be able to give you that update in about a month and a half.

~ the glodjos

New Layout!

Hello dear reader or two,

I just wanted to welcome you to the Glodjos’ blog 2.0

Some friends have mentioned that their eyes were strained reading past posts due to the dark background and light font, so I hope this helps making reading easier and more enjoyable.

Now if I can just improve the content . . .

~ t

We’re Back! . . . From The Caribbean, That Is.

If you weren’t aware, the Glodjos took a much needed break from the busyness of life for one week and cruised to the Caribbean via the Carnival Fantasy out of New Orleans.  This vacation came at just the right time as I gear up for one of the busiest seasons at ARM while Danielle prepared to start her first job since college.  Burnout happens quite often in my life, and I’ll probably make that the topic of a future post.  For this post, I just want to give you a visual tour of the relaxing time we had in the middle of the ocean as well as in Progresso and Cozumel, Mexico.

If you’ve never been on a cruise before, I highly recommend it (if you don’t get seasick).  They are probably some of the most economic vacations out there and are truly enjoyable, especially while being separated from phone and internet.  Last week really helped us become rejuvenated and refreshed, and though I would have loved to continue living without adult responsibilities, life’s not a vacation.  So fortunately or (hopefully not) unfortunately for you, the Glodjos are back.

~ t