Welcome to Imperfect Disciples! Let’s take a moment to discuss who we are and why we’re here.

Why Imperfect Disciples?

Imperfect: characterized by defects or weaknesses; not perfect; lacking completeness.
Disciple: a student or follower of the teachings of another.

Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Matthew 16:15-16

Peter perfectly embodies the imperfect disciple. He messed up quite a bit! But it didn’t really matter: God was still able to use him to bring about massive growth for the early church. From this verse in Matthew, we see very clearly that he knows who Jesus is and isn’t afraid to say it. Our aim is to be like Peter: we know we’ll make mistakes along the way, but we want to be constantly following in Jesus’ footsteps, and proclaiming his name to the nations. This blog is one of our avenues for sharing what we’re learning and telling others about Jesus.

Our Vision

I guess by explaining our blog name’s meaning, we kinda went into this already, but here it is anyway: We envision this blog as a medium for us to reach the lost with the Gospel message, but that’s not all. We’re here to show people that we’re human, that following Christ doesn’t mean we’re perfect but instead that we’re taking things one step at a time as we seek to be people after God’s own heart. And you guys get to follow us on that journey!

Primarily we’ll be discussing family, stewardship, and loving others. Those are our 3 focuses for this blog that seem to be on our hearts most often.

About Our Family

At some point early in 2016, we started identifying ourselves with fruit, not for any particular reasons, mostly just because our oldest son said so, so you’ll see our fruit names beside each of our real names, and we’ll often refer to ourselves (especially our children) by their fruit names throughout the site.

Joe (Pineapple)

I actually wanted to be a watermelon because watermelons are the biggest fruit I commonly eat, and I’m a pretty big guy, so it’d represent me well. I’m still the largest fruit on the list, but I still think I should be bigger. It might push me harder to lose weight (probably not).

Other than a Christian, Husband, and Father, I like to think of myself as Web Developer. Probably because it is/was my job. Since I was 12, I’ve been making websites and loving it. That passion led to making a different blog about JavaScript / Web Development. Since starting that blog I’ve considered numerous other blogs and internet communities. Of course, one of those was this blog, which also just happens to be something amazing that my wife and I can do together, which is always great for a couple to have.

Currently, I also have one more Youtube channel: Bork and Zim Gaming. You see, there are a few games that I like to play (not a lot of games, but a few I’m “loyal” to), and I figured that if I was gonna “waste” my time playing video games, I might as well record it and put it on Youtube and see what happens. I’m doing this channel with my twin brother, Jake (who has a Programming blog and a blog about table-top RPGs), and with my triplet from another mother, Eric (a.k.a. Bork, who also writes fiction novels and occasionally blogs about his writing).

Sorry about all those links. This isn’t meant to be an advertisement for all of my friends’/family’s blogs and stuff, but these things are important to me! Thanks to the relative (very relative) success of my JavaScript blog, everyone around me decided to give it a shot too, so I’m responsible for their lack of spare time!

Finally, I just have to say that I absolutely love my wife, without whom I probably would be a lonely little bachelor who spends way too much time staring at a computer screen (I already do, but it’d be even worse). She’s constantly keeping God in focus for our entire family, so I’d be a very different — and most certainly worse off — person without her. I also am in love with my 4 little boys. They’re crazy antics constantly bring smiles to my face. Anyway, that’s enough about me. Read about the rest of my family!

Kaylin (Pear)

I’m so bad about knowing what to say about myself I had to have my husband write out something about me, and tweak it so I could write something out! So here goes… Let’s get the “obvious” stuff out of the way first: I’m a devout Christian, I’m a wife of an amazing man who I absolutely adore, and I’m the mother of 4 little boys, who I also absolutely adore!

I like crafting, but I tend to have for more ideas than I have time for actually crafting, which I hear is pretty common. And I’m not particularly experienced with crafting either, so I’m not really sure how most of my ideas would turn out, anyway, if I found the time to make them.

Much to Joe’s dismay, I’m an avid drinker of tea. Joe’s OK with tea, but only if it has so much honey in it that you can’t taste the tea anymore.I actually like the flavor of the tea and love to try new ones, so we always have a cupboard full of more tea than Joe would like (though I’d still like to have more!).

I’m also a homeschooling mommy. I’m still working myself into the role, so our oldest is enrolled in a virtual school this year, but I hope to be taking that job over fully in the future. We’ll see how that goes.

Finally, I really love to encourage, love, and give to those I come in contact with, but I’m still learning how to break out of my shyness to do so.

The Kiddos

Just a note: we’ll just be using initials and/or the fruit name to refer to our children for their own privacy and safety. The kids below are listed from oldest to youngest.

G (Banana)

Our first sweet boy loves learning. He’s an avid reader, always surprising people by reading random things off of signs and books around him. He loves trains (Thomas and Friends in particular), and other big machines. He’s learning about plants outdoors; just the other day he came to us excited because he found some thistle in the yard!

K (Apple) 

Our second sweet one has loved following in his brothers footsteps. He’s also a lover of trains and big machines, and is trying to keep up with his brother in reading and knowledge of the outdoors. He loves G, but is becoming his own little man, with ideas of what to do that differ from G’s. He’s got a hard head (literally!) that his daddy is so proud of because they like to headbutt.

Z (Orange)

Little Z is our third sweet boy. He’s becoming quite the mommy’s helper, getting things for his baby brother without me even asking, because he sees his brother’s need. He loves balls, and playing with his older siblings. He’s the most adventurous of the bunch, already doing things (like climbing on every tall thing) that his brothers didn’t do until they were older. Most of the time if he falls down, he’ll get right back up again and keep on going (even when he really should stop and let me take care of the injury!). Speaking of which, his head is even harder than K’s and he loves headbutting daddy more too!

E (Grape)

The youngest of the bunch, but he’s gonna manage to keep up with the rest of them! He’s such a smiley boy, and very active. For not really crawling yet, he sure gets around while he sits! He’s always moving: turning his head, waving his arms, kicking his legs. It’s gonna be a crazy time once he actually starts moving all over the house.