As regular readers may recall, we’ve had a lot of baby drama going on lately. A number of false starts with labor, a threatened pre-term birth and a lot of general discomfort for Emily (my wife). Well, last night, after we’d finished celebrating our oldest daughter’s fifth birthday, labor began in earnest. We headed to the hospital at 6:30 pm and 5 hours later, at 11:36 pm, we got to meet our son, Hudson James Armstrong:
Hudson clocked in at 7 lbs, 12 oz and 21 inches long. The doctor also made a point of mentioning that he’s got pretty big feet. 
As you can see, Emily and the baby are doing well:
Okay, we took a legit one, too:
Why Hudson? One of the things we’ve tried to do with our children is give them names with some historical or spiritual significance. With Hudson, we chose to name him after a man that we greatly respect, James Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission (now OMF International). Mr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, authors of Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, describe him as follows:
He was a man of affairs, the father of a family, and one who bore large responsibilities. In tensely practical, he lived a life of constant change among all sorts and conditions of men. He was no giant in strength, no Atlas to bear the world upon his shoulders. . . . He [was] a hard worker and an efficient medical man; he was able to care for a baby, cook a dinner, keep accounts, and comfort the sick and sorrowing…
Above all, he put to the test the promises of God, and proved it possible to live a consistent spiritual life on the highest plane. He overcame difficulties such as few men have ever had to encounter, and left a work which long after his death is still growing in extent and usefulness. Inland China opened to the Gospel largely as an outcome of this life, tens of thousands of souls won to Christ in previously un reached provinces, twelve hundred missionaries depending upon God for the supply of all their needs without promise of salary, a mission which has never made an appeal for financial help, yet has never been in debt, that never asks man or woman to join its ranks, yet has sent to China recently two hundred new workers given in answer to prayer—such is the challenge that calls us to emulate Hudson Taylor’s faith and devotion.
That’s our hope for our little man—that he would grow up to be a man who, like Taylor, would “put to the test the promises of God” and be a man whose faith in Christ would worth of emulation. I can’t think of a better way to live.
