Junior has a name!

Yes, our soon-to-be son now has a name. He is ... (drum roll) ... Benjamin Moses Brown!

A little info behind the names:

Benjamin -- Bethany has liked this name for awhile, and we really like a lot of the stuff about Benjamin in the Bible. Most notably, when Moses blesses the tribes of Israel, he says about Benjamin: "Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders." Notable Benjamites include King Saul, Esther and the apostle Paul. The village of Bethany in Israel was, I think, in the tribe of Benjamin's territory. Also, there's Benjamin Franklin to commemorate our time in Philadelphia.

Moses -- It's a family name on my mom's side (the furthest back we can trace the Thompson family is to a Moses Thompson in the early 1700s, my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and there have been others in the direct line down to me who had the name as a first or middle name). And of course, there's the Biblical person. A few weeks ago, I had the same verse pop up twice within a couple of days (just after we had tossed "Moses" out as a possible middle name); it came up once in a book I'm reading, and then again in the sermon at church that weekend. The verse is Exodus 33:11 -- "The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend." What an awesome thing to pray over our child -- that he too would know God in that manner!

We'll probably call him Ben (except when he's done something wrong and it's "Benjamin Moses Brown!!!"). So that's our son -- Ben Brown!