Glorify Who?

On the second week of the Career Impact coed Bible study, we dove into Piper's book, "Don't Waste Your Life". Mr. Moon did a great job leading discussion and keeping us on track with Piper's testimony.

While the main questions of course circled around the word "wasted", the idea of glorifying God stood out as a key aspect of what is or is not considered wasted. The Westminster Catechism (a goldmine of Biblical truth applied) describes the chief end of man as "to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever". The idea of how to prevent a wasted life was discussed in several ways. Taking opportunities God gives us to do various good things. Making wise decisions in light of the big picture, and God's word. I don't remember any others discussed off hand. All true and yet so much more. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the passionate pursuit of glorifying God in an unwasted life.

"I've WASTED it" was the powerful quote in Piper's book of an old man who wept bitterly as he realized a wasted life in light of his newly found purpose through Christ. Though not very comparable, it reminds me of last weekend.

I struggled greatly with the decision to participate in an activity one evening knowing that there was a slim chance that I would in any way glorify God by doing so. I managed to fit in everything that needed to get done in that afternoon so I could go, and rushed out to the event. I left early enough to get the sleep I have been coveting greatly recently, and felt at least a bit satisfied that I had not disgraced God's name with my actions (hopefully).

Driving home though, it occurred to me what a waste it was. As I finished jogging earlier that afternoon, I ran by my neighbor blowing leaves (yes, leaves already) into the street (don't get me started on that). "Too busy to talk", I though to myself. Driving back home, I remembered all the times my neighbors, Rodney and Katie, had spent time trying to develop a relationship with him. He has several children, and was recently divorced from their mother, who then of course had to move away. When she was around, he stayed at home on welfare while the mother worked many odd hours. Rarely do you see him outside. Domestic disputes became somewhat public when the police showed up a couple of times. From conversations with the children it was clear the kids were put in situations where one parent wanted to make the other look terrible in front of them. He has many issues, but still is willing to wave and loves to talk to neighbors as they pass by, which means - opportunity.

These kids play outside every once and a while. If you're doing something outdoors, they like to come over and watch what you're doing. The oldest girl (11ish?) will cling to my arm tightly, staring at me with a sad, needy face, and I don't even know her name. That night, as I was leaving for my social event with the group (or pocket), the father of those children was inside, and the 9ish year old was sitting on the curb all alone. I was in too much of a hurry to think of it when I left, but had all the time in the world to think about her on my way home. That girl is learning her own way to deal with life's trouble. She's probably hurting ALOT inside right now, but will learn to bury it deeply over the next 20 years until, as a grown woman, she will be afraid of real, deep and vulnerable relationships with other people, grasping for attention and happiness in whatever way she's found most effective for getting through life. The sad thing is that it is so common these days, most people will see her life on the surface as normal either out of ignorance, or because they did the same thing.

I cried on the way home because I left this situation, with all of it's own sadness, pain and opportunity to share God's love, in pursuit of what I already suspected would only be an opportunity to watch the group boisterously discuss how they "encouraged" each other the last five weekends together, and how they plan to "encourage" one another the next five.

My sadness isn't so much the one missed opportunity, but the heart I have that strives to glorify myself in distractions, entertainment and yup even in keeping myself busy in ministry (like alot of us) and the many people who are happy to provide these predictable distractions almost every other day.

80 lbs. ago.

I recently dropped the bomb, that I had lost 80lbs, on Anita at work last week. Totally not believing me, I had to bring in a before picture to prove it. I'm in a good mood, and this picture brings back memories of the good ole days - when I thought singleness was the biggest problem I could have. So Here 'tis.


Look at that heterogeneous group of people hangin' out at the Duncster's for New Years. JonnyB went through a "pose" phase. I can show you several other pictures of him taken within a 6-month period with the exact same pose.


P.S. That is NOT a stain! I won my EE trainer's pin that week and wore it proudly!

P.P.S To be honest, I gained 15 lbs. back this year, but lost 5 this month. This post should be completely true in the next few weeks.

Here's The Deal

I told you that Wednesday = AWANA + Choir. Well, AWANA + Choir (+ the preceding workout) = frustratingly exhausting. So don't expect alot of Wednesday posts unless something interesting happened.

Like tonight! I left choir early because of these stupid allergies. Glad I did, because Rodney and Katie were in town this week and finally stopped by!! I miss them alot, but I found myself in the usual "visiting friend" mood where I completely take it for granted (ie just wanted to get to bed...yes I'm blogging from bed) and then realize how much I miss them (and they miss us) after they leave. I do that with my buddy Mike EVERY TIME!



The competition between wedding, pregnancy and birth craziness has been intense this year. Katie (above) has been pregnant for a while. Speedy, finally spilled the beans formally tonight, and that's just a few of them.

Notice the empty containers making my picture the usual poor quality? Chris is taking more stuff to the new place every day. Thus, why I have a new couch in the living room, which Chris is sleeping on because the bed went over today as well.

More Food 'n Stuff

Monday evening was an immensely enjoyable dinner with Sarah and the B-mans. This free meal was compliments of Sarah because of the recent battery shenanigans. Sarah's such an amazing cook and host that she didn't dirty her stove, oven, microwave or sink in preparing our meal :-) Thank you Sarah!


Jon was quite embarrassed to find that the flower he picked in the front yard wasn't a flower at all.




Dessert ala Joy. Mmmm mmm.


I have softened up greatly to the idea of cats over the last year. Snickers distracted me quite a bit at dinner. I played with the cat alot, but was watchful not to touch my eyes, thanks to allergies. It doesn't help to avoid touching your eyes, though, when you're still breathing around the cat. I know what a 50 year smoker feels like now.





After dinner, we scoured the town for a 3/16 inch allen head socket. Just thought you might find that useful...ya neeeever know.

Today I went to the doctor. I'm not so boring that I would tell you every time I go to the doctor. However, this time I have great news. My still sore ankle should heal fine without getting checked via x-ray or MRI. My doctor is awesome.

After jogging, Chris and I took a load (his second of the day) to Chris and Jerelyn's new house. I told everyone he'd be half moved out on moving day and I was right. His first house is pretty sweet. I'm very excited for them.




The back yard is perfect for their new dog. What kind are you getting again Jere?


The new setup in the breakfast/reading nook finally got used by others today. Check it out. I'm bloggin' from the hammock, but wait! Jed and Chris need to look something up. Heeeeeere ya go!

Ya I know. I'm done.

Last Week...

Thursday:

The Career Impact combined (co-ed) Bible study began. This was an opener, no formal study yet. It consisted of a great ice breaker game, which would have allowed me to be Bruce Willis for an evening if I had shown up, tons of amazing food, and lots of chatting. While I was not in attendance, I am still happy to report that there didn't seem to be many signs of segregation. I now get to start making jokes about the "pocket" phenomenon.

I opted for the nearly-as-entertaining Men's Ministry event planning meeting back at the church. This was where a bunch of grease monkeys (and me) worked on the logistics of a car winterization event at church. Doug, Jon and Eric were the main contributors to our meeting. In my opinion, Doug should be the main contributor at every meeting...but we don't always get what we want.

Highlights/quotes:

- Doug and BenS are not allowed to sit next to each other.
- Doug: "I can bring three american made floor jacks. None of those chinese made things."
- As the meeting is coming to a close, Doug says, "Isn't there some wedding going on the same day as this event?". When half the table realized they are either going to or in the wedding, it was decided that the whole event probably needs to be moved to another time....sheesh. Thanks Doug.

Friday:

Got to have lunch with an old friend and a new one. My buddy Eric was in my first discipleship group at Bethany Baptist. He paid for myself and his co-worker, William, to join him for lunch at Mings. Yes, I went to a chinese buffet and only ate one plate of food. How proud of me are you? Alot, that's how much!

Having William helped with the food because we were too busy talking for me to get seconds. Willy is from Columbia (alot further south than Andrew and Ashley's Columbia). While it was challenging to understand how to be a good brother to William in encouragement, I am grateful for the opportunity to meet him and learn alot about him, including that we are brothers in Christ!

In the evening was the "Shepherding a Child's Heart" conference. I was spared from working childcare at the conference by being asked to man a registration table. Only about 25 minutes of chaos. The church sanctuary was packed with attendees, learning about Biblical methods in parenting. The church welcome center was packed with Pastor Chris' protein diet.



Saturday:
Same conference, same job. But then I got to pretend like I was Kari working in the office with Jan to duplicate the conference CD's using the church's new toy. I also got to hoover all kinds of information.


Saturday night came another computer support call. Jon and Joy will get their computer taken away one of these days :-)



Later, I got to play with fire while at the same time ensuring that the government will never find evidence that Doug purchased two of his three daughters off the black market at bottom dollar. You'll never guess who the real one is.






Also...harassed the pizza delivery person.













Sunday:

Nothing too crazy in the morning. I was expecting a co-worker to visit a particular service time and never saw him. Turned out he went to another one. Sweet!

13 weeks of EE kicked off this week. Evangelism Explosion is a curriculum (originating elsewhere) which Bethany uses as a primary teaching tool for believers to effectively share their faith with friends and family.

Bethany is having another series of Love Feasts for a few weeks. Just an opportunity for the church body to spend encouraging and God glorifying time together, as well as sharing communion. I really just want to get this post out, so read about a past love feast why don't ya?

Lunch time post

We're looking at a lunch time launch of a catch-up post...really.

Plans To Prosper You

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11

I just got word that my friend Emily's adoption paperwork to adopt a little boy named Anh was made official before a critical deadline set by the Vietnamese government freezing all current adoptions to the United States.

Em is a dear friend from high school and college who has brightened my day so many times in the last decade. high school memories of Evan are not so pleasant as they involve me being pinned face first into a wrestling mat. :-)

Here is a link to her blog where you can see the progression of God's provision in her family's life, despite how we saw it with our eyes. Apparently, I'm pretty stubborn to have miracles like this take shape around me, and not expect God to prosper my own life (and others) in His timing.

Walk by faith...

Wednesday = AWANA + Choir

Normal Wednesdays have begun again. A regular schedule has it's ups and downs for me. The up is that there are fewer surprises. The down is that this time of year leaves much less open time for random things that need to be done.

Normal AWANA night kicked off last night. That's about two hours of the evening. I work with the Truth & Training boys (3rd-6th grade). The boys start off with some games in the gym, then a speaker, then working on their handbooks (learning exercises and verse memorization).

While a few sassy pictures of folks who would rather not be in them is fun at times, I'm too shy to take pictures of other people's kids and put it up on my site. But this lady isn't!! Enjoy :-) Are those not the cutest girls you've ever seen? Their Uncle Paul brags on them all the time, with good reason.

I had instead planned on putting up some nifty clip art from the (painfully slow) AWANA website. BUT NO! Their license agreement for art use sounds more serious than Google's new open source browser EULA (nerds laugh here). So I had to make up my own.

I didn't want any of your new fangled pictures anyway! The classic stuff is almost gone. And who's this "Puggles" character anyway?

So, I'm not such a fan of change. It scares, frustrates, confuses me. They changed the location of my AWANA folder, leading to incredibly embarrassing consequences.

I have also been changed to a different group of kids. Two years ago, I started in 4th grade, and followed the same kids into 5th grade. This year, I'm staying with 5th, which has completely new kids. I thought my old 5th graders had behavioral issues. Even though they were very ADD, I had gotten used to it. I made sarcastic jokes to most of them cuz they were cool like that. This year, I think I need to learn some new things about how to handle rowdy and stubborn children (directed mainly at the twins). I spent most of my time last night with Clayton though. He was neither rowdy, nor stubborn and is very adorable. However, he does not seem to be at a 5th grade reading level, which will be yet another learning experience for me.

After AWANA is about an hour and a half of choir practice with Pastor Fred!! My first couple of practices have been fun. By the end of the season, however, I will be cursing Fred's name and passing out by 9. Sorry man. It just wears me out.

Fred has always had this far off crazy dream of having a 100 member choir for our Christmas program. It may almost happen this year! I heard it's in the low 90's right now, and I just found out that both of my new roommates will be in choir with me. Not sure if BenB was counted in the 90+.

Once Again

Busyness found me. After the usual jog, which Storm missed, there wasn't anything on the docket. BenB and I went for a jog. His friend from Hawaii is visiting for a couple of weeks and joined in. Storm, make it next week and you can both chat about Hawaii.

I realized at work that Mom and Dad's lawn was ready to be mowed, and it's not one of those days I want to see them mowing. So we compromised and I got half, then got dinner. I'm too lazy to modify the future free dinner numbers, so this one won't count.

Once I got settled at home, my most gracious and encouraging friends, the B-mans, asked me to go shopping with them. Well, one person was shopping. John is a bit of a golfing expert. He can drive a ball exactly the same way every single time. I'm the one that sank the put though.

There's this nifty golf swing analyzer at Dick's that John had to try out. It definitely got a B-man "uuuggghuhuhuhuh" approval.

I noticed John was wearing our Ecuador shirt from three years ago. While the NYC highlight post I promised isn't even up yet, I'm promising you an Ecuador trip highlights post on top of it. Very fun to look back upon.



I'm very blessed to have friends who care so much about me, and my relationship with our gracious Lord and Savior.

What Happened?

As of 11 Sunday morning. I had zero plans for Labor day. While I know now that would have been a disaster waiting to happen, I was optimistic that I could actually get something done during that time.

So what did my uneventful day fill up with?

Slept in late and found out that Auto Zone is in fact open today, so there was work to do. Sarah's car was diagnosed by a grease monkey at church yesterday, and it was decided to get her another battery, even though it was not a simple diagnosis.

The new battery went in fine, the van started fine, and we had a happy camper :-) Coincidentally, free dinner #5 for myself and the B-mans' is now scheduled. Sarah, make sure you get food for Susie too!!







My old (dual meaning) discipleship leader, Danny, invited me over for a labor day cookout with several other friendly folks (except Bob) from church.






To work up an appetite, some bags were played. If that bean bag looks like it's headed straight for you, that's because it is. More like Justin McJerkamy! Welcome back Kelsey!





Things started getting busy during the "Old vs. Young" game.






Darn Hippie!












Miss Good had some magic tricks to show me and Justin.


I forgot to take pictures of my food, again. Here's where I got it. Close enough?






To help work off the three plates (yes, I forgot three times) of food, tiny Joe took me golfing.









Who knew such a little thing could cause so much frustration. This was taken after four or five clean whiffs.










Since I go golfing maybe once a year, it's a huge learning curve every time. Once I started actually hitting the ball, then hitting it straight...ish, I still couldn't FIND it. Four balls were lost this way. Lost it AGAIN!!










I've learned over the years that God just doesn't want me to loose weight on holidays. Once again, more food presented it's self as Nan graciously invited me over for dinner. Nan doesn't use recipes. It's pretty cool to watch him cook.




Thank you Nan, for free dinner #4 :-) Finally remembered to snap the picture first, though I can't promise a mushroom isn't missing.



Sarah tried hard to get some folks together to enjoy food and fellowship after dinner and it was very much appreciated. Thank you for hosting Sarah!

Looking back on this superficial log of events, I'm seeing alot of posts and pictures of food. I'm not sure why I started getting obsessed about it, but it will definitely continue. It was probably all the interesting food I've found on various ministry trips. Food comes in 4th after the Trips, Softball and Church tags. Must go back and update tags for accuracy.