How To Make Friends

Details on Saturday's madness

Men's breakfast
Once a month, the Men of Bethany welcome all guys from the area to join in food and fellowship with a speaker, as well as occasional activities such as a car show or special national speaker. My responsibilities for the breakfast have been stepped up significantly, and it was the first time they were put into action. For once, a minimal amount of things had been put off to the last minute (eh, maybe last day) so there was little pressure.

The ladies made biscuits and gravy. BISCUITS AND GRAVY! One of my top five favorite breakfasts (One of Pastor Fred's top five favorite ways of rating favorites). I had to have some, despite the race coming up. Something tells me I would be a huge fan of "The Bandit".

5K
Storm and I joined several others to participate in the St. Jude 5K race at Morton High School this year. Last year's St. Jude race was my first race ever. It went well with a finishing time of 28:48. I wanted to improve it significantly this year, but only managed to knock off the 48 seconds. Storm claims they were off by 30 seconds though, so perhaps it was even better.
It's a good thing we hung around afterwards. My clydesdale buddies (200lbs - 225lbs) just barley beat me in the top speeds, so no awards there. However, two of our ladies received prizes! One door prize and one placing in her age group. Way to go gals!







Tyler stopped by to cheer on in parents as they crossed the finish line, but had a hot date for lunch and left promptly.





Almost nap
With a long weekend still ahead, a nap was needed to preserve my sanity. I had laid down for about 30 minutes before most of my past and present roomies converged on me simultaneously. We still had more moving to do, and my mower was in high demand.

Move furniture
Josh and I had couches to get rid of, and stuff to get from his old place, so a truck was obtained and we did the deed. This is turning in to moving month.

Checked in on the previous roomie, Mikey, who now has his own bachelor pad down the road. After two years of talking about it, it's finally time to get that new driveway. Cody and crew were hard at work.



Bake Bread
Some Amish Friendship Bread starter was unloaded on me at church a couple of weeks ago. Day 10 (as far as anyone has to know) was Saturday, so it was either bake it or give up. Obsessive documentary of baking process below, with no finished product photo...ridiculous.


What a rip off. I did NOT get any new friends out of this. Well, the gal who gave me the starter knows me better now though. Okay mayyybe it works.




Bachelor Chow. Today = leftover pizza on top of leftover mashed potatoes. Mmmmmmmm mm.





Bowling and food with the Stubers
Old roomie (dual meaning) Jed will be married in two days from this posting. I've been in two weddings so far this year, with two to go. I love participating in these because of the people I get to meet, and the part I get to take in a friend's life. However, what always happens is that you get thrown into two days of constant interaction with these family members and friends of the Bride and Groom who you don't know at all and feel a little awkward at first. By the time you hit the reception, you finally feel normal around them.

Well, to get the introductions made early, Jed planned a little get together with the wedding party. Most of Julie's bridesmaids (all single, wink wink) and Jed's groomsmen got together for some bowling and pizza at the Christian Center. Dude, it's really good pizza!


My camera was so intimidated by Emily's sweet SLR camera that the rest of the night it only took fuzzy photos. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.





My team got creamed, and the person who thought of referring to everyone by the first letter of their name has been fired.








Ew gross!


Bread delivery at the Burkes


I wasn't 100% sure if the Burkes were my friends, so I took some bread over there to secure it. :-) Got dealt in the middle of a game of phase 10 and heard alot of stories about Joe's mechanical arm. Beware of the arm...it's been places.








Joe is extremely lucky that the picture he took of Joy turned out so poorly. His mechanical grabber arm could have been lodged in his body permanently.




I love this cat

Our Sovereign God

Details on Friday's madness

Future roomie, BenB, went over the furniture and kitchen supplies he has so that I could give direction on what we need and already have.

The fish will not be joining us.



The Dryers invited me to dinner and a meeting with their Ecuador trip team. Cheryl decked out the kitchen with her sweet no-cook cooking skills. This was also an opportunity to go over any last minute instructions for watching their place while they're gone, and getting to know their good friend David.





Meet David
I was also invited in order to meet David. David is a doctor who was recently diagnosed with cancer and three months to live. He cannot practice medicine in his current condition. The Dryers have poured a ton of love on David and invited him to join us for dinner and the Ecuador team's first devotional time. David loves animals and traveling...good man! You know you're in good hands when Chery's thrown the fluffy white blanket on you.

Devotions
Paul lead the team's first group devotional after dinner. Every trip that Bethany sends out has a devotional planed each day. In the business, and sometimes stress, of the team schedule, it would be easy to forget why you are there, and to lose focus of who you are serving and glorying in. After team devotions, the team spent some time praying over David and his Cancer, knowing confidently that God is sovereign over all things here on earth and above, and can work mightily in David's life.

Since the team has left, we've gotten word back that Cheryl's carry-on luggage was mixed up (with the pilot's I think) and that they arrived in Quito Ecuador without her clothes or computer. For someone like me, not having a computer to gather and convert pictures, and to pre-blog on would be very frustrating. Which means if it were to happen, it's because I'm supposed to focus on something else. Praise the Lord for his sovereignty.

We scrambled to get some team pics before I left. Since I left while they were sorting trip money...eh, you can see what happened.


(left-right, Paul, Kristin, Cheryl, Bill, Toni)

House sitting updates:



Cheryl put a teddy bear on my bead to keep me company.







After a long day, Spence and I unwind with some xboxing on this swanky sweet 70inch mad tv.





Later that night, I spent a little time hangin' with Pete Rumfun and then went to bed.

Weekend Maddness

I don't have time to post about this weekend right now (proof below). Here is the said "hard-to-deny clues" that I have gotten nearly nowhere in making quality time available in my life.

What did my calendar say?

Friday - "Inventory with BenB" Inventorying my future roommate's junk to see what will make it over here is all I had planned.

Saturday - "Men's breakfast" at church and a "5k race" in the morning (yes, I know that sounds like a REALLY bad combination). Then "bowling" with the Stuber wedding party in the evening. The following is the actual accounting of this weekend's events.

Friday

8-4pm - Work
4-5 - Change clothes at home and run errand
5-5:30 - Morton to pickup 5k race day packet (not available right after work)
5:30-6 - Inventory with BenB
6-8:30 - Join Ecuador team devotional and meet David
8:30-9:30 - Hangin' with Petey
11ish - Sleep


Saturday

6:30 Men's breakfast
8:30 5k
11:30-12pm Almost nap
12:30-3 Move furniture to/from Josh's old place
3-4 bake bread (you hush, it turned out wonderfully) Sorry I haven't taken any over yet mom! There is some for you!
4-5 eat and read (what do you know, there was a break)
5:30-7:30 - Bowling and food with the Stuber wedding party (a.k.a shady mixer)
8-10 - Appearance and bread delivery at the Burkes.
10-10:30 - Run home to get 2nd batch of stuff I forgot for Sunday
10:30-11:30 Video games with the Spence man
11:30-12 Attempt to blog (fail)
12 Sleep

Sunday
8am-9:30 Church
10am-11pm Chicago/Wicked/Cheesecake

Details, pictures and fixing of the poor formatting of this post to come.

One Final Wasted Rant

No really. I'm pretty sure the rest of our Bible study book does not get me nearly as fired up.

At Bible study this Thursday, we learned that blogging is a wasted life. Well...poop.

John is apparently very popular with the ladies. Despite this picture (Josh is buried in there somewhere) segregation was not the flavor of the night and some pockets seemed to flirt with change. Ryan and Jacquilyn just flirted like normal.


Thank you John for chugging through this material!

Twas a meaty study. Piper (the author) is done laying the foundation for what is a wasted life. We know how God changed his life, examples of what a wasted life looks like, the passionate message from God's word justifying a life not-wasted, and the limits to what parts of our lives are covered by an un-wasted life (simple...there are none!)

My quotes don't do the book justice. Please consider reading it if you have any interest, I have extras! Piper earlier told a sad story of a couple who's only goal was to finish life out with an early retirement spent sailing, playing softball, and collecting sea shells on the beach until they die. "Look, Lord. See my shells!"

To be more blunt to you and I, he later claims ground for waste in our more common and likely daily motives - "[If]You just want people to like you. If people would just like being around you, you'd be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife, or husband, and a couple of good kids"..(ouch for me)..."and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends [after putting your service hours in], a fun retirement and a quick and easy death, and no hell - you would be satisfied. That is a tragedy in the making. A wasted life."

I talked to the guys at PRM basically about the two chapters in this book, how I continue to battle with a wasted life, and what things I know can help keep me from being locked into that fate. There are so many, and that's why we go to a skilled, knowledgeable scholar like Piper to learn the answers through God's word. Here's where I went with it Monday though.

1. Stay in God's word faithfully! - I promise you will be blessed with a vision to see God's glory made known in your life and application of his wisdom if you do with a heart open to real change, and without poor motives!

2. Communicate with God constantly! Not just in your regular quiet time. All day! "Thanks God!" "Forgive me Lord!" "Please help me Father!" "Lord please be with Jack today". He cannot be a personal God if we don't talk to Him. You can tell how closely you regard God in your life by how much you communicate with him. I guarantee most of us are currently too distracted picking up shells to do this.

3. Be with people on a regular basis who give you opportunities to not only be encouraged, but offer up opportunities to be productive.

4. Spend time regularly and often with at least one person with experience who challenges you, and who you are willing to be fully open to and challenged and convicted by. Friends who avoid investigating your real heart and motives and seeing RESULTS for God alone is about as good as a sea shell hunting partner.

5. Give God all the glory! Period!

Piper - "We are taught in a thousand ways", inside and outside the church "that love means increasing someone's self-esteem, helping them feel good. Helping them like what they see. This is not what the Bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what is best for someone. To make someone feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God (alone) is like taking someone to the alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors."

From this point on in the study, we focus one more tangible applications to Glorifying and boasting in no one other that Christ our Savior. The decision has already been made if one will let those applications mean what the author means, and if you will or will not choose to waste your life. It's so important to know that God's highest purpose for us is not simply a matter of opportunities we can take or miss. It's WHY. It's our goal! It's your heart the other 23 hours of the day! Your schedule and public attitude don't prove if you're wasting your life, but they give clues, sometimes really really big ones. My schedule for Friday, Saturday and Sunday (coming soon) give really really hard-to-deny clues that I am getting nowhere in managing my time better.

It's OK, We Voted On It

Tuesday night Sarah (far left) celebrated the anniversary of her birth. I had already celebrated 10 days early (stupid calendar reminder) but decided it was worth doing again.




A couple of our newishlywed couples showed up, Josh and Viv, and Brooks and Christen (not pictured).

Some swing dancing did occur at at this mostly Baptist attended event. It's okay now, we voted on it.


And some pizza was had at home.

Please take a moment to inventory the items you will typically find on the kitchen counter of a bachelor pad that has gone through five residents in the last few months. Sunblock (SPF 50...back off), cologne, golf balls, tees, dog treats (Jerelyn forgot to take them for her dog), mayo and mustard packets, gum, salt 'n peppa, mini keys and a lighter.

Yes we did have Bible study Thursday night. No I'm not going to blog about it right now. That's mostly because I haven't downloaded my picture of John talking about how blogs aren't important just yet.

I Want My Daddy!!

Part of Sunday morning was spent with the 4 year olds. Joy was not feeling great, so I stepped in for a day. I only remember the age because the reusable birthday cake had four candles on it for two of the girls. One of them claimed she was five...I don't trust her.

Jon gave me Ethan to take care of. The entire hour was spent trying to pacify Ethan's wailing cry, "I want daddy!". It was actually encouraging because no one else in the room (all experienced at childcare) had any idea how to get him to stop. While I'm not afraid of childcare, I always feel like someone could do way better, and I'm just messing it up. Not this time!

Story time helped for a little while. Mrs. Kurtz knows how to quiet a child, but it can only last so long. The secret is get them to think that you have something to say that they want to hear, but whisper, so the child has to be quiet to hear it. Genius!!!






How do they come up with this stuff? The kids LOVED it!



The afternoon was filled by a three hour talk, and then EE. It was our first week out on the town. My teammates are Bob and Jasmine. Bob was replaced by Vivan this week. Me and my ladies checked in on a very nice couple who visited Bethany the previous week. We had an encouraging and fun talk with Andy and Lynn, learning how much we already knew about each other (freaky) and that they loved our Lord dearly.

Alright I'll say it. Hey Mom! They lived in that hood we used to deliver papers to, a few houses down from the Andertons and Altorfers.

Aaaaaaaanyway.

Monday Monday - An enormously encouraging and enjoyable time at the Rescue Mission worshiping together with a packed house of Men getting on their feet from a host of troubles. Despite the fact that they are required to attend service, these guys are fired up about praising God and giving Him all the Glory for who He is and what He has done, which is what I talked about that night! If you think singing hymns is boring at church, don't say it around these guys...they'll take you down. I'm debating posting my talk here. Give a shout out if you're dying to see it posted.

Chris tried to convince a few of the early birds to throw stuff at me during the talk. They didn't listen to him (like most of us :-)


The b-mans twisted my arm and got me to stop by for some food and fellowship at their place. Once again, you know why I really go...







Monday was also day 6 (ok really 8, but don't tell anyone) in the life of my Amish friendship bread starter that I was given last week. Time to add more milk, water and sugar. Hopefully it will still turn out to share with folks on a trip this weekend. Cross your fingers.

I'm done. Tuesday shall come later.

I'm Out Of Names For Catch-up Posts

So stop having to catch up right??

Friday was a break in the monotony of work. One person from our team of four contributed to a much larger project, giving all of us slackers the right to a free swanky breakfast, free stuff and the winning of a raffle. It's alot easier to win when half the people don't show up to the celebration.



Congratulations to me for doing nothing and receiving this.





After work was a ride with the mail man. Rod the mail man needed help picking up and learning how to use a device which would be part of a Bible lesson to the children of Peoria's Children's Home. The activity was canceled eventually, but we will have the opportunity to use the lesson at church later this year.

This is one of those months where we forced people (pockets exempt as usual) to interact with others at Friday Night Impact. We enjoyed worship together with our head Pastor, Ritch Boerckel spending time in Psalm 1.

FNI was also a pizza party where roomie Josh pulled together the plans and ingredients for about 20+ people to build and cook their own pizzas. It was excellent! I think Josh and I took the leftovers and ingredients home with the intention of feeding it to people on moving day the very next morning. But I'll tell ya what, I know what I'm having for lunch today.


Josh still had alot of packing to do in order to be ready early the next morning. Misery loves company, so I went over to pretend to help out.







Neither of us was excited about having unhealthy food around, so alot of really good stuff was tossed during kitchen inventory. :-(






I had NO idea how much newspaper you can go through while packing dishes. Got caught up on alot of local events.







Saturday
No sleepy! Started moving Chris out at 8am. I say started, but he was half out already. There was alot of stuff though, and it actually took longer to get him out and moved in to the new place, than it did for Josh's round trip.

I FINALLY got to take some decent pictures of their place. And then of course wasted the opportunity on dog joke pictures and wall paper. :-)


I can already picture a huge German Shepard racing all over this beautiful yard. Not a yippie dog! You'll have to put some more appropriate dog treats in the dog treat jar though. Honestly, you don't want the puppy to choke on a jelly belly.




Managed to salvage proof of Pooh Bear in Chris' future office, before Jerelyn brutally tore it to pieces. Chris and I will get over it eventually.








And I will always say a little "CHOO CHOO" as I walk by Thomas the Train's old room.







We got to Josh's a little after 11 and filled the vehicles quickly.



I think Josh should have been an engineer.


Thanks for all the help Kari, Dave, Jeffrey and Huse x 3!! And to the future Gebharts and Josh for all the food.

Spotlight on the new roomie???? Sadly, not yet. Don't have all the pictures I need.

Dinner! Paul and Cheryl have become good friends from church this year for no particular reason other than they are friendly. For me, it started when Cheryl OBSESSED about the Thailand team the entire week we were there. :-)

Paul is a doctor and Cheryl is a PT nurse. They will both be heading out on a medical mission trip to Ecuador this Saturday with a small team from church, leaving me with the opportunity to watch the place and harass their son. In the midst of our extensive chatting about everything from evolution to Men's ministry and Kevin's spontaneous breakout into song with "Nobody Knows" (I got the monkey blanket for that one) and eating Cheryl's AMAZING food (from Papa John's : - ) I failed to take any good pictures of the place or people. But here's what my room will look like. It's so pretty.


Just kidding.

On the way back, I had a BLAST changing my flat tire in the rain. Looked forward to the excuse to pay a visit to the new and improved "conservative" Vanna, or so I thought!

More on the weekend when I return.