That's Better

It's about time to fix some blog errors. The quality of this thing is going down hill, I know.

Byorn and Brooks, you are officially recognized for your terrible outfits.

High/Low standards issue has been clarified a tad at the end, even if not necessary.

And lets not mix a visit with Evan in a funeral post. The word "yuk" appeared twice in the post, which is also just not right.

Merry Christmas

Not alot to say about other people or myself today. The fam had a nice lunch and afternoon together. No yard work or snow removal this time, just a little IT support.





We survived Christmas with Tilly, but couldn't get the bone away. You win again puppy.







Mother once again proved her attention to blog detail in picking a perfect gift. This year MANGO tea! There's enough Keurig Mango Tea to last one Bible study person for three books of the new testament, or three for one.




When the roomie got home, the Fay family Christmas yielded endless fun for everyone.

Evan Time

Please remember Evan Lied in your prayers and communication if you can. He was back in OSF hospital Thursday and Wednesday recovering from random mild seizure/stroke-like symptoms that they are testing for and observing right now. He's been in and out of the hospital all his life, and in the last year dealt with serious cancer treatment and a broken hip, which hasn't even had time to heal yet. The dude is more positive and witty than alot of people I know, and always beats you at the encouragement game.

Though very late, I got to see Evan Wednesday afternoon and yuk it up with him, Duncan, the Good Kevin, and the other Sarah. Don't mention her antlers, she's very sensitive.

Celebration Of Life AND Death

Tuesday was Grandmother's visitation and funeral. I know I didn't tell too many people about it. I'm sorry if you wanted to know. It was basically out of laziness, business, and not wanting sympathy because it was a great thing. I'm dreading this post only because I have so much to say about her and the past she's responsible for. The back log of posts recently has everything to do with writer's block and laziness. The one serious concern this week was my Mom's health. She is also very happy to see her mother with the Lord now, but continues to be very sick this week probably with the same stomach virus that contributed to grandmother's 97 year old heart failure. :-( I love you Mom!

The visitation and service was at my old church, First United Methodist in downtown Peoria. I grew up there, have alot of good memories from there, and remember (not always by name) alot of people from there.

I didn't feel right snapping pictures of random people (except my cousin) with a casket right next to me. But if I had you would definitely be looking at Mrs. Garber and Mrs. Koepel, the two ladies who have been running children's ministries down there since before I was born. So joyful and loving, and SOOOO excited to run into you at the grocery store 20 years later :-)

Even though I grew up here, I eventually started feeling like a fish out of water. Normally, I'm either in an environment where I know or know of most of the people I'm talking to, or I'm a complete stranger (like everyone else) and can act accordingly (say "hi" and have a normal human conversation). Here however, everyone knew everyone else, except me, and you can't have a long conversation getting to know them again in a reception line! When you don't see these folks in years, they figure you moved away. Everyone asked where I was living now. Ummm, just down the road actually :-)

But more awkward than the "where'd you go" questions was everyone offering their somber condolences. Why the sad face?? I could see my Mom having to respond the same way all morning as well. Grandmother was a believer in Jesus Christ as her personal savior and loved the Lord very much. She had eternity worshiping our God and Savior to look forward too. She's been separated from her loving husband who died 13 years ago, needed constant attention and was very frustrated in her physical condition.

Grandfather had a career outside of church, but eventually, they both ended up working for the church. Grandpa was the financial secretary, and Grandma, the membership secretary. I'm not sure if those are the exact titles, but you get the drift. Grandmother knew everyone and everything that went on at church. Over decades of service at a church larger than my current one, that multiplies out to a significant chunk of knowledge and relationships. She was also very meticulous about information records and grammar. Mom inherited a large percentage of Grandmother's grammar control, and I'm inheriting none of it! And why should I when Mom can just email or call with blog post corrections? :-)

My parents have carried on the fine tradition of knowing practically everything that goes on at church. Mom can tell you at least something about anyone you point out, and Dad can yuk it up with anyone he bumps into, friend or stranger.

Just like how life revolves around my current church body and building, it did growing up as well. I won't bore you with the hallways and rooms. The sanctuary had enough to speak of.






My family always sat in the same spot. About four rows back from the front of the balcony.





Janet Kaiser has played the organ and piano at church for as long as I can remember. The choir loft surrounds the organ, with the enormous organ pipe system sitting above. Piano lessons from Janet were pretty expensive, and you had to be pretty serious to take them from her anyway. My buddy Eric took lessons from her for years.

Phillip, the music pastor at FUMC, sang one of my grandparents favorite songs. His father was my piano teacher, and an awesome teacher he was. It was very meaningful to me that I would not only get a hymn to learn every week, but that he knew all about the author/composer of it and it's back-story every time.


To the right is the piano I played while accompanying the "Music Makers" children's choir directed by Mrs. Lisa. 2nd and 3rd graders I think. In the center are the steps that the children rushed down to every week for the short children's sermon before heading off to their classes. Behind the stairs are the candles I got to light at the beginning of each service during my year as an acolyte.

Mrs. Garber couldn't pass up reminding me about my solo on stage down at the fellowship hall. I was one of the three wise men for the annual children's Christmas program with my two best friends, Eric and John.

All in all, the trip down memory lane was very sweet. But, the fact that I felt like such a fish out of water around all these people left me with a caution. I hope that my time and service spent in my current church and body of believers isn't as superficial or without significant meaning as alot of the liturgy in some churches today. If church is more of a comfortable place than it is a challenging environment to grow and be sent from, then I will only rot there with a deceived smile on my face. Grandmother and Grandfather had healthy and engaging lives inside and outside the church, with a genuine outgoing attitude for anyone that would talk to them.

The cemetery was Swan Lake on the north end of town by Sam's and Grand Prairie. With the nasty weather, there was no grave-site service, only a short service in the mausoleum on-site. Kinda cold either way you go out there.


Back at the church, I felt Baptist again. My aunt and uncle's Sunday school class made lunch. A fabulous potluck assortment.

Next week I get to hang out with my triplet cousins, Grant, Erin and Kira. They're in from St. Louis for the week.










My bro and Grant, studding it up in their suits.

Erin being a wacko!

Jumping to today, in case I don't tackle the weekend posts quickly. Wes, Jon and I went out to breakfast this morning. Besides the motivation to get my rear in gear before noon, it was a serious reminder of the encouragement and changes God has blessed me with over the last five years. It was over three years ago I remember carpooling to church for something with Jon, and he was telling me what a big difference he had seen in my attitude and actions since I started seeking Godly examples and deeper relationships within the body of Christ. Too bad they also remind me how much I still have to learn, fix, or grow up.

Note to self, getting up early only helps if not immediately followed by nap time.

I filled in for the early afternoon South Side Benevolence service, as mentioned in previous post. Ron and Roxanne came to cheer me on.

The rest of the day was errands mixed in with slacking. Emsily gets a shout out for letting me prove I'm a big strong man. Shopping and it's associated traffic was ridiculous. Bumped into a friend from high school who hasn't lived around here for several years. Put in my application to a luxurious pizza delivery establishment, definitely pumped about that.

Erika needed some junk back that I had taken. If I refrain from explaining more, I get out of looking like the total slacker I was while I had it. Her fam's house is beautiful. If she doesn't start hosting parties after Christmas, I'm just going to send out facebook invites to her house myself.

The sistas were busy at the Christmas baking. Sugar cookies, pretzel sticks and gingerbread men.

Seriously, another week with no food needs unmet. Charles Chuck Charly (From the NYC trip) is headed out for the holidays, and left enough leftover perishables to last almost a week. Healthy ones too! Thank you Charly, but more directly, thank you Lord for providing. It's not even that rough yet, but I need all the practice I can get.

Week 2 - The Rest

Wednesday
Like most Cat folks, my buddy Ron decided to take some vacation to finish out the year with a long break. His Wife, Roxanne, stays at home and has found alot of joy and rewards speaking at the South Side Mission Benevolence center during their morning and mid-day services on frequent occasion. Ron is comfortable speaking in front of these crowds in the evening, and somehow Roxanne duped him into taking some of her spots during the daytime opportunities.
They brought their daughter, Amber, along for the ride. Her sister, Jasmine, was on my team for EE this semester and kept me on my toes during training. I say "duped" lovingly because then I was duped into taking Roxanne's speaking slot for this afternoon, which was very interesting. I went into it without any prep because I only intended to give a brief devotional, and then a short Gospel presentation to the few people who would should up. Well the place was packed with more people than I had ever talked to at the mission. It was great though. By presenting to the folks at the missions a little bit about my own struggles, I feel better connected and received by them. The guy sitting right in front of me talked to me for a while about getting laid off as well. He was one of the Track Type guys who got laid off three weeks ago. I had already heard about them being the first, most surprised and least notified to go.

Roxanne ran some errands with the kid and let Ron and I play in the snow for a while. I was assigned to shovel an elderly woman's driveway after every snow through our church's "snowman" ministry. It's been a joy to get to know this lady. She can talk as long as you can listen, and breathes between words faster than....someone else I know. Virginia's grandson came out to help us, and the job went faster than ever before. This kid has been living with her for about six months, and has proven to be a handfull. Being verbally abusive, deceptive and spending the night in jail occasionally are just a few examples of his attitude. It's clear in many cases that he wants attention. Virginia has more stamina and endurance for his attitude than some guys my age. Our youth pastor, Joey, has tried to spend alot of time personally devoted to him, but it hasn't helped alot, by the kid's own addition. I promised to call him before he finally leaves for Texas next month. Ron then helped with my driveway. When Roxy returned to pick up her hubby, they demanded a tour of the house. Ron and I talked about some practical aspects but Roxanne's ideas blew me away. I'm trying my best to consider one of them seriously. Meet my new designer!

After the third shoveling session (because after two it gets addicting), the rest of the day was slacking and going to church for dinner and AWANA.

At some point this week, I discovered a away to stay warmed up between weight lifting sets at home - climbing the equivalent of this inside my house.


Thursday
JonnyB beckoned from down the street to have me over for brunch and some computer support. It's a wonder I offer to fix people's network related problems when I have such a hard time with it myself. This was the third time I worked on his wireless print server. It was the furthest we've gotten so far in getting it to work, but only to find out that it's intended purpose might not be what WE wanted it for. Honestly, who makes a wireless print server that requires the printer to be hardwired to the router? Who? When Jon wasn't looking, I quit working and played with the animals.

Later, I got a call from one of the employers to whom I had applied for a job. He told me that I was sent a short online quiz. It was a 75 minute, 45 question test. Pretty fun, but if I see one more word logic problem, "these five words have something in common, what word comes next?", I will scream. Actually, I did scream, but no one heard me. My results were impressive (according to this guy) but I have doubts about that. He claimed I was in the 96th percentile. First of all, I never figured out what the five words had in common, and they asked five times with different sets of words! Also, they asked those math story questions like "two trains leave the station at..." which would normally stump me and alot of other people. But when it's multiple choice, you just plug in each value until it works.

Thursday was also an opportunity to invite an unemployed buddy over to catch up and see where he's been and how he's doing.

Friday

Josh and I received rude awakenings in the morning. Ex-roomie Jed barged in to inform us that you can hear a tree (or large branch) falling in our hood every 10 minutes, and (rightly so) he thinks we should de-ice and move our cars immediately. One of the biggest trees I have ever seen hovers over my house and driveway. It drops large dead branches in every heavy rain storm, so it's a no brainier
that a serious ice storm is dangerous. A branch (pictured) which is normally far above anyone's head was almost touching the sidewalk. Josh got kicked to the curb while I took the remaining garage space. :-)

The benefit of this was that Jed fixed me breakfast. Thanks Jed. Ironically (do I use that word alot?), I have seen fewer branches (tiny ones too) fall off of this tree over the last week than in any heavy wind rain we've gotten. We've been blessed. Ya, I realize the ice isn't gone yet.

This test guy got back to me to inform me of another programming test I will take (should be a little challenging) and explained more about their program. I won't bore you with the details, but it is a big decision if they offer. It involves getting traind for 13 weeks (I've seen the syllabus and it's good) and either spending money at the end of six months on the training and having faith that they will find a job nearby, or just moving to the east coast to work for them for a year at reduced pay to pay for the training.

Earlier I got a MUCH more exciting potential job update. I'm trying to forget about it because the position doesn't even exist yet, and it's only talk. I will be having lunch with the IT guy I would work under later this week or next week. Coincidentally (ha!), I went to high school with him.

The rest of the day was pretty frantic preparations for the Bible study Christmas party at John and Sarah's. Josh helped me out alot on his snow day. The family tradition of Meringue cookies didn't go so well, so I went with mint meltaway chocolates instead.

Friday night, Saturday, Sunday and today had their own excitement, so they'll get their own posts.

Week 2 - Slow Goin'

First of all - Mother, I love you very much! As we discussed just today (ironically) you have been a tremendous example of a mother, and clearly had another great mother to get alot of it from. We'll finish that later.

Here goes the accountability again. Monday and Tuesday were quite disappointing days in regards to waking up responsibly and trying to get things done. There was alot of staring off into space or sitting in front of blank blog posts doing nothing. Got alot of news article read.

Eventually, an assistant VP at a local insurance company was connected to me through a leader at church and we exchanged some emails about a facility and HVAC maintenance position at his company. Sounds a little far fetched for me (and it is) but alot of the job is working with their computerized environmental controls at multiple facilities, which requires IT familiarity. I haven't heard back in the last few days.

Stumbled upon a job opening at Northwoods Community Church. They're looking for a new Worship pastor. Fred, do you think I got what it takes? :-)

On Tuesday, I had an opportunity to serve my roomie who has always helped me out in a pinch and been patient with me when I'm in a cruddy mood. Josh had a flat tire at the end of an already extremely long day on Monday. He took my car on Tuesday and I took his in to get the tire fixed. The only reason it was even a tad bit of an inconvenience was because it was a nasty weather day, and the place who has his warranty is in Pekin, about 20+ minutes away on a good day. But the drive was alright, and they actually did it all for free. This new phone is great, but I can't for the life of me get the pictures off of it. Makes the story pretty bland doesn't it?

Tuesday night, neighbor Mike had us over for some dinner and good ole Settlers.




As I said before, the one who makes it painfully obvious exactly what they are ambitiously seeking will be held in contempt and robbed often. JimmyK (far right) kept his mouth shut and his trades modest, and came up with a six point swing in one turn to finish the game.

I promise, Wednesday and Thursday were much more productive and fruitful, but they will have to be addressed tomorrow.

Sweater party

Final party of the weekend, The 2nd Annual Ugly Sweater Party.





I got in trouble because I didn't think all the girls sweaters were that bad. Apparently, I have no taste for sweaters.



So many great costumes. One of the main questions of the night - what was my sweater made out of?? Woolly Mammoth? Snuffleupagus? I think we got close to the answer when Ben Showed up.







Even though it would have been good enough, these sweaters weren't on just for show! The people voted and honors were won.



We had the ugly sweater pictures from childhood past. Becky aaaaaaand Sarah "won" those.

The Judges determined most creatively dressed of the night were Brooks aaaaaand I can't remember the other person the amazing Bjorn!

Uglies of the night with prizes held high! BenG and I. BenG's sweater had to be knitted onto him I think. For some reason, I didn't feel all that comfortable standing next to a dude wearing a sweater Joanne couldn't fit in. From the looks of it, mine's a little snug to.
As most of the outfits came from Goodwill or Salvation army, it was only fitting that all of the prizes come from there as well. Thank you for all the prep and excitement that you put into the party ladies!!

I'd like to thank my Dad for loaning me one of his favorite sweaters. I promise it was not worn while eating, and everyone only got one free pet, no more. This trophy is dedicated to Matt Goben, the ugliest man I know.

Ironically, I wasn't in the mood for another party after Saturday's, but not only did I stick around long enough to win a prize, they even talked me into the after party. We headed next door to Alyssa's and Rock Band it up!

We got the 80's babes on vocal.


Atef and Benobbs on strings.


Alyssa smacking the drums.


And the cat playing with me.


Don't let Becky's enthusiasm fool you. She stinks at guitar drums. :-)

EE Potluck

So, I said our final week of EE was a couple of weeks ago, but we still had a graduation potluck to celebrate and recognize the semester's graduates.



Trent getting his certificate, which is actually worth three credit hours towards his seminary masters degree.







Trainer, Marty, razzes our fearless leader, the most holy right reverend Chris.

Food!

We watched a video called "The Harvest". I have seen it several times, and just like movies and books, I learn, notice or think about something new every time. The video is about what a boy learned from his father and a community which took up the job of a bountiful harvest which wouldn't have been possible without the involvement of many workers. Obviously, this video was about the harvest of redeemed through the Gospel of Christ, carried by believers.

The father in this video, who dies somewhere near the beginning, was a strong example of a Godly man. What he passed on to his children by teaching and example, had a key role in leading them to trust in God's sovereignty for their comfort and purpose. I realized how far away I would be from anything like that to a family of my own, and some other aspects to consider in choosing relationships that don't always seem so important now on this side of marriage.

In regards to being far away from the example I envision, one thing must exist in order to get there. A willingness to be changed. The only one who can change a heart is God, through His Holy Spirit. But that requires a contrite (broken) heart, a willingness to be what God wants us to be, not what we want. I've seen too many examples of Christians who attend church, Bible studies, or heaven forbid, discipleship ministries, just to walk away with a little bonus idea or comfort, and not an externally guided and motivated challenge. I do not want to be such a person.

I have to consider the example my child's parents must be to them. To get that example, certain standards in external appearance or internal purpose that don't seem a big deal now will make all the difference later on to a child. If I want my child to be willing to run the REAL race with stamina and joy, he/she will have to see it in both parents giving up their life for something greater than themselves. It helped me, in an odd way, to consider the realities of what I or my future wife must not compromise in in the search today. I have never made a compromise or low standard in dating, but thinking of all the relatives or co-workers who have had an opinion on who you should date, I notice that every year it gets easier to consider compromise, ease and satisfaction thanks to an insidious emotion called loneliness.