American Idol

I think we might have a TV worthy one here:

Then she kills a bug.

Excitment for today

Today is another exciting day for me because of what God appears to be doing in Surprise with Young Life.

I have two meetings today, one with the regional director (my potential boss-man) and then another informational meeting with a group of interested folks out in Surprise. This meeting includes a couple who the husband just retired from working for the city as the city manager, so he's very well connected within the city and wants to see YL out in his area.

Surprise is a neat 'town' of over 100,000 now and the school district has grown from about 6,000 students in 2000 to over 21,500 students today, and has grown from 1 high school to 3 with a fourth planned to open in 2009.

The sense is that there is a great need for a ministry such as YL out there, and we are praying that we can be a part of that.

Our Trip

This last week we took our quadrennial trip to L.A. to visit my family.

The main reason for this trip was to visit my new neice, Kayla Marie Baker, who was the first baby born this year at her hospital (4am or so on 1.1.08) and missed saving mom and dad on their taxes by about 5 hours! lol

It was a trip not unlike many of my long distance workouts, long drives with short bursts of seeing people. We started on Thursday by driving from home to L.A. (with a stop at the Cabazon outlet mall) and spent the afternoon and evening with my grandma, mom and a few aunts, uncles and cousins. It was nice to catch up with people there and spend time taking pictures of 3 of the great grandkids.

On Friday morning we made the short drive to visit my dad in Santa Monica and spent an hour or so at the beach (too chilly for real beach weather) and then had lunch before heading down the coast to San Diego (with a stop in San Celemente at the Rainbow store).

The time in SD was a blast, we always love visiting the Gennaros and they are so much like us in their views and challenge us in the way they live out loud in their love for Christ. The reason for our trip to SD was to visit the Gennaros who new little boys that just got home from Uganda. They have been in process of getting them adopted from Uganda for over two years and they brought them home a few months ago. They are both ADORABLE.

Julia (the oldest who's a freshman now-was a toddler when we were at PLNU) was on the crew for the Beauty and the Beast performance at the high school, so we packed up the two vans and headed to the show that night, which all kids enjoyed.

The next day we spent time just hanging out in the morning and continuing to catch up with our friends with the kids making new ones. We took a couple of shots before heading off back home on Saturday. All-in-all a good trip. Julia had a party in the morning, so she was missing from the pics.

Sad Day

Yesterday was a sad day.

THREE and a half years ago I received one of my most used gifts of all time, a pair of palmetto flip flops as a gift for being a groomsman.

Toward the end of last summer, the palmettos stared sadly at me as they realized that the end was near. I'd nearly worn through the bottom on both toes and there was cut marks all over the bottom from digging out thorns.

As the weather has heated up, I tried to ignore the fact that these sandals were no longer comfortable, as I had an attachment to them emotionally.

Alas, on Saturday we were in San Clemente, CA where they make these 'guaranteed for life' flip-flops called Rainbow Sandals that many of my friends have raved about and sell them at deep discounts. I was forced...ok not forced...but I bought a pair (actually 2).

Last night the palmettos found their way (after a small service) into the garbage can.

Sad day, sad day indeed.

Thanks for the ride palmettos, thanks for the ride.

Surprise, Surprise

A couple weeks ago I was invited to a fundraising dinner for an organization called Amahoro, which strives to empower young leaders in Africa by giving them the tools and connecting them with the resources to strive in their own countries without the west's help. It was an interested dinner, but not a mission that I connected with.

One thing that did happen is that the mayor of Surprise was at the dinner, and I was able to not only meet him, but enjoy a lengthy conversation with him about Surprise and the work that I've done to get YL out there.

He told me of some friends that he knew of that tried to get YL out to Surprise a couple of years ago. He then mentioned the name and the guy who was heading that I've met because I taught his kids my last year of teaching in Surprise.

Seems like a lot of dots are being connected. Please continue to pray. This is fun for me to watch!

Another formal complaint

A couple of days ago these white and gray things invaded our skies and blocked the sun. They even had the nerve to drop this water stuff out of the sky.

It's happening again today and it's just plain annoying I tell you. This is a desert, not Seattle.

Surprise Young Life

We had our meeting in Surprise for interest in getting Young Life started out there.

The meeting was a REALLY positive one and much different that I expected it to go.

Before we talked about areas can be started either with a volunteer team beginning ministry with a committee to support or in can start with a staff member who pulls everything together (well, God pulls everything together, but you know what I mean).

John (AZ director of YL) came out and said that Surprise needed a staff person. Then the discussion went into a very specific discussion regarding finances, what would need to be raised and how soon we'd like to get started.

There was two people there who I think will be valuable leaders that are about my age who asked the question, "How long? 2-3 years?" and one lady (who appears to be a strong fundraiser) who looked appaled and said, "2-3 years, I'm thinking 2-3 weeks!" . We did talk about fundraising throughout the spring and summer and then bringing on staff in the fall.

Now throughout all of this, my prayers that I would be that staff person have been kept quiet, as we didn't want to build false momentum with someone thinking "oh, we have a staff person, let's get rolling". We wanted to make sure that the community support was there before that happened. Tuesday's meeting someone asked specifically if John had someone in mind for the area and "the cat was let out of the bag" :-) that this is why I've been helping and where I am hoping and praying that God is leading our family.

It's very exciting to think that I could be working for YL in the fall of this year! It's also very scary and daunting at the same time, there is a significant amount to raise before this can get started.

Please pray for this process as this seems nearly impossible, but we know that God is bigger than this whole thing.