I haven’t blogged in a long while.
In fact, I had almost written this off until my good friend Randal Schafers mentioned to me the other day that it’d been over a year since my last entry. When we last left one another Melissa and I were knee-deep in anticipation over the birth of our first child Olivia Reese. Needless to say, we had her and she’s awesome. At the risk of sounding like an overly proud parent she is most likely the smartest, most talented, quickest learning and cutest child that has ever graced the face of this planet (until our next...then she’ll at least have an equal). I’m kidding of course. She’s awesome to us and to those who know her but I’m just a proud parent and parents say and do ridiculous things when it comes to their children. (Take if from the guy who vowed never to post endless amounts of pictures of their kid on Facebook.)
Life has progressed since last year.
Olivia is 8 months old right now. She’s chubby. She’s aching to move around. She’s got a nice growth of ginger hair making its way in. She likes it when I make farting noises. Melissa has been back at work for some time and daily humbles me as I continue to figure out what it means to be a good parent. How is that moms already know and dads have to decipher the code? I’m blessed to have someone who holds within herself the innate power to be the most loving, patient and caring human being on planet earth.
Church life carries on. As a youth group…we are a group in transition. This year I will bid farewell to my first official batch of seniors; the very first group of students to have survived (or put up with) me all 6 years in our youth ministry. I will be completely honest and say that it both scares me and saddens me knowing I won’t get to see these kids on a weekly basis come August (if not sooner for some). God has bigger plans though. Better ones too. So as we begin to prepare for life without our seniors we begin the search to find the new identity of the group. Who will the leaders be? Who will step up and fill the gaps? What new faces can we expect to see in the coming year? We pray that as time marches on God begins to clarify the answers to these prayers.
2012 is poised to be a great year for our students. We’ll take a core group of 17 to Houston this coming week to do some manual labor mission work. Our yearly Disciple Now retreat is coming up in April with camp not far behind at the very beginning of June. And of course, I’ll be joining 4 of our students and the wonderful Debbie White as we travel to Ecuador in July to help out with a children’s/youth camp an hour outside the capital city in Ambato. God is going to do some major shaping this year and my prayer is that it begins with me.
In September I also assumed the part-time role of worship pastor here at the church. Somehow this role follows me around like a lost poppy looking for a home at every church stop I’ve ventured to so far. I love it. I get to work with some amazing musicians and more importantly some amazing humans and followers of Jesus. Our goal has been and will always be to add a level of depth to the worship service that creates an environment where we can easily disappear and the Holy Spirit can take center stage as He controls as He wills. Hopefully people aren’t getting to tired of seeing me on Sunday mornings.
Oh yeah, while all this was happening I tried my hardest to stop being fat. (mission somewhat accomplished) In August I began a program suggested to me by my buddy and fitness-guru Travis Hastings. Over the course of 60 days I shed 34 pounds. It was really tough because when it comes to self-control I usually come up empty handed. This time, due to a large monetary commitment to join this program, I kept with it and saw some incredible results. Since I stopped in October I’ve lost a few extra pounds and have brought my weight down 42 pounds.
I’m not completely finished yet.
In the heat of the moment and overcome with a complete sense of insanity I have decided to run the 5k race WARRIOR DASH this coming June with some other men from our church. 3.11 miles of rugged terrain mixed in with the usual rope bridge, mud crawl, fire jump, etc… I had simply started to plateau in weight loss and figured I might need to add some exercise at some point. Nothing says healthy like running with 599 other wild humans trying to jump the same fire you are.
God continues to work on me; as a pastor, as a dad, as a husband and definitely as a follower. My goal is to keep up with this a bit more. I’ve even planned out some things to hit over the coming weeks. But I won’t spoil you with all of them now. For the 2 of you (Hi mom!) reading this…you can wait with overwhelming excitement for the next installment of my blog.
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