My Little Cheesehead

It's amazing how fast kids learn stuff. Leah now knows what a football is, can identify it on TV, knows who the Packers are and is well aware that "Dad watch football." She's a smart one. A little too observant at times, but still smart.

Today was a rather long day for a day off. Having two kids who are pretty congested and sick in general that it is hard to get any sleep let alone sleep in. Thankfully my wonderful wife did allow me to sleep in until 9 after getting up at 6 with Leah.

Tonight we went to drop some food off for friends of ours who just had their first baby. Then we went grocery shopping and to help out at the youth ministry at church. I am in charge of the games each week, so this week I pulled out the classic "Sock-head Jousting." For the uninitiated, you play this by putting a pantyhose on your head with a tennis ball in the end and twirling it around trying to catch and remove the same contraption from your opponent's head. For the night I was 4-0, which I credit to my abnormally large nose and satellite-esque ears.
Next week I get to lead the "spiritual" component for the group. I'm not sure what I'm going to talk about yet, but I'm leaning towards the topic of how heroes, idols and God need to interact.

The Irrational World of Worry

For the past two weeks, my life has been more consumed by worry than any other emotion. While most people would have probably considered it a rational feeling for the situation I was in, I am always disappointed in myself when my lack of faith and trust in God allows me to believe He is not in control or that He will not do all things for good no matter the outcome.

Granted, this belief does not guarantee the safety of loved ones or my success (in my view) in all situations. And this is probably why my level of worry was just so high.

The cause of my worry was the same as it is for many people; a meeting with a doctor. While I trust the medical profession probably more than any other I interact with, it is hard for me to imagine that they all realize how much meaning and impact their words have on everyone they see. People rarely go to the doctor to hear just good news. They go there for the truth and the reality of a situation to get clarity of what the future holds.

When we went to the doctor for an ultrasound a few months ago, the doctor told us that our baby to be had a slight problem they would be monitoring in the coming months. Apparently the growth of the uterer (a tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder) had grown too quickly which can result in some complications. It was looking like we would have to deliver the baby very early so the medical staff could do surgery.

For weeks we lived with this information with little incident. When we went to a follow-up appointment two weeks ago, the ultrasound appeared to show that things had taken a turn for the worse. The size of the uterer had gone from a "5" to a "9." In most cases, numbers mean something to me, but in this case I was never given an explanation so I was left to wonder just how bad the situation was.

As we waited for an appointment with a specialist to give us a second opinion two weeks later, our lives were consumed with stress and worry of the situation. It is never comfortable to have no control of a situation, especially when it involves one of your children. As a dad, I wanted to protect my son, but all I could do was pray and trust.

When we saw the specialist, it was clear that this issue was far less dangerously than we had made it out to be in our minds. The doctor told us that this is one of those cases that ultrasounds can be a bless and a curse and in this case it was a curse. The ultrasound they did showed the uterer to be between a 5 and a 6 (which I also learned is the measurement of the diameter of the uterer in tenths of a centimeter) which is on the borderline of a problem, but not worth delivering early.

So in the end, all things worked for good. Our baby is fine, we are all anxiously awaiting his healthy arrival and I am again reminded that my ability to worry will never out perform God's ability to heal and help those in need.

Forwarding to the Divine

I lost a mother-in-law, a friend and a role-model today.

Click Here.

Welcome Back Cotter

Anytime I get work in a Welcome Back Cotter reference, I know it is going to be a good post. Especially when it is the title AND the picture.

After another summer here at camp, life is finally slowing down. I am still only getting one day off a week, but at least the stress levels are down. We had a great summer with extremely high numbers in July. So the work life is good.

The family life is pretty good too. Jamie is continuing to show the signs of pregnancy and the child is growing nicely. It has been great to here the heartbeat and see the ultrasound images. In a level of needed prayer, the ultrasound did show the baby had kidneys that are developing too quickly which may result in emergency surgery at the time of birth. Hopefully the rest of the baby's body catches up to those kidneys.

We also continue to work through the process of Jamie's mom's failing health. It is amazing to me how a strong belief in God can change the outlook of so many in regards to this stage of life. The trust in the hereafter is worth so much right now. Knowing that we will all be rejoined one day gives my heart some comfort. I am eager for a big family dinner in heaven.

In less heavy news, I have found a new favorite internet service. Goozex is a videogame trading site that matches used videogame owners to make trades for only $1 per trade and postal fees. A pretty good deal. I've traded literally about 15 games at this point. Saving me a ton of money. If you want to sign up, use me as a referral and we both get some free points/trades! (Click here if you are interested.)

Other than that, not much going on. Hopefully this is the start of more consistently blogging from me again!

Wind...it blows.

When I was a kid, I used to love the wind. One of the happiest moments I have from growing up is flying kites with my dad. It was one of those things we did to bond. These weren't the typical single-string Smurf kites though. They were the two string variety that allowed you to guide the kite through the air.

Now, 15 years later, I still like the wind. However I do not always like the effects of the wind. When you live at a camp, you are typically surrounded by trees, as I am here. You quickly learn that in an environment like this, with wind comes work. The stronger the wind, the more trees and debris liter the ground. As much as I love using a chainsaw, it does get old after a while.

As I was cutting up a large tree today, I was grumbling and thinking through the annoyance of increased wind velocities and the relative flimsy-ness of the trees at this camp. Then, for no apparent reason, I remembered the scripture of John 3:8 which I have always liked.

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

That kind of put things in perspective for me. I wonder how often in my life the Holy Spirit goes through and blows down the dead trees and branches cluttering my life, and my response is not thankful, rather it is a childish reaction of annoyance. I enjoy the dead things that surround me even though they are not very pretty or even nice to have around.

One thing I have also learned about dead trees is that they tend to fall in the worst places. In theory, a tree has 360 degrees of falling radius, yet it always seems to fall across a road, into a cabin or just in a difficult are to reach.

In my own life, this is manifest by the dead wood falling into the areas of my life that I enjoy such as my family, friendships or just free time. And again, rather than clean up the mess, I grumble and slowly remove as little as I can get away with.

I guess I just need to listen for guidance and start cutting before the Holy Spirit moves so I can do my best to thin out the forest. If all I have left are healthy, strong trees in my life, the wind can blow through with force and all that happens is a beautiful sound of rustling leaves.

That is the sound I want for my life.

God's Timing, Not Mine

It's hard being human. To have my desires constantly changing like the wind to be happier, better and/or more successful is a frustrating place to be. As normal as it is, why can't my desires fall more in line with what God wants for me?

Clearly it's a lack of obedience on my part. With the realization that I have now committed my life (and my family's life by proxy) to ministry, I am eager to know where I will go to serve Christ. Granted, I am already doing His work in this great place, but for some reason the grass is always greener...

So what spurred all these thoughts/emotions? Well, I had another church call me about being a youth pastor a few days ago. I have had several now which is very flattering and if circumstances were different, I would entertain the thoughts more seriously. I have a desire to serve youth and encourage and enrich their lives with the truth of Christ, but in what capacity that will take is so unclear.

I know I am only 26. I know my life is in the hands of the same Creator who put amazing ministry in the lives of ordinary people (see the entire Old Testament and the 12 disciples). I know that I have a great wife and family who will trust in God and my discernment to determine where the next stop in ministry will be.

I just can't handle the waiting.

I have so much I can do in my current ministry and I always hear positive feedback about how this place is changing and improving since I arrived less than a year ago. But I still feel like God has something more in the way of direct ministry than this. Maybe someday that door will open and I will actually hear God calling to encourage me it is time to take that next step.

The Easter Story

**Disclaimer - I apologize if this story catches anyone off guard. It is difficult to call everyone who deserves calling when things like this happen. I hope you can forgive me if this is the first place you get this news.

Every year I struggle with the same thing. As Easter approaches, I try desperately to try and make it more personal for myself. The mere thought of this holiday, the death and eventual resurrection of the man/God I call my savior, makes it seem this would be easy. In many ways, this should be more personal than Christmas.

And yet I have struggled. I have struggled to allow the loving God I know to truly penetrate my heart on this day. It may be out of fear, or pride, or simply a lack of focus. However that all changed yesterday.

It started as a relatively normal day. The night before Leah woke us up with a very high fever which we attributed to her ongoing teething. We gave her Tylenol, cooled her down, and went to bed.

The next day I was in the office as usual. My mom was visiting from Appleton and went with Jamie and Leah to a birthday party for one of Leah's friends. As I was finishing up my work for the day, I heard the horn from our car repeatedly. I looked out the window to see Jamie driving our car quickly towards the office, frantically waving me outside.

I ran outside and met her as she was yelling to me "Leah's not okay!" through her tears. I ran to the side of the car and saw Leah in her car seat, convulsing. My mom was at her side, unsure what to do. To be honest, none of us knew what to do.

We quickly brought her inside the office and Jamie held Leah as I called 911. I told the dispatcher about the situation and watched as Leah shook and her eyes rolled back into her head. This was bad. Her breathing was labored and her body was very rigid.

It seemed like the ambulance was never going to arrive. I watched as Leah suddenly went limp and her lips turned blue. She appeared to stop breathing for a few seconds and as we leaned her forward a stream of bubbles and saliva fell from her mouth. She was suffocating. Now that she could breath again, her color returned.

"What is taking them so long to get here?" I thought, "Dear God, don't let my daughter die. I can't handle this. I love her too much."

And then I saw a truck pull towards the office. I quickly waved them inside where Leah was conscious, but not very coherent. I couldn't help but wonder if my daughter was going to be mentally handicapped from the trauma.

I watched as first responders quickly gave her oxygen and slowly brought life back to Leah. She was crying now but still had a distant look in her eyes. Was she ever going to recover from this?

Several hours later, after numerous tests at the Portage hospital, we would learn that Leah suffered a seizure from a sudden spike in her temperature. The fever she had was not just teething. She had a bladder infection that had spread through out her body. There was no real way for us to predict this, but all the same we can't help but feel responsible to some degree.

Fast forward to the next day (Easter Sunday) and Leah is doing much better. Her fever is down and she is back to herself. She even enjoyed finding Easter eggs hidden throughout the living room this morning (filled with dried fruit).

As I went to Portage this morning to pick-up Leah's prescription, I couldn't help but think about how this feeling of almost losing a child is what Easter is really about. The feeling of hopeless, no-control, chaos is the Easter story. How do you think the disciples felt as they watched Jesus commit himself to die? How do you think even Pontius Pilate felt as he washed his hands of the entire situation? This man was going to die and nothing could save him.

When I saw Leah so lifeless and limp, I could do nothing to save her. I could not breath life back into her. It was only be the grace of God that the human body restarts from a seizure.

I walked into the house with Leah's prescription in hand and as I took my shoes off, Leah walked up to me with a something in her hand (as she often does). I reached down and looked at her gift to me. It was a pregnancy test. With two lines. We are having another child.

So as usual, I am forced to revise my thoughts on God. The Easter story is not about the hopelessness, the lack of control or chaos. It is about new life. It is about the gift God gives us through the grace of His son and the love He has for His children.

It has been an overwhelming 24 hours. But I feel as though I understand the loss and gain of Christ so much clearly today than I ever did or could before. Thank you for the plan of salvation and escape from death Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:50-57
I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then the sky finally opened...

When we first moved from Mankato, MN to middle-of-no-where, WI, I was convinced that as a family we could survive. In most ways I was correct. We have adapted. We have learned to live on less.

Except in one area: spiritually. It is easy to think (and I am guilty of it as well) to think that living at a Christian camp would be a constant spiritual renewal. I couldn't be more wrong. Finding a church has been a never ending search for the last 9 months and it looked like we were doomed to a more traditional church with a congregation of elderly folks who could rarely relate to my current life situation.

Well hopefully that changed today. After 4 churches, number 5 seems to be the winner thus far. We kind of found it by accident too. I was looking through the church directory on Relevantmagazine.com, and noticed a listing for Portage, WI. We were already going to a church in Portage, so I was curious which church it was. It was actually a church that was across the street from the church we had been attending for about a month.

The church is Silver Lake Community Church. It is a non-denominational church of about 100 people. There are a lot of younger families, but an overall mix like I wouldn't have expected in a town the size of Portage. The music is contemporary worship using the iWorship series, but the aspirations to have a band are there. The pastor reminds me of a mix of Jay Bakker and Mark Driscoll (more Driscoll though) which is about ideal for me. He is very intentional about reaching marginalized people which I also appreciated.

The schedule is kind of unique too. The church starts with coffee fellowship time for a half hour which allows the smell of coffee to fill the sanctuary and a time to meet with others (which hopefully we can do once we actually meet people). Overall it was a great experience.

And best of all really is that it really felt good to worship. I won't get to go in summer, but they do have small groups on Tuesdays which I could probably attend. We are excited to finally have found a place that just feels like a church home where Christ is exalted and loving fellowship is a priority.

I'm smiling right now. I haven't done that in a while.

An Inconvenient Truth - A Christian Perspective

Jamie and I just got done watching the highly publicized documentary An Inconvenient Truth. I had been meaning to see it for a while but apparently catching up on Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler is more important than the apparent demise of the planet.

While I greatly appreciated the message on a whole, I think Al Gore lost some validity by throwing in an assortment of political overtones. Had it been just straight facts and repercussions, I think it would have been much more accessible for the masses.

The real point of this post though is the burden I feel this movie should have on all Christians (not just environmentalist liberal sorts). As much as I agreed with Bono when he said, "How we respond to the AIDS emergency [in Africa] will describe us for posterity," I think that there is a much larger issue here.

As Christians, we are called to be the caregivers of the oppressed, widowed and orphaned. We are called to be the wise stewards of gifts and talents. We are called to protect the creation God has give us dominion over.

It is a high bar for sure. When we are doing our best to make the most of this life and to simply try and understand the life of Christ, it can be difficult to even make the token trip to the local soup kitchen once a year. It's no wonder the world often has a hard time differentiating Christians from non-Christians in most aspects of life.

But what if we responded to this great obligation in simple ways. What if we were more careful about the resources we used? What if we didn't automatically vote Republican on all issues simply because we once were told it was synonymous with Christian? What if we didn't just do a once a year fund drive for AIDS in Africa, but did a rolling collection that was always reemphasized with achievable goals?

It's a lot of what-ifs, and I know I have a lot of work to do in my own personal life. I guess this movie just started me questioning if God would really be pleased with what He sees from me here on earth and if there is something more I can do to glorify Him more.

Happy Birthday Leah!

There are few times in life that it is acceptable to eat cake in your underwear. I have to admit, after watching Leah enjoy the chocolate mess, I was a little jealous. A great way to cap off a great year.

The other crazy thing is that Leah suddenly decided walking is a great mode of transportation. She is actually about 50/50 on walking crawling. She even pulls herself up on my leg just to get a starting stance to walk. It's very cute.

I found out that next week I have Martin Luther King Jr. Day off. I haven't had that holiday since high school. Kind of nice.

Also, my GPS unit finally came in the mail today so I am excited to do a few geocaches before the first great snowfall (if we ever get one).

Not much else going on here. Just working, loving the family, serving God...not necessarily in that order.

Songs for Christmas

When it comes to Christmas music, I am an inherently cynical person. It is very difficult to find something I truly enjoy. The typical Christmas music always seems so trite and commercialized that it just flies in the face of what I view Christmas as. Instead of a truly holy miracle, it is cheapened to a synthetic Santa pulled by plastic reindeer.

For a while I was appeased by the remakes by current Christian artists as I felt they often put emphasis on songs I had otherwise overlooked. However, over the years, that has even worn on me. I was still hearing more production values than their heart.

However, on a recent Relevant podcast, they talked about a new Sufjan Stevens Christmas album. I have always been an outsider on the Sufjan Stevens phenomena, meaning to pick up one of his albums but never quite following through. But after hearing a few of these songs on the podcast, I knew I had to hear the rest.

The songs just sound so authentic. You really get the feeling that he means the words he is singing. That he is happy for the coming of Christ and the eventual salvation that He would provide. It doesn't hurt that the album is huge too. 42 songs huge.

And what would you pay for something like this? $100? $50? How about only $15?!? Yeah. I was shocked too. If you go to Amazon it's like $22, but on iTunes the album download is $15. Crazy. A must buy in my opinion. It will be in heavy rotation for me through the holiday and some songs (Come Thou Fount) will live long past January for me.

Off Hiatus

It's hard to believe that it's actually Blogger that remotivated me to start blogging again. But with this new drag-and-drop layout, it is pretty easy. I typically despise WYSIWYG layout since it is so limited, but in this case I welcome it. Anything that allows me shorten the time and not totally sacrifice my content is appreciated.

So what have I been up to? Well, working. It turns out the true active season of this camp is from May to late November, not October as previously advertised. It's a great problem to have, but it has kept me on my toes and allowed for little rest in the mean time. I am eager for the rest that Thanksgiving will bring.

I was close to posting last week after the recent Wisconsin election results as well. As a Christian, it was pretty embarrassing. I have often distanced myself from the typical Evangelical outlook on politics, and this only reinforced my reasoning.

It kills me how much Christians missed the boat this year. While many churches were busy taking up their issue of being strongly against same-sex marriage, they may have missed the bigger issue: the death penalty. Even the church I attend here in Westfield was guilty of it. They encouraged people to put up little signs in their yard to vote "yes" on the same-sex marriage bill, but they never even mentioned the death penalty. I have to think that if Jesus was at those polls he would have been much more adimate about the killing of people than anything else.

But I'm off my soapbox now. I am really enjoying the college football season right now. All this crazy stuff is happening in the top 10 and Wisconsin is slowly creeping up the list. I think they are the most under the radar team in the top 25 right now. I'm not thinking national championship or anything, but a top 10 finish isn't out of the question.

Hope all is well out there. Hopefully I can get more consistent with this thing again.

A Rough Rainy Day

I'm not sure what that is a photo of, but it captured how I felt today. In addition to the rather depressing rain, I also just did not feel like serving people today. On a typical day, I will bend over backwards to help anyone who stays here to enjoy their time. It's not only my job, but as a steward of this great place it is also my responsibility.

But today I didn't want to. I know God never said "well, serve with all your heart when you feel like it." In fact, he said something much different than that.

In Romans 12 it says just the opposite.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

I read once that the worst part of a living sacrifice is that they keep trying to crawl off the altar. I think that is where I am right now. I want to serve God with all my heart, mind, body, and soul, but today it just wasn't there.

The crazy thing is that I have a peace about it as well. I think God is aware of how tired I am and how much my soul is just aching for good worship and fellowship. He knows that I (and my family) are in a dry desert right now.

Tomorrow we are trying yet another church. I am hopeful that God is waiting for us there.

Jesus Camp

I was updating our queue on Netflix yesterday and saw a banner that caught my eye. Apparently there is a new movie coming out called "Jesus Camp." It's actually more of a documentary, but anyways...

Since I work at what could be labeled a "Jesus Camp" it of course caught my eye. The sad thing is that even before I investigated it I knew what I was going to find. Go check out the trailer here and then come back.

So really I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, yes, Christian camps are meant to strengthen the youth of America in their Christian beliefs. I don't think that is anything too earth-shattering.

On the other hand, the comparisons to Palestinians and the military-style performance were kind of off-putting. If I were on the outside viewing this film, I could certainly see how Christians could be labeled fanatical and even closer to Islamic extremists than I think we would like.

It's funny (and sad) how Christians are often portrayed in mainstream media.

Eating Rocks

Last night was great. It started with Jamie, Leah and I going down to the beach to enjoy what is probably one of the last nice days of summer/fall. I have this fear that the weather is just going to take a turn to frigid soon. Maybe I should buy a Farmer's Almanac...

Anyway, Leah has a weird (yet normal) aversion with sticking everything in her mouth. I mean, it's borderline ridiculous. Even when we go grocery shopping I have to have my hands ready like a hockey goalie to stop her constant pecking at the cart handle. Gross.

But back to the story. As we were sitting on the beach, Leah decided that every stone she could wrap her fingers around looked like food. She literally picked up every stone she could. And being the good dad that I am, I would take it from her and fling it behind me.

After a minute or so of this de-rocking on the beach, I realized I could be proactive and actually remove the rocks before she got to them. As kind as I thought this was, she decided to go above and beyond. She started crawling.

And so we crawled together. We meandered the beach and with each half-crawl, she would grab a rock, lift it to her mouth, and then I would take it from her.

It was at this moment that it God spoke to me. In so many areas of my life I try to eat rocks. Even after I realize they are inedible, dangerous and just plain gross, I do my best to eat rocks. When I became aware of God's presence in my life, I was able to more clearly see the rocks and in some cases even feel God take them away from me.

So what do I do? I crawl my way to more rocks. More sin. It's sickening, annoying and it's my human nature. I am really blown away when God uses fatherhood to teach me lessons like this. It happens pretty regularly, but this one really stuck out to me.

No really, I'm going to blog now...maybe.

I'm not sure I could be any more sporatic of a blogger right now. I really want to be more consistent, but my work load is so inconsistent that it is hard to get in a groove. I keep thinking, "well next month should be better..." and then it isn't. Oh well. At least I'm still posting sometimes, right?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, so bear with me if this is kind of "rambly." The more time I spend out here in the woods, the more I am realizing that I am changing as a person. It is nothing of huge magnitude, but there are small things.

First, I know that I am becoming more laid back than I have been in the past. It's n0t that my job is a cake walk, it is actually probably more stressful than my previous job. But the difference is my environment. Being surrounded by nature is so different than being in the city. The fact that I bike to the office past deer and turkeys daily. It's crazy. It's as if God is literally walking/biking right there with me.

Second, I am learning how to cultivate my faith without being able to really go to church. This is not to say I'm denying the need for corporate worship. There is nothing I crave more than worship right now. Unfortunately Sundays are a rather busy day here which is kind of eliminating worship from the schedule for the time being. I am hoping to change that next year as I value worship, but we'll see. For now I am listening to a lot of sermon podcasts and doing daily Bible reading on my personalized Google start page.

Finally, I am realizing how culture and the media really impact their audience. Since we now watch all of our TV on a DVR (skipping most commercials), we have no decent radio stations, and I am removed from year-round youth ministry, I am realizing that I am literally unplugged from most popular culture. Kind of scary for a guy like me.

Thankfully I still have podcasts to help me stay connected. Between the Relevant podcast, several videogame podcasts, and of course every single ESPN podcast.

Speaking of the Relevant podcast, last week they had a great cover of Hey Ya by Outkast. This version is by Obadiah Parker. Since I really wanted the song, but I couldn't seem to find it anywhere, I used some fancy Mac software to chop the song out of the podcast. Not really a big deal, but I did it so we can all appreciate the song. My gift to you for not posting regularly I guess. Wait...I just found a link so I don't have to host it. Enjoy!

Hey Ya - Obadiah Parker

The Pop Culture Hook

After reading Tim's blog (http://www.timschmoyer.com/2006/05/17/tired-of-da-vinci-code-hype/), it has really helped me realize how desperate Christian culture can be at times. Is it just me or does it seem like Christians are constantly waiting for the next big Hollywood hit that can be used as a ministry tool? Granted, it does make it easier to convey a gospel message, but I wonder why that is?

Really, I have come to wonder if it is more a matter of Christians becoming lazy or the rest of the world becoming so jadded towards the gospel message. Let me explain.

First, the laziness. In general Christians are lazy. Then again, in general, non-Christians are lazy too. To commit to doing straight up evanglism the way Jesus did it would not only be scary, but also tiring. But then again, it worked. Jesus never waited for some great artisitic movement to hitch his message to. He just proclaimed love and grace. Why don't we do that?

Well, we usually don't do it because no one would listen. The rest of the world is so sick of hearing the gospel that they typically won't even hear you out. They just move on as if what you are saying is some annoying telemarketer conversation. As if the gospel had a timeshare attached to it...

But we can't change the way people are. We can change the way we present our message though. Rather than waiting for the next great Hollywood blockbuster, why not spread the gospel the way Jesus did?

A bad case of the Wednesdays

It is really bizarre to now treat Wednesday as my new Monday. Heck, it was weird enough treating Tuesday as my "weekend."

We did get a lot done around the house yesterday though. We hung most of the pictures we own which is really not that many. I ordered a couple videogames (Ratchet & Clank 3 and God of War) for amusement while Jamie and Leah are off in Ireland. I'm really going to miss them while they are gone. Hopefully I can just keep busy so the time goes fast.

I am also slowly adjusting to the dial-up nightmare for internet access. It is ridiculous that it takes me an hour to upload 1 photo to Flickr, but if I start it at 9 pm, watch some TV and come back, it's usually done. I just need to pace myself so I don't have a huge back log of photos. It also sounds like the plans to have satellite internet are moving along fast than planned. Probably by fall at the latest!

Not much else going on here at camp. It has rained the last few days which has made life kind of miserable. I'm hoping everything will dry out today so I can at least walk around and get my head straight. It always makes my job easier and more enjoyable when I walk around and realize how important this place is to so many ministries and how clearly God moves in this place.

Packing Up My Life

IMG_0605.JPG
Originally uploaded by NickWI.

Despite how cute Leah looks in this picture, packing is not fun. The stress of the house not being sold yet and just getting everything ready is really starting to wear on us. I keep telling myself that this is all God's will and His timing will come as soon as He is ready. I just need to keep this whole trust thing in perspective.

I am still fairly eager to get back to Wisconsin though. I always feel like I am "home" when I am in Wisconsin. I look forward to that feeling. And also to that feeling that what I am doing is more of an impact in the hearts, minds and souls of others. Far more than just working for a printing company is at least.

Sorry this isn't a longer post, but I am exhausted. I need to go rest or play a videogame or something to get my energy back.

Last Day of Work

Okay, so maybe that isn't be punching out on my last day of work, but it is some guy doing it and I'll be doing the same thing later today. And I will definitely give the thumbs up to anyone with a camera in the area.

It's really weird being here. It is kind of rewarding though since a lot of people are coming up to me and telling me they will be praying for my success or how much they enjoyed working with me. I'm really trying hard to convey a moment of Christ to everyone I talk to, but it is difficult not to just force it in most cases.

This also marks the last day of daycare for the little peanut Leah. I'm really glad actually. She needs to be home with Jamie. I'm sure she will be a happier baby because of it. I can't wait to see her multiple times everyday.

I'm in the midst of designing the new website for Pine Lake. I have more or less decided to design it myself. My hope is that it will be a learning experience for me and that I can use that knowledge to start designing websites for other camps or ministries in the future. From the research I have done it looks like a lot of camps have really lousy websites. I'll be happy to change that as much as I can.

We also had a pretty huge blessing yesterday. My friend Josh called me and told me he had free tickets for Jamie and I to see Switchfoot in Mankato this weekend. I really wanted to go all along, but I figured we could save the money and that we had enough other stuff going on. However, after the past couple of weeks, it will be great to go to a concert and unwind a little. Much thanks to Josh for the gift!