2008. The Year in Review

Now that we are 1 hour and 30 minutes away from the new year, I thought it would be nice to go back and look at what has changed in my life over the last 12 months. If you want full stories, you can probably look back at my previous posts and learn way more than you probably ever wanted to know.

The year started out quite trying with me looking for full-time work while working part-time at Kay Bee's (may it rest in peace). I actually enjoyed working at the toy store but don't think the hours were good (opening boxes at midnight was no fun.)

The church has been a struggle. My excitement has been waning for most of the year to the point that VBS suffered. The last couple of months seem to be better. It's getting better. Today's event, even being 5 hours long, was a blast for me. I hope the kids had a good time (although we know we are going to cut it down to maybe 2 hours next year.) I lost my paid position with the church stayed on as the non-paid children's pastor. I was asked if we were going to leave the church, but God hasn't called us anywhere else yet so the work continues. Some things are starting to form that I like a lot. I do need to start training someone to take my place though in case I ever get sick or God does call us somewhere else. We were thinking the other day, if my family left the church (extended included), our AWANA program would crumble (I'm AWANA pastor, my wife is the commander, my sister is the secretary, my dad is the leader for the 3rd - 6th grade class), our Children's minsitry would lose half it's leadership and the youth would lose most of theirs too. The true sign of a good leader is the fact they can replicate themselves so I am failing.

I got employed with San Bernardino City Unified School District in March. I'm a secretary. The job really has been the tale of two jobs though. My first boss had been in the position for 10 years and the office was a cesspool of moral. When she retired in June and the former regime was pretty much cleaned out (Dennis withstanding -- but he was the positive from the previous regime)left also, the attitude changed and now it's ok to joke and talk and smile. I like the office atmosphere now and I get to help kids indirectly. The fact that I was no longer employed part time at Kay Bee's made my wife happy and the fact that the job has good benefits made her much happier.

Life with 4 kids as they grow is interesting. The twins are getting bigger and talking way too much. Micah is becoming more social. So is Becca but she isn't supposed to be doing so. It's amazing to sit back and watch them sometimes to see what a miracle they really are.

I started umpiring baseball this year and I had a blast. It is definitely something I am going to do again. And again. And again. Towards the end of the year, I was able to talk to people about my other job and some of the events we held at the church. Relationship building with the lost is the best way to draw them to Christ. I hope I never get to the point where someone will tell me at the ballpark that they can't hear my words because my actions are speaking too loud. I can't wait for March.

2008 has been a year of paying the bills by faith. My mother-in-law and I don't really make enough to pay all of our bills and eat but God has been good and provided in unexpected places too many times. It was even more amazing when I didn't have the full time job. Now to start working on refinancing the home loan to make it more affordable, but God is good all of the time.

It has been interesting starting to get to reacquaint myself with long-lost friends. I have gotten to get to know Eric even better. I've started to get to talk to those I went on mission trips with back in 1991 (although I am still looking for 1989 Jamaica friends.) There are a lot of people who have had the influence on my life (as I mentioned in my last blog) and it's great to start talking to them again.

I hope 2009 is a better year but am learning to be satisfied in the God of 2008, 2009 and forever.

Happy New Year!

I know I've been missing lately

It's ok. I'm still alive and kicking. I kinda got hooked to the latest non-new phase -- facebook. Sorry for not writing.

Anyway, Christmas was very good. The kids all got homemade toys from us (babydolls, a notebook full of Lego designs, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" movie... ok, that's not homemade) but got all the good material goods from my parents and family. If you want to see more of what they got, check my wife's blog. She's supermommie to the right.

I got a call last night on the way home from church from our pastor. He informs me that he needs to meet with me and Brian, our assistant pastor, on Monday morning about plans to hold an ordination council next Sunday for the purposes of ordaining Brian and I to the gospel ministry. Now ordination council is no walk in the park. I need to read the Baptist Faith and Message real quick-like -- although it is what I have been taught pretty much my whole life as Biblical doctrine but now I have to read it straight through. It was written by theologians and not novelist so it is not the most exciting read.

If I pass the ordination council on Sunday, the following Sunday, January 11th, will be my ordination. There are a few people I will need to invite. Mrs. Umble, my 3rd grade teacher, always told me that she wanted to be a part of my first sermon. Unfortunately I have already had that (it was very short notice) but I can inform her of this. She comes back to school next week (as I go back to work) and since I work for the same school district as she does, I can just e-mail her and see if she responds.

There are a few people from Immanuel I want to make sure are able to come -- and some that I would love to show up to the ordination council. John Potter had a huge impact on my life as a children's pastor. Wayne Reynolds would be great to be there. I know asking for Rob Zinn would be near impossible as he is always busy, but he will always be my pastor as he was my Biblical teacher for so many years and lead me to Christ during VBS those 27 years ago. Of course, Rob being there would make my ordination council exponentially harder, but ordination is not supposed to be taken lightly.

It is moments like this that I look back and see who made the differences in my life. Mr. Paul, Mrs. Mina, John Hargett, Gil, Chaplain Bartz, Chaplain Narvaez, Jim Richardson, Chad Acklin, Mike Smith, Mrs. Roquette, Eric Johnson, Bill Baldwin, Glenn Tamura, Chaplain Clark and his diving team, Chris Magoon, Ron Curran, Brian Simms, John Denver and Kermit the Frog, Tom Parker, Todd Gordon, Tim Dunham, Timothy Mantzey, Arlette Dunham, Paul Reed, Mr. Clem, Roger Greenwalt, Bob Bland, Gordy Grover, Brian Ayers, Avery Myers, Linda Cataldo, Chaplain Stone, Chaplain Targonski. There are so many more that I have forgotten a name or forgotten a face that have impacted me over the years and made me who I am -- both positively and negatively. Some have gone on to meet our Lord, some have moved away from me, some I have moved away from. Some I have lost track of. Some are people who our paths just crossed for a moment that changed my life forever. I am a product of those God has put into my life to make me more like His Son. I thank God for the direction He has lead me and how He continues to change me to be more like Him.

If you can make it January 11th, ordination service should start at 6:30 pm at our church.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I am going to share something that is kinda personal today.  I'll try to be decent enough to not embarrass anyone, except myself maybe.

 

When my wife and I first got married, we figured out that we needed two blankets on our bed, one for her and one for me.  We can't really be too close to each other while we sleep since Trina thinks I am a human furnace and I roll around too much for her to sleep next to me (the king size bed is great!)  So the two blankets we have are both the same color on the outside but the underneath is different.  One is smooth and cooler while the other is fuzzy and inherently warmer.

 

Originally, the fuzzy blanket was mine.  I don't mind being warm, even in the summer.  When that first winter came, I was surprised when one night, I went in the bedroom and discovered that my wife stole my blanket and gave me the smooth, cooler one.  She was too cold.

 

So for a couple of years, I suffered through the colder weather, trying different blankets to augment my warmth deficiency.  What we do for love.  Nothing seemed to work until I finally found the right blanket.  It is a knit blanket made out of some kind of heat-capturing material (I think it's polyester yarn.)  It goes under the smooth blanket very smoothly and works wonders.  The initial problem -- it's pink.

 

It's in my bedroom and no one sees it except my kids and now my mother-in-law when I wash it.  So that's not too much of a problem.  There is starting to be a bigger problem though.  The material is not incredibly durable.  The blanket is now just about equal parts pink wonderfulness and empty nothingness as the holes get bigger and bigger each wash.

 

But, oh how wonderful to once again be embraced by my 'pretty pink blanket.'  It is probably the best thing to happen each year between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  OK, that may be going too far, but it is a great day when it comes out of our closet because the blanket switch has occurred.

More on Dennis

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/inland_empire&id=6545250

Here is the ABC news story and video. The first time I saw it, it was unnerving to see Dennis' face. It was a hard day at work today.

This is actually right up the street from Trina's grandmother's house... within 1/2 mile. Nice area.

Some sad news and a chance to pray

One of my co-workers, Dennis, was mugged in back of his church on Saturday night.  He was severely injured with hammer blows to the head which fractured his skull and shattered his eye socket (the eye is ok.)  He is currently in a drug-induced coma to help him to try to heal from this.

In the conversations Dennis and I had about children's ministry (he is the children's director at his church), he is a man who loves kids and loves to make God real in their lives.  He loves his community and runs a bus ministry to pick them up from around the church.  He stood up for justice and right, even when he could be put in danger.  He shined his light in work with the children and teachers of our school district.  This couldn't happen to a nicer man.

Right now, I am sure his family is wondering why him.  I don't know why.  What I do know is that God can work things out for the best for those who believe in Him.  This includes Dennis' church, his family, friends, and our office.  If you can find a moment, pray for Dennis to heal.  Pray for his family to heal and forgive.  Forgiving those who wrong a loved one is harder than even forgiving those who wrong you.

I want to get up and do something.  I want to go out and find these guys.  I want to go to his church and pray.  I want to visit Dennis (although he is probably under an alias at a hospital since he was mugged) so he is unvisitable.  I want to do something.  But right now, my best weapons are my knees.

New Years is coming, the year is getting fat

I know we haven't gotten to Christmas yet and this is like starting to have Christmas decorations up in October before Halloween (I'm looking at you Wal-Mart) but this is for good reason. We are doing the "New Years Around the World" event at church and there is a lot of preparation that needs to take place. We need to have a snack from each place, a craft, a missionary and missionary story, and some history of the country.

Well, our countries are, in order of time it turns midnight:
We start at 10:00 making decorations for India when it turns 10:30
10:30 India
12:00 Udmurtia, Russia
1:00 Iraq
2:00 Macedonia

In the 2 hrs we have for India, we need to cook lunch as well as eat it and do the craft and missionary story. I do need to get in contact with a missionary there.

For Russia, I am in contact with a missionary there by e-mail. I also am following his blog (although he is transferring my request to his partner.) He has a very interesting blog. It's amazing what you can find on blogger with google.

In Iraq, one of my former chaplains, Chaplain Bartz (who I credit as one of the most influential people in my life (I wrote an essay for a scholarship in school that listed my two most influential people in my life -- my dad was first and Chaplain Bartz was second)) has pulled some strings for me and got an e-mail from me to a Southern Baptist chaplain in Iraq. So we are starting communications.

In Macedonia, I found a contact through the Russian missionary. She has an interesting blog too. Our only problem with Macedonia is that it is actually 3 pm here when it's midnight there, but it is because they went with central Europe instead of Greece. It is right above Greece though, so I am going to fudge it over so we start at 2:00 pm and when we leave at 3, we will celebrate Macedonian New Year.

So now, I need to start trying to get in contact with someone currently working in India. We were looking at some Indian food sites -- this may be interesting. The most interesting part will be coming up with the funds to buy all this stuff. We may charge a small fee to cover the cost -- maybe $5. For lunch, snacks, crafts and 5 hours, that's a pretty good deal. I am going to have to really have a really tight budget though.

I am looking forward to this.

I got tagged again and now I have to remove this spray paint from my shoes.

I got tagged again so I have to come up with 7 more things you don't know about me necessarily.

1)  I once got spanked for throwing an imaginary football.  My sister and I were playing in our room, she being a fan in the stands cheering me on as I was the quarterback for the football team.  (I was probably 6 at the time, my sister 5 or 4.)  I turned and threw her the "football" and she backed up to catch it... right through our bedroom window.  And it was closed.  And she hit the ground outside.  I think I was punished more because my dad was mad than for throwing the invisible, intangible and perfectly safe imaginary football.

2)  When I was 7, my family went to visit my mom's sister, my Aunt Ruth, up in Reno.  I still don't know that side of the family very well, but got to know my cousin Kyle some.  He got a brand new bike for Christmas and I got his old one for Christmas.  It was fantastic.  It was blue, sparkly, and I loved it.  I rode that thing for years as I did jumps off of curves, rode fast, and had a blast.

3)  Before I got that blue bike, I was over at my cousin's house (Sal -- from Dad's side of the family) and he and a couple of our cousins decided to go to the local liquor store to get some candy.  They left without me riding bikes, but I decided after a while I wanted to join them.  Of course, I didn't ride a bike but brought one anyways because having a bike would be faster.  So after my dad went wild trying to find me (he did find me right up the road from the liquor store -- talk about a different world) my cousin decided it was time to teach me to ride a bike.

4)  While learning to ride a bike, I crashed a lot.  One time, I crashed into a telephone pole, flew over the handle bars, missed the pole somehow and did a 'Pete Rose' slide (Headfirst) under a parked car.  I got up and wanted to do it again.

5)  When I was 9 years old, I played Little League Baseball in the Minors.  I was on second base when my teammate hit to the outfield.  I rounded third base and headed home and saw the catcher catch the ball and sit down on the plate waiting for me to show up.  Having nothing else to do, I slid.  While sliding, I lifted my leg and kicked the catcher in the chest, knocking him back a good 5 or 6 feet, where he dropped the baseball.  I was called safe.  The guy who hit me in was on second where the next batter hit pretty much the same ball.  The catcher caught the ball and sat down on the plate again.  The guy who hit me in did a drop kick into the catcher.  The catcher flew back a good 5 - 6 feet and dropped the ball.  The runner was called out and kicked out of the game for excessive violence.  The moral of the story:  If you are going to kick the catcher in the chest, be slick.

6)  I tried out for my high school baseball team when I was a freshman.  I was such a geek (still am.)  I wore my cleats during the track running and didn't do very well.  I really didn't have the talent to make the team (although I had heart.)  The coach offered me the chance to be the team score keeper (basically, the laundry kid) and get a letter.  Not the way I wanted to get a letter, so I declined and that was the end of my high school sports career.  I hit the books instead... ok, I cruised through High School.

7)  My second deployment in the Navy was a WesPac (Western Pacific Tour.)  Part of a WesPac was the Middle East/Persian Gulf.  I met up with my ship while it was in the Persian Gulf.  Not knowing much of anyone, I spent our first port call in Dubai, UAE, walking around town in my American clothes, being hot because it was hot outside, and wandering around a deserted mall because they close for siesta time (I'm not sure what that is called in Arabic, but it was pretty much a siesta.)  I look back now and wonder how I didn't end up on a terrorist video talking about the greatness of Saddam Hussien and the evils of Bill Clinton (This was back in 1994.)

Ok, I didn't tag anyone last time, but I will tag... no one this time either.  And there are no tag backs.

Cutting open the bottle

Just to let you know, I'm doing ok.  The funk isn't killing me so it's all good :)

This morning, I was cooking up some eggs and turkey ham for a sandwich.  I took a bite of it and decided I needed some green salsa.  We had a bottle that we hadn't used in San Diego that still had that stupid plastic ring on the top to seal in the freshness and keep out the creep-ohs that want to poison my salsa.  So I try to use a fingernail to open it. There's no perforation.
Not a problem, I'll hold the bottom of the bottle with one hand and use a knife in the other hand to cut it open.  Great.  I works... to a point.  The top of the ring, which covers the top of the lid, comes off but there is still enough of it left to keep it sealed.
Bummer.  So, now I figure, I'll tempt fate.  I will hold onto the bottle with one hand and only move the knife back and forth on the ring of plastic to cut it enough to tear it off.  No luck.  Can I slip the knife under the seal enough to cut it?  I push a little, knowing in my head that I don't cut towards myself because I no likey getting cut.  So, not too much pressure.  Cut a little, not through yet.
Ok, a little more pressure, knowing that I don't want to cut myself.  I get through, finally, and go through to my left index finger where I poked myself with the knife.  Of course, if you've ever had your finger pricked for a blood sample or something like that, you know how much that index finger bleeds when it gets pricked.  So now, I got this shallow cut on my index finger that hurts a little when typing (it really isn't bad at all.  Don't call 9-11 for me.)

There have been times in my life that I see something that I know is wrong and think, I wonder how close I can get without falling into sin.  And over and over again, I go over the mark and fall as one would suspect.  It's like that bottle where I want to open it but don't want to get hurt but keep trying things that will get me closer and closer to being cut until finally I am.  You would think I would learn but sin still has that way of tempting me to push it to the edge -- and me realizing that me trying to get as close without actually doing so is sin to me since I have been called to live a life of holiness, not tightrope walking on the edge of neigh-invulnerabilty.  (SPOON!)

I wonder how cut my soul is from pushing that knife through the barriers of sin?  Thank God that He has plenty of band-aids and lots of love and kisses to heal me.

How Funky is Your Chicken?

You know, there are times that I really get into a funk and I think yesterday was one that put me into one right now.

As of right now, I have a dull pain coming from one of my teeth, but that is pretty normal so it is easy to ignore. Then I learned last night that the budget for the church has been cut in every single department, including $1000 off the budget for VBS, bringing it from $1,500 to $500. I order more than $500 in curriculum so I don't know how this is going to work.

Right now, the idea is that there will be a series of fundraisers in the church limited to once a month. Now on the calendar, the Youth department already has a chicken wing bake sale set for Super Bowl Sunday (and they are good wings.) AWANA has one set for the end of February on the calendar already - the AWANA Art Auction. Kids come and make art, as well as some donated by the rest of the church, that is bid on in a silent auction. I need to start some sculpy scultures soon. So we are talking in the following 10 months needing fundraisers for Youth Camp, Children's Camp, VBS and possibly a Car Show. I talked to Shawn last night and mentioned that we need to start fundraising outside of the church because our people are tapped out. Candy sells. Those stupid little sticker books that get you discounts all over the place. Door-to-door viagra sales. Things like that. I hate turning our kids into little Am-Way Salesmen though -- especially with how much fundraising they do with school.

And then, as of late, it seems that I don't seem to do much right. Apparently, I'm not that good of a kids pastor. I've been a pretty lousy husband lately. I am not much of a housekeeper. I don't have enough time for the kids. Of course, hearing this over and over again has put me into a nice funk that I have to fight now to stay out of.

Some ideas floating in my head right now:
1) Wednesday Night at church: Mission emphasis is not really working right now. Perhaps we need something more practical like free homework tutoring with a Bible story in the middle (short.) Kind of a Bible Homework club.

2) Advent conspiracy is still floating around. Pastor didn't like the idea, but was ok with the idea of not buying one gift and making something instead and donating the price of the one gift to Lottie Moon. That may be something to think about for next year.

3) New Years Around the World is looming - December 31st. We will be celebrating New Years as it happens in India, Kabul, the U.A.E., Tanzania, and Spain. I need craft ideas, snack ideas (Lunch for either Kabul or Dubai), and missionary stories (Kabul will be a military chaplain. Dubai cannot be specific since that is in the red zone and missionaries there are undercover. Tanzania will be Richard and Karen Lee, who just spoke at our church on Sunday. Anyone know any chaplains in Afghanistan right now?)

4) What kind of fundraisers can the kids do that do not tax the congregation but can bring in outside dollars?

Ok, so I'll be fighting the funk today. Pray for me.