A busy Day

Today was a great Saturday, slept in, hung out for a while, did some errands and then worked on a decorating project.  I had some left over Ikea frames and a large wall that needed some extra love.  So, I bought some scrap booking paper and went to work.  I created five similar scenes, beach, palm tree and surfboards.  Then painted the frames and hung them on the wall...

Frame 1

Frame 2 - that is really a dark blue behind the palm tree not black...

The wall as it turned out.  

This is Annabelle, eating a giant plastic chewtoy fish that we bought her today.  It is kind of funny b/c it is way too big for her but they didn't have the smaller size.  So she has to move it with her paws by pushing it across the floor.  

She loves it though - it keeps her entertained for quite a while!

The normalcy of addiction

We work (my colleagues and I) at a small little office in a strip with a few other offices.  One of those places is a recovery center for alcohol addiction.  It seemed when I first began that the people I most noticed were the more eccentric people that came through.  I mean, when you hear the various, yelling, screaming, laughing, and crying in the bathroom on the other side of your office wall, you end up noticing the more interesting and outlandish...  Lately however either the demographic has changed, or God is opening my eyes.  The "normal" people at the center have seemed to increase.  These are the forty-fifty year old moms, the younger career type men,  the young guy who seems quite athletic.  There is the business woman, the older man, and everyone in between.  Lately if I didn't know better I would just think that some of these people are outside on their smoking breaks rather than trying to figure out how to overcome their addictions.  These people, including those who seem a bit more eccentric, have become more real to me over the last few weeks.  The idea that everyone has their struggles, that so many of us are good at hiding things.  This idea has begun to permeate who I am and how I look at the world.  Yes, they may not be quite as addictive or as "big" as drinking, but they are real in any case.  However, it demonstrates the importance of doing real life with others in the family of God.

New House Pics

So those of you who asked (1) here are some pics of my new house!  

The kitchen - the best part???   There is a sink in it - oh the things we take for granted - after a year of washing my dishes in the bathroom it is great to have a kitchen with an oven, a real stove and a sink!

Here is the living room.  The front door is just off to the right and the couch is facing a wall with a HUGE TV and a fireplace.

My room pic 1 - I made the quilt on my bed, it is not very wide (not much wider than you see) but it matches my surfer theme (I also made the throw pillow you see there)

Curtains and TV

The other side of my room.  My favorite part - my books!  There is a closet to the right along that wall and then the door is on the wall opposite the TV.  I love my new room!

A busy weekend

This has been a pretty crazy weekend.  Yesterday I moved - just across town, so it wasn't a big deal, but still took time.  My brother came down to help and my friends Meri and Matt helped as well, as of yesterday evening I was settled in.  I am probably more settled into my room than they are into theirs.  Then today kenny and I had a great day together.  We went to church but then realized that the sermon was on marriage.   Normally I would be ok with that, resigning myself to learning something from such sermons a long time ago - but we had not had breakfast and I was hungry, so we ditched.  We got up and went to breakfast and then came back to teach.  Once again we had lots of little ones - 20 to be exact.  Yet with him it did not seem so bad.  We were even able to break the kids into two groups to do Bible verse and some discussion time.  Then after church we headed to lunch and then to a couple stores for some quick shopping.  Once back to my new home we decided to go out skateboarding.  He has wanted to teach me how to ride his long board for quite some time and I wanted to learn, so we found a slight hill and tried it.  I didn't do bad according to him.  Ask my foot, hip and wrist and you might get a different story.  Then we came back to the house and played some Wii.  Rabbid TV is a pretty amazing game.  Now tomorrow is Monday and I can't believe the weekend is over.  

Walking in Stephen's shoes

Stephen is 13 years old.  He lives in Northern Uganda.  He has a mother, a father, a younger sister, and younger brother.  One August night, he was in bed with his younger brother.  That is when the rebel soldiers kidnapped him.  His parents were no match against the men with weapons.  After weeks and months of threats and atrocities he had no longer had hope of rescue.  He had been broken, he had given up hope.  He was terrified of his captors, yet he was even more terrified of the enemy.  One day, he was sent on a mission to attack a small tribe.  The government's army captured him.  He was really scared now - what was going to happen?  He had heard that those who were captured would be tortured and poisoned.  He was loaded onto a truck, he was taken to a complex.  When they arrived, he heard singing!  He was amazed, other children who he had been a rebel soldier were there.  He knew these children, he thought they had been killed by the enemy.  Yet, here they were - they were welcoming him.  They were singing about joy, about how they were happy.  He was being welcomed to a place of joy!  This was a World Vision rehabilitation center for child soldier victims.  After a few weeks, Stephen left this place after beginning to recover from the atrocities he had seen and been forced to commit.  He went home.  His family celebrated.  He was also one of the few lucky ones who had not contracted AIDS while a child soldier.  Yet, there were many who were not so lucky.  

World Vision hosted an amazing AIDS experience walk through.  It was a large tent, with three paths.  Each path led you through the life of a different young person/child.  The stories caused one to desire to do something with the information, pray, support, tell others.  The visual, tactile, and auditory senses worked together to draw you into the story.  I became Stephen.  I will never forget his story.  

Internet again!

It has been just over a week since I have had an internet connection at home - see technically I was borrowing internet from the guy who lived in the apartment above me (with his knowledge and consent).  However, he moved out a week ago and I didn't move out until today.  So now I am in my new house (with my great friends Meri and Matt - there married).  I am all moved in and plugged in once again to the internet...  So hopefully over the next couple of days I will catch up on the blogging.  

CPC

Children's Pastor's Conference.  CPC is an annual event, held in two locations each year.  I was blessed to be able to go there today, someone had an extra pass and so I ended up spending the day in San Diego.  I greatly enjoyed it.  I love to learn, so I love conferences.  I went to three great breakouts and two great general sessions.  At some point through the day I realized that although this was the first CPC I have actually attended, it is not the first CPC that I have been at...  I also realized that my journeys through various CPC's struck me as type of milestones in my life.  

My first CPC experience was my Sophmore year of college.  The children's team was attending.  I don't think that I really got out of the car, but I did pick up some of the staff and we hung out in old town for a while.  It was a great time.  That was the year after I had decided to go into children's ministry.  It was an important year for me in a lot of ways.

My next experience at CPC was not really at CPC - it was at the Willow Creek children's conference.  I am including this one because it was the spring of 2004.  Our church had just been through chaos.  Our staff went to willow and it was an amazing time of encouragement and being together.  A feeling of "we can move forward" was the result.  

My next experience was in 2006.  I went with my boss at the time to post a job opening.  All we did was walk into the exhibition hall and post the job opening.  It was at a time when I was beginning to question a lot of things.  Like, what am I doing?  Why am I not doing something else?  Am I supposed to be doing this?  It was the beginning of over a year long process of God moving me.

Spring of 2008.  This year, I went to CPC with my boss and his wife (Joe and Julie) we had a booth for the ministry and I heard Joe over and over again give his spiel about what we do.  I remember thinking "What we do is really cool."  Once again, I did not leave the exhibition hall (this time I didn't even walk through it) but I did have a great time handing out scary looking David and Goliaths to hundreds of children's workers.  Around that time the idea of being at this new job was becoming permanent.  I was beginning to be ok with that and living in the Temecula valley.  That was a great time of God beginning to really work in my life in an amazing way.

That brings us to today's visit.  This past year has been one of the best and hardest of my life.  Today I thoroughly enjoyed being at CPC and remembering all that God has done to get me to this place in my life.  Right now there is hope, excitement for the future, and a great expectancy to see what God is going to do in my life and through the ministry.   As I spent the day as a real attender of CPC I was overwhelmed by what God has taught me this last year as He has shown me over and over again that He has a plan for my life.  

That is my journey over the years at CPC...