Merry Christmas!

I'm still sick so I'm awake waiting for my cough medicine to knock me out. I figured, since I'm still up, I'd be one of the first to officially wish my two or three readers a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I know others may have already said that to you, but they probably wished that to you THE DAY BEFORE! Not me, no, I waited until it really was Christmas so I could be hacking my lungs out while I wished you happiness and merriment! :-)

This Christmas I will be spending some quality time with my family...a little bit of sledding, snow shoveling (what, you don't do that for fun with your family?), hanging out with Mocha, FOOD, The Nutcracker Story...then a good NAP, and finally some games with some friends from Valley Christian and probably more FOOD.

Tagged

I came up with some random facts about Sarah, so I thought it was only fair for her to reciprocate when she tagged me. So here you have some random facts that she came up with about me.

Sam:

1. Is bilingual.
2. Doesn't like popcorn.
3. Doesn't like trimming the (Sam inserted "evil") hedge in our backyard.
4. Likes to wear a dress shirt/sweater, dress shoes, and JEANS on Sundays.
5. Reads a lot: to fall asleep, to do schoolwork, to learn, for pleasure...he reads a lot.
   
6. Makes me drive on long trips so that he can do his schoolwork and read in the car.
7. Is very rhythmic...he always has a beat in his head or his feet, hands, fingers, toes, etc.

Birthday

Our new helmets came today (the other ones were too tight...I couldn't close my mouth because the sides were so tight!)

Mine:Sarah's:


Great Birthday so far, thank you to all who called, sent cards, left messages on Facebook. or stopped by to say hi: God has really blessed me with some great friends!!!

Today the Community VBS ended and I tore down our sound system and instruments and put them back up at the church. It was an awesome VBS for the 350+ kids and 150+ volunteers! A lot of very creative people out there doing using all the senses to communicate God's POWER.
Tomorrow I leave for Kansas City with Chris K. and the Montevideo and Fosston churches. I will try to post some thoughts on Russ' message tomorrow before I leave for Kansas City.

Random Jots

It's been a bit crazy since the last post. So far I put new mirrors on the bike, delayed having to fix the muffler on the bike until the winter by making a little more noise (I won't rev it in the neighborhood...I promise), changed the spark plugs, and have been practicing technique for u-turns, cornering, swerving, and emergency stopping for the test I am planning on taking Tuesday...Oh and a guy gave me an extra riding jacket he had that has protective padding and breathes like a t-shirt!
We had a guys' lock-in on Thursday night that Chris planned and that went very well...I didn't sleep but and hour or so on Friday, so that was weird. Then I watched Lost with the Hardies on that little bit of sleep (that probably added to the confusion of the series)...Now we have to wait 'till January for the story to continue unfolding. Fortunately only 2 more seasons.
Today Russ gave his last message on the letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation. It was very good. I'll post some thoughts on that this week. After that we went to Alyssa's graduation ceremony and then I "practiced" on the bike a while, and then Sarah and I hung out...We played Scrabble and she beat me by 1 point! ONE POINT!!! AGH! Anyway, I got some school work done and now I'm getting ready for bed.
I have over 1300 pages to read for the 2 leadership classes I'm taking this summer (now that I think about it that's without the research for the papers...I think I might be leadershiped out by May next year! :-) ), which brings me to the comic that made me think of writing a post...

(click on the image to view larger)
Isn't this true? :-)

Tomorrow I'll be working at ONE24 getting ready for some windows to be put in, then I'll be setting up a sound system in a gym for our band to play at the Community VBS that night! Good times!

So the cool thing that happened, that I was twittering about (the thing on the top left of this blog...above my profile) was that I got a motorcycle on Monday! It's a 1979 Suzuki GS750L. It was a sweet deal. I have a couple of things to touch up on it, like the brakes, tune up, replace mirrors, change the oil, speedometer, tighten the chain, muffler (the neighbors will appreciate that), new seat, and a paint job and it will be like new. So I'll start with the first six this weekend...the rest aren't a real hurry. Thanks to Don for selling it and to Tim and Kate for helping me do what was necessary to get it down here.

Fun Blog

I just had a discussion with Sarah about why I write about what I'm thinking and reading as opposed to fun things. We concluded that hers is the fun blog.
As soon as I stop staying up late reading deep books on pain and suffering these blogs will stop...then I'll post about Human Resource Management and Leadership Principles :-) j/k (the 2 classes I'm taking this summer).

Tomorrow, or today I guess, I'll be having a worship practice at VCA, then tag-team preaching with Justin for a ONE24 vision service at Inspiration Church, then buzzing back to my church to lead worship at the end of our service. Catching lunch with the Doeblers and the Spooners, sans Dave :-( and then heading to a friend's Grad Party and off to Fosston, MN to spend Memorial Day with the Tim and Kate (and Grace and Jude)! I should go get some sleep so I can stay awake for it all!

Paintball

After church today one of the guys from Radiate, Adam, got a group together to go paintballing. It was lots of fun, but I'm definitely going to be feeling it tomorrow. I came home with a really nice shot right on my knee that is blistered and makes my whole knee hurt...but it was tons of fun. There were 7 of us, hopefully next time we can have even more people. I'd say the best game we played was an "every man for himself" paintball version of halo...yeah, you had to walk back to where the gear was to come back in after you got hit.
Spring is like the best time to PaintBall because it's cool and there aren't any mosquitoes :-) That's it for now.

Energy

I wish I had this much energy!

Cold!

I've come to the conclusion that cars weren't made for -30* F. My car has been acting funny and it takes forever to warm up and then when it does the windows fog up because the defrost can't keep up :-) It's kind of funny really. Maybe. Anyway, The windchill was down to -60* below last night. Again. IT'S ABOVE FREEZING IN ANCHORAGE ALASKA! And -60* below here, I find that kind of funny. Anyway, that was my blog about how cold it is here: The end.

New Post

Rachel this is for you: Thank you for reading my blog and commenting 3 times in one day! :-) Unfortunately I have no creative things to say, so here is the only other thing I could come up with :-)

Later, I hope y'all get a chuckle and don't ever do any of the things in the video.
Sam

MisSki Trip

This year we're combining fun and serving by adding a missions element to our annual ski trip. We will be skiing and snowboarding, but we will also be fulfilling the Great Commission and Great Commandment by serving at Feed My Starving Children in Eagan, MN. We will be filling portions of food for starving children that will be distributed by relief organizations and missionaries! Talk about being relevant, I bet the church feed the community that is starving physically is pretty relevant...sounds like something Jesus would do. It's a lot easier to hear the message of Christ from people that actually care enough to help you survive!

It's interesting that in Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus tells His followers to GO...so what we should be asking God is whether we are the exception and we're called to stay...Just a thought. Another way that can be translated is "as you are going..." which, still puts the responsibility on all of us to live missional lives and not just send money to missionaries...we're all called to live Great Commission lifestyles! How cool is that!?! We get to be part of God's plan for the redemption and restoration of His creation! Now that's a life I want to live...living for the eternal and not the temporary. God help me remember that.

Relevant

So, if you have to tell people you're relevant do you automatically cease being relevant?
:-) j/k...or am I?
One of my core values is relevance, I think it's very important to be culturally relevant (and relevant in other ways too). It may have something to do with my growing up in another cultural and studying cross-cultural ministry in school. It makes tons of sense to anyone for a missionary to be relevant to the culture they are ministering in, but the same applies to us wherever we are or else our message will not be understood.

Centered

So I've been getting more centered lately. Centered, as you most likely know, comes from the latin centro which finds its origins in the greek ausum-fone...



:-)
You've gotta love the fact that Sprint finally made it so that you're eligible to receive all of the discounts as a returning customer after 22 months with your old phone...I know I do...And Sarah got my Treo 700p, so now she won't need a pen and paper ever again either!

Sunday

I guess there's a first time for everything. I was at a church in Coacoyul, the first church my parents' planted, last night to speak. The church has grown over the last several years and they have 3 different services, a lot of people pick 2 and go to those that week. Anyway, I was asked to speak at their evening service and it was an honor to be able to speak again at the church where I spent my childhood years. So what was different was that, after giving an explanation of how I had grown up in the church and been mischivieous in kid's classes and how I am evidence that there is hope for rowdy children, the pastor's wife then asked me to come up and play drums for the offering...drums. I'm like, "what song are we playing?" She says, "just start playing anything that we can celebrate our giving to God with." Did I mention I'm on the drums? Anyway, I started playing some good ol' 2/4 drum beats and a few drum rolls and the musicians were just kind of making noise on their instruments. We did that twice because first they had the men come up with their offering and then the women with theirs. Like I said, there's a first time for everything.
I spoke about our call to persevere in following Jesus and how it's necessary to know how to rest, both physically and spiritually, in order to be able to be faithful to the end...So I basically shared some Sabbath principles that will bring renewal and refreshing to our lives if we trust God enough to rest.
Tonight we've got a 4 hour or so church service to bring in the New Year...then at midnight everyone and their cousin will be firing off their weapons and fire crackers...So we pretty much won't plan on going to sleep until well after midnight.
Tomorrow we'll be at the beach all day with the church! That'll be fun.
Later.

Fishing

Yesterday we went fishing and had a great time. You can read more about it on Sarah's blog, as she beat me to it.
On another note, I was able to finish reading Only Believe by Hannu Hauka. It tells the story of how he and his wife began came to know Jesus Christ and how they went on to lead one of the most powerful Radio and TV ministries into the USSR. That ministry has now grown and is doing many other things, you can read about them here.
I also finished reading The Dream Giver which is an allegory about pursuing the vision that God has given you. It was an interesting story and I walked away with a couple good things from it:
- God gives people visions, but not everyone pursues them.
- When you begin to follow the vision God has given you there will be difficulties and opposition.
- You'll find the vision God has given as you begin to move towards the fulfillment of the vision.

That's about it about vision. Pastor Russ had some great thoughts about the process a vision and visionary go through and I will try to post that sometime.
Well, Sarah and I are going to watch the Cat in the Hat and then later tonight the teenagers from the church down here will be coming over. Later.

Mexico Week 1 - Pictures

It's been a great week of relaxing and spending time with my family.
I just uploaded some pictures. Check them out here!

On a completely unrelated note: I've been using Linux instead of Windows since Sunday and I'm wondering why it's taken me so long to consider switching...I like it!

Perfect

Sarah and I have been in Mexico since Thursday afternoon. We were blessed to be able to spend our first 2 days at a hotel (the funny thing is that getting the 2 nights was a better deal than the ticket by itself, I like that kind of deal!). We've been at my parents' house since Saturday night. I spoke in church last night and it was a great 3 our service/Christmas program with an AMAZING potluck afterward.
Everything has been great so far and we will be spending some time at the beach today if we make it there after preparing the food for the Christmas Eve celebration tonight. Tomorrow we will more than likely stay home and play games and on New Year's day we will be at the beach with the whole church. Besides that, I'm not really sure what will be going on in the next week, I may just use the time to get a lot of reading done.
May God Bless you as you spend time with your family and friends in the next few days!