A Weekend of Spontaneity

spon·ta·ne·i·ty

noun \ˌspän-tə-ˈnē-ə-tē, -ˈnā-\

voluntary or undetermined action or movement.

On Friday we sent a text to the Mann's and said, "Hey, wanna hang out tomorrow?" We drove up to Fox Island for the day. We finally got to meet sweet little Jude!!! We talked, played at the park and enjoyed some dinner together. This was such a needed time for our families. It's hard to spend lots of time together when you live 3 hours away from each other. Mostly it's just good to be together.

Nyah, Mercy & Haak. We tried to get all 3 to co-operate. haha.

Karston & Jude

Kynzi & Jude

We ended up staying way later than we planned and as a result we didn't get home until 1:45AM! I finished my last paper for my class in the car and uploaded it outside of a hotel on the way home. It had to be in by midnight.

Although it was extremely late night, it was so good for our souls. I am very thankful to have friends that no matter time nor distance we will always stay connected.

The next morning I slept in until 10 AM! Then Karston and I decided to go fishing. We stopped at Safeway for some delicious sandwiches and headed to our destination. After about an hour or so we arrived at Detroit lake. We decided to fish off the bank you're the bridge.

 

Although Karston only got a few bites (and I got a big fat nothing!) we shared stories and laugh a lot. In the video below, Trace Adkins was singing about his daughter but it completely applies to us.

I love my son! I do everything I can to try to hold on to the moments we have. I don't want to waste my children's childhood because I'm too busy with stuff.

On Monday I was going to go paint balling with my dgroup guys. Instead we ended up shooting airsoft guns. We went out to Wheatland Park. That was my first time shooting airsoft guns at other people. Those suckers hurt! Bryant had a sniper rifle and shot me from across the gully and hit me in my tooth. I seriously thought I lost it at first. We played for several hours and I have the welts to prove it. 

Monday night my dgroup and Kara Brown's dgroup got together for a worship night with s'mores! We asked them to all share stories of moments where God really impacted their lives in high school. And then imparted wisdom as to how to stay connected to Jesus after they leave high school. It was a very sweet time together. And evening I will remember for a long time.

 

I love casting vision and dreaming about the future and making big plans, but I absolutely love spontaneous moments that just come together. I feel like it brings a lot of spice to life. 

This weekend was extremely spicy!

For Men Only

Last weekend I got the opportunity to speak at our church's men's retreat. Yes, of course we did a bunch of guy stuff: paintball, high ropes course and shooting guns...

Me and Steve after the ropes course and paintball.

The topic for my seminar was "Following God and Leading Your Family." I wanted to share with you last portion of my talk.  When I was in Atlanta, Home Improvement was very popular and when friends were getting married we decided to do "Tool Time" parties for the guys. Girls get to have bridal showers, but it is weird, for some reason, for guys to have showers.

Great lake for fishing, kayaking and swimming. Blob in the summer.

So, we had these "Tool Time" parties where everyone brought some sort of tool as a gift and then we did "guy stuff." (played video games, ate food, grunted, and oohed and aahed over all the great tools he would get). Then we had a very cool time of sharing advice for the guy who was about to get married. Everyone got an opportunity to give him insight into married life and much of what was shared came as a result of mistakes we had made. It is good to learn from your mistakes.

Below is a list of "advice" I shared at the men's retreat that I think would be helpful to making you a better husband and father. I want to be clear...I AM NOT SUPER HUSBAND OR SUPER DAD!!! I have learned from my own mistakes and others' mistakes. I am continually learning and often don't remember the lessons I learned, but these are some lessons I have remembered.

* Care about the wound, not the poor decision. When your kids are messing around and you tell them not to, and they keep messing around, sooner or later they will get hurt.  When it happens, don't jump down their throat and tell them "I told you so." They already know they messed up. Take a moment to breath and then love on them. Don't look to be right, do the right thing.

* Jeanne-Ann was backing the van out of the garage and ripped off the mirror. I remember coming home and not getting upset (like my instinct was) and how much she appreciated that.

* Very recently we purchased a new van to replace the duct taped mirror van and we have only had a a short while.  When she backed up out of the driveway she ran over one of those cable boxes at the end of the driveway. (they are in such an ugly and stupid spot!) She also had a few other things go on that day that were tough.  I brought her flowers. (these 2 incidents were years apart...don't read that she is a bad driver)

* When you come home, put away the laptop and cell phone. I put away my laptop a couple of years ago, but the cell phone has been tied to my person forever! About 2 months ago I started leaving it on the counter on silent. I don't want to hear, "Pappa, is your iPhone more important than me?"

* Make wise decisions with your TV and movie viewing.

* Read with your kids!   A couple of things I have read with my kids recently. Jesus Calling (kids edition) and several of these "Christian heroes of the faith" books that are easy reads about different missionaries (Eric Liddle, Jim Elliot, etc.).

* Know their culture. You don’t have to be someone you are not, but have an idea. Don't let your 10 year old go see the Hunger Games when you have no idea what it is about.

* Have dinner together as often as possible.

* Every night I put my kids to bed. Pray with them and for them. Model prayer. Model reading your Bible. I kiss them good night and say “I love you. Jesus loves you and I love being your Pappa."

* Don’t let your wife do all the work around the house. You would be surprised what doing a little clean up will do to her mood. The happiness level rises...even more so if you do it together!

* Don’t come home and unload your bad work day thinking she has done nothing all day.

* Hold hands and kiss your wife and let your kids see it.

Those are a few thoughts. Chew on them. Do them. Share your ideas. I would love to have you share them in the comments.

If you are of the female persuasion and you read this, feel free to pass it along to that guy you love. But no using it against them.

Youth Ministry Film Festival

This week was our annual Film Festival at Salem Alliance. Wednesday was the middle school one. Because Kynzi is a 7th grader I was recruited to film and edit. The theme was prequels and sequels. We came up with the idea of a prequel to High School Musical. Thus we did Middle School Musical. This set up the reason why they always sing and dance in HSM. I loved the concept and we had several award winners from our video.


Friday night it was the high schoolers' turn. I lead a "d" group (discipleship/small group) of senior guys. We wanted to do a Hunger Games parody and do the Hungry Games, but when it came time to film we realized it was going to take a lot more time and work than we were prepared for. So we took a concept from my friends Josh Griffin and expanded on it. It is from one scene in the Hunger Games where Katniss is trying to shoot the bag of apples to blow up all of the stuff the group of tributes were protecting. It gets a little ridiculous...that's the fun of it.

There is something about getting together with a group of people and making a video that brings you together. The shared experience of it all is so worth the time and effort of actually making the video. We laughed a lot and it was a beautiful day. I have a pretty great group of guys I get to serve along with Duane Ditchen. Several of our guys, including Duane, could not be there. Anyhow, here is the video.

After Brian, Ashley and I viewed the videos, we made our own video highlighting each of the student videos and picking on them all. We did a fun parody to the Lazy Song. I will see if I can get the other videos up online so you can get a better understanding for this video. Enjoy.

Hoedown Adoption Fundraiser

No, we are not in the adoption process again! Although that may sound romantic to you right now, we are doing just fine with the 4 kids we have thank you. This was a fundraiser for our friends Jeff and Kara Brown. They are adopting twin girls from the DRC (Congo). I think they are now about $7,000 shy of their needed goal to get their girls home. This has been a pretty quick process, as far as international adoptions go (so far).

These dear friends of ours have a story. You can read all about it here. The fundraiser they did was held at the Schillings Barn. GREAT place for an event! There were so many people there they had to use overflow parking about 1/4 mile away at a church! It was great. They had a guy with a sweet handlebar mustache shouting for square dancing. That was a blast!

Nyah and Sam dancing

Eugene Pavlov was there taking pictures with a full western theme backdrop. So fun.

sorry for the blur

There were great snacks and you could also buy jars with Africa on them, some of Kara's mom's famous Hummus. It was such a festive night. I can't believe how much Haakon and Nyah loved dancing. They enjoy dancing at home, but out in public. I love how uninhibited kids are! It was also fun to connect with several old friends I haven't seen in a while.

This sure makes me think of what it was like when we were at this point of the process. We had pictures of Haakon and Nyah, but we had not seen them yet. We longed for the emails that would have the semi-monthly updates with new pictures and information. As hard as those days were, I miss some of that anticipation. It also meant we had not gone away as a family for 7 weeks to Ethiopia at the time. That was something we will never forget!

I talked with Jeff and Kara afterward and we all agreed we should do something like this next year to help raise funds for others who are going through the process. It makes me wonder what else we could do. I know there are plenty of organizations out there that let you apply for grants, but this would be a fun way we could support others we are connected with.

What are some of the best fundraisers you have seen or been a part of?

A Reminder of Ethiopia

Yesterday I got a Facebook message from our dear friend Nancy. We met her and her husband Hubert and their 2 wonderful kids while we were staying in Ethiopia. They are really great people. We shared many meals together during our stay. Perhaps the best thing about meeting this family was the fact that their kids and our kids connected equally as well as we did. Having them there also helped lessen the blow of summer vacation without friends back home.

Nancy said they were coming to Portland for 2 days and wondered if we had time to get together. OF COURSE! We would have worked very hard to make it happen if we were already busy, but thankfully we were not. We had planned to take the kids to Bullwinkle's Family Fun Center already and then we met up with them at Bridgeport Village for dinner. Although the trip to Bullwinkle's could perhaps deserve its own post, I will refrain and just add a few pictures with comments down below.

When we finally saw them across the way we all ran over and began slinging around hugs everywhere. It was so good to see this family. I can't even tell you. They live in Vancouver, BC and we had talked about the possibilities of some summer vacation connections, but it was so good to see them before summer's arrival.

Nancy is a runner, so we ran together a few times while we were in Ethiopia and Hubert has a way about him that you just can't help but like him. I know very few outgoing people like him. Most people I come across I find that I am always initiating the "hello." Not so with Hubert. I like this guy. Kynzi and Nia connected really well and Karston and Kai were like peas in a pod. I know Karston grieved the most when we left the States and it was as if God said, "This is right and I know the pain that comes with doing the right thing at times, so here you go." It was beautiful. I loved seeing Karston and Kai walk with their arms around each others shoulders like solid friends do.

They were also instrumental in helping us celebrate Karston's birthday thousands of miles away from home. That was HUGE for him and for us. So today we sat around the dinner table at Claim Jumpers and just enjoyed each other. The older kids sat at their own table and the adults and littles sat at a table. We talked about transition, bonding, life now, the future, running, etc. These are good people. People I like being around. I have some great friends here in Oregon (no buts here) and it is great to be able to talk about a life we had that not many understand.

Thank you Lord for friends from all over the world.

Karston enjoys some cotton candy at Bullwinkle's

There is still plenty of discussion as to who won

Enjoying a virtual ride that bumps and shakes

Nyah desperately wants to play skeeball

Whack-a-mole spider style

On our way to see our friends

Finally the world is right again

The littles keep "sharing" off each others plates

Trying to get one more shot before we left

Daylight Savings Time & Leap Day

The idea having an extra day in your year is pretty enticing to me. Imagine if we were actually able to take that day and use it in any way we wanted to. If we were able to get off from work or school and make full use of an extra day. What would you do if you had an extra day in the year to do anything you wanted?

I love that a couple of sitcoms tackled leap day this year. (tackled may not be the right word as that usually refers to a difficult topic) 30 rock went so far as to make a fabrication of a character that leap day is all about. Of course it was completely ridiculous and out there as it possibly can get. Leap Day William was a character who gives away candy to people who are crying.

Modern family took a more realistic approach to it. They talked about how this was an extra day that they can do what ever they wanted to. Phil, one of the main characters, wanted to go and do something crazy that would stand out in their memories.

I had to work on the day. It was a normal day like any other. I wonder what I would have done if it was an actual extra day. I don't know that I would have done anything extraordinary, but it would be fun to dream about that as a normal every four-year routine. To actually take the family and go do something that is extraordinary. What a fun family tradition that would be. Hmmmm...maybe in 2016.

When it comes to daylight savings time I realized that it is just one hour extra that we get in the fall and then we lose that hour in the spring. There is not much more we can do with that extra hour in the fall except for get an extra hour of sleep. Unless you are one of those people who are extremely sensitive to routine with your body clock and you wake up an extra hour early. I typically forget until it is too late and stay up even later than normal and lose more sleep than I should have.  That was the case this year again. I was up until 1AM!

I guess what all this makes me think about is what I am doing with my time. Is it valuable? Do I just waste it? Am I making a difference? Does it matter? I want my time on earth to matter. I want to make a difference. I don't want to waste my life away. I am not saying that I don't want to watch TV anymore or play video games, I just want to make sure I contribute while I am here.

Kynzi loves the snow as much as I do!

Haak wanted to play in the dryer

Not sure what Nyah thinks of Colonel Sanders

Karston and I after seeing the Harlem Globetrotters

I'm sorry I've been gone

I looked at my blog today and could not believe that I have not blogged in 2 months! This may the longest I have Gen without blogging since I started in 2005! After finishing up my 6 week sabbatical over in December and January I jumped back into work trying to catch up and then DYC came rushing at me. DYC is our high school conference and the biggest event we do in this office of the year. To add to that I started back on my Masters two weeks before DYC. That did not help my stress level in my life.

In the midst of all of this Karston is playing on a traveling basketball tournament team and has four games every weekend. He is also taking a breakdancing class on Mondays and Kynzi is taking a hip hop class that same night. She is also doing choir concerts and living the life of a middle schooler fully. Trying to find some room to breath in the middle of all of that was crazy. Oh, did I mention I'm a father of FOUR children? That is pretty awesome and tiring at the same time.

So I am driving home as I do this blog. Don't worry, I am using this awesome voice to text function on my phone. I love Siri! I will post it when I arrive home so I can include this picture and stay safe. Thank you for bearing with me while I took a blogging sabbatical. I am back and ready to blog again. I know some of you have been wondering if I would ever return and one of you even mentioned a pool going for when I would post again. I actually have seven posts sitting in draft form that I started but did not have time to finish. So you may seem some posts in the future from Christmas time. Bear with me. Haha.