365 Days of Service

Day 249 - Feb 21

I’ve been really sick the last few days, so I went with Ryan to LifeChurch.tv tonight and helped set up the kids experience instead of going to work at my other job. I really just didn’t think I had the energy to chase kiddos around all night, and I knew I could help Ryan as well as attend church with him tonight. We’re continuing the series “The Vow” at LifeChurch.tv and I know it is very important for us to attend together and to be really engaged. It was a great message about pursuing your spouse - we all forget, every now and then, that we still need to make them feel special and appreciated. It was another great reminder. Watch Week 2 of The Vow online: http://www.lifechurch.tv/message-archive.

Ryan woke me earlier than I usually get up on Monday mornings to tell me that his keys were locked in his car… at someone else’s house 3 miles away… and it was running.

I had to ask how he got into that predicament, but really he didn’t have an explanation. He was serving - however - getting the trash cans from the street for his friend, but wasn’t sure why the doors locked. It was an interesting start to the day.

Anyway, I got up and dressed VERY warmly because this is the temperature out there today (by the way, the “feels like” temp was 2 deg):

External Temp: 14

Friends from our LifeGroup called this afternoon to ask if I could babysit while they went out for a birthday dinner. They have two little boys under 3-3 1/2 (we can’t remember his birthday) and they are go, go, go. It was a busy night, to say the least. I don’t have kids, so trying to speak “kid” is difficult for me. Sometimes I have a translator, when mom or dad are around, but times like tonight I just respond with “uh-huh” and “Ohhhh, I like it” a lot. Kids probably think there is something wrong with me, but without a translator, I don’t have many other options. Well, both of these guys speak a mile a minute, so I said a lot of uh-huhs and Ohhhh, I like its tonight. The best thing that happened all night was caught on film, well, digital particles, or whatever. So I’m including a photo with this post. If anyone else is interested in a sitter, just keep in mind I have some unique techniques. No harm came to anyone this evening, I would just like to add that little sidenote.

I made sure they had plenty of food and water in there with them. Seriously, though, this is just a joke. They got in there themselves. And it was unlocked (almost) the entire time. I don’t want DHS knocking on my door at 4:00am or for our friends to suddenly decide another LifeGroup might be a “better fit”.

Thanks Katy, Perry, Josiah and Jace. It was a fun night! Happy Birthday Katy!

I painted parts of a scene for our most recent series, “So You’re Dead… Now What?” recently. I had the pastor who asked me to paint send a picture of the entire setup so I could see it all put together. Here is the photo so you can see it too. (I painted the Grim Reaper on the right, and the tree and tombstone on the left).

Days 53, 54, 55 - August 2-4

I’m not going to write a long post about my trip to West Virginia for my grandmother’s funeral. But if you’re interested in what we did for three days you can also take a look at the pictures I’ve included.

I arrived on Saturday in Columbus after flying all day - my mom was waiting for my flight to arrive and we drove together to West Virginia - outside Parkersburg is where my grandfather lives. He and my grandmother were married for 56 years and had spent nearly the last 30 in a home they built together on some acreage. So my entire adult life I’ve made trips out to the “farm”. I have so many fond memories of the time we spent out there barefoot, in cutoffs and running wild. All the cousins (there are 7 of us on this side of the family) made the trip out to West Virginia for the funeral. All of us - except one brave wife, Shanna - were without our spouses and on the farm together for the first time in probably 20 years. We relived old stories, caught up with our individual lives, and made up new funny stuff. Overall, considering the circumstances, we had an awesome time. It was such good family time to be all together again with our parents, our grandfather, aunts, uncles, distant cousins. We had to have some competition and the best arrangement we came up with was a kickball game followed by a campfire, hotdogs and s’mores. You can see more in the pictures.

Although it’s difficult to relive the memories without my grandmother around to laugh along with us, we’re so blessed by the example of Godly marriage our grandfather has displayed these last few years and the wonderful memories their farm have provided us all over the years. Goodbye Grandma. You are loved and missed. We’ll see you again soon.

As for service, I dedicated these last three days to serving my family. I know God was honored by this trip, the sacrifices we each made to be here, and the love that we rekindled and shared. We love you, Lord - thank you so much for the amazing blessing of a close family.

Day 51 - July 31

There is a group of creative folks over at the Northwest Oklahoma City Campus of LifeChurch.tv. For the last series, At the Movies, and the new one, So You’re Dead Now What?, they’ve come up with foam scenes for the lobby of the church and have asked me to help with the finish painting. I love to paint so the request is great for me - gives me an excuse to ignore everything else I have to work on and paint for a while. I spent a few hours with them at the campus tonight painting the Grim Reaper, a tombstone, and a tree. It was a good night. Check out my handiwork and check out this very important upcoming series, So You’re Dead, Now What?

Here is a link to the photos that I took myself during the New Orleans trip. There are others at the official trip blog that I mentioned earlier. Follow this link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/plumbean/sets/72157605701671176/

As a group we decided to blog about the trip and post pictures here: http://lcneworleans611.wordpress.com. Check it out - it’s got the stories and responses from other team members as well as a collection of all the photos from the trip in one place. I’ll be adding my favorite photos and giving more details about that in separate posts.