Feb 23, 2008

Home!!

After 3 weeks on the road, I'm home. The first week was in Los Angeles with the MC on a missions trip to the Dream Center.
Two weeks of it was in Vero Beach, Florida, staying at the beautiful Vero Beach Inn. It was awesome being directly on the beach. We were there for Pastoral Staff planning summit, and it was very fruitful. We also participated in the Encounter Retreat offered by Central A/G.
This retreat was especially great because our wives joined us for the last half.
We watched the lunar eclipse from the beach, and saw the Space Shuttle streak by as it headed for a landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
On the trip home I got to spend an hour or so with Mom, Dad, Tycen, Sonja, and Levi in Seattle.
But, it's great to be home!

Feb 7, 2008

Wow.... Simply wow....

So, I'm in LA with our Master's Commission. I've been wanting to blog nightly, but we've gotten in so stinkin' late each night that it just was not happening.
We are down here with the Dream Center doing a short term missions trip. Basically we just plug into their regular ministries. They do crazy stuff. Today we want on Food Ministry to Compton/Watts. This is where the rights happened in '91. We pull up in a box van FULL of food and start handing it out. On the other side of the street from where we were set up is some flowers on the curb. The locals told us that they are there in honor of the young man gunned down at that spot earlier in the week. Our team leader, Alfred tells us if we hear shooting, just hop in the van or get down. Great advice. My team decided if it happened, they'd hide behind the biggest object, and then looked at me...
So, tonight is the regular mid-week service at the Angelus Temple. The worship is just awesome. They do announcements, and offering. I've been to Phoenix First a lot, so that all fit what I expected. So then Pastor Matthew gets up at says tonight they have a special guest, which they do most Thursdays. Now there's a guy I've totally been wanting to hear named Perry Noble. I've been following his blog for about a year now, and listen to his sermons online. His church is just ripping it up, growing from small bible study to over 13,000 people this Christmas. They had 400 people get saved in one weekend recently. They have a big conference coming up in March that I would kill to go to.
So Pastor Matthew says their special guest was recently named one of the top 15 young ministers in America. I'm thinking "Hmm... Perry Noble was just named one of the top 15 young minsters in America." Then Pastor Matthew says he preached at this special guest's church recently and they gave a great offering to the Dream Center. I'm thinking "Hmm... Pastor Matthew recently preached at Perry Noble's church and they gave a great offering to the Dream Center."
Then Pastor Matthew says tonight's special guest is from Anderson, South Carolina. I'm thinking "Hmm... Perry Noble is from Anderson, South Carolina." Then Pastor Matthew says let's give a big welcome to PERRY NOBLE. I'm freakin' out. It's PERRY flippin' NOBLE!! If you'd had asked me to name the one person I'd kill to hear, it would be Perry Noble. And now he's 40 feet away from me. And I didn't have to kill anyone to make it happen!
  • Round trip ticket to LA: $610
  • Short term missions trip for 3 days at the Dream Center: $30
  • Seeing Perry Noble live: priceless

Feb 4, 2008

Viva la difference...

Here's the weather in Wasilla today....


Good thing I'm in Los Angeles, where it looks like this...

Feb 2, 2008

At least it wasn't bees...

So, back in August, I blogged about our run in with bees while out geocaching. We haven't done much caching since then. Partly because of the bees, partly because life got really busy.
Since the temperature got up to zero today, we decided it would be a good day to finally get back into it.
So, the first cache was great. It's on an island in the middle of the lake. Since it's winter, the lake is frozen over, so we drove right to it. The next two caches were just as fun.
Then we get to what will be our fourth cache of the day. I don't really care for the location, we had to walk 500 feet along a very busy highway, trudging through the snow. We are right on the bank of Wasilla Lake, a few feet from the outflow. Because the outflow is squeezed through a culvert under the highway, the faster moving water doesn't freeze. I figured we were far enough away, that we'd be okay.
The good news is the water was only a few feet deep. The bad news is it was below zero out, and we were separated from the truck by 500 feet of snow.
In reality though, having all ten toes is overrated...