a former youth ministry student, sergio, has come up to stevens point for the weekend. it’s great, i get to introduce him to the wonders of point and to fishing. yep, you see sergio is 21 years old and he has never been fishing. when adam and noah heard this they stared at sergio in stunned disbelief. how can someone go through 20 years of life and never have fished? it doesn’t make sense. surely this lack of fishing has effected sergio’s development. he’s probably spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically stunted because of this lack of fishing within his life. after we go fishing tomorrow sergio will probably experience miraculous growth. he’ll probably be 8 feet tall tomorrow after we’ve gone fishing.
hail storm
monday through thrusday i have to pick up adam and two of his friends from the fitness camp they are a part of. yesterday we had a decent intense hail storm (lots and lots of grape sized hail). it was bad enough that i finally had to stop the car and find a tree. that’s when the three teens tried to talk each other into running outside, touching a table, and running back. the video above is what happened.
it’s probably not funny for everyone else but it was a blast in the car.
stuff likes this makes me miss youth ministry
purpose
i’m bouncing ideas around in my head at the moment for a launch team (the group that is helping me start tapestry) discussion of the mission of tapestry. the one i like the most right now is that “tapestry exists to show off the grace of GOD.” i just love the idea of us “showing off” what GOD has done and can do.
disc golf
recently penza has turned me on to disc golf and it turns out that it is another great connection with many of the people i have been meeting in point. the problem with disc golf is that i find myself wanting to improve and thus getting frustrated when i don’t improve. i’m therefore going to start recording my score on the blog so that i will have a place to remember them and therefore be able to look back and see how bad i originally was. basically this is the same reason that i record my runs on the blog.
today’s disc
course – mead
holes – 18
score – +8
last thursday’s disc
course – mead
holes – 18
score – +7
the 147
thanks to my parents i now have an old town guide 147 canoe. oh yeah. next comes the fishing in it and the pimping out of my canoe. i’ve already order a 48” boat rule to put on the lip for purposes of measuring the killer muskie i plan on catching. 😉 it’s the first of many canoe hacks.
my run for the day
distance – 12.01 miles
time – 2:18:32
pace – 11:33/mile
weather – 77º/WINDY
meeting the griffiths
pam is connected with a couple of different forums. one of these is pastor’s wives which as you could probably guess is a group of pastor’s wives who talk about various things relating to their lives. anyhow, every now and then we end up meeting someone from around the country that pam knows from the forum. yesterday we met the leader of the foru and her husband – larry and romona griffith. they are from thorndale, texas and the cool thing is that they have their ra’s praying for us. ra’s is a kids program that is kind of a combination of boy scouts and a missions program. since, adam and noah were at one time ra’s we all find it pretty cool that these little guys are praying for us.
we ended up eating at the safe house in milwaukee which was a blast. the food was decent but if you like espionage the atmosphere was great. basically the restaurant is made up like a spy safe house. it’s in an alley, there’s no real restaurant sign out front (instead there are a couple of signs that say “international exporters ltd” as pictured above and to the side), you have to know a password to get in (or you have to perform some task they give you – which is caught on closed circuit tv and broadcast all over the restaurant for everyone to enjoy), the rooms are full of spy stuff and there is even a secret exit through a phone booth. it was quite cool. touristy but that was fine and dandy because we were tourist.
SIDE NOTE – i have a friend’s rss feed that for some reason is every now and then showing a long list of less than savory links at the end of his posts on just the rss feed. i’m not entirely sure that this is not an issue with two of my computers but as of yet the virus and spyware software is not finding anything. if you read my blog through an rss feeder and a list of such links comes up would you please notify me. has anyone header of someone’s feed being spammed?
SIDE SIDE NOTE – bastille days in milwaukee began yesterday and therefore we stopped by for a little while. we were there last year and loved it and the boys loved it yesterday. the greatest part (for me) was the fact that the wisconsin basset rescue society was there and they gave us information on bassetfest. i desperately want to take montana and roux to bassetfest. imagine 300-400 basset hounds running loose in a park. oh what fun.
for praying bowlers?
thanks to perry polnaszek i went to a church planting seminar at green lakes conference center that was quite good. not really anything particularly new but a good reminder of stuff that is important. on the way back to point i saw this. it’s a 30’ high rosary made of bowling balls. that’s not something you see every day.
my run for the day
distance – 5.47 miles (1600 meters intervals plus recovery)
time – 58:07
pace – 10:38/mile
weather – 81º
note – this is the first week of serious training for the indy marathon
a little odd
this is over at the big picture. it’s a photo essay of the chinese anit-terrorism preparation for the olympics. this photo is great and probably in need of a wonderful caption that i am too lame to invite myself.
i don’t like it
let me be honest … at one time i enjoyed spending church money. i’m not talking about wasting money or doing anything unethical with it. no what i mean is that when i had to buy something big for the church and/or youth ministry i enjoyed it. it was fun. doing the research, trying to get the best deal, and ultimately making the purchase without it being my own money. all the pressure was off. if the purchased bombed (because the product was a lemon or was accidentally destroyed by a teen) things could be corrected in the next year’s budget. no pressure.
that’s not true anymore.
any purchase i make for tapestry causes my stomach to go into knots. there is no assurance that things will be corrected next year. there’s no assurance that there will be a budget next year. if a purchase bombs then i have wasted a valuable tapestry resource. each purchase is a choice between money for one thing or money for another. thanks to some very generous donors we at least have a budget to buy the the initial stuff we need. of course, ever time i buy something large it drives me nuts. i write this because i just spent a grand on a rear projection screen, a projector table, and an asus 901 back up computer. i also still have more sound equipment to buy.
MAJOR SIDE NOTE – as i was typing this post arnold austin popped up on facebook for a quick but important chat. for those who know and love the austins they have a pray request for you to jump on. this summer there were 60 summer missionaries in peru. these are students who give up there summer to be a part of GOD’s work in peru. one of those summer missionaries who had gone down to peru was greg gomez. this past week he was involved in a van accident and died in peru of a head injury. he was 19 hours away from lima and even further away from his family in st. louis. they are now in the process of getting his body back to lima to be taken to the states. please pray for the gomez family as well as the austins and remaining summer missionaries as they deal with this.
the end is near
woohoo! i’m no longer the oldest terrell on facebook … my dad has joined. now, no matter how many comments my kids make about me being the oldest person on facebook i can always remind them of their poppa. 🙂