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huh?

part of ministry that i really love is making visits … especially hospital visits. it always seems to happen that i get the chance to be involved within significant moments during my weekly (and sometime more often) visits to each of our baton rouge hospitals. i may not like the traffic getting to the hospitals but 95% of the time i love the visits.

todays visits were not hugely amazing but one was quite funny. i went to visits an elderly woman who could barely hear anything. of course, since her lacking of hearing is more age related than anything she has never consider the possibility of acquiring hearing aides. this means that my short visit with her consisted of my shouting, her responding that she couldn’t hear me, and then me shouting louder. the conversation went allot longer than the content conveyed within it would normally taken. i think all that the lady actually was able to make out from all that i said was “hi!.” of course, everyone else in the wing knew exactly what church i am a minister of and why this lady was on our prayer list.

you may not know this but they don’t really like you shouting in hospitals. thus when i left the lady’s room i was given tons of nasty looks and a couple of “shhhh’s”. i guess they hadn’t been any of the nurses taking care of the lady i visited.

[Listening to: 06 – The Kingdom – Caedmon’s Call – Back Home (4:30)]
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finally committed

i’ve been trying to become a runner over the past nine weeks. i committed to cool running’s couch to 5k plan with the goal of running a 5k race at the end of the summer. well i’ve finished the training program and the summer is over so now it’s time for the 5k race. this saturday, after the youth ministry works on mr. lamm’s house, i will be running in the club south runners’ twilight classic.

i wanted to see how fast my blazing self is compared to those that race in last year’s race so i looked at the race results from last year’s run. i discovered that there were 184 men that ran the twilight classic last year and based on their times only 155 would have beaten me. of course, most of the them were either over 80 or below 10 but that doesn’t really matter. more than likely i won’t be the slowest runner out there. there are at least 29 men from last year that are slower than me. in some countries that would make me a speed demon. therefore i believe that i get to taunt the slower runners. ahhh. the smell of nowhere-near-victory-but-still-not-losing.

btw, i also can run faster than 46 of the women that ran last year. i believe i may taunt them too.

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random quote – love

No motive, even that of affection for anyone, can justify the doing of evil. But to help someone in need, a good work may sometimes be left, or a better undertaken in its place. For in so doing, the good work is not lost, but changed for what is better. Without love, the outward work is of no value; but whatever is done out of love, be it never so little, is wholly fruitful. For God regards the greatness of the love that prompts a man, rather than the greatness of his achievement.

Whoever loves much, does much. Whoever does a thing well, does much. And he does well, who serves the community before his own interests.

thomas a kempis, the imitation of CHRIST, chapter 15.

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monster house

2006_monster_house_001.jpg
the fam and i just got back from seeing monster house. it was okay. the ending was pretty good but it seem to me that the movie took a long time to get going. still not a bad movie, just not necessarily one that i will go out and buy the second it comes out on dvd.

highlights

  • the way the movie forced you to reconsider who the “bad guys” were at the end of the movie – was it the old man? the old woman? the house? the egg throwers?
  • the team work of the heroes in the final scenes of the movie – everyone was involved and important.
  • the textures within the animation – very cool details through out the movie.
  • john heder as the fast food, video gaming sage.
  • nick canon as officer lister
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just a few updates

the summer is almost over and this means that life will calm down to the point that i will begin blogging regularly again. for now a few random thoughts.

  • i miss the austins – arnold called today and i got to speak to them for awhile (nothing significant, just talking) and it reminded me of how much i love those people. i’m still very proud of them.
  • having a boat would be allot of fun if it weren’t for all the headache that goes with them. i got to borrow david walters’ boat today and drag some kids around on a psuedo-inner tube (i remember the days when we had to use real inner tubers – and we liked it) and it was allot of fun. if i could just figure out a way to borrow someone else’s boat whenever i liked and let them deal with the headaches that would be cool.
  • i just finished a personal best 3 miler – 29:53. it’s sad to think that next week at my first 5k i will be racing 6 year olds who can beat me.
  • as always the youth ministry’s week in nicaragua was amazing.
  • i have a great wife – yesterday was our 16th anniversary.
  • before i started running i never sweated. now my body has apparently decided to make up for lost time. i sweat like a pig when i run.
  • delta airlines has still not found my piece of luggage that they lost on our return flight from nicaragua.
  • since right before adam was born we have given up television (this includes anything you can do on a t.v. i.e., movies, games, etc.) during the month of august. this month it started a little early because our tv broke. it would cost $250 to have someone repair it but i can buy a $14 repair kit off the internet and do it my self. i’ll be doing this next week.

i guess that’s it for now.

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just reminding myself

  • exegesis – “to draw the meaning out of”
  • eisegesis – is the process of interpretation of
    an existing text in such a way as to introduce one’s own ideas.

    • Posted on

    prayer reminder

    prayer card
    just a reminder to be in prayer for the members of the youth ministry who will be down in diriamba, nicaragua starting friday. we will be leaving friday morning, july 28th @ 3 a.m. and getting back friday evening, august 4th at around 12:00 midnight. thanks for your prayers.

    [Listening to: Track 02 – 100 Portraits and Various – Enter the Worship Circle (third circle) (4:11)]

    [tags]missions, nicaragua, youth ministry, parkview[/tags]

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    report from eric & hannah in nicaragua

    eric sent me an email wednesday but i didn’t see it until today. i figured i would share it with y’all because many of you know and love eric & hannah.

    Tis Eric and i´m just letting you know that hannah and i are still alive and having a great time. you will be shocked when you get here because of the change in political majority of the country. today there was a sandanista rally in managua and we were driving back from boaco. on our way back to diriamba we saw hundreds of busses carrying thousands of sandanistas back to thier home towns. I don´t know if nicaragua will be better off with a liberal victory or a sandanista simply because the sandanistas may not take defeat too quietly.
    Hannah and i met some teenagers from new orleans and have made friends with them. We have also gotten to know their cousin very well who happens to be the grand-niece of the presidente de nicaragua. Everyone in the youth will love her and her the same, i hope it´s ok that i invited her to come hang out with us that week but she speaks fluent english so she won´t be too much of a burden if she decides to join us.
    As much fun as the old people are we can´t wait for the youth to get here.
    -Eric and Hannah

    [Listening to: Tiny – 100 Portraits and Various – Enter the Worship Circle (second Circle) (3:28)]
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    random quote – the ressurrection

    there’s a story about the writer g.k. chesteron, whose conversion to CHRISTian faith caused a stir in great britain at a time when smart people (and chesterton was brilliant) weren’t supposed to believe. so he’s standing on a street corner in london when he’s approached by a newspaper reporter. “sir, i understand that you recently became a CHRISTian,” the reporter says. “may i as you one question?”

    “certainly,” says chesterton.

    “if the risen CHRIST suddenly appeared at this very moment and stood behind you,” the reporter inquires, “what would you do?”

    and chesterton looks the reporter square in the eyes and replies, “HE is.”

    brennan manning, posers, fakers, & wannabes, p. 115.

    [Listening to: Come Fall On Us (Psalm 50) – Psalm 18 (2) – 100 Portraits and Waterdeep – Enter the Worship Circle (13:41)]
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    keep it simple, stupid

    a hot day
    over the past two years pam and i have been struggling with what it means for us to live simply. we don’t have our answers at this point and we definitely aren’t living simply yet but we are being challenged by what we are learning. we’ve been inspired by some amazing people and thoughts, such as:

    there are many other people, books, and thoughts that have been challenging how we have thought life should be lived.

    right now, pam and i are trying to figure out what all this means within our lives. we see living simply as vital for our spiritual development but we’re not completely sure what a simple life looks like. we’re not planning on turning amish (though i have huge respect for them) and i don’t believe that we will be joining a commune anytime soon (though the thought of an intentional community is pretty appealing sometimes). we are just trying to sort out what we have been experiencing for the past couple of years.

    what has been changing for us has been:

    • a growing desire to practice hospitality within our lives.
    • trying to buy less things that are new and not buy anything if it’s not necessary – just because we can buy something doesn’t mean we should.
    • trying to make allot more of the things within our lives – our latest desire has been to develop the world’s most perfect salsa recipe.
    • make the times we eat out or buy resturant food special occassions – i.e. eat out allot less (has anyone nocticed how often people in baton rouge eat out?)
    • live on less so that our income doesn’t determine our lifestyle.

    these are just a few of the things we are working on bringing into our lifes. we don’t always accomplish them but we do try. they won’t make us simple but it is at least a start.