Summer Update

Well, its official:
at this blog thing... I pretty much suck. Seriously, trying to find time to stay up on this is pretty tough, but alas, I have found time now, so I'll make the most of this moment.

This will be brief, but hopefully at some point I can add some pics to help show what I'm describing. This post is my brief attempt at updating you all on the busy and wonderful summer that Beth and I had in our first summer of youth work... so here goes!

Beth's Parents Visit:
It was the very beginning of June when Steve and Joan Bruehl came out to the Northwest to visit. It was an awesome time-a quick trip, but we really enjoyed having them here with us. My highlight was heading by ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. It was typical of a northwest day; rainy and chilly. Awesome though.
Colorado Trip - Cross Bearing Adventures:
A week after the Bruehl's left, Beth and I headed to Colorado to visit my family... and to work for Kent at CrossBearingAdventures. I just can't get away from that place. Something always brings me back. No real highlights to speak of, though we made a couple of new really good friends that I haven't talked to since that week-kinda keep in touch as well as I write in this blog!

Friction - YD Adventures:
We flew home from Colorado on July 4th, and on the 11th we took a group of nine to the Leavenworth area, Icicle Canyon and went on a sweet outdoor climbing trip with YD Adventures. It was pretty amazing to be on the other side of an outdoor adventure trip. Used to being the facilitator and all that to being the youth pastor getting to connect with students and use the trip to build on relationships-I'd always hoped to experience that, and YD did such an excellent job of guiding us through experiences and processing our learning. I will definitely be taking kids on that trip each summer.
5 gals, 4 guys, each in seperate trips, and we ended with a sweet rafting trip down the something or other river... I can't really remember right now. Oh well.

Creation Fest '06:
No less than 2 weeks after Friction the Youth Network (a conglameration of youth workers in Anacortes... I'll definitely write more about our collaboration in the future) took over 80 students to Creation Fest at the Gorge in central Washinton. Four days of camping and music and swimming in rivers to try to stay cool. It was good and the strength of the trip was being able to spend some real quality time with students that I hadn't really connected with in the past.
Wild Horse Canyon - Young Life (Wyldlife):
The middle of August was our Wyldlife (middle school outreach of YoungLife) trip to camp-Wild Horse Canyon in eastern Oregon. Talk about hot! But this really wasn't camping as I think of it. I mean, this place was a frickin' resort. Sweet, huge swimming pool, a half-mile zipline into a lake, a full gym and rock climbing wall, great music and awesome food! It was fun. Again, the strength is the down time you get with students. A little too much entertainment and bikinis for my taste, however, the conversations we were able to have were awesome and needed.

Kayaking with Jay and Nate:
If I had more time, I'd write a book regarding this trip. Jay and Merrell flew out to visit family, and last December, Nate and Dayspring moved out to Seattle to take ownership of a Great Harvest Bread Co. in the university district. Anyways, Jay and Nate and I found time to get away for a couple of days. We undertook a kayak trip out and around Cypress Island across the channel from Fidalgo Island and the town of Anacortes. (That's where I live. Yes, I live on an island, and I live in the midst of the San Juan Islands. It is beautiful here and if you haven't been here, and even if you have, you ought to come visit us for a while. There's a lot to see and do.)
Well, we bit off a little more than maybe we could chew, in my opinion, but luckily, God was with us in the midst of 4 foot waves that were crashing into and submerging my kayak and the wind and rip current that was pushing us any direction but the one in which we wanted to go. I think I swore a bit and prayed, "oh God!" over and over for a half hour or so, but we ended up on dry land eventually. Not the right dry land, but a short 3 mile walk and a ferry ride and a little hitch hiking got us back Nate's sweet Tacoma and my keys and my warm apartment. Thank you Jesus for the miracle you gave us that day.

And that about wraps up my summer. If you haven't heard from me, these trips would be why, and now I think life is beginning to slow down a tiny bit. Or should be in the next couple of months, and if not, for sure by next summer. Or something anyways.

September has seen the addition of a new car and a move into a new house, with a new 'housemate,' Chris Crane, a good friend of ours. If you think that's weird, don't worry. He lives upstairs, we'll be moving downstairs once the basement is finished, rent is WAY cheaper, and the house is sweet. You should come see it.

That's it: my official summer update. Hopefully this blog will be filled with the deep learnings of my sould in the future, but for an early blog entry, I think this is pretty good. Thanks for reading it and I will be back to post more sometime in the near or distant future!

I guess I'll give this a try...

Well isn't life interesting? I have resisted for so long the opportunities to expand in knowledge and skill in the technology and computer arenas. I'm not entirely sure why, though I think it probably has something to do with time constraints in my day and possibly an exhaustion of learning anything new-since it seems that learning and I are continuing to walk hand in hand. What I mean is that since I usually end up learning through mistakes and life lessons, sometimes I just want to take a break from it all and rest my weary mind and heart.

I'd like to say that the reason I haven't gotten into learning about new waves in technology (like MySpace, blogging, html, web design, or how to turn on a computer in the first place), is because of some deep honor and belief that life is better left simple and raw, untainted from the effects of the virtual and better lived in the world of face to face. I'm not sure that is so much the case as the reality that I am simply and always, at least two years behind the status quo and up-to-datedness of the world around me. I.E. my friends all had jean jackets in 5th grade. I got my first jacket in 7th, and everyone looked at me weird because they'd been out of style for so long. It just took me that long to realize that they were pretty cool back in the beginning. I guess the final explanation for my resistance to all this culture stuff is that I'm pretty slow, and it does take me a long time to learn things that are outside of my natural affinities. I can start up a conversation or interact with just about anybody, but put me in front of a computer and I become illiterate, distracted, and interested in almost anything other than that which is supposed to be taking my time and focus.

And so it is with these initial thoughts that I timidly begin putting my toe into the waters of technology and this new culture and generation of communication. Be patient with me as I post and learn. But know that if you are reading these thougths, you most likely are one who holds a very dear place in my heart.

I do owe some thanks to people for motivating me to the point of actually testing the waters. It started with a friend, Dave Stalsbroten who set me up with the account and entered my very first post: king kong. You'd have had to have been there to understand, but seriously, Dave, Nate and I laughed very hard and very long in the corner table at Gere-a-Delis; the best sandwhich shop in the town of Anacortes, WA. (Plus they have free wireless internet-which is one area of technology I really do love... mainly so I can keep up with my fantasy football teams!)
Simply Youth Ministry out of Saddleback Church is another reason I am beginning a journey down this road. I listen to their podcasts (another tech piece i've learned over time) each week and many of their peeps enjoy the art of blogging. They faithfully preach that everyone should blog, so to them I owe a special thanks.
And finally, and mostly, and must thank my GOOD FRIEND Eric Langais. I just got off of gmail chat with him and he shared his blog site with me. Just seeing pictures of him with a hangover and an IV pumping into his arm was motivation enough. Eric-thankyou and I do hope we can hang out very soon, considering the fact that we live only 82 miles apart. (or something like that anyways).

Thanks for sticking with me this long, all of my friends, know that I love you. And it is with that thougth that I sign off and truly undertake the beginning of submerging not just my toe, but my leg as well, into these waters of the blogging community!