When Life Gets Too Busy

You might be too busy if . . .

Go ahead and answer that question in my comment section. I'd love to hear what you come up with.

The fall of 2005 may forever be remembered as one of the busiest times of my life. It's been a couple of months since my last update, so let me give you a few highlights from the past couple of months.

New Family Member(s)

My brother Kevin and his wife Melissa welcomed their new daughter Rebecca JoElaine into the world last Friday, October 21st. That makes Cyndi and me and Aunt or Uncle for the twelfth time. Congratulations Kevin and Melissa.

We welcomed a little dog named Kristi into our family August 27th. She was a mix between a beagle and I'm pretty sure a doberman, although the pet adoption agency told us it was a dauschound. After assuring us that Kristi was great with children and cats, and a great ride home, Kristi turned into Cujo! After biting three family members, and threatening a lot of visitors, Kristi went back to the adoption agency.

Then, last weekend, Muffy joined our family. She is officially Christopher's dog, but we all like to claim her. Muffy is beautiful little Sheltie pup. She is four months old, and so incredibly sweet. She belonged to my brother Randy and his family, but they had to let her go due to allergies. So, we had the double blessing last weekend of seeing Randy, Lori, Joy and Matt, and falling in love with a new little pet. I'll post pictures soon.

Family

It's been an incredible fall with Breanna now a junior higher, Chris a fifth grader, Jeremy in first grade, and Zach in his last year of preschool. Breanna is loving the junior high youth group at church. That's not too tough when you have the best junior high pastor in America for a youth pastor! Chris is loving his new dog. He is also tearing through book after book, recently scoring the second highest person at his entire school in reading (amount of books read, and test scores on the books he has read). He's a lot like his mom that way. JJ is loving first grade. He is reading so well too, and he loves sports. Zachary loves the time that he gets with mom alone, now that his older brother is in school full time, five days a week.

Church

Things are going very well at church. Our fall retreat was one of the highlights of my time in ministry. Nine students made commitments to Jesus Christ. Many of them were students that I have been praying for for a long time. God is absolutely transforming their lives.

So far, 16 students have made commitments to Jesus since the school year started. Pizza and God Talk, our ministry that happens after the Garage on Wednesday nights where students can ask whatever questions that they want about God continues to grow. The questions that the students ask are extraordinary.

Book

My book will be published by Zondervan in August of 2006. It's been a fun process to see it come together. In the past few weeks I've been able to see the cover design and was interviewed by Zondervan for a CD that their sales reps listen to and play for bookstore owners. I can't wait to see the book released.

Travel

I've been speaking at a number of conferences this fall. I was in Sacramento, Pittsburgh and Alexandria, Minnesota in October. I'll be in Wisconsin Dells, WI and Nashville in November. Then, I have some time off. I'm looking forward to being home more!

Missions

We'll be announcing our Summer Missions trips to students on Sunday. I'll be travelling to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras in January. It will be my first time to Honduras. Please pray for Central America. Hurricane Stan dropped a tremendous amount of rainfall on the region, and then an earthquake caused devastating mudslides. Many people in the Lake Atitlan region, where our trip goes almost every year, were killed. One entire village has been declared a cemetary. Over 400 bodies are buried deep in the mud. I've been in regular contact with Jaime Lopez, our missionary in Guatemala. I am concerned for him too. His wife Doris had surgery to remove her gall bladder on October 3, and now will be having surgery to have a lump removed from her breast. They have been through it. Jaime is like a brother to me. We have spent much time together, and it hurts to see him going through so much.

How strange is this weather that we've been seeing around the world? Paul Douglas, the meteorologist for WCCO news in Minneapolis says that he has never seen weather phenomenon like we are experiencing. It's bizzare.

Well, that's a little bit of an update. I'll update more regularly.

Behold, You who form the mountains and create the wind, And reveal Your thoughts to people; You turn dawn to darkness, And tread the high places of the earth - The Lord God of hosts is Your name.

Amos 4:13