My Transformation is Complete.

Camp men have trucks.

Especially the guys I work with, they are all from the midwest and they have trucks. I did't fit in because I grew up in Florida and have a Jeep (which is close, but just not 'rednecky' enough). However, I am happy to say that today I completed my transformation by purchasing a 1988 Chevy 4x4 from a local drywall company.

My new 'big ass' truck comes with a decrotive layer of drywall dust blanketing the dash and a dust mask in the glove box in case there is another SARs scare.

Its also the first time Ray and I have had 2 vehicles since about a month after we got married, boy are we fancy now.


Oh, how sweet it is.



Don't I look manly?


Chris

You Would Like to Eat What? My Eyes?

A couple of weeks ago we had a program "adventure" week for some 6Th graders and one of the days we had a guy come talk who was a 'birds of prey' expert.

He brought this huge owl and the whole time he was teaching the kids about birds of prey I swore this thing was going to attack his face. I mean this bird had the beak of a samurai sword and the eyes of Satan. You could see into its deep dark soul and tell that it had only ill intentions. Satan or not, nobody died, however I am sure that's only because we all were extremely lucky.


Here is "Satan With Wings" doing his best imitation of Lord Voldemort. Evil bird.



See, looks just like him......except with feathers.

A bunch of people took pics with this widow maker and I was the only one it stared down. I almost punched it in the face.

Life and Priorities.

Life

My boss, Chris Herrington, called me this morning to tell me that he and his wife were rushing off to the hospital to give birth to their new baby. WooHoo! Please pray everything goes well with the birthin'.

Priorities

I was reading on Marko's blog this morning some of his notes from the Jr High Youth Ministry Summit he hosts each year and I found something interesting. There was a little brief thing about priorities in ministry and how the thing you value the most should be recieving 70 percent of your focus, time and resources. However, many times the thing we say we value the most gets the 30 percent instead.

This got me thinking how we do things here at camp and I think that we would all agree that we hold a high value to small group relational ministry within the context of our summer program. However, I think that our large group sessions recieve way more of our finances than things that foster community and relationship.

I know that within program ministry, large group "sessions" are really important, to have low quality bands, speakers, lights, sound systems etc can really distract people from the message you are trying to get across, however does it need to take up the resources that we throw at it? This applys to camp as well as to church and even family budgeting, what do you value? What gets your money?

I don't know what camp could look like if we spend more of our budget on community building projects (games, community spaces, etc). Would we suffer as a ministry? Or would we thrive by allocating funds for our primary values rather than a piece of the pie that is typically uses for attracting people? Just a thought and I look forward to where it could go. Cheers.

Chris

Wall Day.

Here I am hanging from the wall on my repel device removing the hand holds. No, thats not a poop bucket like they use in parades.

Here I am using a ladder to get a couple of the holds we missed, you can see in the picture, but this ladder felt so janky that I thought I was going to fall the whole time, but I survived.


Jenn, Kris and I worked on the wall today and had a great time doing it.

This morning Jenn and I repelled down and removed all the hand holds from both climbing surfaces. To do this you have to repel down and them wrap the rope around your legs in a certain way to lock off the figure 8 device. I have to admit the first time I locked myself off like this I was so freaked that I had done something wrong, but I did it right and did not die.

This afternoon we had to spray stain on the wood surface to weatherproof it. To do this you climb up again and we had someone belay us off the top and Kris and I used a spray gun to spray the stain on the wall. It was actually a cool day working in a harness, hanging above the earth.

Mmmmm Strawberries.

I got a Facebook friend invite from a guy I went to JBC with and it reminded me of an awesome moment that I cherish in my heart.

It was my senior year, 2001, and one of my professors had organized a ski trip to Sugar Mountain, North Carolina. So, we woke up around 4:30 am to leave at 5 and I grabbed a quick bowl of strawberry oatmeal before we left.

We drove the few hours to NC and as we arrived Lucas and I were standing outside the van in the cold, grey light of morning waiting for everyone to unload skis and such from the van. While we were standing there glassy eyed and tired from the trip I farted. He glanced over at me with an understanding little nod and after about 15 seconds we both realized that my fart smelled jsut like sweet strawberries. Seriously, just like the ones that I ate in my oatmeal.

It defied everything that I had learned pertaining to science, logic and faith. However, it made me smile and it changed my life. It gave me hope that in all bad situations greatness can rise from it. I have been longing for a sweet, yummy smelling fart every day since. It has not returned. Cheers.

Chris

Program Week.

We programmed an "adventure" week for some 6th graders from Phoenix this past week and we had a blast with them. The kids got to do team builing, kayaking, slacklining, fire making, emergency shelter builiding, first aid, and other out door campy activities.

The kids were a lot of fun and we really had a great time hanging out with them. Cheers.

Chris

We'll Just Have a Testing Party.

I had the day off today so I drove Ray to work so I could clean out the Jeep. I love riding with her to work when I have time off, I wish I could do it every day. A little small piece of me misses commuting, because its the best time to drink coffee and listen to talk radio.

On my way home I dropped in to Goodwill to see if there were any must haves. There was a massive wood carving that was hard to pass up. And they had a old orange crash helmet that I wanted soooooooooooo badly, but it wasn't in the budget for this month (Thanks Dave Ramsey, you kept me from buying something I didn't need, I love you).

While looking at old Walkmans and popcorn poppers, I noticed there are things at GW I would never purchase used.

1. Under Pants. Gross.

2. Sandals. I can't imagine wearing sandals with no socks knowing someone else did too. Can't do it.

3. Jogging Shorts. All that sweaty undercarriage action makes me want to throw up.

4 Diabetes tester. I saw this on the shelf, the thing where you prick your finger and it reads it. Even in Africa people know to not share that device. Please reader of this blog, get a new diabetes finger prick tester thing if you need one. If you can't afford a new one call me and we'll find you someone that can. Cheers.

Chris

Didn't Make It.

Guys,

I hate to say that I didn't make it out to the Dollar Car Bonaza on Saturday morning. After writing about it last week and getting all pumped up I ended up having to work on Saturday. So staying up all night wouldn't have been a good idea before trying to be safe at the climbing wall for 6 hours Saturday.

I appologize from the bottom of my heart.

I still need a cheap vehicle, so if you know anyone that would sell me a road worthy car for a buck let me know.

I feel so bad that I didn't go, I feel like I am letting my blog friends down. Have a great day. Cheers.

Chris