My Saturday

Currently Listening to: Meese [Friends of the guys I'll be living with in Denver.]

Currently Drinking: Blackberry Izze

Before I head out to Lincoln Lake Baptist Camp next week to speak for their Jr. High Wilderness week, I wanted to give an update of today and preview of tomorrow in order to save having to do that with my update after Lincoln Lake.

Today was the Cornerstone church picnic. There were food stations, childrens games, police people, military people, a Craftsmen Village, and live music. Some of us guys tried our hands at the Marine pull-up challenge. I tried the wide grip and got 8-9 and then pooped out at 12 doing the narrow grip. I won a water bottle. Thanks, Uncle Sam. I also got to play guitar with a group of college students for some of the live music. We played about 45 minutes worth of worship music.

[I broke two strings. Why, oh why must I always break

strings during the most crucial moments!?]

[After playing music at the picnic, I went with some peeps to Matt Bietel's graduation party.

Matt is a great guy and is fairly new to Cornerstone and is attending Asbury College in the fall.]

[Matt.]

[Maclane's (in the maroon shirt in the previous picture) house almost got destroyed by a tree in the storms this week. The tree narrowly missed hitting the house but did take out a window. The fork in the tree fit perfectly around the corner of the house. Praise God for His sovereignty over trees falling during storms!]

Tomorrow is a day of church and doing laundry and packing for Lincoln Lake. I'm hoping to watch some of the USA vs. Brazil championship soccer match during the afternoon before heading to the middle school pool party SNAC at the Mahloy's at 5:00. Pray for me during the week at LL that God will use my His Word to change the campers lives.

Hmmm...the guy next to me here at Starbucks is reading a Bible. I think I'll talk to him.

BASIC 2009

This past week was BASIC. It was a missions trip consisting of 102 high school students from New Jersey, Alabama, Ohio, and Michigan. I'll walk you through the week with these pictures.

[Mornings and evenings consisted of teaching sessions taught by various leaders and pastors on the topic of the gospel and evangelism. Pictured here is Chip Dean, former intern under Patrick and current youth pastor at Capshaw Baptist Church in Harvest, Alabama.]

[After the day's activities on Tuesday, we all (except Jersey people) went out to an Arabic restaurant for dinner. Yum, yum.]

[On Wednesday, Cornerstone students held a car wash at Cornerstone while the other churches hit the malls in an effort to have conversations with people and share their faith. Cornerstone students went to the mall the next day.]

[This picture is a shout-out to a loyal reader of the blog, Matt Brown (left). He was the guy giving me a hard time about not posting an entry during the 26 hours following my week at Lake Ann. The other guy is Matt Klein, but he's not a faithful reader. However, he was the sound guy for the week, and for that I am grateful.]

[Wednesday night we took the BASIC crew to a Detroit Tigers/ Chicago Cubs game. I'm a Cubs fan, so it was fun seeing them play for the first time. Too bad they lost. Can you spot me in the picture?]

[Thursday's lunch provided the students and leaders with an opportunity to serve one another. For example, I assembled Patrick's lunch and he did the same for me. I asked him if he would like his sandwich cut in half. He, Patrick, requested that go above and beyond and cut his PB & J into twelfths. I obliged. Evidently, he, Patrick, was only joking. I wasn't.]

[Thursday afternoon while Cornerstone students went to the mall, the other students went to God's Helping Hands. This picture's purpose is twofold: First, it provides an example of some of the work that was done that day, namely, organizing the food storage. Second, it proves that for at least 5 seconds I worked hard, just like my mom taught me to.]

[Here are students sorting clothes. Piles and piles of clothes.]

Lake Ann 2009

Currently Listening To: The Champion and His Burning Flame

Currently Awkwardly Staring At (unbeknownst to the recipient of said stare): Dave Kaynor fast asleep in the other hotel bed

Current Degree of Weariness: Approaching Moderately Extreme

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As Brownie has emphatically and graciously reminded me this week, I haven't posted an update in over a week. This was because I was at Lake Ann Camp all last week and have spent the last couple days on the BASIC missions trip. Somehow updating my blog didn't make it into my list of top priorities during my 26 hour break between trips. Things like "doing my laundry so I had clean clothes for this week" and "going to church Sunday morning" and "running to the mall to buy a new pair of sandals so I didn't look like a hobo" and "going to Weishaupt's graduation open house lest she hate me forever" ranked slightly higher. Oh, and I also devoted lesser amounts of time to eating and sleeping.

Concerning my week at Lake Ann, I counseled on Fresh Start which is the 9th grade age group. We spent 3 days rafting down the Pine River and sleeping in tents, and while we were back at main camp we spent much of our time in Teepee Village.

The week was a tremendous success as I believe all the students who attended had a lot of fun, met some new friends, created memorable... memories, and made life-changing spiritual decisions. All in all there were 55ish students from Cornerstone who attended camp, with ages ranging from entering 4th grade up through entering 9th grade.

Like I said, I counseled 9th grade guys, including 2 from Cornerstone and 5 were from various other churches in Michigan. Also, Patrick was the speaker for the week so it was a Cornerstone hotspot in the woods of NW Michigan. I'll explain various parts of the week in the captions for the following pictures.

[An oft-attempted yet rarely achieved semi-necessary right of passage

for boys becoming men: a successful three-tiered pyramid.]

[While camping out on the Pine River, we had chapels in a grassy

knoll.All the campers would form a large circle for singing

and the teaching time. Notice my group's orange tent in the

background.]

[These were my guys for the week. Maclane (next to me)

and Parker (third from right) are Cornerstone guys.]

[Here is a picture Patrick took of one of the rafts coming into

the landing area. Notice the smiles on their faces.]

[The full Cornerstone crew out at Fisherman's Point Thursday morning.]

[A classic Lake Ann camp experience is the low ropes challenge course. Here the guys work together as a team to tightrope walk from Point A all the way around to Point B without touching the ground. Later I had them achieve the same task with two guys "blinded" and only allowing one member to speak.]

[The high adventure activity exclusive to Fresh Start is Jacob's Ladder. Campers hold the base of an 18 ft. ladder and then one student climbs to the top and has to leap off the top rung and ring a bell suspended above the ladder. This picture is of me demonstrating* my confidence in the campers holding the base of the ladder.]

[Some of the crew with Sr. High speaker Ken Rudolph.

Ken also speaks for the combined Friday night chapel.]

[Glory Bowl happens Friday night after the final chapel of the week. It is a chance for students to publicly share with each other the decisions they made during the week. It was a blessing to hear many of the Cornerstone students share about what God did in their lives during the week.]

* I do have a license to carry those guns. It's a small fire arms permit.

Hockey Town

Hockey Town Cafe

My last post was on Saturday afternoon, so I'll catch you up on the action since then. Sunday was a typical day at church. I spent the afternoon attending a student's baseball game. Then Sunday night I went to a college age/graduating high school seniors SNAC at the Schnepper's house. We ate food and played football and some people went swimming.

After the SNAC I went with a few friends to a karaoke night at a local restaurant. I felt like William Hung in the midst of American Idol's top 12 because there were some mighty fine singers in the house that night.

Monday night I was at the office all day and then attended an elders' meeting at night.

Tuesday night I went with some guys down to Hockey Town Cafe (see above picture) to watch game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals out on the patio.

[Evidently there is some level of historic significance to this

zamboni machine that I was not, and am still not, aware of.]

We arrived at Hockey Town at 6:00 for the 8:00 game. We still ended up sitting near the back but we definitely had better seats than these people [people were lined up four levels high during game time]:

According to an article I read, for those who didn't arrive as early as we did, there was an hour and a half wait to get in and a line that stretched down the block of people hoping to get a seat! Some people even tried hopping the fence and/or climbing through the dense wall of shrubbery trying to get in. Security, for the most part, was on the ball and more or less gently escorted the late arrivals back outside the venue.

[As you can see, the crowd outside was pretty dense.]

[Devin had the "brilliant idea" of using the free pom-poms

as a wig. You just can't take the O.G. out of an O.G. though.]

Oh ya, and the Wings lost 2-1. Game 7 Friday night. Go Wings.

Yesterday was a typical Wednesday: office during the day, KFC for dinner, and Oasis at 7. For the summer there is a college student doing the speaking so I no longer have that responsibility on my metaphorical plate.

Tonight I have a missions team meeting at 7. Then I'll go home and go to bed. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Probably laundry and the beginning stages of packing for Lake Ann.

Saturday Faturday

It's Saturday and I'm sitting in a big comfy chair at an unfamiliar Starbucks (corner of Gratiot and Masonic). I felt like a boy scout a few minutes ago because a girl, with laptop and car keys in hand, walked in the door looking like she needed help with something. As best I could tell, it also appeared that she felt uncomfortable asking me, a stranger, for said help. Her unsettled countenance probably would not have been directed exclusively toward me had I not been the only patron in the joint, but alas, here I sit in this big comfy chair directly facing the front door, the only patron in the joint.

I looked up at her doing my best to communicate a "I think you are hoping that I look at you and ask if you need help, but I feel I am at risk of talking to you, a stranger, before you even have both feet in the door." (I have always felt that it is best to wait until a complete stranger has entered a room with both feet before initiating conversation with them.) My look must have communicated well because she timidly asked me, "How do you get the wireless to

work?". I told her that you have to buy a stranger a drink before it will work. False.

I explained to her the process and in a matter of minutes she was surfing the web like a (insert intelligent simile here). As she left, she mouthed a "thank you" to me since I was on the phone. I threw my empty cup at her. False. I waved. It feels good to be a boy scout.

--

As for this weeks activities, I went to the Owens's (I'm still not sure how to properly make a singular noun that ends in "s" a possessive. Any help?) on Tuesday to watch Madagascar 2 before going to Maclane's baseball game. We didn't finish the whole movie but we did watch all of Maclane's game. In baseball terms that's batting .500. Not bad.

[Doesn't Maclane look tough in his uniform?]

[Sometimes Maclane blows at the ball to try and get it

to slow down as it approaches home plate. Cheater or genius?.]

Wednesday night was the first Jr/Sr High combined Oasis of the summer. It was different being there and having zero responsibilities. The guys who did lead did a great job with the announcements, game, music, and teaching.

Thursday night I went to Devin's baseball game and then to his house to watch the Red Wings game. On the way to his house after the game, we swung in to McDonald's to grab some ice cream. I ordered a Triple Thick Strawberry shake. They gave me Orange Creamsicle. Oh well. I guess I just got extra Vitamin C.

Friday night I went with a group of student's to another of Maclane's baseball games. Then we all went out to Dairy Queen and to the church league softball games.

Today I went with a couple guys to Mo-Mo's soccer game. Her team won 3-2.

[I barely missed a perfect shot of Mo-Mo doing a header.

She's not a fraidy cat like the girl behind her.]

[Teddy at the game.]

[Terminator Trevor, myself, and my water bottle at the game.]

In a little bit I'll be heading to Devin's house to watch the Wings' game. Until then I need to hammer out a few details on what I'll be teaching for VBX (6th grade VBS) later this summer.

Outstanding

Friday night I went with a group of students to see Up, the latest Pixar sensation, in 3D . The movie was outstanding - especially the long-necked, lanky, limping bird character named Kevin.

After the movie we went to Brooke's house for food and a fire. That too was outstanding.

Saturday I went to Jordan's baseball game and then two a couple graduation open houses and then to Devin's house to watch the Red Wing's game. Outstanding, outstanding, and outstanding.

Sunday night was a SNAC at the Hait's house. You guessed it, it was outstanding. We ate chili dogs and played 500 in the back yard. Here are a few pics.

[Hannah, Becca, Logan, Susanna, and Ashley
at the church before we left.]

[Did I mention the chili dogs? And the punch was really good too.]

[Jackpot!!! You can't see it in the picture,
but Maclane was actually riding on a magic carpet.]

[Kevin = Parker's launching pad.]

[Somehow nobody ended up catching this one.]

[Ashley and Logan right after he knocked over a glass of water.
Go easy on him though, it was an accident.]

[The Psycho Sarakun Siblings.
Please notice the subtle use of consonance devoid of extended alliteration due to the inert letter "p" in the introductory endocentric digraph.]