A lot has been happening lately. I suppose that's not uncommon. The electronic silence between my posts should convey that I'm off somewhere doing important things, like having campfires and working and watching friends get married. But the key here, is that the "a lot has been happening" refers to a pile of things I don't do very often.
On Sunday my good manfriend Nate got himself a bride. I was fortunate enough to be one of his groomsmen. I got to spend a good deal of time with him, which was awesome. You can most often find your single friends. They're just hanging out. You also can find your married friends easily. But the dating/engaged friends are like rumors and whisperings. You hear that they exist, but you don't see any evidence.
Sunday weddings work just fine, if you were wondering. They have a different feel to them versus a Saturday wedding, to be sure, but you can't argue that it seems slightly silly that a Saturday wedding is twice the expense of an identical wedding staged on Sunday. At the reception, I caught the garter, which is supposedly a traditional memento that foretells who will get married next (amongst the single men trying for the garter). But I just see it as an opportunity for the husband to reach up his wife's dress and pull off a lacy article of clothing, in public.
I taught story time at Kids Club Monday evening and tried to explain faith to a pile of eager, energetic inner city kids. The kids are divided into three groups: the youngest boys and girls, the older girls, and the older boys. I have to tailor the story to be relevant to each group, which is the hardest part for me. For the story, I grabbed up some horrendously expensive-yet-plain-Jane helium balloons and took my cinder block with the two sequoia saplings growing inside it.
I told the kids that faith is "complete trust in something or someone that we can't see." I gave them examples of this by telling them to all take a deep breath. "We trust that there is oxygen to breathe, right? Even though we can't see it." But that practical example was free so I knew it wouldn't leave a lasting impression. I showed them the balloons and asked if they knew what was inside. Several kids piped up "Helium!"
I tore a small slit in the neck of the balloon to let out some helium. I asked if the kids could see the gas escaping. "No?" They said in a panicked voice, like perhaps they missed an obvious puff of gas escaping the balloon. "That's right, you can't see helium. It's clear, like oxygen. So we can't see it but we can see that it does something, right?" At this point I inhaled the helium and talked in a squeaky little chipmunk voice, which certainly left a bigger impression on the kids than inhaling plain 'ol oxygen. (I wanted to geek out about how oxygen is contained in our atmosphere and distributed over the surface of the earth so that we can breathe wherever we go ohmygoodnesshowcoolisthat! but evidently kids aren't wired like I am.)
I then used my sturdy little saplings to show the relation between "faith" and "works". I related faith to sunlight and works to water, both of which are necessary for a good little sequoia to grow.
On Tuesday I bought a plane ticket to Oregon. More accurately, I paid Mom for the ticket she found me after analyzing dozens of flight companies for several weeks. I'm flying out of Omaha, which is 4 hours away, but that's not even a tribulation because a) I'll get to visit my awesome cousin Kyle who lives near Omaha and b) I'm flying with Southwest, my most favorite airline.
I'm headed to be a groomsman in my friend Jamison's wedding this October, and I'm pretty thrilled about it. I dearly miss Jamie and I have only seen him a few times since he moved to Oregon 2 years ago, but we grew up together so it'll be awesome to see him again. While I'm out there, I'll spend time with my sisters and brother and nephews and nieces and brothers-in-law.
On Wednesday I spoke in chapel at Pathway Christian. Wednesday mornings are for the fathers of the students to give chapel. I'm not a father of any child, much less a child old enough to attend Pathway. But they enlisted several alumni to give messages, and I was glad to pitch in. I taught about the name of God and what the modern church is doing to it, and I was pretty nervous I'd forget something so I wrote the entire message down and more-or-less read it to the students. I want to share that message with all of you, but I'll do that some other time because it's long.
This Thursday I get to help teach a friend how to properly use firearms, and I'm excited. What's not to get excited about? Firearms are a wonderful hobby. Now, the media would have you believe that gun owners are crazy yahoos living on the edge of sanity, with no regard for physical hygiene or safety. Well, I can't speak for every gun owner in the world, but I don't know of anyone like that. Proper firearms training is something I get excited about because an innocent kid with no knowledge of guns is more dangerous with a firearm (and often more lethal) than an armed criminal. I'm not joking. If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of a firearm, ALWAYS carefully follow the Four Gun Commandments.
I went on a one-day canoe trip last year with the oldest Kids Club boys. We had a leader for every two boys, and I'm thinking there were a dozen kids. The trip was awesome but I was so exhausted and sore at the end, I thought I'd never put myself through something like that again. Well, nostalgia is that horrible condition in which strenuous exercises are remembered with fondness. On Saturday several of us guys leave with some of the older boys from Kids Club on a two-day canoe trip. This time, the leader-kid ratio will be one-to-one. We're leaving our phones behind, taking sleeping bags to camp the night...I'm excited to see how it turns out.
Upcoming in September is my roommate Shane's wedding. I won't be a groomsman in his wedding, but I've been asked to be the emcee. I'm looking forward to it because I'm good friends with Shane AND Alaynna.
Last on my "Plate of Upcoming Activities" is the trip to Ghana. I have not found my Yellow Fever vaccination card, but I'm no longer worried about it. I don't have the paperwork to prove it, but my body is capable of defending itself against brightly-colored fevers.
I told a friend that I was pretty frazzled with all of these events swirling around in an ominous cloud of responsibility. She wisely pointed me to Psalm 29:11, which states "May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!"
Thank you, Father. Help me to take things one day at a time.
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