Roots.

Right now I'm packing my bags and car for a trip down to Lake Cumberland for the weekend with some friends. For me, this represents a return to childhood innocence hopefully. For those of you who don't know, I spent my summers growing up zipping around on my wave runner here at the Houseboating Capitol of the World. It's a spectacularly beautiful place as you can see above. Really that picture doesn't do the place justice either, so hopefully I'll take a good amount of pictures for sharing.

I'm really excited about this trip though, just to get away from Columbus, which will be my second trip away in the last three weeks. There's even a trip in the works next weekend too, which I'll talk about after I get back from this one. Hopefully on this trip though, I'll start to get some clarity on my future and my life. God has slowly been bringing things into focus for me I believe, and while I don't exactly want to put what that is up on here just yet, know that this process is still on-going.

In getting back to childhood roots I'm hoping to find a parallel simplicity of mind and thinking as I pursue God's will and plan for my life. Christ himself speaks on having the faith of a child, and that unless we become like them we will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. So let's hope that my return to a sacred childhood place and time will bring the faith of a child and the adventurous and undaunted spirit of a child back into me. I'm feeling too old at times and I don't like it, so this should be a good time.

Unless I get bit by a water moccasin, cause that would really suck.

Chiggity Check It Out...

If you've got a few minutes you really need to check out the sermon this past weekend from Heritage Christian Church in Westerville. It's by Andy Sieberhagen, the missions pastor at the church, and he's from South Africa, which alone should compel you to listen to it! His accent is incredible!

Anyways, a little preface is that during the month of July they did a mini-series on Unlikely Heroes in the faith. It was a great idea, but unfortunately not the best carried out that the church has ever done. Except for the last one, this past Sunday.

I highly encourage everyone to either download the sermon from itunes or go to the church's website www.heritagecc.org and go to the podcast page, where it'll be towards the top.

So yeah, go listen to it. It's worth at least a hundred angel-bucks.

My life be like...

This weekend was a freaking blast. Let me just let you in on a little secret...the Turner family is awesome. I love them. Kitty and Howie might be the most awesome friend's parents I know. This camping trip was probably made all the more spectacular though because of the incredible delay that happened from my first invite until the actual coming to fruition of sitting around my first campfire with them. See, I had been invited for the previous five years but something always came up at the last minute...from bachelor parties, to family weddings, to family crises...something always prevented my attending. Perhaps it was because God knew I just wasn't ready yet, perhaps it was because He knew they weren't ready yet. Whatever the reason, it is what it is, for now I have been and have come back alive to tell of it.

We arrived late on Wednesday night, and when I say late I mean around midnight-thirty. Howie and Kitty stayed up for our arrival, but soon after that Howie and the Swartzels crashed while Kitty, Ashley, and myself stayed up for another hour and a half or so enjoying an adult beverage and catching up on life. The next day was filled with an insane amount of food (as was the whole trip really) and spending the day lounging at the beach of Kneff Lake. Great times...floating to the other side on our Cadillacs, beating old men in Washers, throwing small children onto and off of a large inflatable raft, log rolling, and hearing funny stories about Ashley from both Howie and Kitty. Great times. The next day we prepared for and took the epic canoe trip, from which many stories came out of in the past. The big story this year, was perhaps my relegating of Ashley to the front of the canoe and putting her in her place when it came to all of that jazz. Apparently Miss Ashley is not used to not steering and having control of the canoe. Suffice to say, that yours truly did so well that she barely needed to paddle. Count one for the good guys. Saturday consisted of playing lots of games while the foolish ones of the group played something called "golf". Silly rabbits, tricks are for kids.

Overall it was a great weekend, and I count many new friends amongst these people. I would feel comfortable going back and being with them next year, even if Ashley wasn't able to attend. I'm sure the Swartzels will be back as well.

Speaking of Andrew Swartzel...he and I decided something crazy while on the way back from this epic trip. While we were up in town, we saw signs and such for this canoe marathon that people just somehow knew what it was and so there wasn't a whole lot of explanation. Well we investigated it, and found it to be the longest canoe marathon in North America this coming weekend: 120 miles! Talk about epic! Well we started discussing the viability of us attempting the intense physical feat that goes anywhere from 14 to 19 straight hours of paddling. Through a river, dams, ponds, eddys, over a little land, through the night, bugs, wind, rain, whatever Mother Nature would throw at us...we would continue to paddle until it was finished. Now I know what you're thinking: you can't just sign on and do that in one week! You're right, we can't. However a year from now? Yes please.

So that's my weekend and life update-ish. There still is a lot of things that I haven't decided yet when it comes to the next stage of my life and what I am going to be doing next. As of now it's still:

Columbus: work for Max & Erma's as a manager, lead, coach

Raleigh: find a job, help with Church of the Triangle, lead

Blacksburg/Virginia: find a job, lead, unpaid intern training for YL

Orlando: find a job, lead, raise up committee, revitalize First Year Fellowship/New Leader Training and therein the whole leadership/city from a YL perspective

So yeah. I suppose you could throw in there: curveball from God - who knows?

Welp, that's all for now. Wish I had a cool sign off saying, but I don't so I may start trying on various ones.

Word to your mother.

Knowing.

Here's a question to ponder when you get a chance...

How do you know when God is calling you to something? How do you know what God is saying to you?

No idea if I'll have any sort of follow up to this post. Just wanted to throw it out there and see if anyone had any thoughts on it...

So please comment with your thoughts.

The balance?

Hey guys, while I thought I would be posting more than I currently am with having internet 24/7...at least this is more frequently than this spring. Here's a bit of an update before I go into some thoughts on what is going through my head lately...

1.) I don't think I'm going to be getting the UA Track head coaching position. They have an in-district teacher that they are currently interviewing and thinking through, and have stated that they will go with if he seems on the level. Oh well, not a big deal. On the other track front, I haven't heard from my head coach at CCHS lately about the Darby situation so I'm guessing that's a dead deal as well. Perhaps though if the levy passes in August or November for SWCS he'll hang the reins over to me concerning the Comets.

2.) Our kids had an incredible time at Young Life up at Lake Champion, and I can't wait to see how the rest of the summer goes. They definitely came back as changed kids; eager to learn about God, and devote themselves to Him after realizing how broken of lives they live and how broken down the world around them is. Yay for Jesus doin' work.

3.) Don't speed. It sucks.

Alright, so there's the interesting updates on my life. Now to the thoughts/musings/wonderings part of the post...

Lately I have just not been making nearly enough money at either of my jobs. Both are good jobs, with good people, but I don't get nearly enough hours at either one of them to save anything after making all my ends meet. It's really unfortunate on one hand. On the other hand, it's really forcing me to re-evaluate where my life is going and what I'm doing. I have always told myself since fall quarter of my freshman year of college that I wouldn't make any decision in life based on money and the ability to earn money. However, as I watch my friends around me save money, start looking into buying houses, buy new cars, buy things that they both need and want it starts to eat at me that I am unable to do anything that I truly want to do. Money is always a deterrent with me anymore. The crazy thing that I alluded to in another post is that as I get older the lie of needing to be viewed as successful in the eyes of the world becomes so much more attractive than it ever has been.

The thing is, I still seek desperately to lead high schools to the foot of the cross and I feel called to continue to do that. We all know I love track as well, and so I would love to continue coaching and having an impact on youth not just on my team, but others as well. Total side bar, but I was fortunate this year to be able to form relationships with athletes on other teams as well. No super intense conversations, but lots of bridge building and it was absolutely incredible. So back to loving track...real jobs don't always allow for you to get off of work at 3 everyday to go hang out with high schoolers (and win championships haha).

So I find myself in this place of balancing needing to make money and yet figuring out how to fulfill God's call in my life. I continue to want to do to vocational ministry but with the current economic situation there is more or less a hiring freeze within Young Life, and I'm sure other ministries are operating under much the same financial duress.

Lately I've been debating getting a much better paying job, which I actually indicated to my boss at Max & Erma's that I was interested in. So I may end up training to be an Assistant Manager sometime soon, which financially would help relieve many burdens. Other than that, I am still praying through 3 potential moves...

1.) Anywhere in Virginia, but specifically Blacksburg. I could potentially be a unpaid YL intern there as well as just get a change of scenery from a lot of perspectives, which I still feel I may need...

2.) Orlando, FL - my friends Robbie, Jim, and Fred from summer staff all want me to move down there to help them establish YL from a college volunteer leader perspective. UCF is one of the 5 largest universities and there are many suburbs around Orlando however there are very few leaders that come from there. The setup could become quite similar to Ohio State and Columbus...

3.) Raleigh - my great friend Kevin wants me to move there and help out with the youth in his church, and really it's beautiful down there, and another change of scenery would be great...

So there ya go. We'll see what happens. I'm not having a ton of luck with finding a house that works for all the guys that want to live together so maybe that's some sort of sign? Who knows...I just pray for God's sovereignty in my life and that I am able to glorify Him over anything else in my life...

Any thoughts or impressions are more than welcome...

Guess who's back...

Well hey there everybody! Although I gotta be honest, I'm not sure if there's much of an everybody or really even an anybody since it's been so long since I had any sort of significant post on these internets. For this I apologize, however since it's my blog I don't apologize too much. If you read this, chances are you already know how crazy my life was this spring with track, work, Young Life, moving, and all sorts of other fun things. It really was a fun spring. Unfortunately the busyness and bustling of it all (I'm not sure but you may only be legally allowed to use "bustling" around Christmas time...) left me in a very depleted spiritual state of life. I allowed myself to get quite complacent and didn't have any sort of pride in or fight for my walk and relationship with Christ. For those of you keeping score at home, this is a big one in the 'L' column. So recently I decided to really shed any and all excuses and make it a top priority to be spending all sorts of time with the Lord again on a daily basis. Now it hasn't been perfect, but it's a fun work in progress.

In other news, as I alluded to in a previous post (whenever the crap that was...) I moved back into the Brickhouse about a month ago. For those unfamiliar, this is where I spent the better part of my college career, even easily making myself the longest tenured member of this prestigious group of upstanding and legendary men. Not that that is really important at all. It's simultaneously been good and bad to be back there and on campus. On the plus part, my social life of hanging out with people has definitely increased in depth and width. We all know that I love hanging out with people and having great fellowship. On the flip side, I'm living in a messy undergrad house again, with the wonderful and every present possibility of crime lurking every night. While my social-ness has increased, it also is difficult because the guys in the house and I weren't roommates for the whole year and therefore are having to really work at having a real connection again. So like I said...thumbs up and thumbs down.

Right now the first ever camp trip from Central Crossing is taking place! With 8 freshmen guys and 1 sophomore girl, God is doing big things this week to be sure. In fact, as I write this they are probably eating appetizers and taking fun pictures outside of the dining hall before heading in for their formal end of the week dinner. I cannot wait to hear story upon story after they get back tomorrow night from my co-leader as well as all the kids. The Lord be praised!

In old news, I still have no idea what I'm doing with my life. I work at Max & Erma's and at Caribou. I'm still single. I don't know where I'm even living in the fall. However, I am currently in the middle of applying/interviewing for the vacant head track coach position at UAHS. We shall see if I am able to get that incredibly awesome post. I'd be the youngest head coach in the OCC for sure for track, and would amazingly be holding one of potentially the most coveted positions in central Ohio. This is an incredibly humbling thought even, and I can't imagine what cool stuff God could do through an opportunity like this. Hey, I'd even get to lead with Pat Pat and Red again. Hahaha...

Well that's about all I have for right now. I'll leave you with one really fun and funny thought though until next time...

Yesterday I was having dinner with Mike Davanzo at the amazing establishment of Skyline. You know you love it. Anyways, he observed that every employee at every Skyline he's ever been in is best friends with every other employee. No one is ever unhappy, no one is ever angry. It's like when you go there you're actually going to YL camp and they are a summer staff that is all best friends. I challenge you to go check it out...

just whelmed.

I can't believe I've been so negligent, and yet I can. I knew this was going to happen once track season started in earnest, as well as club got rolling, and I started a second job. The lose of free internet at home kinda helped the cause too...but I can't really complain about that one much. 

I have so many thoughts right now that I want to pour out onto here. Too many things have happened since I last really updated on too many different fronts in my life. I really don't even know where to start with all this...so in response I'm basically paralyzed about what to write as I sit here staring at the screen on my computer. 

We'll go with this...news.

1.) My roommate Kevin Johnson is getting married on May 30 and I'm in the process of moving out of his wonderful house in Hilliard. Where am I moving to for the summer you ask? The Brickhouse. That's right...another victory lap. Yikes.

2.) I'm still completely undecided on what I am going to do next in my life. Help?

3.) There's tons of weddings happening...I'm still single. Not minding it one bit. 

4.) Sports are exciting. Go Reds. Go Bengals. Go Bucks. Go Comets.

That's all I got for now. I'm still overwhelmed with needing to write everything down so for now I'm just gonna call it quits. 

Mucho amor.

I disappeared.

Sorry all...it's been a crazy busy time lately and I just haven't found the time to let you all in on my life. Apologies all over the place. I promise the posts will pick up sometime soon...just not sure when. 

Go Comets.