WHERE'S THE GIRL?

Today after 3 soccer games, we went shopping for a new mattress for Tyler, cuz he is moving into TJ's room and Tyler's bunk is gonna become Billy's.

Anyway, we were at JC Penny and buying a mattress from our 72 year old salesman (he told us that earlier in our sales process) when at the end, he tries to be funny and says:

"Hey, it was nice of you to come in. But you appear to have only brought in part of your family. Where did you put the sister?"

To which Jake says all loud and proud, "Oh, she's in Africa!"

Salesman, smiles and looks at Jake and says, "Oh, that's cute. Africa." and rubs Jake's head and laughs a little.

To which Shannon says, "No really, we're adopting and that's why we need another mattress."

I then bust out the phone to show the "family picture."

Salesman then looks at us and smiles and says, "Well, that's great. God bless you."

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HMMM

I've been doing a lot of thinking. Here's some of the random things in my head:

GAS TV: Who decided I needed to watch TV when I pump gas?



OIL SCHMOIL: Why can the oil industry post 14 billion in profits and this not be a social sin when people had to buy gas to go to work but can't afford the milk they need at home? I'm sure there's a reason why we don't regulate this industry like we do natural gas/electricity- but I can't figure out for the life of me what it is except ego and power.

FEAR MONGERING: Why is fear such a popular voting motive? I should probably give this a whole post- cuz I have HUGE concerns about how Christians interact with a secular society... but I don't understand the ones who say I should vote Yes on 8 for fear that my kids might learn at my public school that there are people who think homosexuality is a lifestyle one can raise a family under. There are tons of things my kids learn at school I don't support. But I also have not deligated their learning away. If it's taught as THE way, then that's a problem. But A way? Well, I'm not sure not teaching that is changing much these days. They learn condoms can protect pre-marital sex, abortion is ok, the absense of God, a view of religions I don't agree with, and a bunch of other stuff. I took Tyler to a museum this week with his class where they subtly told him again that he has evolved from nothing... which all of my kids are taught at one stage or another in the public school realm. But I use it as a teaching moment, not a fear moment. I didn't tell Tyler he can't go to the museum because they'll say he evolved from a soup of nothingness. Anyway- I don't fear the society I live in, I want to influence it- which is why our kids are in the public school environment in the first place. Voting is one of many ways I can continue to spread my influence. But at the core, I want to engage this society and teach my kids and students to think about what America does or does not teach and learn to agree and disagree sensibly and Biblically. I don't fear it. I don't think Jesus did or does either.

HEY YOU: The guy in the mirror. Self-awareness seems to be a daily pursuit these days. I wish I was more of this and less of that and well, thank God he loves me, cuz I'm a distinct work in progress.

TEXTING: When did texting take over the world? This thing is virtually the only way I can track my student leaders down these days. For a few years I fought it. It seems now, I either use it or lose IT.

FACEBOOK: Facebook might be the best thing that has ever happened to some of my friendships. Maybe?

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ADOPTION AUCTION

NO, we are not auctioning off our children. But after tonight, we are considering selling our 3 to get these two.. just kidding. relax. don't report us.

OK... but for reals check this out. We have a friend from high school who has a blog and a mean talent with a sewing machine and she's combined the two to change the world by creating her own little private e-bay of sorts. She's raised money for the International Justice Mission several times and right now, she's doing one to help us out.

You can hit up her blog here if you'd like a beautiful apron for yourself or a friend as a gift to both yourself and our family! HURRY. AUCTION ENDS REALLY SOON.

Right now the highest bidder is a friend of mine, Neely who is also adopting! You should go to her blog and buy these cool shirts too and help her family out. Shannon and I both have one and we need to get some for our kids now.

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ADOPTION FUNDING UPDATE

Well, we are working hard to raise the funds we'll need to get our kids home from Africa. Here's an update on the process on our end:

NECKLACES AND BEADS AND SUCH: It's a long story, but here it is really short and in a few pics. When we were in Uganda we learned of these necklaces that the "mommies" make at the orphanage out of magazine paper as a small business venture for them. It's pretty amazing actually. Here's a few pics of the process:

Well, we brought home with us several hundred dollars worth of these necklaces and bracelets in the hopes that we would be able to sell them for raising funds for the orphanage- or so we thought. Turns out it was (at least in part) for us to raise the funds for the adoption. Consequently, God has given Shannon several opportunities- some up north and some down here in San Diego- to tell our story and sell the beads. She even got invited by our local public elementary school several times where Shannon subs too! Here's the display that we made for the Halloween gig at the school last Saturday.

All in all, it's brought in something like $1400 for us. Sweet way to raise funds and bless Uganda in a bunch of ways!

LETTERS: We have sent out letters and are about half way done. Our goal is to have the remainder in the mail by this Friday.

RANDOM MONEY: I found some savings bonds from high school graduation that I liquidated for the cause and had the State of California send me a letter about some unclaimed money I have from a childhood stock I got from my grandpa. Yep, my grandpa gave me stock. Anyway- it had an unclaimed dividend that I'm chasing down. Random and cool.

BOOKS AND WRITING: I think I've found a way to bring in some more flow with several extra writing gigs that might not only be a blessing to the youth ministry world but a blessing to us as well.

GARAGE SALES, AND E-BAY, AND SHANNON'S SUB JOBS... and a bunch of other stuff I'm praying will fill in the gaps... but that's where we are so far.

CALLING ALL FRIENDS AND FAMILY- KEEP PRAYING!

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TWO LOVES OF MINE

#1. I LOVE WORKING WITH WOOD.

My dad and I are going to be building some sheds to get the shovels and bikes and stuff out of my garage over Thanksgiving week. I should then have a wood shop again in our garage with some space to build. First up: a desk/wall unit for Billy and Jake.

But no matter how awesome I get at woodwork, I doubt I'll ever have the time or devotion to make one of these. Crazy. Crazy stinking awesome! I bet Jesus is proud of this guy. I want a 700 horse power wooden car... sorta. Both scares the hell out of me and inspires me at the same time.


Watch these 3 one minute videos. The first is a description of this grad school project. The next two are the freaking building and splicing of a wooden loom they made for the exterior material of this project. Ridiculous. These guys are amazing.

#2. I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY.

One of the first things I ever bought as a child was a pentax changeable lense camera. I wanted one like my dad had, so we went to this camera swap meet thingy and bought this 1950's camera with screw in lenses. I loved it. I used it all through high school and even developed my own film in a series of photography classes I took.

When I graduated from high school, I spent $1000 I had saved up (my parents were not happy with me- I did it while they were on vacation and I was home alone) to buy my first auto-focus SLR- a Minolta. I used it all the way up until about 18 months ago when I got my first digital SLR- a Sony a100 and have been addicted to digital photography and photoshop ever since.

I then walked past my friends computer today to notice a pretty sweet desktop background.


I asked him here he got it, and he said he'd send me the link. Yeah... well it was a photographers dream link. Check out this for some awesome pictures you can dump in your desktop backgrounds or on your mulitmedia slide shows for free. Stinkin awesome! I hope I become a photographer like that someday.

I think I might have to actually start uploading some of my pics to istockphoto. I just have to make myself make the time to do it. I'll let you know if and when I get my some of my content live.

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DOES THIS SHIRT MAKE MY LIVER LOOK FAT?

Confession: I feel fat most days. I have ever since my feshman year in college pretty much.

I think it's a combination of the culture I live in, the proximity of my youth ministry to the beach, the skinny people I see, the fact that most of the high school students I work with have a metabolism that has no signs of slowing down yet, the truth, and yatta yatta.

Well, a few weeks ago for a DMV physical and an adoption physical combo dealeo, they drew some blood to take some tests to make sure I'm not a crack addict. After the tests came back, they said my cholesterol is great and I'm not doing drugs and that my liver was showing some readings they did not like and called me back in to take the test again.


Today they called me to tell my liver is working fine and something about copper is great too. However they want me on a "low fat" diet cuz evidently they think I might be storing fat on my liver which is making some other reading about something be higher than they want to to be. I don't have diabetes, I don't drink alcohol more than about 1x a month, and I don't qualify as obese, but they say I'm slightly overweight and storing it on my liver.

WHAT?

I swear, I couldn't gain a pound in high school if I tried. Now, if I eat a pound of food, 1/2 of it goes straight to my chin and the other half is evidently chillin' on my liver. Which she says isn't much to worry about, but they basically want to try this rat caught in a trap lab experiment on me.

Oh well, here I go. 2 months of "low fat diet". I'm gonna get ripped too, just to show the doctor how freakin' fit I am. Then I'm gonna walk the beach naked and get a tatoo of a skinny liver.

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