Home Archive by category "Friends" (Page 3)

Category: Friends

Update from the Hospital Bed

I’m writing this from a hospital bed in Aurora, IL after having a stent put into my heart that saved my life! The full story is here if you missed all the updates on Twitter and Facebook! Yes, I was twittering (which updated facebook) during the whole thing, and live blogged to give more detail than you can in status updates. It was really quite amazing that due to today’s technology I literally had more people praying for me probably than your average church prayer line – for those scratching their heads that I would twitter while having a heart attack, let me first say, A) I didn’t technically have a heart attack (explained in blog post) B) I was never in great pain, just enough pain in my chest to know something was wrong and decided the smart thing was to go straight to ER and C) I really truly believe in the power of prayer and wanted to get the word out so that I’d have prayer for myself and family during the critical hours when it mattered most. I never really felt dread or fear, though I had a sober understanding that this was indeed serious –…

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From Facebook to Sierra Madre

Just when I wonder if I spend too much time on Twitter or Facebook, I have an experience that makes me glad that I stay connected and accessible via the Internet. Case in point: Recently I traveled to California to speak at a Spanish conference and so I took the family along so we could introduce our son to Mickey Mouse in person while I was there. As I often do, I was posting my adventures (including my lost luggage!) via Twitter which auto-matically updates my Facebook status. Next thing I know, I hear from a Kidology user, Kristy, who’ve I met at CPC Kidology Gatherings: Turns out, I am available on the 9th – and so got the privilege of heading up to beautiful Sierra Madre for an afternoon of teacher encouraging! Good thing I have good prayer support, as you can see, I was really suffering for Jesus that afternoon. Notice the turtleneck! Funny thing was, it was in the 60’s and I was enjoying what I thought was a beautiful warm California day and yet the kids and some adults were commenting on how “cold it was.” Ha. These poor people don’t know what cold is! The…

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One Bro Runs, the Other Serves

(See my complete Chicago Marathon Gallery) I’ve seen the Chicago Marathon out the windows of Moody Church for years, but this was my first time participating. No, not as a runner, but as an official volunteer! Why? Because my brother was running it as his first marathon and some friends from church were volunteering. I thought it would be cool to not just watch him run, but get to serve him and the other runners as well. It was a long but fulfilling day. I was up at 3:30 a.m. to begin my adventure! Check in downtown was at 5:30 a.m. Me, Deb, Judd and Jason – friends from church. Our job was to fill cups of water and then serve the runners at the first water station. Notice it is still dark out! We were set up by 7:00 a.m. Here we are ready to serve! If that looks like a lot of water, it IS! over 1400 cups! Soon the runners would be arriving, and we were prepared! The race began at 8 a.m. Soon runners would be arriving! WAVE! You are on TV! First the bikes and wheel chairs went by. (more photos in gallery) Then the…

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Sean on Time Management

Here are some Time Management Tips from the designer of this blog, Sean Copley from Timbuktoons. (Don’t miss my Podcast interview with Timbuktoon founder Todd Hampson) Sean is a great guy and I know from personal experience, well organized. In their recent newsletter Sean gave away some of this secrets… CREATIVE PROCRASTINATION There are not enough hours in each day so you know you will always have to procrastinate on something. The trick is to force yourself to choose to procrastinate on the small things in order to get things done. Keys: Don’t clear up the small things first! Resist the temptation- we often underestimate how the small things add up and seemingly never end (especially e-mail)! Choose to do the most valuable and important first. Place value on the items you need to accomplish each day. The 80/20 rule states that 80% of what you do is the least valuable, while 20% is the most valuable. Do it tomorrow! Work on the e-mails and phone messages that came in yesterday and file today’s away for tomorrow. The benefit is that when your mailboxes are empty, you are done for the day regardless of what comes in! For example, I…

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An Angel in Chicago

Angel Vega and I go way back. How far, I’m not even sure I remember. But I do know he was at one of the very first Kid U’s, and has been to several over the years and is a looooong time member of Kidology.org.  Angel is the Children’s Ministries Director at Armitage  Baptist Church in Chicago. But he’s a man of many talents and a man who has worn many hats in ministry who is recently back in children’s ministry, so when we ran into each other at the One Way Street festival and he asked if we could get togethe, I said “Of course” He said he’d drive anywhere to have lunch with me. It was a nice compliment, but I had no idea just how much it actually meant. Angel is a truly Chicago Man. His venture out to my suburban lair made him like a fish out of water. After calling several times for directions he laughed and said to me, “This is what happens when you put a Puerto Rican in the suburbs.” When he finally arrived at the Kidology Headquarters he said this was the farthest he had ever been from Chicago for a…

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Karl’s Lego Star Destroyer!

Several years ago (before I blogged on an official “blog”) I created a page that showed me and my friend Ryan Yoder assembling my Lego Star Destroyer, which at the time, was the largest Lego kit that Lego had ever created up to that point.   I often am telling kids about it (as I was this weekend in Canada) and wishing it was posted on my blog, so I am posting a post about the post where I posted about it: For all the pictures step by step (and cool star background) SEE THE ORIGINAL LEGO STAR DESTROYER POST.  It took us two full days to assemble the 3000+ pieces of this Lego work of art! So now it is linked and searchable on my blog so I can just tell kids, search my blog for Lego Star Destroyer and you’ll find a link to it! CHECK IT OUT THE COMPLETE PICTURES HERE. 

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