Baby Luke’s Adventure at Kid U Ohio!

Luke and Dad hangin’ out and roaming around the conference. Well, it was a crazy weekend but a lot of fun. There are still lots of pictures to go through, but since Luke was so excited to go to his second Kid U, I thought I’d post some pictures of his adventures. I had NO idea how many of the attendees would be greeting him by name as they arrived. I guess more people read my blog than I knew! So, by popular demand, here are some more Baby Luke pics: Too Sexy for my Shirt! (Kid U morning at the hotel) Me and My New Bear! (Gift from Pastor Kim!) Awana be in Awana! (Awana my diaper changed too!) As you can see by Baby Luke’s Awana Uniform, he is a big fan of Awana. (This Commander uniform was hand made for him by Commander Teri at Village Church!) I think he signed up at least three new churches for Awana while working their booth! Star Struck with Mary Rice Hopkins. (or is it the spotlights?) Mary Rice Hopkins held him while singing a beautiful song about babies. He got a little star struck – it was rather funny…

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Dreary Day… until you look closely.

Today was one of the hardest days of my life. For the first time in over 18 years I didn’t kick off a new season of Kid’s Church. To make it worse… of course, it rained. The bleary view out my back patio door. Change is difficult. I suppose I should feel some relief from my former hyperbusy hyperacheiver hyperactive hyperministry hyperspeed pace of life… and in many ways I do. But I still miss painfully the things I loved most… and have deep regrets that are still healing. I prayed for one phone call today from one person who might realize what today was and meant to me… but instead, God must have wanted me to feel the emptiness and loneliness of loss. My head understands and is accepting, but my heart is still catching up and has quite a ways to go. One day at a time. One relationship at a time. One prayer at a time. I’ve not allowed myself much time to focus on what these changes in life have cost me – selfishness got me into the mess I got myself into – so I don’t feel entitled to focus on my own losses, but…

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Superman: As a hero, SUPER, as a Dad, Super Zero.

NOT SO SUPER. I was excited to go see the new Superman movie – and the rave reviews got my expectations higher than they already were. I left disappointed.The gist is Superman left for five years to go check out his planet that was recently discovered. He arrives back in another crash landing on the Kent farm… kinda odd that with no survivors he still comes back in a meoter instead of just flying home. Oh, well, I can dismiss that, it made for a grand entrance. The opening scene flying through space was almost as good as “Contact” (Jodie Foster) and had a few planets I’d love as wallpapers. GREAT FIRST FEAT! His first big ‘Save the Day’ hero duties was pretty awesome… we were alone in the theator so I went ahead a clapped and cheered out loud with the crowd on screen, it was a sweet return and his one liner to those he saved was priceless, “I hope this doesn’t discourage you from flying. Statisically its still the safest way to travel.” I won’t give away the rescue, just to say, it was what I was expecting the whole movie, but unfortunately it was downhill from…

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Gimmie a "U" !! Gimmie a "W" !! What’s that spell?

UPDATE: Bad Link to photo gallery corrected! Gimmie a “U” !! Gimmie a “W” !! What’s that spell? UNCHARTED WATERS! Uncharted Waters is the Sports Camp Ministry we have used for the past two years to reach out to the kids in our church and community. (see last year) We had 50 kids come divided between basketball… and cheerleading. GO! GO! GO! We had at least six kids make a decision to give their lives to Jesus and GO FOR THE GOLD that will last for all eternity! The secret to the success of these sports camps is NOT me… I could never lead a sports camp (unless it was sport stacking!) What I love about the ministry of UW is that they do most of the work for us. Here is the UW Team: Coaches Josh, Catie, Lindsay and Lisa! Of course, a lot of work was also done and thanks are due to our Sports Camp director, Cherie and a bunch of volunteers. Anna Maria, Barb and Cherie (not pictured: many more!) What did I do all week? Worked on my six foot unicycle shooting…. (still needs much work) And my “Air Karl” moves!Were you there? SEE ALL…

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Year End KC Krew Party!

Well, it’s hard to believe, but I just finished my fourteenth year of K.C. Krew. (Kids Church Krew) So we headed off to a friends house on a lake to celebrate a year of serving God together. I still remember that first KC Krew – I didn’t have a clue what to do with the kids, just a conviction that I needed to be trainig kids to serve in church, rather than just sit and be entertain/ministered TO. Since then, well over a hundred kids have been trained to serve God and given the experience of serving God at church. Several of my past Krew members are in ministry today and a few are at Bible college! But even those who don’t do vocational ministry have learned that serving God is a lot of fun and rewarding too. My prayer is that serving at church will always be just something they do. It’s no mystery to me why so many adults have no interet in serving, the church trained them through childhood and youth to come to church and sit and watch…. and then we wonder why they won’t volunteer. It’s about time we taught kids to serve at the…

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