Its been a while...

Sorry, I have been having some technical difficulties.

Pictures will come at a later date.

Last weekend, Dan Force led a combined youth group. He talked about how Jesus saves us from sin. The most important thing that Jesus saves us from is our own sin and aberrations. Dan did an excellent job. Essentially, he just shared the gospel; camped out in Romans; and explained our human position throughout the entire biblical narrative. It was really good. After youth group, we went to Trevor Keens house and swam for quite a while. Perhaps the best thing that took place that night was the fact that no one brought a guitar. It was good times.

Apparently, some of our girls attended a sleepover last week, in which they watched a number of Disney movies. It is safe to say that dreams and aspirations were on their minds as they desperately want to become part of their own fairy tale. This can be the only explanation for Ramsey and Rachel kissing a frog (technically it was a toad as I learned from an 8th grade biology project, but frog is what the fable proclaims). We got pictures, but I don't really know why? Apparently, Jr. High boys are not the only ones who occasionally don't think through their actions.





TUESDAY NIGHT
Chris and Aleesha got back, so now you can see pictures of Aleesha's room that the girls flipped while she was gone.

FRIDAY NIGHT
We took a bunch of the Jr. High boys camping. It was a good night. We played glow stick capture the flag in the pasture, which was really just an attempt to sprain every ankle out there. Jacob beat us to the point with his little stunt from the prior week, so he didn't get to play. Late that night, we played a game called: "Eat what Ed eats!" It is really a combination of "Fear Factor" and "Truth or Dare." That afternoon, I picked up a few of Ed's favorites: baby oysters, sardines, Vienna sausages, spam, whipped topping, and macaroni and cheese baby food. The last one was mine to pick up...I figured I liked Kraft mac and cheese, so this stuff couldn't be too bad. It taste like I licked a New York Statue after a pigeon infestation. If a couple kids, didn't want to eat what Ed eats, they had to share something personal. It ended up being an opportunity to eat a lot of nasty things. No one puked. I did, however, come awful close.

We sat around the campfire and drank root beer. You know, guy stuff. Jason H. and Aaron Jones came and helped out a lot. Aaron brought a potato gun. That was a lot of fun. They shot it across the pond to watch the potato skip. Good times. We had a blast hanging out with the guys, just doing life alongside them. They are a good group of kids. The fishing was pretty poor, but we did have guys on the canoe most of the time, making a lot of noise. Poor fishing was really to be expected.

It was a good night.

I'm not saying God made a mistake...

but God might not have thought this element of creation all the way through.

In the beginning, God desired to partner with man in doing his work. Man's first task: name the animals. Simple enough. God brought the animals to him one by one, or two by two if that helps you. Adam started out with a desire to impress. He named the big animals, elephant, hippopotamus...and the little animals, platypus, and armadillo. You can almost imagine the angels rolling their eyes at God as if to say: "You created this thing with the ego, not us." After a long day, remember there are no extinct species at this point, man finds himself very tired.

God says to Adam: "hang with me, I have one more animal to name, only one little small animal, and you can rest." God brings the animal to Adam, and Adam racks his brain trying to come up with a good name for this creature. He finally settles on the name "dog." God is psyched, that's his name spelled backward. He decides that it will be man's best friend and he is glad to be done.

Adam feels around his feet another small, furry creature. He thinks to himself: "I thought God said that last one was it." He thinks about what to name this creature, he wants to go short and sweet. He racks his brain and comes up with "cat."

The commotion caught God's attention, and he says to Adam: "Wait a minute, I didn't create that thing."

It could have happened.

I am still staying at the Maddock's and their cat is still alive (I'll keep you posted on its whereabouts it the unthinkable should happen). I have never been fond of cats. This particular cat, has been one of the worst ones I have met. It definitely has caused me to hat their species even more than ever.

A couple reasons I hate cats:

1. At the risk of sounding anthropomorphistic, this cat is the most emotionally and physically needy individual that I have ever met. It has a constant appetite for attention and adoration. I could be in a room working, and the cat will paw at the door for the next 2 hours attempting to get in (a dog would have figured it out the second the door was closed). When it does enter the room, it will immediately rub up against your leg. There is no such thing as the other side of the room when it comes to cats...it is either on your lap or in the next county. It has no personal space and no ability to occupy and entertain itself. It is like a baby. It needs to get a life, or find some cats from the other side of the tracks and form a hooligan gang, rampaging through the streets; or it could make an attempt to jump off the roof and not land on its feet. Anything would be better than bothering me.

2. Have you ever looked at their eyes. They are the exact same eyes as snakes. And if you study Genesis, snakes are the devil. The narrow, vertical pupils are present in all things not containing souls. Check your mirror, see the rounded pupils, you're safe; cats on the other hand are soul-less creatures, bound to experience all 7 levels of Dante's hell; since they have 9 lives, I think it is 63 levels of hell. Still, I think they are getting better than what they deserve.

3. Cats shed their hair like an Eskimo sheds clothing during a heat wave. How do I know? I don't own anything with out cat hair on it. My new felt cowboy hat, looks like it is graying. My clothes look like their growing a winter coat.

4. The constant need to be heard. They sit right behind you and purr constantly. No other being is praised so highly for being so annoying. It is like that bothersome child that says your name constantly, at a level just loud enough for you to hear it. The constant purring, is like a dripping faucet, once you notice it, you can't ignore it. The only way to fix it is to smack it with a heavy metal wrench at the point of the drip.

5. It does not understand how humans walk. Dogs can "heel"; meaning they walk next to you, right at your knee. I have been kicking this cat as I walk, hoping that it will learn. It has a tendency to walk in between your legs all the time. It also stops randomly, directly in your path. I kick it a lot, not intentionally, but I don't hold back either. It will learn, actually it won't; but that brings us to reason (6) CATS ARE STUPID!

C.J. the Dog, I have had no trouble with. Played fetch, and ate steak...I like dogs.

Jesus saves us from anonymity...

Same premise, different teacher.

Stacy Rexer, super-intern, taught the Jr. High group tonight. She did a great job.

Her lesson was based off of Galatians 3 and 4. Being children of God and how that affects the way that we think, live, act, and the way we view ourselves. It was more Biblical exegesis than they get from me...so it was really good. I think I might have to start doing more of this type of teaching, the kids seemed to like it. She started out by having a quiz. She wanted to know the name of the famous person on the screen, and what makes them famous. Aaron Jones knew a bunch of them. There was a lot of hooting and hollering when the Jonas brothers came up. I figured more people would know Travis Pastrana and Shaun White (both names that I gave her to use). It was a good lesson.

Mrs. Keen has been providing us with some amazing snacks for middle school youth group, it was the same tonight: Nachos and Sunny D.

We played the trashcan game after snack time...no one got hurt, unless you count the massive amount of blood that I lost through my blister that Dan Mitchell opened up. That was very unkind of him. In one of these pictures, near as I can tell, Jason Hildebrandt is meditating...not really sure.