Vacation Update, Part 2

What Not to Eat...and What to Eat:
As you may have noticed from the above post, food has been a central focus of our trip...here are the yummy and the icky:

First Dinner - OK, so I forgot the name of the Tex-Mex place we ate the first night, but man, was it tasty!...I had some kind of enchilada with chicken and chorizo...I thought I was going to burst I was so full...














First Breakfast - we had breakfast at Lowell's at Pike Place Market...Marcy and I each ordered something so we could split each...big mistake...we should have gotten one thing and split it...the blueberry pancakes I got - three of them - were the size of hubcaps...isn't gluttony one of the seven deadly sins?...

Second Dinner - forgot the name of that one, too, but we got Thai take-out...had a spicy Pad Thai...yum!...again, thought I was going to die I was so full...

Pagliacci's - outstanding Italian food in Victoria...our first night there, we were standing outside the restaurant, and a woman walked past us, into the restaurant, and said, "It's fabulous!"...that was all we needed to hear...she wasn't kidding - it was great!...we had linguine with a red sauce, sausage, and pepper, but I think the highlight of the meal was the bread - WOW!...

Rosemeade Dining Room - this is the shwanky restaurant in the English Inn & Resort where we stayed...the only reason we could afford to eat there was because we got a voucher with our room...Marcy got crepes with granola and a berry sauce; I got eggs Benedict and hash browns - muy yummy!...

Wharfside Eatery - ate there for lunch in Victoria one day...the starter we got was very good, fries with a gorgonzola cream sauce...the pizza we got - four cheese with basil and tomatoes - was gross...I've had pizza with lots of cheese before, but this was overwhelming...four cheeses, all of which were strong - I don't recommend it...

The Garlic Rose - this is a Mediterranean seafood restaurant right across from the Wharfside where we ate dinner that same night...it was much better as far as I was concerned, but Marcy didn't really dig it...nor did she dig my garlicy breath the rest of the night :-)...

Starbucks - a trip up here wouldn't be complete without a mention of Starbucks...yes, I have had my share of Starbucks, and it's been wonderful...and being able to drink coffee poured at the original Starbucks was truly a treat...here's a pic...

Vacation Update

So, we're in the great northwest and having a great time...by the time it's all said and done, I will have gained quite a few pounds...but hey, what are vacations for, right?...some highlights and not-so-highlights:

Why you should never fly with an airline that has gone bankrupt:
We flew to Seattle on Northwest Airlines...not a great choice...because they are doing so poorly financially, we had to pay to get snacks on the flight between Minneapolis and Seattle...no joke, there was no bag with three pretzels or five peanuts to munch on during our 3 1/2 hour flight...we had the choice of paying a buck for a bag of trail mix, or three bucks for a snack pack...we chose the snack pack that included Ritz Chips, some dried fruit mix, a beef stick, chocolate Giant Goldfish, and some nasty cheese sauce...I think we'll be sneaking snacks on the plane for the ride home like we do at the movie theatre (crud! Was that out loud?!?)...

Amber & Jeff:
This is why we chose to come to Seattle...Amber, Marcy's sister, just married Jeff at the beginning of September, so we decided that it would be fun to see where they live and visit with them as they start their life together...it has been fun!...unfortunately, we haven't gotten to see their house yet, as they are waiting to move into it...instead, we are staying at their temporary corporate housing that Microsoft has for them...it's a pretty nice place, except for the fact that it takes a couple of days to do a load of laundry - literally...but we have had fun with them tooling around the city, getting rained on together, and eating entirely too much food...tomorrow we get to see their house, where they work - Microsoft (she works for the XBox division, and he works for MSN) - and eat more food...

More details tomorrow...time to go to bed now - after I get the popcorn shucks out of my teeth...

Fantasy Basketball

Just did my fantasy basketball draft with some friends...didn't get Lebron like I wanted (stupid Trey!), but here's who I did get, in the order they were drafted - your thoughts are welcome:

Tracy McGrady - F/G
Elton Brand - F
Mike Bibby - G
Rasheed Wallace - F/C
Carlos Boozer - F (I'm really unhappy with this because of what he did to the Cavs)
Kurt Thomas - C/F
Jamaal Tinsley - G
Jason Terry - G
Antonio Daniels - G
Wally Szczerbiak - F
Michael Finley - G/F
Mehmet Okur - C
Raef LaFrentz - F/C

This is my first foray in fantasy basketball - I've done baseball and football before...we'll see how it goes...

Seattle, and parts surrounding

It's been a while since I have posted much on this page, and it will probably be another week before I do so...Marcy and I are heading up to Seattle to visit her sister and new bro-in-law, and also just to get away...we will be in Seattle a couple of days, and in Victoria, BC (that's in Canada, eh!) a couple of days - we have to take a ferry to get there...the picture you see here is the inn that we will be staying at in Victoria; pretty nice, eh?...yeah, we're loaded - I'm a youth pastor, what do you expect?...seriously, it will be good to get away for a while...I'm pretty tired and it will be good to have some uninterrupted time with my wife, and some good, solid reading time...maybe I'll blog more from the coffee capital of America: Seattle (I definitely plan on checking out the first Starbucks - it will be like Mecca)...

What do we do?

Events over the past days have made me stop and think...as I've stated in the past, I hate it when that happens...it makes my head hurt...seriously, the recent earthquake in Pakistan and India breaks my heart...the report I read today said that they are estimating the death toll to be around 41,000 people...FORTY ONE THOUSAND!!!...I have a hard time comprehending that number...the whole city of Cape Girardeau has a population of around 35,000 people, less than the number of the dead in Pakistan and India...unbelievable...

Now, not too long ago, New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina...the Church was praised, rightfully so, because of how it reached out to those affected by the storm and its resulting flooding...the way believers banded together to serve was something to behold and to be proud of...the Church continues to minister to these individuals...but if we put the need in New Orleans on a continuum with the current need in Pakistan, it really doesn't measure up...I certainly don't want to downplay the need in our own backyard; it's a real need...but the question it raises in my mind is, what will we do?...the Church was Jesus in a real way to the New Orleanites; how are we going to be Jesus to the Pakistanis?...how will we serve them?...or perhaps the better question is, will we?...

Core Values

I am working on a list of core values that will help in the overarching direction of the student ministry that I lead...my thought is that there would be a series of images that would correspond to the various core values, so that it is not simply a series of words or sentences, but that they would be pictures that would conjure up certain emotions or thoughts...here is what I have so far; please let me know what you think or if you have other ideas that would communicate the values more effectively:

We Value:

• Wrecking balls, not mortar - (I don't have a one- or two-word phrase to go along with this one, but the idea is that we want to tear down walls between students, not build them up)
• Welcome mats, not deadbolts - Hospitality
• The path, not the finish line - Journey
• Sugar, not Sweet'n Low - Authenticity
• Potluck dinners, not TV dinners - Community
• Closets, not home theaters - Prayer
• M&Ms, not Hershey Bars - Diversity
• Flashlights, not darkness - the Bible
• The body, not the building - the Church
• The person, not the number - Individuals
• Marathons, not sprints - Longevity

Your thoughts?...

What Does It All Mean?

I have been pondering a lot lately...I hate it when I do that...it makes my head hurt and makes the formerly clear things quite muddied...I prefer black and white, but lately have been getting varying shades of grey (I like the British spelling of that word)...specifically, I have been wondering what it really means to be a Christian...how does that journey really start and what is the best way to communicate that truth?...here are some thoughts from my life and observations:

Fire Insurance: when I first got saved (I won't even attempt to define that word in the Christian sense - it's a book in and of itself), it was at junior high camp between 7th and 8th grade...much of the preaching and teaching done that week and in that day and age was about heaven and hell, that if you didn't want to burn in the lake of fire, you needed to get saved...I also remember a series of movies about the end times designed to scare the crap/sin out of you...so one night at camp, I thought, "If the guy next to me goes up to 'get saved,' I'll go too."...he did, so I did...I got saved that night mostly to make sure I went to heaven instead of having to deal with all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth...

Personal Relationship With God: this is probably the most tossed around phrase in evangelical circles these days, although I'm not sure the chapter and verse references of where it shows up in the Bible...we talk a lot about the God of the universe and how we can know Him personally and be friends with Him...but can we really 'know' Him...I mean, he's pretty big and all, so whatever we know about Him is scratching the surface at best...is this a way to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like God is a really cool big brother?...almost the opposite of fire insurance; more of an emphasis on heaven, and less on hell...

Born Again or Sell Everything: Story #1: a religious leader is told by Jesus that in order to see the Kingdom of God, he had to be born again...Story #2: a rich guy is told by Jesus that in order to get to heaven, he must sell everything he has and give it to the poor...so which is it?...it seems that we - the North American, Western church - have latched on to the concept of being born again, but we rarely talk of selling everything we have and giving it to the poor (He also said that it is very difficult for a rich person to get into heaven in later in the story)...both were directives by Jesus, but we emphasize one over the other...granted, the Kingdom of God does not necessarily equal heaven...but is our emphasis a sign of our comfortable lives, that because we have it good here in America, we don't want to downplay the American Dream by talking of giving it away?...I remember a story about Rich Mullins: as he drove by a store with all sorts of stuff in the front windows, he started crying...when someone asked him what was wrong, he said, "The things of this world just don't satisfy."...do they satisfy us too much?...

Follow Me: it seems that the most popular way that Jesus referred to becoming a Christian (which of course is a term he didn't invent) is in terms of following...He told his disciples to follow Him...Peter, Andrew, Matthew, Philip, and the rest...so they did...and according to Rob Bell, this meant that Jesus saw something in them that made Him think, "These guys (and girls) have what it takes and can do the things I do."...is the Christian life merely a journey in which we make a decision to follow Jesus and, with His help, do the things He did?...and if so, what did He do?...He fed people; healed people; looked out for the overlooked and downtrodden; He served; He prayed; He sacrificed; He stood against injustice; He forgave; He refused to be pigeonholed; He taught about truth; He loved life...and that's just a short list...am I a Christian, if this is the definition?...