Life as I know it

Driving.  The driving never seems to stop.  Well this weekend I was at it again.  And doubly so.  But first, more about the preceding week. 

My sports are pretty much finished for the Summer.  I might find some others to work on, but for now my nights are free and I'm loving it.  More time to ride bikes and get stuff done in my messy portions of the house.  Not that anything is getting done, but there is still time for that.

All my bike rides lately lead right to the Riegel's.  Last week was Brenton's last week of school, so I jumped in the festivities.

The kids each made a sweet poster.  Ella included new house rules.

During all of this they've been expecting their newest addition, Violet.  She came along and now I've been able to visit with her a couple times since then.  It's a busy house with all of the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in there.  Even today I was there and we took 4 laps around the neighborhood on the bikes. 

Then all the driving came from a weekend at camp.  I arrived with Adela and Hannah just in time to spend some time with the counselors before everyone went to sleep.  Saturday was the driving day.


This is my bus!  Most of the campers were in the rest stop at this point.

We rolled out with the buses at 12:30pm and after 3 rest stops, 2 drop offs, and 392 miles we made it back at about 10:30pm.   One of the scares for HIS Week campers is that we might have some bathroom emergencies, but the Bus Attendants were on top of things and the only emergency we had resulted in a quick stop at Dairy Queen with one camper getting off and on quickly.

One of the Engineers was juggling and riding his unicycle to the delight of the watching campers.

My old camper Jasen!  Ethan did a great job helping him out at the stops.

 

Last sighting of the buses in the wild for this season.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to help camp out on occasions.  I felt like this Summer was going to get up there and back, but I made it for most of a week around the 4th of July and then again this Sunday.  I now have an ambitious plan to join in the work (and some of the play) over 3-4 times this Fall. 

On the way home we stopped to visit Adela's family.  We jumped in the pool and then had some burger tacos.  That rounded out a busy, fun filled weekend.

And that's how it'll be for me for a while here.  More driving and driving and driving.  But that's ok.  I like staying busy and this will keep me that way.

Colombia and Etc

There is a lot to be said about the trip to Colombia, but I'm hoping it'll be best said by the video that will someday come out about it.  For now I'll throw down some highlights with a couple pictures:

 



 

We left on Friday, which gave us the weekend to settle in and get used to Colombia.  I enjoyed a chance to remember the language and see some of the sites.  On Saturday we went to Guadavita (pictured above) and then ate dinner in the country. 

On Sunday we went to what we consider our sister church in Colombia and I enjoyed the challenge of a service in Spanish.  I did well with the songs, then I kept missing more and more of the sermon until it turned to communion where the context let me understand more of the words.  (I should also probably mention that I accidently grabbed a huge chunk of bread.  Which turned out good because I was super hungry.  It was difficult to hide in the meantime though, so I kind of crushed it in my hand to hide it.)

Later that afternoon we took 4 of the kids from church and went downtown.  We all took "blessing bags" (bags with toothpaste, toothbrush, snacks, and a couple other items) and handed them out as we happened by the people.  Every single individual expressed gratitude for the bags, and some people even ran to get their friends and tell them about it.  (I was impressed by this.  It would be so easy to ask for more to bring to friends, then keep it.  But many of the people immediately thought of others they wanted to get in on it). 

Just for a little context, the streets of Bogota are much like Chicago.  Similarities include the homeless, entertainers, dense amount of people, and both fade from downtown to general suburbs in a similar way.  Some differences include the press of traffic in most places, yet Bogota has limits to traffic in many of the downtown areas (for safety and for space).  On most streets that have cars there are 3 lanes and they tend to be filled with motorcycles, entertainers and vendors.  They drive very aggressively (many consider it dangerous), yet they are generally safe.  While there are any close calls (I've seen contact every visit), I've always felt safe in Colombian taxis.  They are definitely more skilled and friendly in a much more stressful press of traffic than most North American drivers experience.

This year I didn't get nearly the same amount of pictures because someone was assigned as the photographer/videographer.  I decided to leave my camera behind most of the time and enjoy the moments instead of letting them slip by while I tried to capture them.  I did make sure to get a fresh picture of Bogota.  It's hard to describe, and the picture doesn't do it justice.  It's a city that goes on forever (or further than we can see), yet it's captured by mountains that basically encircle the city. 

These pictures capture the 4 children (Caren, Juan, Laurena, and Camila) that we spent time with along with their parents (in the second picture on the right) and a missionary that reaches out to their community.  (It also gets all the team except myself and Jay). 

Our experience at CRAN (which I have no pictures of) was challenging, and yet good.  All of Colombia kind of acts on their own set of time rules and CRAN had several scheduling changes.  This can be frustrating if you have a plan that is setup for the whole morning, but if you roll with it you can get all of the important stuff (Bible lessons) in.  This was likely caused in part by Bogota's 475th birthday, which is a major holiday for them and landed right in the middle of our week. 

Man, I need to keep going so I can go to sleep yet tonight.

I was happy that Adela was able to come along!  This girl helps me in so many ways.  She helps me keep a good attitude in trying situations and her love for the helpless is a living example of James 1:27- "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress." She has a passion for those in need that I can't even comprehend fully.

I'll wrap this up with a couple final subjects that I believe are tightly linked. 

"Soy especial in los ojos de Dios" (I am special in the eyes of God).  You can see it taped to my hoodie (rather sloppily, yet it held up all week).  We gave this card to each child twice (once on a picture frame with their picture in it and another time in a little keepsake bag).  I tried to make sure that any kid I played with tried to read it, then I'd help if needed.  And afterwards I'd tell the they are too.  Many of them would kind of blush and squeeze in for a hug.  It's not in my comfort zone to tell people things I consider are commonly known facts, yet for these kids it was clearly special for them to hear those words. 

As the week unfolded I caught many people leaning in to read those words (you can tell if people are staring at Gringos and if they are trying to read).  One kid in a market asked me if I was a Christian and told me he was as well.  Another woman on the Transmilenio told me she liked the card (after a lengthy discussion about her experience growing up in both New York City and Colombia). 

This tied in with our last day that included a trip to visit a special needs orphanage.  After a sketchy taxi ride (quite a story I'd be happy to share with anyone, and it's important to note I never felt threatened) we landed at this House of Light and Life.  They have all ages of disabled people with a lot of Cerebral Palsy along with Down's Syndrome and other ailments.  These people live in chairs, most of them strapped in for their safety and the safety of those around them.  It's as dependent of a life as you can have, yet every single one of them was special.  Our group tried to show them this in a limited time by not only talking to them, but touching and hugging them. 

It made me think of a man that understands the humanity of a disabled person (physically or cognitively).  His name is Lee Brown and many of you that follow this know him.  He's been ministering to disabled campers for what has to be over 30 years during HIS week at Camp Barakel.   I couldn't help but think of him knowing that HIS week is starting tomorrow (Tuesday). 

I've written far more than I meant and yet it doesn't cover a tenth of our activities and the work that God did over the last week.  I'm very thankful to God for the opportunity, for Adela being at my side through it, and for a mission team made up of Godly people that are willing to give up themselves for the work of the Kingdome of Heaven.

Here are two final thoughts:

1)  I'm thinking about HIS Week at Camp Barakel and the many campers that will get an exciting break fro their normal routines.  I'm praying that God will work in their lives along with the parents (and workers) that get a much needed rest during this week of camp.

2)  I'm also thinking of Ferley, an almost 12 year old boy at CRAN who needs a home.  He's special in God's eyes, and I'm not just saying that, I know it.  I've seen him stop bullying on the rough playgrounds of an orphanage, I've seen his athletic stride as he sprints up and down the hills (elevation 8000 ft), and I've seen him sit and listen to the word of God spoken through our team. 

There is not a doubt in my mind that someone who reads this blog knows someone that could adopt a 12 year old boy that they would bless, and then they in turn would be blessed by him.  I wouldn't say that any adoption is easy, yet I've seen so many adoptions come through to the point where the family has more benefit from the adoption than the child. 

Please consider sharing about Ferley.  It's an opportunity to REALLY advocate for a REAL person instead of just talking about it all the time.  Help find him a Christian home and Bethany Services (along with Project Hope) will help every step along the way. 

http://project-hope-ministries.org/contact/

Ultimate Tourney in Traverse City

This weekend was one that I've been licking my chops at for some time.  But first, I'll discuss the week.  Another normal week in general.  Softball was cancelled because of some scattered thundershowers.  Disappointing, but not all that unpredictable. 

 

On Tuesday I surprised Adela by stopping by in Holland.  We didn't do anything too exciting, but it's always good to see her.  Then on Wednesday we had to switch out of our normal volleyball courts because the apartments had some locals playing at their court.  It was still fun, although I was the only guy there and the proceedings were a little more silly than I prefer. 

 

Then on Thursday I got the special treat of Adela coming by to visit Battle Creek.  It was great!  She borrowed a friends car and rolled into town.  She thought the youth group was going tubing, but it turned out another scattered thunder shower wiped that out.  It worked out well though, because we went to Willard beach and the water was HOT.  I'm so used to Shear Lake that it was nice to get in some warm water. 

 

Now for the weekend!  It was the Great Lakes Greatest ultimate Frisbee tournament in Traverse City.  I was excited cause I've missed a lot of tournaments to be at camp the last three years and I've never been to Traverse City.



 

The warm weather was cooling off and rainclouds were the order of the day.

The other direction showed a great rainbow. Two actually! 

The tournament was run better than many I've been at over the years.  There were only 6 teams and the competition was under par (2 solid teams out of 6).  But to spite that, everyone had a great attitude and was there to have fun.  Our team became "Discs on a Plane" and we had about 3 teams worth of top lines. 

One thing that impressed me about our team (and the others) was the ladies.  They were by far the best ladies I've ever played with.  They gave our team a huge edge.  With the skill level of our team and the amount of players (14 guys and 6-7 girls) I didn't play a whole ton of points.  I usually am in and out 2 points on, 2 points off (or more sometimes).  This week I was more of 2 points on, then 3-5 points off.  It left me with a lot more energy afterwards, and I wish I had left more on the field.

Every good tournament ends up with a new mini game.  Like Wiffle Tent here.

I played well in the tournament.  Even though I wasn't in as much I played solid with a good mix of good throws and bonehead throws.  More importantly the team played great.  The championship game was close, but our wave after wave of skilled players was hard to deal with and we won the whole thing undefeated. 

A tournament of firsts for me.  First I stayed at the whole time to the finish. First that I was part of the winning team.  And the first Summer tourney since leaving for camp.  I really enjoyed it, but it was a little eye opening that I've been outside of the Ultimate community for a while.  And I'm out of shape!



Here's a shot of the bay with the random boat anchored just out of the swimming area.

As for Traverse City... I wasn't impressed.  I'd certainly visit again!  But it had some issues, maybe the biggest one being overhype!  Here are my three complaints:

1) The Bay: It faces North!  I love Lake Michigan for the sunsets.  Now it wasn't terrible or something, but it was disappointing.  I did enjoy the beach and I imagine there are fantastic overlooks and points all the way around it.

2) The Spread: It was about 15 minutes to get anywhere we were going.  Campsite to fields: 15 minutes.  Fields to town: 15 minutes.  Town to Campsite: 20 minutes.  And not city minutes.  Like... country highway minutes.  I felt like I was in Fairview again!

3) The Ritz:  Traverse City wishes it was Grand Rapids.  I like South Haven and Ludington cause there is much more of a walkable feel to it.  There is some of it in Traverse City, but I feel like if I was walking I'd be wondering what I was missing.  South Haven I can go wherever I want on foot and I can cover everything I want to do at the beach.  It's a classic beach town... on steroids!

That's where the sun sets here.

Overall it was really fun though.  Like I said, I'd go back again for a tourney or a road trip.  I think I would still prefer my other locations on the West coast. 

That's my new tent on the far right!  The field was a little pokie, but it was a good camping experience.

Discs on a plane!

A good, safe trip.  Thank God for that!  And for great weather!  And everything!

If you're wondering... I do miss Camp.  I'm having a blast this Summer, but I'd much rather be digging dirt with Mike Baker or hosting a counselor snack on the West side. 

By the way.  I'm struggling to finish blogging on Sundays.  So look for it Tuesdays.  That might be my new night for a while.  We'll see though.  Adios!

The Heat is On!

Here we are.  Another week of Summer is gone!  And now I'm realizing that the rest of the Summer weekends are planned out.  Crazy.  

This week we had a lot of church events, which was great.  So here are the pictures... a lot of them with kids from the youth group.

Craft Night at the Church.  We had several stations, each with unique crafts that will be given to the kids at the CRAN orphanage when Project Hope sends a group down in August.

My group worked on little hair accessories.  I had a lot of fun crafting!

On Thursday the Youth Group went to a public beach at Gull Lake.

The first event was hitting each other with noodles.

Then there was bocce ball all over the park.

Tim just bought a boat that the kids enjoyed.

Venue change here.  Now we're in South Haven on Sunday.  Catching some sun while staying cool.



Jordan has good form when throwing that football. 

We seem to have a connection with South Haven.  Tim likes it and so does a decent group of us.  Driving an hour is worth the relaxation and fun of the beach.  I discovered that floating along on Tim's boat is super relaxing. 

We had some bad neighbors on the beach, and I was explaining to the Colombians (Tim's newly adopted kids) that when you drink a lot you go crazy and un around like these people were.  All in Spanish of course.  Broken Spanish that is.  So then the police came, so I explained that part of it as well.  If you're too crazy the police will come.

Now it's back to work.  Some weekends I feel I pack a week into 2 days which is great.  But then I get that feeling I'm just getting off a week of vacation on Sunday night.  But that's ok.  I enjoy my work.

Stay cool this week!  It's stinking hot!

Tents and Tents and Camp

Just captions today as I try to catch up before work:

 

Softball is going well.  We're 2-2 and that somehow puts us right in the mix to lead the league.  Apparently everyone is having trouble keeping a winning record.  I'm not a "skill player" so I'm enjoying improving my game everyday.

Got a tent in the mail last week.  Looking forward to using it.  Even more so when my sleeping pad shows up.  Without a pad I wake up with a crooked back for the rest of the day and I'm still tired the whole day.

The fireworks tent is a big fundraising opportunity for my youth group.  Our youth pastor basically lives there and it's fun to go hang out with him and help with the sales and organization.  This year they almost sold out and shut down early.

That week saw Adela visit for her birthday and it was a fun weekend!

Bearskin rug on Thursday morning on the West Side!  I jumped up to camp since we had a 4 day weekend at work.  They needed lifeguards, so I was able to fill a gap while also catching up to my friends and relaxing a bit.

This is the start of the new seasonal staff house.  Looking forward to see it take shape although I also want to work on it!

I offered to guard for the STEP program on Friday night.  Good thing cause they didn't know how to play watermelon football (obviously from this picture).  It turned out to be a lot of fun and I think everyone was involved.

Ben Calhoun catching a disc.  He had some good catches.

And his friend.  Nathan Dufrin maybe?  His catch looked more epic... but he couldn't quite actually catch it.

Guarding for the water ambush.  It was a mess.  But it's neat to see all the campers gathered in one spot before the start.

And finally a funny picture.  Cody Witzgall is in the back of the rowboat.  He was rowing but he couldn't keep a straight line so Hannah Ford had to replace him.  Funny to watch this beastly kid get replaced by a much smaller girl.  And she did great!

That's it!  Gotta run!

Going to Grandpa's

This was another Summer week that kind of goes into the blend.  Along with a weekend that was very different. 

 

Softball was cancelled Monday, but it just gave me more time at the Bombers with Mike and Randy.

 

Softball Tuesday was the normal.  We provided about half their team and they went on to thrash us.  Still fun to get out and about.  Then Wednesday I played Soccer with the Chin Youth Team before joining with Grant Penrod for some Tennis at KCC.

 

Thursday night was an odd one because Ultimate Frisbee switched from the usual awful field to KCC's extra field.  Turns out some other folks play there.  Some of them knew the details of Ultimate, but that doesn't mix well with our folks so much.  Either way, we all played together and it went all right.  Future weeks I think we'll split off to Wednesday nights though.

 

Friday I rode my bike into work.  Terrible idea.  It took about 25 minutes cause I have to avoid the Dickman on my bike.  By the time I got there I was a hot mess, and had to clean up a fair amount.  I won't do it in the future cause it's not worth having to change and dealing with randomly SUPER hot days against rainy days and etc. 

 

This particular time on the way home I saw the remains of the motorcycle that was wrecked Friday afternoon.  All that was left of the bike was the middle third.  Some of it burned but I imagine most of it was knocked off by the force of the impact.  The car looked like a truck hit it.  Pretty awful and pretty evident that the rider didn't make it.

 

But... the world keeps spinning.

 

Friday night I spent with Dad out at Grandpa's old house.  I got to see his bees and then go for a motorcycle ride after changing my oil.



Dad is in their flight path, kind of getting low and out of the way.

 

The flying one is blurry, but you can see he's carrying pollen in his little pollen sack on the back.

He has about 5 combs started.  I think it'll be neat to see the results in the coming months.

Going into light speed.  It was a chilly dusk ride.

He has the microphone system that is pretty fun to play with.

 

Saturday I played disc golf and shot a personal best of +1 there.  Now anything over that will be disappointing.  But that's ok.  I had the pleasure of doing that with the Moody's and then we watched the movie Flight.  Not so much the redemption story I was looking for, but also not awful.  Definitely rated R for a reason. 

 

And finally Sunday I went tubing with some of the Youth Group and the Wygants.  I haven't been real tubing for years and it was fun to go again.  I saved a couple rollovers by pulling myself back on, but also biffed a couple of times.  At least my pants stayed on the whole time.

 

The girls had a lot of fun together and a lot of crashes too.

My favorite part nowadays is falling asleep on the front of the boat.  Except when Tim stops fast and drenches me.

So another week is in the books.  If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm hired into Denso.  Waiting for the official dealio in July, but I've signed on to continue in my Packaging Engineering role.  It's fun to see how these 6 months away from camp have gone.  Still missing it though.

Outdoor Activities

This was a banner week around here.  Steve and Jen Knapp were up from Florida for the week, so I got to see them twice.  Once in Caledonia for a game night, and then once at the Riegel's to grill out and hang out.  I have pictures of this... but on the other computer that struggles with blogger.  But it's on Facebook for sure!

After that fun I got to see Adela for the rest of the weekend (I picked her up on Thursday right after work).  On Saturday, Mom thought it would be fun to head to the zoo!  And it was.  Here are some pictures.  I have many more Facebook.

That goat could eat like... 5 pods in one lick.

A peacock.  Mom got calling to one of them.  Like son, like mother?

My turn to feed.  I was so busy taking the picture that I didn't even see him eat this.

Gotta love the giraffe's.  Well worth a dollar to feed them!

In the fountain at the Arboretum.  I've been in there, but just for frisbees.

On Sunday we went to church, where power was out.  It was fun to have just hymns and a more quiet service.  Nice to know that church isn't dependent on the power grid.  And afterwards we went to South Haven!

I love South Haven but haven't been able to go because of camp the last three Summers.  So we packed kids in the cars and took off.  (Again, most of the pictures are on Facebook). I was excited cause they finally updated their parking lot to a debit card paying system.  No more guessing if they're ticketing or guessing if someone already paid for your spot earlier in the day.  Just go and pay and no problem.  They even have parking attendants with iPads that can actively check on every spot.

We all played a little of everything, walked the pier, and even snuck in a bit of a nap before driving home with some Yummy Taco Bell in our bellies.

Giant picture of this ship at South Haven.  The distance made it look all foggy.  

And that's all I have to say about that....

Just kidding.  I'm also having fun with sports.  Had a good Softball game Monday night.  I'm so excited to run the bases again.  I've missed that part of it.  And only 7 or so games left in that league.  Tuesday I skipped Softball in favor of the Knapp's.  Wednesday was lively beach volleyball.  It even included an almost arrest with 3 cops running around the apartment complex we were at.

This week Monday softball was cancelled for my team because of a scheduling error.  So I joined the boys for another Bombers game at CO Brown stadium.  It's really a blessing to stay connected with some of camp on a weekly basis.

I'm already getting sad that Summer will end.  So I'll be sure to make the most of it!