To pronounce the title of this blog you must first kinda take the D off of good and roll the R in frenz or simply watch Mr. Deeds and listen to Amileo say it. Like my “goodfren” Dunbar stated on his blog a few days ago, we had a chance to get away from ministry for a few days and escape to the waters of the Presnell Farm to do some much needed fishing with some awesome friends that I am so blessed to have.

One friend in particular, (Ben Fair) left yesterday to spend 3 months in Africa serving in the Mathare Valley, Kenya. I know God is going to use Ben to full capacity while he is serving this summer. Ben is a true example of what it means to be the hands and feet of Christ, putting others before himself and sharing the love of Christ with everyone he comes in contact with.

Last night I decided it would be fun to give you all an insight into a fun memory for each month he will be gone (3) from the past 5 years Ben and I have known each other. So here goes fun memory numero uno.

The year was 2004, I was a 19 year old college sophomoreand Ben was a 24 year old college freshman, again. Our dorm rooms were on the same hallway, we were approximately two doors down from each other.

In this day and age there was certain gaming website that was fairly popular entitled PartyPoker.com. On this web-site you could create a player name and participate in some online FREE (no real monies or gambling involved in the games we played) Texas Hold Em. In our circle of friends this was a pretty happenin’ place to be around 2 a.m. any given night of the week.

This particular night, myself, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) and our good friend Tony White aka “Tweet” aka “T-Dub” aka “T-Dub-Fa-Sho!!!” (insert arm pump) were playing a friendly game of Party Poker with our Party Poker grandma friend JJGrandma and 6 other strangers online.

This particular night, was the night we introduced Ben to the magnificent PartyPoker.com. He was quickly intrigued, created a player name (Bob Marley) and searched for our table on the web site.

Quickly Bob Marley aka Ben found the three of us at a table and attempted to join our table, but in the attempt to join he found that the table was already full. So Bob, aka Ben had to wait for a seat to open up. While he was waiting patiently for someone to leave the table, he discovered the chat room box at the bottom of the screen where you could exchange words with other players.

Our circle of friends began conversing on the chat board and following about 20 minutes of waiting for “Bob Marley” to join the table, Rachel, T-Dub, Bob Marley and myself began to grow impatient that no one would give up their seat for our buddy Bob. 

So what did we do, being the mature Bible College Students we were? Ask people nicely to depart “our” table? Let everyone know it is better to share and give than be greedy and stay at the table? Give up one of our seats for Bob?

Heck No! we all reverted back to our 3rd grade minds and began ridiculing the players that would not leave so “Bob” could play. We were like a pack of sumo wrestlers on a box of Twinkies! (don’t really know what that means) But we were cracking ourselves up. It wasn’t like dark ”I hate you” ridiculing, more along the lines of that one annoying kid in class that does and says everything he knows is going to drive everyone to stabbing themselves in the eyes with pencils.

I don’t think I have ever laughed that hard in my entire life, T-Dub and I were roommates at the time, we were both in tears, I might have wet myself a little bit. Ben was burning incense which was a No-No at Johnson and the whole hall was filled with smoke. Rachel was on speaker phone with us from her dorm room crying with laughter. JJGrandma was crackin’ jokes with us, they were mostly old lady lame jokes, but that made it all the funnier. Our RA was ticked because we were so loud and Ben smoked us out of  the hall, “They smellin’ whatcha burnin’ Mon!” I kept yelling at Bob aka Ben.

Holy cow it makes my stomach hurt now just writing about it. That night it felt like I just got finished doing 775 sit-ups to improve my abs to put a picture on another popular website at the time hotornot.com. Lame-O

Dang man, that night was stinkin’ awesome I think we stayed up till 4am trying to kick these people off the table so Ben could play with us…no one ever left the table so somewhere around 4:30 am we started our own table. But it just wasn’t as fun with only us 4 playing and no one to trash talk.

Party Poker always made for great times. This night was no exception.

Hope you enjoyed the sneak peak into one of the many fun incidents from my past with Ben. If you did not enjoy it, here is where I insert the phrase “You had to be there!” There you go that should make it funny now.

Im Outie

As our Jr. High students close out the school year and prepare for summertime fun, we decided to hit em with a little Jesus! Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be looking at some misconceptions of who Jesus is and what He taught.

Back in 2003 as a 150 pound Johnson Bible College freshman, an RA nicknamed “Cheddaballz” in our dorms introduced me to Vintage 21 and their “Jesus Videos”. Vintage 21 created these videos for a series they were doing to portray the thoughts and ideas many people have about our Jesus.

I love the videos so much I decided to use them as illustrations in our own series for our Jr. High 4:Twelve students. This week is our second week of “The Man” series, last week we discussed “Busy Jesus” and this Wednesday we will be discussing “Boring Jesus”.

Please do not be offended by the videos, they were made as teaching tools, not poking fun at Jesus or Christians themselves. We may not want to admit it but I am about 99% positive we all know someone who has these ideas about Jesus.

We know these misconceptions are incorrect, are you planning on sharing the truth about Christ with someone anytime soon?

Enjoy.

I’m Out.

So this past weekend was mucho mucho busy to say the least. Here is a quick (not that quick) rundown…

Rachel bounced on me (a.k.a. left me)Friday @ the butt crack of dawn with Sarah Squared and without Kennedy.

Mosied out of bed somewhere around 7:30 a.m. to prepare myself and Kennedy for a work day @ the church.

The preparation took an HOUR AND A HALF! Holy crap there is a lot that goes into that process! Much respect goes out to Rachel from myself.

Long day @ church getting ready for dedication weekend, Miss Laura helped keep all the churins (children) corralled and under control.

Friday night me and Kennedy went out for a hot date at The Blue Moose, awesome wings and fried pickles! The date lasted all of 8 minutes and 34 seconds, then Kennedy began to get a bit ticked off which I interpreted as tiredness seeing how it was right around bed time. After my assumption that sleep was needed ASAP we got our date to go and headed home. Upon arriving home I discovered that assumptions were incorrect and Kennedy was not tired, but instead dropped a massive poo in her underoos, which she wanted cleaned up right now! Following the identification of the problem and a short hypothesis I took action to correct the problem. Following a diaper change we enjoyed the rest of our date eating Buffalo Wings and Fried Pickle Chips on the living room floor while watching the Braves vs. Diamondbacks game on Peachtree TV and pulling down every DVD we own off the DVD racks.

Saturday we arose around eight a.m. enjoyed some Handy Manny and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse before running to the Post Office, Dump and Burger King for some breakfast. For some reason I got crazy looks from the country boys in flannel shirts and cowboy hats and the elderly when we arrived in BK…maybe because it was 10:30 a.m. and we were both still in our PJ’s, plus I had my hair net on, who knows.

Saturday = Mr. Mom day, washing diapers, doing dishes, vacuuming then mowing the yard, while KJ slept.

Saturday night was a great dedication service, awesome speakers and great food.  Late night for baby, but she slept like a champ after a shot of Gogurt and some Value Time vitamin D milk.

I learned my lesson on Friday morning and I knew I didn’t want to get up at five a.m. Sunday morning to start getting Kennedy ready, so relying mostly on my genius fatherhood instincts and a quick phone call from Rachel, I used my noggin and prepared Kennedy’s Sunday morning Church junk bag before bed, saving me an hour of perspiration and frantic confusion the ensuing morning.

Sunday morning I got the prep time down to 15 minutes, enjoyed two great testimonies by Dr. Tim Lee and got to be a part of another incredible harvest, Praise God.

Volcano burrito, Braves rain delay, flodge (army poncho liner blanket thingy that is super incredible), couch, a big glass of milk and a nap consumed my after service time slot.

Rachel and Sarah Squared arrived home somewhere around seven p.m. Pizza dinner, Extreme Home Make Over, Traitor, the O.So.Hilarious fill in the blank story book thing.a.ma.jigs you get from Cracker Barrel and some SOUP finished off a great weekend.

I was so blessed to be able to spend some quality time with my Baby Girl this weekend.  The naps in the recliner, the laughing spells, the crappy dinners I made for her, even the poopie diapers were a blast. 

In all our busyness we must always make time to stop and enjoy the people and things that God has graciously placed in our lives.  I pray i never take my family for granted, after my God they are number 2 on my list!

outie 5000

A day late, but definitely not a laugh short. Just another video I stole of someone else, but get real, what video on the Internet has not been stolen from some other person? Oh wait I know one, how about the video of Rachel having a fall of a time at graduation and me taking fake phone photos with the President of our college along with rubbing an important bald guys head on stage in front of 1,000 or so people.

Anyone got that one?

No you say?

Well stay tuned, its in the mix!

But for real, Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mommies out there…the next day.

My bizzle, I have no Internet at the hizzle.

gone

So, as you have seen in a post from a week or so ago, our 4:Twelve ministry got to experience our first out of state mission experience.  The trip was incredible, students bonded with other students, our accommodations were sweet, we had a blast, no one got injured (not to bad anyways), leaders bonded both with other leaders and the students, but most importantly, we got to give of ourselves and serve people through the guidance of Jesus Christ’s Love.

While preparing for our first ever mission trip I constantly received mailers and emails encouraging me to join many different mission organizations in order to get the best experience for our students at the cheapest cost.  Many times I found myself wondering about the trip and how comfortable the students would be crammed in a van for 11 hours or sleeping on the floors of a local church, I wanted to make sure the students had a great experience and a fun time. 

Upon returning from our incredible experience in New Orleans and going through all the mailers again, I got sucker punched right square in the face, then God opened my blackened eyes to something…Since when has serving through mission trips and service projects become about our comfort, our money or our experience?

Last time I checked Jesus wasn’t too worried about what brand of towel, the temperature of the water or how much a water basin costs when He was serving by washing the feet of sinners as an example to us.  It is so easy to get caught up in “What can I take away from this experience?  How can our experience be the best” instead of really focusing on laying ourselves aside for a few days and zeroing in on the real question, “How can I make sure the people we are serving feel and see the love of Jesus Christ?”

I am not trying to bash on any mission organizations out there, please know that.  I went into this trip with the ideas of how this trip could benefit our students and this ministry, I was blind to all of this prior to going on our trip to New Orleans and little did I know God would humble me like He did.  I pray God will guide my heart and our student’s hearts to be pure, focused on others needs not our own agendas’ as we continue to serve in our own community and communities around the world. 

Goodbye Self-Centered Missions

im gone

Playing For Change | Song Around The World “Stand By Me” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

I saw this on a Jeremy McCarter’s blog site, who serves over at LifeChurch.TV with their student ministry, I thought it was pretty stinkin’ bang-a-rang so I jacked it and put it here on my blog. He, also stole it off someone else’s blog and that guy probably took it off someone else’s blog, but it is sweet so we are all sharing it.  There are also some other pretty sweet music videos on the main website. Enjoy.

Outie