Boy howdy! (my mom always says that and I don’t know what it means, but its fun to say) What a couple of weeks we have had around here in the b-e-a-utiful Smoky Mountains. Lets begin shall we!?

-Father’s Day occurred … what I got out of the day? How bout another kid! That’s right Rachel and I just found out she is knocked up with baby Van Hook squared. I cannot believe God has entrusted me with another child! I am super stoked about it and cannot wait for little Charles Benjamin Van Hook IV (aka C4)to be runnin’ all over the place. Due date = Feb. 26th, praying for healthy, hopin’ -n- prayin’ for a turtle (ultra sound lingo, give it a second let it sink in, you’ll get it)

-Shoot Dang! Kennedy Jane be a walkin’ fool these days. The kid runs all over the place. Her favorite thing to do now is is get walking all fast n drunk-like whobblin’ everywhere then belly flop on freshly washed and folded laundry. Its pretty sweet, although Rachel is not a big fan.

-Still got Two puppies. Want one. Please. Take one.

-As of last Monday, I am no longer responsible for the Middle School Students here at the Gathering! That’s right, you heard me! I am now responsible for the High School and Middle School Students here at the Gathering. I reckon you can say I am the new Student Pastor. I am pretty pumped to see God move in these students as we jump in here and begin discipleing the crap out of our students!

-The Braves are still terrible, well there offense is anyways. But Hanson is a beast!

-O yeah, right now I am writing this post to you all from a MacBook. I always hated Apple, especially when Rachel would always make me come do my homework with her in the Teacher Ed computer lab at Johnson, a Mac Mecca. It would take me 30 minutes just to open the stupid Internet. Why couldn’t they just call it “Internet”, why does it have to have a funky logo and be called Safari!? I always thought it was like a teaching program about African Wildlife or something. On the flip-side, I always did admire the coolness factor of a Mac. They just looked awesome, and they made the person using it look like they knew what they were doing when, in all reality they wanted to cuss and throw the confusing computer out a window. So with all that said, I have now sold out to the monster that is Apple and surprisingly it is going pretty well so far…I guess.

-ummmmm…..what else? O yeah my very overly hairy, Taliban-esk, Egg massage loving friend, Beatty is comin’ to town to chill for a few days. Its gonna be good to see the Beatty family, I don’t know how Lindsay puts up with all the hairballs in the sink and the mounds of boiled peanuts swaddled in Baltimore Orioles apparel  , but God love her soul. Craig and Lindsay serve on the mission field down in Puerto Rico. I know God is using them in some incredible ways and I cannot wait to see what He’s got for them next.

-Ben, dude, keep it real in Africa, but hurry up and come back to the Smokies. These trails are screamin’ for us.

-O yeah did I mention that we gots another bun in the oven!! YESSIR!

Well that’s about it from here for now. Have a blessed day, SHOW someone the Love of Christ today and quit simply TALKING about it!

Outie Five Thousand!

…like this kat in the below video. I am already similar in some ways, I enjoy a nice pair of cutoff jean shorts, I am white and I dance like a 43 year old mid life crisis white guy. So because I already have those things going for me, I figure what the heck, I would love to have the influence and impact that this crazy non rhythmic white guy has got.

I stole this video off my buddy Dunbar’s Blog, we tend to steal each other’s ideas quite a bit so chances are if you read his blog or you read mine there are many similarities. But when I saw this video there was no way I could not be effected by its influence. I even found myself dancing and laughing in my office chair while enjoying this one.

It was all in God’s timing for me to witness this video. You see I watched it last Wednesday morning, and that night we had planned a sweet bonfire and some worship out on the back of the property. Instead we sweated our cracks off in the heat and humidity before being forced back inside by many bolts of lightning, loud rumbles of thunder and horizontal rain showers. 

But God had it all set up, I had an opportunity to share this video with our students and encourage them to get out of their comfort zones and make an impact in this world. Way to often in our world today teenagers are discouraged, beat down and looked down upon, when instead they need to be lifted up, prayed for and encouraged. Today’s teenagers are shaping our culture for today and many years to come, its about time someone instills some positive encouragement and lets them know they have the power to impact the world for Christ, just like this “So You Think You Can Dance” reject can impact an entire music festival.

Be a catalyst. Become an impactor. Be a leader. Change the World for Christ.

Enjoy. Outie Five.

Dadgum its been a while since i have been on here to update anything, I have been out in the middle of a farm listening to Screamo bands in skinny girl jeans for 4 days with no Internet and a lot of body odor. But…I am back now and I need some advice. I have two votes already, mine and Rachel’s, but I need some more input.

This is going to be our logo for our e4 Middle School team. The e4 logo comes from Ephesians 4:12 which says, and I quote “Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ,” verse 13 continues, and I quote, “until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.” (NLT)

e4 goes right along with 4:Twelve, the name of our Middle School ministry here at the Gathering. We are not a ministry based on a single verse, we have more witnesses, God gave me 7 verses, all which are chapter 4 verse 12 that apply to our ministry. Ephesians 4:12 is the base scripture for our 4:Twelve Adult Leaders.

Now, help me figure out which color looks the best…leave a comment and let me know what you think.

I’m outie.

This video is awesome, Pastor Gene recieved it  from his good friend and Spiritual Father Dr. Tim Lee and then sent it out to everyone on staff today here at the church. So now I am passing it on to you.

If you love fishing and are needing some encouragement you will love this clip. Shoot Dang! Even if you hate fishing and everything that goes along with fishing you will still be highly encouraged by checking out this video or watching it below. 

So take a few minutes, “Slow Down” and recieve some encouragement.

I’m Outie Five

Man. The day has arrived. Our good friend Ben heads out for Africa this afternoon and Internet access for him ceases at approximately 2:00 p.m. in the D.C. airport. Please keep Ben in your prayers as he travels to Kenya to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and be the hands and feet of our Lord.

Right now it is 2:21 a.m. as I write this post in Microsoft Word which will then have to be saved, then copied and pasted into my blog dashboard in the morning because here at the Van Hook household we do things a little old skool…no Internet connection and Dollywood is just a tad bit out of reach to “share” a signal.

Anywho, over the past few days I have shared two stories with the blogging world about myself and my “Goodfren”, (remember drop the D and roll the crap out of that R) Ben Fair. There are many stories from the past five years I could write about for this last post. For instance; the time Ben saved my life by beating a copperhead snake into unconsciousness with a boat paddle only to allow me to put it in the live well where the devil snake came back alive in the middle of a lake; or the time our college baseball coach slammed on the breaks in the 15 passenger death trap van traveling at an approximate speed of 50 mph somewhere in the northeastern states while I was sleeping, causing me to fly into the seat in front of me, occupied by Ben and almost resulting in me saying unholy words; or the time Ben told me he would give me 5 bucks if I bean dipped our assistant baseball coach during a game; or the time we all shared a hotel room in Philadelphia on a baseball trip and I stuck him sharing sleeping quarters with “That Guy”; or the Dairy Queen day and the Blizzard; or the night at the Mt. Leconte lodges with our Alive group and a group of over 65 Wine-Os who disliked us very much; or the Halloween we spent at my house in the FAY where while carving pumpkins took graphic pictures of what appeared to be Ben getting his finger tips cut off and pumpkin guts squirting forth from the nubbies; or all the times he trimmed the nub nail in my face, or left it on my keyboard in the room; or the nights our neighbors played Halo with the volume set on Jumbo Jet 747 engine; or the ol’ softball days with pug; or the shirt I was rockin’ the first time we ever met; or the prank wars between Old Man River and myself; or the time I preached in our homiletics class and was challenged to somehow insert the words bulge and comb over in the sermon (I was victorious);or the French Broad River fishing days where we got showed up by two real life crack head hillbillies; or the time I chased a cat because I was pretending to be Alf; or the late nights of MLB 2006 playing with our stacked Jolly Green Giant custom players; or the time we were attempting to set the TV up on my dresser but could not stop laughing and both almost peed all over the floor; or the days hunting Easter EGGGGGS out at the new property while learning random Spanish phrases.

You see, I could do this all night long but it is now 3:00 a.m. and I believe that this last story/memory can be summed up in about 5 sentences and a picture, so here goes…

You see back in the fall of 2008 (I think 2008 maybe 2007 idk) Dunbar, Ben and I had the great privilege of taking a Scuba Steve Johnson Bible College Science class together, it was absolutely terrible, but somehow we always made it through each class session and made it interesting. I never brought anything to class, except for a 2007 Wal-Mart road Atlas and a pen, Dunbar sat to my right with a Toronto Blue Jays Fifty9Fifty ball cap pulled down over his eyes and his arms folded across his chest in a comatose state all class while Ben sat on my left and read Bass Fishing magazines.

Throughout our years at Johnson, whenever Ben and I had a class together he always had one request, that I would draw some kind of ridiculous picture portraying some kind of current event that in some way related to one of us or one of our friends. Then again sometimes the ideas were simply randomly thought up by Ben or myself and then translated into cartoon-like sketches. Many pictures were masterfully created during our time in Science class. So, instead of telling a long story again I decided it would great to share some artistic creations from the minds of Ben and me.

So below you will find a collage of artistic expression from over the years as well as a new, world premiere, never before seen sketch of a dream that was recently conveyed to me by Ben. This was just a dream, no one was actually harmed in real life, just the dream. This dream is not a dream I had, please understand that, this came from someone elses head. The parties in the picture will remain nameless although many of you may recognize those pictured.

Without further ado I present to you “Collage a-la-Salsas” and “Waybos Heard a Dream”

Enjoy.

out.  

The Infamous Sketches

So Ben is leaving the country tomorrow and I promised him I would post the other two memorable stories from our past five years as friends before he took off so that he was able to read them, laugh, pee his depends (adult diapers, Ben is almost 30) and put on a fresh depend before boarding the plane. 

So here goes…

Once again it was in the year 2004 and once again the event took place in the dorms at Johnson Bible College in our RA’s room.  It was the end of the week, a Thursday night. We had just completed our weekly hall devos (probably on loving others) when Jason Koster entered the room. As soon as Koster walked through the door our RA Charlie aka “Cheddar” lit up like a 3 year old girl receiving a pound puppy on Christmas morning (in the 1980’s). Cheddar then proceeded to force Koster to return to his dorm room to retrieve his boxing gloves and face pad helmet thingy’s.

While Koster was gone Cheddar proceeded to put a bracket together of who would be fighting who in that little 15×15 foot dorm room. This was serious.  By the time Koster returned to the second floor, furniture was moved, breakable things were removed and stuffed into underwear drawers and a crowd had gathered to watch Fight Night 04 @ Brown Hall.

I don’t recall all the match-ups for the evening, I know Mapstone looked awesome, more like a bear wrestler than a boxer, but still pretty awesome, T-Dub could barely fit is fro in the helmet pad thingy, DJ MD looked like ButterBean on the Atkins diet and Cheddar was stinkin’ fired up to fight Koster(who boxed on a regular basis and blackened peoples eyes for fun). Cheddar got some good blows in during their bout, he is a little competitive.

As for myself, I was paired up to fight the one, the only, Taylor Brown. Back then I was still kinda skinny and Taylor was a pretty little guy as well, but we boxed like rabid seizuresk kangaroos. Yo Son, the second Cheddar blew that intramural flag football whistle it was on. Forget floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee we went after each other like two tasmanian devils, kicking, kneeing, swinging carelessly, punching spectators(I think one punch may have been landed the entire fight)! It was nuts, you would have thought Taylor and I hated each other. I think the fight lasted about 13 seconds before we were out of breath, laughing with stomach cramps and passed out on the coffee table and Goodwill couch. Right then at that very moment MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) was invented, bet you didn’t know that. But this was not even close to being the best part of that night.

Next up on the bracket was none other than my man Ben Fair aka Father Time vs. Jesse “The Nicest Soft Spoken Guy on the Planet” Watkins.  From the time they laced up their gloves and squeezed their heads into those soft shelled helmets I could see on Ben’s face that he was confused. From the look on his face, the questions I saw running through is head were, 1. “How the crap did I get paired up against Jesse?” and 2. “How in the world am I going to bring myself to try and kick the crap out of one of the nicest soft hearted guys I know?”

As those questions probably ran through his mind Mapstone walked across the middle of the dorm room with his super short Umbro shorts and a string bikini top on holding up the round 1 sign signaling the upcoming whistle that was quickly blown.(he really didn’t do that, but anyone who knows Mapstone could see him doing that)

Both  men came out of their corners with the look of “What do we do now?” on their faces. Sweating and panting with the confusion of who would be the first to throw a punch they stood looking at each other. The crowd began to grow restless from the lack of action, they demanded bruises, busted lips and bloody gloves. Giving into the cheers and jeers for blood from the crowd of future Bible College Graduates, Youth Pastors and Senior Pastors something snapped in Jesse. Take all the deep thoughtful poems and soft heavenly pictures from Jesse’s photo portfolio of peace and throw them in a wood chipper! Jesse ment business and Ben didn’t even see it coming.

If you blinked you missed it. But even if you eyes were closed you could still hear the sound of Ben’s neck snapping backwards.

Jesse had pulled a fast one on him. Without a blink of an eye Jesse sucker punched that fool square in the nose. The entire room gasped anticipating uncontrollable rage to erupt from Ben’s brain and be released through his eight and a half fingers that were balled up tightly into fists inside the Everlast gloves. But there was nothing, just red watery eyes and the look of “Where am I?” on the face of Ben. Jesse stood there dumbfounded not knowing whether to smile because he just punched someone in the face and it felt great or apologize because he is a super nice guy.

All I remember after that jab to the face was laughing until I thought I was going to puke! I don’t even know if there was another punch thrown in that bout, but I do know I have never seen a room full of 20 college guys laugh so hard in my life. Oh what I would give to have that sucker punch on video somewhere (if anyone videoed that please get it to me ASAP).

It was an incredible moment in Ben’s boxing career, his record stills stands at zero punches landed one sucker punch to the face received.

Once again I hope you enjoyed another tail from the life of Chuck and Ben, and once again if you did not enjoy it, I guess you had to be there. (No honestly no amount of words and descriptions can ever describe in full the events of the famous “Jesse Sucker Punch”…sorry)

Outie 5Thousand