Hosting Withdrawal

Kim and I wrapped up a week of hosting yesterday as I took my friend Tony to the airport for his long flight back to Japan. My parents visited us for 4 days beginning last Tuesday. We went up to Maine and New Hampshire to do some day shopping, which turned out to be chocolate shopping at a homemade chocolate shop. We spent a day in Boston where we met up with Joel and Tony to take them sightseeing in Boston, which included lunch at the original "Cheers!", walking the Freedom Trail and a Red Sox game [see photos on post below]. While we were at our apartment, we managed to get in a lot of games included some down-to-the-wire games of Clue. On Saturday Tony, Joel and Allie drove up to spend the rest of the weekend up here, which included a lot of frisbee, Tony's late night chimichangas, Unexplained mysteries, a pancake brunch, and our own worship service in the chapel on campus. Monday, Tony and I had a visit from our friend Muffin and we spent the day shopping as Tony had a list of things that he could really only get over here in the US. This past week has been a lot of fun for Kim and I, but it was nice to have an evening to ourselves last night watching "The Best of Dana Carvey, Saturday Night Live".

Red Sox vs Tigers

What a night! Lots of offense (4 Tiger homeruns), lead changes, picture perfect night weather-wise. It was a great way to cap off my parent's visit with us.



Seinfeld's J. Peterman sings "God Bless America"!!!

Where was Grandma?

Summer Vacation Finally Begins!

Hebrew II has come to an end. Friday I had my final for the class, which consisted of parsing verbs, translating passages that we have done before, and translating a passage that we had not worked on in class (this ended up being Genesis 42:1-5, where Jacob sends ten of his sons to Egypt to buy grain due to the severe famine in Canaan). We were allowed to use a lexicon on the unknown passage, which was helpful. Pretty sure I did just fine on it, I'll find out on Monday. Now I have 3 weeks off before the Fall semester begins on September 9. So what will I be doing with all this down time? Playing host for half of it. My parents will be visiting us this Tuesday till Saturday and then the boys will be in town for the weekend (and Allie & Muffin to even the girl to guy ratio) with Tony staying a couple extra days up here. I will try to translate a little Hebrew everyday to keep myself sharp for my exegesis class this fall on Elijah and Elisha. I am also reading a book that was assigned for me from my New Testament class at Hillsdale, "The Upside Down Kingdom" by Donald Kraybill. It was one of those books that I did not have time to read back then but put it on my will-read-later list. And now is later. I am also playing house (cleaning cooking, etc.) as Kim is busy with her new job, hopefully this can be a help. I am also thinking about experimenting in the kitchen and learning some new dishes. Going to try Orange Beef stir-fry with crab rangoon on Monday. That's all for now.

EFCA Meeting

As many of you know, it is my plan after finishing here at Gordon-Conwell to seek ordination in the Evangelical Free Church of America (also known as E.V. Free for short) Yesterday, I met with the New England District Superintendent, Dr. Sheely, to discuss the EFCA and myself. I was happy to inform him that Kim and I have just recently decided on which church to attend; Westgate Church, which looks amazing except for the fact it is 45 minutes away and gas is $2.60/gal around these parts. If you are curious, here is the church's website: http://www.westgate-church.org/. We also discussed opportunities for an overseas missions trip with him to train Christian workers in how to plant churches. The EFCA sponsors a week seminar on church planting right here on campus in January, which I will be attending. In addition to meeting with Dr. Sheely, I hope to meet with the pastor of Westgate church, Dr. Hollo, concerning possibly ministry mentoring opportunities through the church. So please be praying for Kim and I as we seek God's will concerning our ministry for the next two years and beyond. If anyone is interested in learning more about the EFCA denomination, please check out their website at http://efca.org/. Kim is doing well and is enjoying her new job. I need to get her on here to update everyone concerning it. I have my final exam for Hebrew II on Friday and feel confident concerning my knowledge of the language for the exam, but will still be reviewing quite a bit between now and then. Remember to leave a message :)

Meteor Showers

Not that we have been ultra busy, we just have had little to write about. But I felt that we don't want to lose readers due to infrequent posting, thus today's post. Now this is more of an announcement than a story, but it's still a post. This Thursday and Friday nights are the best days of the year to see a major meteor shower. Although the absolute best times are between 2 am and 4 am, a relatively easier time to see many shooting stars is around 11 pm. You will want to look East with the constellation Perseus as your focal point as this is the direction most of the meteors will appear (hence this meteor shower is called the Perseid meteor shower). Here on campus, I contacted the student life department and arranged for an announcement concerning the meteor shower and will host an all campus watch Friday at 11pm in our "big open space". Here is a link that has more information concerning the meteor showers this week: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22jul_perseids2005.htm.

Let's hope for clear skies!

Remember:

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the works of his hand
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge"
Psalm 19:1-2

A Fish Story

This past weekend (Thursday through Saturday) we were invited by our neighbors (Josh, Kim, and baby Laura Jane) to go with them to stay at a friend's cabin in New Hampshire on Lake Wicwas. It was an amazing weekend filled with laughter, sunshine, swimming, good food, and great fellowship with new friends. However, I think it would be safe to say that the highlight of the weekend was the fishing. Neither Lucas nor I have fished since we were little, so Josh was excited to get Lucas out on the lake and rejuvinate in him the joy of fishing. Now Kim and I had done some fishing off the dock the first night and caught more than Josh had caught out on the lake, so we requested that he leave two poles behind for us. The guys set out in the canoe with a high tech fish finder, four rather splendind poles, and a lot of fishing experience in Josh to catch dinner while we women stayed back at the cabin with the baby. Well, Kim and I decided that, since we had caught most of the fish so far, we should probably head down to the dock and see what we could catch before the guys got back. Once there, we discovered that the poles left for us didn't cast or reel, so we were fishing Huck Finn style with poles that were the modern equivalent of a stick and some fishing line. Long story short...three hours later Josh and Lucas returned with a high tech fish finder, four rather splendid poles, a rather disenheartened but expereinced fisherman, and no fish while Kim and I met them with three catfish and a bluegill caught right off the dock with our "Mark Twain" poles!!! The guys ended up going back out to salvage some of their masculinity and caught a mess of bluegill and a nice sized yellow perch (Lucas and I are both so excited not only to know the names, but also to know what they look like for future reference!). Lucas and I also learned how to filet and fry the fish which means we had the experience of bringing our dinner literally from the lake to our plates.