Saturday, December 27, 2008

Saturday Morning




Things are melting out after an amazing amount of snow. I got up early, made coffee, took Alicia to work at her espresso stand, did my devo's, studies, went for a run, made German Pancakes, and am now enjoing some more coffee while Band of Brothers plays in the background.

During the past two weeks we had close to two feet just about everywhere. Levi and I build an awesome sled jump and didn’t break anything in the process.

It has been an unusual couple of weeks. I’ve enjoyed having the past two days off. This hasn’t happened in a few weeks since I started teaching in Federal Way on Saturday mornings (8 a.m. – noon – Biblical Interpretation). Now even my Mondays are occupied by grading papers (this week I have to grade 45 essays). This has been a welcome break!

Christmas Eve:
The snow continued to pour down, putting a damper on our candlelight services. People in Seattle don’t like driving in the snow, so our attendance was down. We worked until 1 p.m. trying to plow our parking lot. Our kids joined us at the 2 p.m. service (we had four services). Heidi played the part of Mary in a drama. Attendance ended up being all right. Around 11 at night we each opened a gift. Heidi and I then stayed up really late wrapping presents.

Christmas Day:
This year we were missing Heidi’s mom, Linda, who passed away just a couple of weeks ago. Plus, it was our first Christmas in years without our friend Happy who now lives in Hong Kong. She lived with us for a couple of years and has spent every Christmas with us since. My parents have also moved from Oregon to Minnesota, so we are missing them as well.
We had our first white Christmas in years – with a fresh few inches on top of an already deep snow. I drove to Roberta’s to pick her up at 8 a.m. She came over and fixed us a terrific breakfast. The kids were up around 9. We told the Christmas story around our advent wreath and we finally started opening presents around 10:15.
Clothes were the dominant gift item this year. Levi is trying to get enough money for a mission trip to Thailand – so that was most of what he received. I got a few CDs that I’m enjoying (Death Cab, The Killers and MGM)…Our XBox 360 stopped working exactly one year after we started using it. It doubles as our DVD player so we were forced to be more social (not a bad thing).

Day after Christmas:
We made it to the mall (that took forever) and watched the movie Valkyrie. This movie really interested me because it is based on the plot (to assassinate Hitler) that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was caught in. Bonhoeffer is one of the most famous pastors of the past century and authored The Cost of Discipleship. Last night we enjoyed dinner with some friends playing a board game.

Tonight after church we are watching UFC 92. It looks like a great “card” and should be a lot of fun. (If you know me, you know this is one of my interests. I blame it on my background as a wrestler from a family of wrestlers).

Tomorrow morning Heidi and the kids leave early for Canada for a three day hockey tournament. Levi’s team is doing really well this year. Hopefully the roads are clear. I will join them late on Sunday night. It's in Ridge Meadows.

After this we head to Oakland, Oregon. This is where Heidi’s dad lives. We will be there Wednesday through Saturday. Oakland is a tiny historic town near Roseburg.

I’m keeping busy working on my class and preparing for a lot of teaching in January. I will be speaking on two of the weekends, beginning a series on “God’s Top Ten List”. Also, I’ll kick off our Wednesday night series on the Gospels. I have two more classes for Life Pacific College at the Federal Way extension, and I will be teaching Perspectives on the World Christian Movement in Anacortes and Mt. Vernon. Pray for me! It will be a busy month.

On the last week of January I leave for Manila, Philippines with John and Sonja Decker, for a week long training. Levi leaves a week later for Thailand (oh yeah...his band is also playing at Studio Seven on the 13th, and at the Lyon's Den on January 24th).


Lots going on! That's what's up in our house.

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