I love using countdown clocks to begin services in youth ministry! Love it! I’ve usually been the “king” of getting all the freebie-versions of countdown clocks possible! Today, however, I stumbled upon a program that allows me to create my own – for less-than $35!

The program is called “Countdown Creator” and I instantly paid for (via paypal) and downloaded the program this morning and have already created one successful countdown clock for a youth event that’s happening tonight!

If you’re in ministry and looking for a creative (and cheap) way to create countdown clocks for your services, I would HIGHLY recommend this piece of software!

Videos are exportable into three popular formats (.wmv, .mpg, and .mov), you can add a custom background image or video behind the countdown and count down from whatever time frame you wish! You can also add a background music track to your video!

Visit www.thecountdowncreator.com.

The countdown I made for tonight:

Jess is still trying to pass the kidney stone(s). She had an appointment with a Doctor today and was told to keep doing what’s she’s doing and if she still hasn’t passed it by Wednesday she is to schedule a CT Scan to get further information on this “rock” causing her such pain.

Keep on praying for her and the other two members of this household! Thanks to all who have called/e-mailed/visited to check in on us!

Got a call this morning from my wife letting me know of her terrible night and visit to the Urgent Care Center this morning.

She’s now in a Vicodin-induced nap-mode and waking often with extreme pain from a kidney stone!

Please pray for Jess! (and pray for Ella as Daddy tries his hand at a couple hours of single-parenting!)

Our pastor’s wife, Wenda spent much of the day with Jess and she is the one who took Jess to the Urgent Care Center. Pastor Gerry happened to be in Milwaukee this afternoon to pick me up at the airport, too! God has given us some big help!

I almost forgot to post about my experience at the Chinese restaurant tonight. Since it’s Friday Night at the “8 China Buffet” (does anyone understand where they get names for their restaurants?) there were a few “extras” on the buffet that I was feeling saucy-enough to try.

It helped that Kory “dared” me, too…

I grabbed a boiled crawfish off the buffet on my second-round and brought him back to the table and attempted to act like I knew what I was doing. I pulled his tail off and sucked on the meat that looked very similar to meat that we used to extract from our crab-feasts while vacationing on the Delaware Bay as a kid. I then opened up Mr. Crawfish’s belly and ate something that resembled a meaty-like substance but didn’t taste all that great.

I finished my crawfish and it wasn’t 2-seconds later that a lady sitting a little ways away from us spoke up, “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

After a sheepish laugh, I answered, “No” and she offered to get a couple more to show me how to “properly” eat a crawfish.

I was so excited I nearly ran to help her get our “specimens”.

She quickly returned with a bowl of three crawfish and told me to take one and “follow along”.

Who knew there was a shrimp-like piece of meat readily-available to extract from the tail of a crawfish? Not me – but I do now!

She also politely told me that I probably shouldn’t have eaten what I took out of the belly of this mini-monster. Funny how I found that out after the fact.

I told her that whatever it was I ate from inside the belly wouldn’t be any worse than what I ate from the bottom of the Ocean in Haiti! We had a great conversation with she and her husband and they laughed a few extra times about me eating something from the belly – I think, just to make me feel better about being an idiot.

It’s nice to meet helpful people, isn’t it?!

Tomorrow afternoon I will be jumping on one of these bad-boys (a Fairchild 328JET) which happens to be a 32-passenger, leather-seat reclining, Midwest flight from Indy to Milwaukee.

I am excited to get back into the loving arms of my wife and daughter tomorrow! It has been good to be in Indianapolis working with some denominational leaders and talking about some things that will have a lasting and positive-impact on some of the structure of the Wesleyan denomination.

It’s also been good to hang with some of my buds for the last couple of hours, too!

Nothing, however, will be as satisfying as arriving back in Milwaukee and being picked up by Jess & Ella!

See you soon, Family!