Tonight ended our week-long VBS. Over 60-kids showed up each evening for a great time. This was my first experience with Standard Publishing’s “Take the Plunge” curriculum. Myself and 4-5 teens were in charge of games each night at a station called “Oceans of Motion”. We had a blast – most of our games involved some form of drenching the kids in various amounts of water!

Tomorrow morning we’ll get an early start to our trip to Warsaw. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to relax for a bit before heading to the church for the rehearsal. I’m not looking forward to Chicago’s stop-and-go traffic tomorrow, but if we do get stuck for too long I may get a chance to read through my sermon notes for Sunday!

I am so honored to have been asked long ago to be a part of Thomas and Bethany’s special day on Saturday! This will be my third-ever wedding and one that I won’t ever forget!

Had a great morning geocaching with Eric! We found 4, bringing my total finds up to 99! I’ve already got the 100th cache picked out and can’t wait to attempt it. In our caching-adventure I’m sure we logged at least 3-4 miles of hiking! I saw some great views from atop some glacial features just West of Mukwonago, saw some wild turkeys and heard a deer rustling while we hiked along, too. It was great to be in nature today – even if it was prime sleeping-time!

I had a great lunch with Pastor Gerry this afternoon, too! He treated me to Mukwonago’s “Antigua Real” Latin/Mexican restaurant. Great stuff! We spent a couple hours talking about the last month of ministry here and some future plans as well as some far-off brainstorming! I can’t wait to see where CRM heads in these next months!

Tonight is our second-to-last night of VBS. We’ve had more than 60-kids each night so far and I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the game-activities each evening. Friday we’ll get on the road early and make our way down to Warsaw. This is going to be one busy weekend!

I haven’t been geocaching in over a month!

In just about 6-hours I will be picked up by my buddy Eric and we will be heading a few miles West to do some early-morning caching (6:30AM to be exact).

Jess is preparing the automatic coffee pot to brew me some wake-up juice before my adventure.

Tomorrow also marks my first-ever travel-bug placement. I created my two travel-bugs tonight and will place them tomorrow if I have the opportunity. They will then hopefully travel the country (world?) making people smile.

Sure it’s geeky!

My travel-bugs:

Fun stuff! “Twinkie the Kid” and “A Round Tuit” will begin their adventures tomorrow morning here in Wisconsin!

Can I just say publicly that it was so nice to finally sit down on the couch last night and “catch up” on a few of our favorite shows via the technology that is DVR. Last comic standing, America’s Got Talent, and the Singing Bee (not to mention Survivorman) would’ve been missed by us if it weren’t for our wonderful DVR machine!

Thank you, David Rafner, for your contribution to modern technology!

Incredible. We returned from camp on Saturday afternoon and it’s been non-stop ever since!

Camp was incredible. 28 students returned changed by a loving, graceful God. A youth pastor, his wife, and two other adult leaders returned changed as well. A 15-month-old little girl returned grateful for her own bedroom and crib!

Tonight, at SNL (our weekly Youth meeting) we enjoyed what we call “Open Chair” night. Students testified of life-change by God through their week at camp. Other students asked for prayer from their peers and leaders. We usually are finished by 8:30. Tonight we finished just before 9:30! Parents were coming downstairs to see what was keeping their students!

This week is absolutely crazy. On Friday we will head down to Warsaw for the wedding of Thomas Hall and Bethany Kinney. I am participating in the ceremony and very much looking forward to the honor. We will return Saturday and I will be speaking here on Sunday morning as well as SNL that evening. These two important events as well as my involvement in VBS all this week have me a bit frazzled and feeling “the crunch”.

I look forward to finding some breathing-room in a week-or-so when things get back into rhythm!