surfing the CROWD(ER)

you have to go to crowder's xanga to get the whole story...but here's proof why this guy is so cool in my book.

roadtrip

by way of






leaving @ 3:30 sharp ~ 07.29.07

parents be glad...that's a whole bunch of zlotys

i don't know about your house, be we've had a few hiccups with the whole text messaging thingy and the shock reality of the bill when it comes and you realized you texted a whole bunch to somebody who was out of network...how about this story...

So this Polish bus driver decides to enter a contest, the Associated Press reports:

Leszek Wojcik, a bus driver in the northwestern Polish city of Slupsk, ran up a tab of some 94,000 zlotys ($34,000) with his text messages while trying to win a 100,000-zloty ($36,000) SMS contest that ended June 30, Slupsk city transport spokesman Hubert Boba told The Associated Press.

Boba said a city bus drivers' monthly company phone bill is supposed to be limited to 15 zlotys ($5).

Wojcik sent an average of 1,200 SMS text messages a day, each costing 2.40 zlotys ($0.86), on his work cell phone.

Wojcik told TVN24 television he wanted to buy a second car with his possible winnings.

"Now I'm without work," he said.

the lead guy is blogging!

just in case your interested our lead guy (the guy on the far left) charles hill has got his own blog now. you'll find a link here, but also on the side in our blogroll. drop by and leave him a comment.

Free Hugs Campaign. (music by Sick Puppies album out April3)

this is an amazing story. not sure how i missed it. it was interesting last month at the alive festival because of several young men that were wandering around with similar signs. i thought it was interesting, but also that it was a silly pick up line. the story is impressive. cool stuff.

Xtreme Daily Bible Study two different ways

We believe that daily Bible study is a key to spiritual growth. God has a great call on your life and we want to make sure you are spiritually equipped to answer the call. You can receive the FREE Xtreme Daily Bible Study two different ways.

1. E-mail: You can receive the FREE Xtreme Daily Bible Study through email every morning, seven days a week. These Bible studies are written by some very cool students.

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Xtreme Bible Study by Email Email:

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These Bible studies are provided free of a charge through a partnership between Tim Schmoyer and Xtreme Youth Alliance Ministries.

nice rides...

one of the sightings during our trip to saddleback was setting our eyes on some pretty sweet rides used by the church staff. the picture on the left is the security vehicle and the one on the right is the jr. high ministry staff vehicle. i'm wondering what the words the.evolution painted on the side of melinda's suburban would look like? hmmmm.... fun stuff.

coming home

emmah's view out the window...

each one is different...

day five...

we finished up the student leadership conference with a final round...sort of an encore to the taco bell olympics. once again 6 crunch wrap supremes went flying...and i do mean flying in the middle rows of tent 3. fun stuff. taffy, the worship point person at saddleback walked us through what worship should be. they kept the best till last. he was excellent and right on point. for him the definition for worship is straight from the Word...Romans 12:1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.



we ended our time with communion and then it was off to lunch and off to the ocean. we tried a new place called hot off the grill. it was very good. once we got our beach duds we headed to west to huntington beach. we all spent some time getting wet, the water was about 65 degrees, but after a few minutes it seemed very comfortable. we spent about two and half hours there and then headed south down the pacific coast highway we stopped by laguna beach for a walk around and then drove farther south to dana point. we watched the sun set there. all three beaches were very different. it was cool to see the contrasts. we wrap up our travels tomorrow, hopefully seeing Harry Potter on the IMAX screen at irvine and then to the airport for our early morning arrival at columbus. don't forget we've got our first july road trip down to the new grounds cafe' in sugar creek...we'll leave the church no later than 7:15.

fun and leadership challenges

today was very good day. lots of dynamic stuff happening and much diversity to keep everyone guessing. we found plenty of time to chill and talk about the "take back" from this excursion.



"the day also offered opportunties to understand the whole idea of serving in a new light. all 800 hundred of us were sent out to make a difference or "be the change" in orange county. to prep for that the students walked through four different stations...making 5000 pb&j sandwiches, sorting through a couple thousand pairs of shoes and understanding the living costs in third world countries. after lunch we were sent out with the adult leader being on the "driver" to do our assign task of collecting coins. it wasn't as easy as first imagine (silly no solicitation rules). the students had to organize our whole attack. the best i could do was ask some open ended questions to help direct their thoughts. by the end of the excursion, some 4.5 hours later they had gathered about $70...almost half their goal. which included a visit in a completly spanish speaking christian bookstore to attempting to find the same in the chinese section of town....and that all was by way of chic-a-filet. great team building and shaping/stretching taken place here. we celebrated the accomplishments of all with a pizzafest and then heard testimonies of how God showed up while folks were serving. the high light of the evening was a dialogue with doug fields from saddleback and 15 year old zach hunter from the loose change to loosen chains campaign. the purpose was two fold...to make us aware of the plight of slavery in a modern context and to help our students see that you can, as a teenager, change the world.

video from yesterday's 1st annual taco bell olympics. that was the crunch wrap discus toss competition. the gal that threw it hit the 12th row. impressive. found out she was on the track team at school.

take your pick...

the best is yet to come

sitting here in the quiet of the hotel room at the end of day three. the guys are all asleep and i'm putting up some pictures from today's exploits. there are always many good stories from our adventures. my biggest moment came early this morning when during our warm-up session we had the 1st annual taco bell olympics. i'll post some view later...but we had crunch wrap discus tosses, taquitos tosses, and a few more that i'll save for use at //the.evolution. during the taquitos toss i actually got smacked in the head...and we we're like 19 rows from the front. very fun stuff.

we also got a chance to hear kay warren's passionate heart for the whole hiv/aids thing. she talked about being "gloriously ruined" for Christ.

there's more to be said, but pictures will have to suffice for now. blessings!

day two....i think sort of?

this traveling to the west coast thing like crazy. but we are having fun. yesterday was a full day. spent the morning working on the recycling/trash bin at harambee and then rudy suggested we visit his favorite mexican diner. rosarito's...GREAT food!
then we headed off down to lake forest and laguana hills. mitch found some rest on the way...and the best quote was his "did i fall asleep?"...like yeah...30 minutes ago. there's many stories that i'd like to share but all i can say is this...living life intentionally and seeing how God shows up is amazing.

we lounged by the pool...under the palm trees for a couple of hours and then off to saddleback. the place is HUGE! great conversation with good folks all night long. the theme of our time last night is BE FILLED. Doug Fields kick it off after some really crazy group games. more i hope later, but thanks for being part of our community.

some pictures

things will get easier by later today. its just been crazy. i've posted a few pictures of yesterday's exploits. beyond the air travels and the crazy journey to the airport we put a bunch of miles on the van. we visited the hollywood sign... met some interesting folks from texas. went to home depot to pick up supplies for our mission project, grabbed dinner at a real Mexican restaurant...ran through rodeo drive in beverly hills and actually got nine hours of sleep. it was on the floor, but after the day it didn't really matter. oh yeah in the midst of the tourist stuff we sat and talked with rudy the executive director of hamambree. very interesting conversation about mission, the church and life in the intercity. plans are already gelling in my mind about what we could do here as an outreach from our outpost. leave a comment so we know you stopped by! more later.

on the ground in california - the journey begins.

we've been here for about 12 hours. good stuff...but sort of bleary-eyed. woke about about 3:05 thanks to melinda and then finished packing the car and emmah and i headed south to l-town. met up with kaitlyn and stephanie and then waited on mitch. that's a story will save for later...maybe. anyhow got to the airport with just enough time to walk up the gangway and find our seats. of course we passed charles and christian on the way to our seats.

the trip went fast. hit the ground running. we grabbed our rental car and off we went to find some breakfast. we stopped at jack in the box...only because i've never eaten there and melinda worked there while in high school.

right now we're pulling together a mission outreach with a new friend at www.harambee.org. the director has been a friend via the internet and now we've met face to face. some good things to come from that for sure.

more in abit....stay tuned..