My newfound respect for jackhammer operators…

Thursday night I rented a jackhammer. I needed to remove our concrete steps so I could replace it with a deck. I learned something – when a tool of any sort ways more than half of your weight it’s going to be difficult. I also learned that jackhammers really wear you out! My hat’s off to anyone who uses one of those things on a daily basis.

I didn’t even quite finish. After running that thing for about 15 hours, I said “Enough!” Hopefully I can find a friend with a skid-steer to help me with the last bit of removal. If not, I’m decking over it.

The continued Physical Journey

Several (just about 4!) weeks ago I posted on some of the physical goals I had set for myself, and it’s time to update.

• My goal is to reach 10-12% body fat. I started at 21%, and am down to 14.8%. Excellent progress. Typically the last bit has been the hardest for me, but it’s fun to get close to where I want to be.
• 100 Push-ups by September 10^th. I’ve been following a program called the hundred pushup challenge . Yesterday was the end of week 4, and another “test” was required. I did 66 consecutive pushups (no stopping) – up from my initial test of 45, and my second test of 53. All told, I’m up 21 pushups, or up almost 32%. That’s great! The program gets harder the last couple of weeks, so hopefully it will push me enough to add the remaining 34 to my total. We’ll see!
• A 5k in the 20 minute range on September 6^th. I’m afraid the reality for me is going to probably be a 5k in less than 30 minutes. I’d like to see it under 24 minutes, but I haven’t done much pace running yet. It’s been really nice to not have my knees hurting, and I know fast runs have made me pay in the past. I started training late, and don’t want to “jeopardize” my race in a couple of weeks, so I think I’ll wait for the pace run actually in the race. It’s kind of backwards, but I’ll let the race help determine pace for future events and go from there. My pace at low heart rate (140 average) has been getting better – it’s in the 11 minute mile range, and I know I’ll push up to 165-170 bpm in the race. I’m just not sure what that will mean in actual race time yet
• Other long term goals…
  Other goals such as a duathlon and possible marathon are fairly far off in the future, and my ability to do those will depend on me staying faithful to exercising through the winter. I really intend to do better this year!

So – to my other “hundred pushup challenge” friends – where are you at in the process? Are you still working on it?

Great Corn Feed and a Church First

We had our 6^th annual Corn Feed following the Rail Road Days parade on Saturday. It went awesome! It’s a lot of work, but we expect it to be. We had at least 800 people come through (we went through 950 plates, but some people made multiple trips.) During the event several musicians from various churches performed, we had some Alliance Core Value cards on the tables, and we had some people sharing tracts with people that were there. All told, we went through almost 100 dozen ears of corn, 1000 hot dogs, and many gallons of lemonade. It was a great event!

Several funny things relating to the event – it’s immediately after the parade, and when my family came over they said there was a “traffic” jam – we had cars lined up for blocks heading here. We had a bus pull in – that was a first in 6 years. A whole motor coach pulled up with passengers. We also had the Catholic Church float drive over and unload its passengers after the parade. After the event we had some leftover food, and we had people lining up to buy that. We had a lot of fun.

As far as a church first – I’ve been in ministry for 12 years now and saw a first today! A young man started coming to our church about 6 months ago, 3 weeks ago was baptized, and this morning asked his girlfriend of several years to marry him – right at the end of the service in front of everybody. It was awesome. After she said “yes,” everybody cheered and congratulated them. What a fun morning!

 

Celebrations in Sports

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?p=3675381#3675381

I’m sure there are some people who hate all celebrations in sports. They want a football player who scores a touchdown to calmly hand the ball to the referee and head back to be with his teammates. A person who hits a home-run should calmly walk the bases and go back the dugout. A person who wins a gold medal and sets a world record should just calmly turn around and congratulate his opponents for a race well-run.

Some of those things are not a part of the sports scene anymore. And, I think most people are ok with celebrating things.I’m not ok with the constant celebrations of every little achievement. I hate celebrations over a defensive player making a tackle, or an offensive player getting a first down. We wouldn’t want to see baseball players doing a little dance after hitting a single. We don’t want to see Olympic athletes celebrating winning their heat in a race.I also strongly dislike showboating DURING the competition. If Bolt wins the 100, wins a gold, and sets a world record I don’t care if he does handsprings around the entire track or pulls his mom out of the stands and dances with her. Celebrate what you just did – that’s awesome! Just wait till after the race. Don’t celebrate BEFORE you cross the finish line. Celebrating BEFORE you finish the race is unsportsmanlike and deliberately showing up your competition, and has no place in the Olympic games. (Or in any games, but that’s a different post altogether.)

Lots of House Work

I’ve been on the long, gradual process of doing some remodeling work on our house. The last window that I replaced was the one I was dreading the most – and it’s good to have mostly done. We had a bow window in the front of the house that I wanted to replace with a bay window, but I didn’t have a prebuilt bay. So – I built one.

The problem being, they sell prebuilt bay windows so people don’t have to build them, because it’s not fun to build them. The big problem is the math… At least it was for me. I did all my calculations based on the outside measurements – which doesn’t work because the insides of an angled bay window is smaller than the outside. I got completely lucky that the inside measurements worked out. I needed 48 inches for the front – and had 48 1/8 inch. I needed 24 on the side windows, and had 24 ½. The windows fit, the job is done, except for the finishing work on the inside.

23 hours over the weekend of work on that, though, and I had a couple of people come and help me – or I would probably still be working on it! I think that’s the hardest part for me with all of that house work stuff, though, is that I see my summer evaporating and the time with my family just disappearing. Elissa is very supportive, but doesn’t really enjoy that work much, so she doesn’t really work next to me, and the kids are too little to be any help. So at the end of the day, I’m exhausted – but also bummed because I feel like the whole weekend goes by and by the time I’m going back to work on Sunday morning I’ve had no time with my family.

We did end the week with our weekly small group meeting, which I love. We went to the lake, swam with the kids, had our study – what a great time. It was very refreshing.

Oh – we also closed on our house last week. We had been paying the church on a contract for deed, but we owed the church a balloon payment. We used some of the equity we had built up to buy the rest of the building supplies to finish the outside of the house this year. It’ll be good to get done.

Anyway, busy week – off I go.

Pushup Challenge Update

Last night after my run I did my 2 week test and am up almost 20% to 53 consecutive pushups. Still a long way from 100! Yikes!

Also – body fat down to 17%, only 5% left to go to reach initial goal there.

Church Life Compressed

I’ve had an absolutely exhausting but exhilarating, exciting and depressing last several days.

Last Friday a sweet, sweet man from our church passed away. I had gotten a call a week ago Sunday that he wasn’t doing well, and when I went out to see him he told me that he was tired of fighting. Hal had suffered from a nearly fatal heart attack 23 years ago, and has since struggled with arthritis and a wide variety of other health issues – but always had a smile on his face. Even after he recently got diagnosed with cancer, Hal still exemplified what it meant to have a life of joy through the whole time. He was exhausted after his chemotherapy treatments, and when some of the side-effects of that exhaustion set in, the doctors stopped the chemotherapy, and it was just a matter of time. One week ago Sunday was the first time I had ever seen Hal crying. He was crying because he knew he’d be leaving his family, but told me he wasn’t scared of dying, had no regrets, no amends to make, and nothing left unsaid. I read scripture and he and his wife wept, we prayed together, and when I left on Sunday I told him, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He looked at me and said “Lord willing.”

The next day, Hal had rallied. We laughed together, and had a great visit. I didn’t go out Tuesday or Wednesday, and on Thursday we got a call that he was doing very poorly. I could hardly believe it was the same person on Thursday. His eyes were open, but he was completely unresponsive. I cried with his wife and son when I prayed as we left, and when I came back to the office I told Laura and Paul that I had seen Hal for the last time this side of heaven. At 3:30 am Friday morning I got the call that Hal had passed away.

So – my weekend went – Home appraiser coming to our house Friday morning. He had told my wife 8:00 am but wrote 10:00 am on his calendar, so at about 8:45 I got a little perturbed and called him. He came rushing over. Then – visiting with Hal’s family on Friday – what a great visit. Tragic circumstances, but a sweet time as they shared memories of their dad. I needed a nap, so I fell asleep, interrupted a couple of times by the bank calling to get some more details on the loan, then off to the church to set up for a wedding rehearsal. Wedding rehearsal that night.

Saturday, I got to the church early to run through my sermon and make sure the church was open for the vow renewal ceremony. I went home, changed into my suit, and came back to help everyone get everything together, and then had the vow renewal ceremony. Then, since my parents had my two oldest kids for the weekend, a trip to St. Cloud to pick them up. Lots of family there, so it wasn’t a quick trip.

Sunday we had our church service, and then the baptism service. What a sweet time that was – 9 people baptized and 130-140 people came to support them. What a blessing! Well, except for the hornets that stung several people, that wasn’t so good – but other than that, it was great. Elissa’s parents came over afterwards, and I visited for a little bit, then excused myself for a nap. After I woke up I scrambled to the softball game for our last 2 games of the year. We lost the first game 21-18, but since the other team scored 12 runs in the first inning, we came back ok. We were playing with 8 people – 3 in the outfield and a pitcher and 3 infielders and a catcher. Not ideal. Then, right after the third inning Julie Peterson told me I needed to call home. Caleb had cut his toe on the treadmill – so off home to take him to the emergency room where we spent the next 3 hours waiting for an opening to get him superglued back together. (I think they call it durabond, but close enough!)

Yesterday – preparation for the funeral. The Barrett family is very musical, so we spent some time getting the stage ready for them to sing at Hal’s funeral, then the visitation began at 5:00. I didn’t get home till 9:00 pm, and back this morning for the funeral.

I’m beat! I put together my Bible Study class for tonight already this morning, and now after the funeral I’ll start working on Sunday’s message.

If you read this, and think of it, pray for me this week! Usually when I’m tired, I’m cranky and susceptible to temptation. Pray that God gives me strength, and that I look for the ways out.

Baptisms coming!

I’m really excited! We’re having a baptism ceremony on Sunday afternoon, after our church service. A couple of weeks ago I had 2 people who had committed to being baptized, and right now the number is up to 7 confirmed with one more person to interview later on today. There is also the small possibility of a couple more people being interested as well, if they can overcome their fear of being in front of people.

I think the most exciting thing for me is that of the 8, five of them have been in a small group with me for the last year. It’s been fun to watch them grow spiritually, especially since we made a commitment to meet weekly and have a group that was family oriented – teaching the kids instead of just sending the kids down to the basement to not kill each other while the adults did the “important” Bible study. Instead, we’ve had a kid’s lesson, fellowship time together, and then had adult time as well. 3 of the kids being baptized are children in our small group.

One of the adults that is being baptized started coming to our church 5 years ago when we baptized her daughter. Now she has made a commitment to the Lord herself and is wanting to follow through with a public declaration of her allegiance to Christ.

The absolute MOST exciting thing is that my son, Caleb, is going through this important step as well. I’m so proud of him. He said he wanted to be baptized last year after the baptism ceremony, and I told him we’d talk about it again when we were close to having another ceremony. He understands what it means to be baptized (making a public proclamation of a life dedicated to Christ). It’s going to be such a neat time to baptize my son!

Anyway, if anyone who reads this wants to join us, our ceremony will be Sunday at 1:00 PM at Camp Shamineau. We’ll have a pot-luck first, at 11:30 am, and if you have kids they are welcome to bring their swimming suits and swim before and after the baptism time. We have to be off camp grounds at about 3:00 pm when the next week’s campers start to show up.

If you’ve never been baptized and are interested – send me an email and we’ll chat!

Then all died…

I came across this in my devotional reading today.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 – For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: if One died for all, then all died. And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.

It’s not exactly a slogan that has caught on in Christianity, is it? If One died for all – then all died. Sure seems like we put a lot more energy in “living” our lives than in dying. If we really died to self and lived for Christ, I wonder what it would change about our approach to situations in life?

Some good news (maybe)!

I was visiting a family in the hospital the other day and started chatting with the doctor, who is a friend of mine. He asked if I was running any triathlons this year, and I told him I wasn’t – but that I was training for a 5k, when the bursitis in my knee wasn’t giving me too much grief. He asked me to show him where I was feeling pain, and told me that it would be pretty unusual for that to be bursitis (although I know that another doctor told me it was probably a bursa sack…) – and that it was probably a hamstring insertion. He showed me a different stretch to do to try to get some relief from the tightness. That means that I should be able to pick up on the training a bit and just stretch it really well to work out the soreness.