These could be short or long, not sure yet. But I’ll give a brief rundown of what we did at Mission Fest last week. But to save space on the main page, I’ll put most of what I type in the extended entry section…so click below to keep on reading.

But we attended Mission Fest at Galloway UMC in Jackson. Our youth group has gone the past 4 summers now and this one was probably the best so far.

I wasn’t too pumped about going at first. Our youth group wasn’t going to go because we’d planned a different mission trip to Jackson, but turned out that a few of our kids couldn’t go that week because of other things and really wanted to go on a mission trip, so we planned to go back to MFest. It was a small group and I was going to be away from my wife/kid for a week and put a slight crunch on my wife with her work schedule and all. But I knew that MFest had always been a rewarding time as well, so I was looking at it with an open mind.

I was hoping to be able to work at Habitat again, but found out just before leaving that there wasn’t going to be a Habitat worksite. They had no foundations ready for us to build on. I’d worked with them last year and had a most excellent time. To be honest, it was one of them most fulfilling work experiences I’ve ever had.

But after getting down there on Sunday afternoon with our half a van load of people I find out that I’m one of the site leaders at the Voice of Calvary worksite (here’s their official site). Also found out that the other adult at my site an co-leader was a good friend from Tupelo. After getting all checked in, moved my stuff in my nice, empty dorm room at Millsaps, orientated, we met with our work group.

We found out that group of 28 of us would be working to start the renovation process of Capitol Street UMC in downtown Jackson. It used to be a very fine church in the area, but “white flight” a few decades ago left the church slowly degrading. It’s now been abandoned for a few years, they tell us. But there’s now hope. Voice of Calvary will take it over and be a beacon for Christ in a dark part of the city. But there’s lots of mowing, weeding, hedge clipping, tree pruning, and kudzu yanking to be done. So we’ll be sweating and burning up in the Mississippi sun for the Glory of Christ.

After a bland hamburger supper and some inflatable games in the bowl, we go to Galloway for small groups and worship. After a nice time there with Eddie Willis leading worship, we head back to campus for a long youth leaders meeting and then bedtime. I’d been up way late the night before and still hadn’t made my bed, so I crawl into bed and read some of Jackson’s free news/opinion weeklies before I turn the light out….lots of stuff ahead of me.

I know, you’re supposed to do the Friday Five on FRIDAY! But I’d just gotten in from a trip and spend family time instead of blog time. You forgive me, right?

1. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but never have?
Visit the Northwest. For about 10 or so years or so I’ve been wanting to visit Seattle and Oregon. More Oregon than anything. I’d liked to visit Seattle since I’d seen the Movie Singles. Then I saw Fear and Mad Love. Not that they were great movies, but all set in Seattle and really made me want to experience it. When I was grocery shopping in college I bought a National Geographic Traveller Magazine that covered Oregon….and I’ve been in love with the idea of visiting (living?) in Oregon. I missed a golden opportunity to visit when Miss State played Oregon last fall…sheesh! Wanted to visit the UK and maybe AU/NZ too. So much travel, so little money….

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?
Pretty much. But the better I know them the more brutally honest I can be. But I’m not going to blow smoke up someone’s rear just because I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn’t? What happened?
Maybe. It was something I suspected all along, but didn’t know for sure and didn’t want it to be true. But it was/is.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?
I used to absolutely love the Dragon Lance series when I was a teen. I always wondered what it would have been like to live in a time/place such as that. Good vs. Evil. Lots of creatures and a little (lot?) of magic. What started as a small trillogy has expanded to vast collection. Not read half of them now.

5. What’s one talent/skill you don’t have but always wanted?
You mean a real skill? Or my dream of wishing I could actually fly?

A friend showed me this site called Brick Testament earlier today. I started clicking through it and thought it looked pretty cool. What it is is a lot of Bible stories, told straight from scripture, but using legos to depict the scenes. Some are quite cool and neato. You’ve got the story of the Creation, Noah’s Ark, the deception of Isaac, the burning bush, all of the Plagues, and many stories from The Ministry of Jesus, Paul’s Epistles, and Acts.

Again, some are quite good…some are a little risque. I read somewhere that the guy who does all these is actually an atheist. But he sure does read his Bible and know a lot of passages either way.

We got back on Friday but I’ve been pretty steady at doing something since I’ve gotten back. Sometimes “doing something” means just hanging out with my wife and daughter, but I’ve not put an entry in the ole blog in quite a while. I really do want to write more than I already have. I don’t want to just put stuff up here so I can say I typed something, but just some more thoughts throughout the day.

Hopefully I’ll put up some of what we did on my mission trip last week, too. It was a great time (except from being away from wife/kid). But right now it’s nearly 2 in the morning after a long night at the church. I’m not sleepy right now, but pretty tired (does that make sense?) I didn’t get much sleep last week either and was up til 2 last night (this morning.) So I better at least go lay down and try to fall asleep.

Gotta take a little time off of from blogging….going to be away from the computer for a few days.

The Political Compass is a site I happen to come across. I’ll post where it told me I fit in politically, but I have to first say that there were many questions I didn’t have an opinion on, and a few that I wasn’t quite sure what it was asking me…but I answered anyway.

It told me I was Economic Left/Right: -1.62, and Authoritarian/Libertarian: -1.63. What exactly does that mean? Go here for a bit of an explaination. But take the test first if you’re going to look at that page. I’m not sure I fully agree. I remember taking a test at GoVote.com back in 2000 about which prez candidate you matched up with most. It was longer, more comprehensive, and had more areas of controlling what your ideals were. I’ll look and see if there is anything like that still on there since an election is coming up soon.

If you take the test…post your results in the comments.

1. How many times have you truly been in love?
Truly? Only once….

2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most?
That even in her love for me, she’s not afraid to challenge me and point out where I could improve, but still loving me no matter what.

3. What qualities should a significant other have?
Like dogs. I once dated someone that didn’t like dogs. I wondered if that would ever be a problem. It never got far enough to be an issue. But I tell my wife that I’d not have married her if she didn’t like dogs…she tells me I’m wrong…but she’ll never know.

4. Have you ever broken someone’s heart?
Maybe…didn’t keep up with the issue long enough to find out after it was over.

5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be?
Don’t think the world revolves around you.

I have on a pair of shorts right now that has a tieable drawstring inside the waist band. but it also has the normal zipper/button combo. Tell me why in the world it has the strings?

Here’s the situation: You pull them up, zip them, buttong them. Then you tie them together too. Do they need to be tied? No, they’re already zipped/buttoned. But they’re there so you tie them. Now, hours later you need to unbutton them, take them off, whatever. So you do the normal unbutton/unzip like you’ve done since you can remember…but wait, now there’s some stupid strings tied up in you pants too! So you gotta untie those things that really have no use except to be yet another marketing ploy by either Abecrombie or American Eagle (that’s the budget shoppers AF) to make us think, “Hey, look what these shorts have! I gotta get me some of those so all those fine looking AF or AE models will like me!”

Bah humbug! I leave them untied…

And with my job that keeps everyone pretty busy. With all the kids out of school it seems we ramp up the energy level a little on the events we participate in. But I’m sometimes almost afraid that we allow our actual spiritual instruction time suffer just a bit too. Having fun is…well…fun. But I need to make it a point to be more than just a fun trip/event but still be a time where eternal truths can be taught.

We had a big fat skating party the other night. Not a SK8 patry, but the kind where you go to the skating rink and do the limbo and races and Wipeout and all that good stuff. I busted up my knee a little, but it was all in good fun. And tonight we’re going to play PuttPutt golf. And then eat at the best pizza place on the planet… CiCi’s. Best buffet around.

We do have a pretty full summer with two mission trips and a trip down to Panama City Beach for the Big Stuf camp, with lots of little things thrown in around the calendar as well.

Pray for us…

Did it work? This is a pic of my daughter from about 20 months ago.