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I have to wait more than a whole year to see this! I love these movies!

Highlight since last Thursday: Last night two of my good friends, Nate and Jackie, and their children stayed with us last night. They are on their way to Chicago, so we wanted them to stay with us. It was so much fun. Being able to hang out and talk to them, and it was so much fun hanging out with their kids! I wish we lived closer to each other.

Books I’m reading: I finished “Sticky Church” by Larry Osborne finally. I liked it a lot, and it made a lot of sense to me. Now I’m reading “Starving Jesus” by Craig Gross and J.R. Mahon. I like what I’ve read so far.

Music I’m digging: I watched a TV show recently that had some old Pearl Jam songs in it and it made me want to dig out my Pearl Jam.

Ministry update: School is out around here, and summer is upon us. That means we have new 7th grade students joining the jr. high group, and new freshmen moving into the high school group. It’s always fun to see what the newbies bring to our group.

Something Random: I went and saw Terminator Salvation with some of the older guys in the youth group on Sunday night. It was a good movie. We had a lot of fun!

Looking forward to: On Saturday we are having a Photo Scavenger Hunt with our high school group. A couple of seniors helped me put it together, and we are really excited about it. The prizes are hilarious.

Final Thoughts: I’ve been deep in debate with myself over what I should get. On one hand I want to get a Macbook Pro because it would be awesome. On the other hand, I want to get a nice digital SLR camera to take awesome pictures. Chances are I won’t get either, but we’ll see.

I’ve been to a lot of sporting events to watch students play over the years, but Friday was the best of any of them. See, on Friday I got to go watch Kevin win his group in the shot-put at the Iowa State Special Olympics. It was so much fun, and the whole time was filled with smiles and joy.

Kevin is a part of our youth group. Jill and I talk about how much we will miss him in the group when he graduates. Lucky for us he is only a freshman! I have learned so much from Kevin. I have learned patience, because working with him takes patience. But, I have learned more about how to be a better person from the way Kevin treats people. Kevin is not mean. Kevin never holds a grudge. Kevin LOVES people.

Kevin has Down Syndrome, but that doesn’t keep him from being a part of our group. He comes to all our events, and he hardly ever misses youth group. We love having him with us. It takes a little more effort to take him on a retreat with us, but it is always worth it. He has taught our group so much, and they wouldn’t want him to miss out.

I don’t have an answer to how best work with special needs students. All I know is that I try to include them in whatever they, and their parents feel comfortable with. We have another student, Sam, who has a lot of special needs. He comes to Sunday School, but his parents have chosen not to have him come to youth group. It would be a stretch for us, but if they wanted him to be a part, we would love it. I don’t always know how much Kevin and Sam get out of our group, but they certainly add more to my life than they would ever get from my teaching.

It takes patience, and perseverance. I have had to have conversations with other students when they have felt uncomfortable to remind them how to deal with Kevin. I’ll tell you what. Spend 10 minutes with Kevin or Sam, and you’ll love them as much as I do. Do I need to learn more and make changes to better work with special needs students and incorporate them into our ministry? Yeah. My prayer and hope is that our ministry will continue to be a place where special needs students and their parents feel like they are being cared for.

If you have any ideas or thoughts on how we can be a better ministry for special needs students, please let me know!

Highlight since last Thursday: REST! I love my job (most of the time) and I love Sunday nights and youth group times, but this past Sunday it was so nice to sit and rest. We canceled youth group because it was Mother’s day. It was nice to see my family and then be able to relax and decompress. I don’t like canceling group very often, but it was nice.

Music I’m digging: Jon Foreman! My friend Phil Shields recommended that I get the four EP’s he did, and I love them. My favorite songs are “The Cure for Pain” and “Instead of a Show”

Ministry update: This Sunday is our annual Graduation Sunday Celebration at church. I am working hard on making it a great service and something that will honor our graduates.

Something Random: LOST was CRAZY last night. Now I have to wait until 2010 to find out what happened! At least I have two more hours of 24 to look forward to!

Looking forward to: Along with graduation comes all the graduation open houses! It’s always nice to be able to hang out with people and eat for free. We have a few open houses this weekend, and a few next weekend. Nice!

Final Thoughts: I have yet to go golfing this season. I am due to go, but every time I think I will go, it rains! I am hoping that next Tuesday I can get out and swing the sticks. Pray with me for good weather!

I just saw this on RagamuffinSoul.com, so I had to repost it! Too bad my birthday just passed!

If you want to have the perfect goatee? See the GoateeSaver($20). You just chomp on this bit and then you can shave around it for perfect results every time. And you adjust three rollers’s width, flawlessly conforming to your face, and also to your notion of what a real goatee looks like.

Okay, I want your input on this one. The past couple of months I have been dealing with disappointment, anger and frustration. A lot of different situations have led to these feeling. I have always been a fairly emotional guy, and I deal with these feelings in few ways.

1. I like to break things. Not little things, but wall, furniture, faces. You get the idea. This time around, I have not broken anything. There were times I wanted to, but I didn’t. Good for me.
2. I listen to “angry” music. This may feed into my desire to break things, but it helps for me to scream and yell with the music. I have listened to my share of angry music lately.
3. I cry. Usually, disappointment, anger and frustration come from a situation that breaks my heart. I have spent some time crying these past couple of months as well.
4. I pray. Probably not as much as I should, but I ask God to search me and show me the true reasons for me feeling the way I do. I like this one the least… No one to blame but myself.

I feel like I can see the end of the tunnel of this season of my life. I realize that a lot of my issues stem from my pride. I’m working on that, well actually, God is working on that. I know that I still have a long way to go in how I deal with these feelings, but at least I’m not like I was in college, or there would have been a lot of headbutting going on!

So here’s the discussion part.

1. What frustrates, angers or disappoints you the most in this season of your life? Or are you “all good”?
2. How do you deal with these feelings?

This is post I saw on my friend Bobby Moss’ blog. Sarah Cook was part of our group in Illinois and to hear that she is doing well now is an answer to prayer and is an encouragement to me.

From Bobby’s blog:
Sarah Cook was in our youth group for a long time, a girl we love and care about very much. Sarah recently had the opportunity to share her story on the Joyce Meyer’s television show. Not a Joyce Meyer fan – but I am a huge Sarah Cook fan, and here is her story:

Pass Sarah’s story on to those you think would be encouraged by it.