Summer Vacation

This is a picture of my best friend from Indiana Jon Dingeldein. He grew up in Lombard, Illinois and he and his family attended the Alliance Church there while I was youth pastor. They moved to Indiana and we lost touch for several years but managed to bump into each other online and reestablish the friendship. He married his high school sweetheart less than two months after Jenn and I were married back in 2004 and have become even closer friends since.

This is a picture of Jon and three of his four brothers.

This next picture is of Grace, Jenn and I standing out by the fields by Jon's house. We were not only in the middle of Indiana farm country we were also in Amish Country!!! Slightly different from Southern California!

On June 17th I had my high school reunion. It is hard to believe that 20 years has come and gone. This first picture is actually from the afternoon tour that they gave at our old high school. Amazingly, other than wireless internet connection and a few additions to the fieldhouse, it is almost exactly how it was when I graduated.

The next two pictures are from the actual reunion that night. I am standing by some of the students that I went to grade school with. I am a survivor of St. Joseph's Catholic school. At the time the nuns could still administer corporal punishment and they gave it out in spades. We had a lot of laughs thinking back on some of those crazy times!

These next two are of my parents with baby Grace. Nothing more needs to be said.

We also had an opportunity while in Chicago to visit the Field Museum where they were hosting the King Tut exhibit. It was amazing to see items that were 3,000 years old and still well preserved. Some of the items date immediately after the Exodus with Moses! There was one minor disappointment with the exhibit, no King Tut! I guess they don't tour him or tombs he was buried in anymore. It lasted 3,000 years but they are afraid of it not making the journey around the world. I guess I can understand.

One of the biggest joys of being in ministry is pouring out your life into the lives of others and watching them grow in Christ. As a youth pastor I not only had the opportunity to see these kids become godly men but many of them have become dear friends. These are friends that I will have for life and eternity!

Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. I happened to bump into President Bush and he wanted to take a picture with me. How can you turn down the President when he wants a picture with you? Of course he wasn't very talkative and he seemed a bit thinner than I imagined...