First Ice-Cream Cone of the Season

Yesterday was a rainy and overall dreary Memorial Day in our area so instead of celebrating with the traditional BBQ, my wife and I drove up to Pick City and got ice-cream cones at The Crab Apple. Pick City is a very small community that picks up during the summer as it's near the lake and camping grounds. As a result, some of its business (including the aforementioned Crab Apple) are only open during the summer months. They have very good ice-cream and it makes for a pleasant outing on an otherwise "indoor" kind of day.

Sunday was Underwood High's graduation. This year there were twenty seniors that received their diplomas. It's neat to experience the difference between a large high school graduation (and college for that matter) and a small town commencement. It included a PowerPoint slide show featuring pictures of each of the graduate's family, friends and memories, as well as shots of the whole class. Unlike larger graduations, we were encouraged to applaud as each student was handed the diploma (their diplomas were actually in the covers; they didn't have to go somewhere after the ceremony to get the real thing). At the end of the festivities the graduates formed a greeting line so that friends and family members could extend congratulations personally. The students also had graduations parties later in the day of which my wife and I were invited to one of the guys that I got to know through basketball coaching.

For those of you who are familiar with the board game "Settlers of Catan" (and if you're not I highly recommend going out to Barnes and Noble and buying it), my wife and I have recently been playing around with a few rule changes. We first played a game by placing our opening two settlements and roads for each other. The only rule was that each settlement had to be bordering at least two numbered tiles. That didn't go so well (I got whomped). Yesterday we played a two-person game but used the expanded board (for 5-6 players). I did quite a bit better that time around.

Our Congregations is going to be quite busy this summer. We're planning on hosting a couple "Worship-in-the-Park & Community BBQ" events (including a summer kick-off one June 14th), we'll be hosting a booth at the County Fair again this year but this time instead of giving away bottles of water we're going to have a carnival-style game for kids and give away prizes, in July we'll be organizing some prayer walks around the community and in August (in addition to an end of the summer "Worship-in-the-Park") we'll be hosting a booth at Harvest Fest again. The Elder Board recently came up with a slogan for the banner that we'll display at these events: "Serving Our Community for Jesus" What do you think about that?

By God's Grace, Jeff

Give God Glory even Before He gives Victory

On Sunday I preached on Psalm 9 as part of our series through the first section in the Psalms entitled "The Spiritual Life." The main point of Psalm 9 as I saw it applying to us today is that we're to give God His due glory even before He gives us the ultimate victory in our struggles. If you'd like to listen to the sermon, click here.

By God's Grace, Jeff

Knowing God's Glory Evokes God's Praise

Last Sunday I preached on Psalm 8 as part of the series "The Spiritual Life" through the first book in the Psalms. The main point I saw in Psalm 8 as it relates to us is, "Knowing God's Glory Evokes God's praise." If you'd like to listen to the sermon, click here.

By God's Grace, Jeff

What a Week!

Before recounting our full week, I wanted to mention something that I forgot about from last week. My wife and I were invited out to lunch at the Great River Energy Plant. I guess each month Great River hosts a luncheon in which they invite representative from each of the local communities as well as the Ethanol Plant and Coal Mine operation. It was neat to see the facilities up close. I had no idea of how large a place the Coal Creek Power Plant is. The highlight for me was definitely having to wear a hard hat as we walked through the facilities to the dining room. It made me long (if only for a moment) to have a job in which I could wear a hard hat each day.

On Friday my wife and I drove straight east 150 miles to Cooperstown, ND where our district's bible camp is located. Carrington was the largest town we drove past (probably about 3000). There towns spread out along highway 200 about ever 15 miles but many of them were nothing more than a few houses and a gas station. We arrived at Cooperstown Bible Camp at about 6:30 Friday night and were busy painting cabins by 7:30. The Bible Camp suffered quite a bit of damage as a result of the flooding earlier this spring and so Saturday we spent most of our time cleaning up the camp. We worked with some teens from First Free in Bismarck locating and organizing firewood that had been washed all over the camp and removing wet insulation from under some cabins that were affected by the floods. We left at 3:00 and were back in Underwood by 6:00 Saturday night.

After church on Sunday we hoped in the car again and drove up to Minot to celebrate our sixth anniversary. We stayed the night at a hotel, ate dinner at a Mexican restuarant and watched the new X-men movie. Then Monday we drove another 30 miles northwest to visit a goldendoodle breeder. We've been talking about getting a dog for awhile and finally settled on getting a doodle because of my allergies. We found a breeder north of Minot who recently had a litter and we went to see the puppies. The largest male of the litter, a black curly-coated guy, chose us. So we put down a deposit and should be able to bring him home at the end of June.

By God's Grace, Jeff

The Affect of God's Righteousness

This past Sunday I preached on Psalm 7 as part of our series through the first book of the psalms entitled "The Spiritual Life." In Psalm 7 I pointed out how God's righteousness (His holiness lived out) affects how we deal with the unrighteousness in our lives; especially untrue, unfair criticism. If you'd like to listen to the sermon, click here.

By God's Grace, Jeff

Ducks in a Ditch

Because of all the snow North Dakota had, there are literally lakes where there shouldn't be. And as a result there are ducks where you wouldn't expect them. Now ducks usually prefer to swim in actual lakes or ponds but in our case some ducks seem to be fine with swimming in ditches off the side of the road that are filled with water. It's quite amusing to be driving down the highway and see ducks congregating just off the shoulder of the road.

Well, I feel like I have taken another big step into becoming fully immersed in the agrarian culture. On Monday I rented equipment for the first time from the Farm Supply store in town. No, I did not actually rent a farm implement per se, but I did borrow a power rake in order to prep our lawn for fertilizer. If you don't know what a power rake is (and I didn't until Monday), it's the size of a lawn mower and kicks up all the dead material under the lawn. So I mowed our lawn and then power raked it. Then my wife and I spent most of the afternoon "manually" raking up the dead vegetation. After watering the lawn, I put together the spreader I picked up in Bismarck over the weekend and prepared to fertilze the lawn. Unfortunately we didn't have near enough fertilizer to go around so I'll to have to pick some more up to finish the job.

On Sunday night I played basketball for the second week in a row and was quite a bit less soar on Monday than I had been last week. We had a few less guys this week so we played 4 on 4. I have always done better offenseively playing 4 on 4 rather than the traditional 5 on 5. I can remember back to elementary basketball how I used to score significantly more when there were two less guys on the court...which isn't saying much in terms of total output!

By God's Grace, Jeff

Humility & God's Glory

"Humble people know who God is - and who they are; where God stands, and where they stand. We were made for God's glory and pleasure; it's not the other way around."

- Tom Garasha ("Vital Signs")

Confidence is Found in God's Mercy

This past Sunday I preached on psalm 6 and the main message that I saw as it related to our lives is that "Confidence is found in the mercy of God." Whether it is physical suffering or spiritual affliction, the confidence to respond in a way that please God is available because of God's mercy and specifically through what His Son Jesus accomplished on the cross for us. If you would like to listen to this sermon, click here.

By God's Grace, Jeff

Beautifying Underwood

This Saturday my wife and I participated in "Beautification Day". A bunch of people from the community got together to improve the looks of Underwood. Originally the plan included installing a new highway sign and planting rows of trees from the highway into town. Both of these projects had to be postponed until a later date but we were still able to do quite a bit to beautify Underwood. My wife and I spent time collecting trash, preparing large flower pots to be dispersed around town and plating trees in some empty lots downtown. Even though some of our plans had to be changed, I believe we accomplished a lot and had fun doing it.

Well, I thought this week was going to be a quieter one, after finishing my basketball coaching duties. But on Sunday night I heard that a family in town who tragically had lost a member a year ago, suffered another loss. If any of you remember a post of mine from last April you may recall that I was asked to officiate a funeral for a family in the community because I had a connection with them through basketball. Believe it or not, but it was the same family that suffered this loss. How do you even begin to minister to a mom who's lost two children, a sister who's lost two siblings and children who have lost a mother and now a beloved uncle? Even more so that the funeral a year ago, this one proved to be immensely more challenging. I was able to visit the family each day last week and the funeral was held on Friday. Please pray for my ongoing ministry to this family in their time of unimaginable grief.

Last night I joined a bunch of other guys for some basketball at the school gym. Each Sunday night high school guys and guys my age and older get together for some hoops. Let me just say this: my legs are quite soar today after playing for nearly two hours straight last night! I had a great time re-connecting with some of the high school guys that I helped coach last year and getting to know some other guys from the community.

By God's Grace, Jeff