Faraway, So Close

John on the Slackline
Originally uploaded by iChris.

Travis actually took this picture with his non-digital camera before I did, but I told him since I was taking it with a digital I'd post it on the internet before he did and therefore mine would be the first one out. :)

We had a awesome time hanging out at Trav's cabin with the folks who help us out each Friday night at Jr High. It was the first spring version of this we've done in awhile (ever?) and it was a nice change to see Candle Lake in it's spring form.

Whole bunch more pictures here if you're interested.

Posted by iChris at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well things have changed a bit since I last posted. Tomorrow (Friday) begins a period of me working 1 less day a week. I've felt for a long time that I could be a better pastor's spouse by helping Sue out more with her job, but always felt exhausted/tired/sick of talking come Friday - which is when Sue is gearing up for Jr High. I was trying to come down from work and relax when she was trying to get ready to go for her busiest night of the week. I'd always gone back and forth on the idea of asking to go to a reduced schedule at work (am I being lazy? Is it stupid of me to give up 20% of my wage? Will my coworkers hate me?) but we really felt that we needed to test this out.

It will be interesting to see where this takes us. It really is only an extra 8 hours of my week that will probably get filled up pretty quickly with 'stuff' (see the next entry, doh!) before I realize it. The challenge will be to not become so busy that we're right back where we started, only with less money to show for it. :)

Posted by iChris at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Our church's yearly fall kick off event went down today. Tons of rain this weekend forced the event indoors, but it was still a good time. Probably not as many community folks popping by like usual. You can check out the promotional videos I helped with here (scroll down a bit to get to them) and check out pictures from the day here.

Posted by iChris at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dwayne Harms past away early this morning after a short battle with cancer. He was 37, a husband and father of 2. At present there are 30+ comments on the last entry on his blog by his wife announcing his passing.

From one of the comments, apparently a quote from Dwayne in response to someone else's passing, sums it up:

He finished his race, all the tasks God asked of him he completed and God called him home to experience his reward early, it is incredibly sad for us but they are not suffering with anything earthly anymore.

Posted by iChris at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Didja know that Bruce has a blog? He's taking his first baby steps into the world of blogging. Go and leave him a comment to make him feel welcome. (He's the lead pastor of the church we go to and that Sue works at - also the father of the 4 girls we looked after last weekend)

Pastor Paul has been blogging for awhile now and is always looking for people to get involved in discussion.

Of course Mark has been blogging for a couple years now - though his isn't as church focused as the other two.

You can get all this info as well as how to subscribe to the various RSS/XML feeds off of the Forest Grove site by clicking here. (after you go download a RSS reader first!)

Posted by iChris at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Paul Woodburn is back up and blogging again. Check out the site or skip the mess and just subscribe to the RSS feed. (What's a RSS feed?)

Posted by iChris at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (5)

Whew. The retreat this weekend wiped me out - and I wasn't even an 'official' leader this time. There were some really cool kids that I got to meet this weekend.. with some crazy names. Kenia, Adan, Naamen. I'm just guessing on the spelling because I never actually saw them written down. I also did a good job of promoting (evangelising?) Apple on the retreat. I was just diddling around with Garageband and then few kids started to wonder what I was doing. Pretty soon, half the kids were wanting a Apple so they could make their own music. heh heh.

Sue will have the pictures up later - I'll link them once they're up.

Posted by iChris at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (6)

Spent the last week up north with a group of youth leading fun camps for 30-40 kids in a small town. Coming home and seeing all the work related emails really has me questioning working at a computer store again. Spending my day finding a really good deal on a computer for someone just doesn't hold the same appeal for some reason.

It's part of coming down from a trip like that, I know, so I'll hold off writing a letter of resignation right now :). It's good to have reminders like this past week has been that there's a whole lot more to life though.

Posted by iChris at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (3)

Sue and I went to a grad last night for a bunch of the grade 8's that go to the Junior High group at FGCC. Some funny stuff while they were introducing each other. A lot of them hoped to get a good paying job, have a family, and marry a hot chick/Johnny Depp (it's a wonder what putting on a little makeup and acting like a drunk/gay pirate will do for your stock with the ladies). The funniest thing was the songs they chose to sing: In My Life by the Beatles, Lean On Me and It's My Life by Bon Jovi!?!? Hilarious. And apparently they used that same song two years ago at the same school. Someone there has a serious hankering for Jon Bon.

Posted by iChris at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Thanks to everyone who sponsored us! We're in the homestretch now - 9 more hours to go. The apple juice is getting a little stale but I think we'll make it. :)

Off to clean dorms at Bethany and collect food for the food bank before we have our "feast" (aka subs - don't try feeding 40 kids pizza after they haven't eaten for 30 hours... it'll shoot right through them!) at 7 tonight.

Darren's having a 1031 party tonight - so if you've ever been connected to 1031 Osler in any way, stop by there tonight and say goodbye to 1031.

Posted by iChris at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (4)

Sue and I are doing the 30 hour famine this Friday/Saturday. If you'd like to sponsor us, click here.

Posted by iChris at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Here's my quick report back on our missions trip up to Pearceland, Sk:

We had a blast working with the kids up there - 17 kids came out to the DVBS (Daily Vacation Bible School). We met some new friends from the church there and our kids got to experience helping out others in a big way. An awesome example of this was when after our week-ending bbq our kids (spearheaded by Dave & Chris S.) took the extra burgers and food out random people in the community - drunks outside the bar, people just walking down the street, etc. It was truly moving to see these kids showing so much love to people they had never met and would probably never see again.

Anyway, enough sappy stuff. :) Here's some photos from the trip:

Posted by iChris at 5:48 PM | Permalink

'm not really down for the count (yet), we were just gone on a week long missions trip with some grade 9, 10 & 11's to Pearceland, SK (four hours north of here, up past North Battleford). As I mentioned last week, I was sick going into it so that's why I didn't post anything then and we left Saturday and got back today. And now I'm starting to feel sick again! Yech! And i thought sleeping in a tent with 6 other guys would help my sickness. Doh!

More details when I have pictures and more sleep.

Posted by iChris at 5:46 PM | Permalink

I'm sure it started off small, like "Hey, we could throw a couch in the gym and watch a movie" and then grew to "Why not put a few couches in there" and somehow you end up with this:

A literal drive-in movie in the church gym. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun with it which is what really matters. The movie they watched was Extreme Days, a Christian made movie that's actually pretty funny and entertaining in spite of the predictable story and sappy romantic sub-plot. Worth a rental if you're just looking for a goofy movie.

Posted by iChris at 5:20 PM | Permalink