The More You Hurry The Behinder You Get!

Every have one of those day where you work and work but no matter how hard you try you just don't seem to be able to get ahead?

You just keep putting on foot in front of the other and in realty your making very little if any progress!

I know that feeling and so does this poor girl:



Been there felt like that!

Life Is All About Choices!

The longer I live and am involved in ministry, I'm convinced that life is all about choices. Talk to almost any adult and they will be able to tell you of decisions and choices made as teenagers and young adults that have impacted their lives, for good or bad, to this day.

I know this is true in my life and most of the people I have asked.

Whenever I get the chance to speak to teens and young adults, I usually try and cover this topic somehow because the people in these age groups tend to see them selves as "bullet proof". That the bad things of life happen to others and not to people like themselves. In a sense they see them selves as untouchable.

I have officiated too many funerals and sat for too many hours in the counseling room to be fooled by the thought that it will happen to someone else.

Yesterday I receive a web address for a clip that the Owatonna, Mn. Police Dept. and a local funeral home had put together. This is powerful ... maybe one kid will see it and think twice.

Click Here To View: All About Choices!

I thought is was thought provoking or maybe I'm just getting old.

What A Fellowship

We held our annual "Wild Game Dinner" at church Sunday evening, apart from all of the great food, we had a special speaker who brought a special guest.

Our speaker was Lowell Washburn, one of our own church members. Lowell works for the Iowa DNR and is an avid outdoors enthusiast as well as a Master Falconer. That fact brings me to his special guest, a live full grown Red-Tailed Hawk!


This Hawk was incredible! Lowell explained how years ago many referred to the Red Tail as the common "chicken hawk". Many of us see the hawks everyday as we travel, on the top of utility poles, dead trees (snags) and even on fence posts along the road. These hawks are woodland hunter, mainly subsisting on rabbits, squirrels and other smaller critters.

I got to have a very cool experience as I got to carry the Hawk into the church as we were setting up. I wore a leather glove and the hawk stood on my clenched fist. As I walked down the stairs to our fellowship hall, the hawk jumped off my hand! There was a leather strap that was connected to one of its feet that I held with my free hand. I simply put me gloved hand under its talons and it perched again on my hand and ARM! One set of talons on the glove and the other on my arm. The talons did not hurt me or break any skin but I could tell that without any real effort the hawk could easily pierce my arm to the bone! It was scary & really cool!

Following the hawk talk (a little Iowa Football lingo there) Lowell gave a very interesting talk of the different nesting habits of bird native to North Iowa. Now I know that your thinking "a talk about bird nests, are you kidding me" but it was truly fascinating. From eagles to yellow headed black birds to duck, geese and robins. All during his talk, Lowell made references to the handiwork of God and the brilliance of His creation. Overall, it was a great presentation and everyone seemed to enjoy it!

Following Lowell's presentation I had asked the Nichols family to bring there Science Fair project to the church to let every one see their version of the Ruben's Tube - a fire based tube. It's kind of complicated to explain so I'm going to let the Myth Busters do it for me!



On the video, the guys used solid tones, the Nichols used actual musical pieces such as "Taps". The result was fascinating! I even got a chance to use my iPod and play some Jazz which looked really cool as well! One person noted that it was amazing that God created our ears to work in the same manor. Sound waves impact our tympanic membrane (eardrum)and are then sent to the inner ear where the waves are translated back into sounds that we hear. WOW!

Thanks to Lowell and the Nichols family for making our evening incredible as we celebrated the world around us that God has allow us to enjoy and learn from!

I can not wait to see what happens next week around our church!

Sunrise vs. Sunset

This morning I saw an incredible sunrise!

To the East there was a bank of very dark clouds that seem to cover the sky all the way to the horizon. As the sun began to rise there was just a sliver of light squeezing between the earth and clouds. What transpired was a brilliant red, it looked as if there was a huge fire on the horizon. It only lasted a few minute and then sliding behind the cloud bank. And it was over and done!

When talking to a friend who saw the same thing, he asked the question: Why is it people always talk about great sunsets and not so often about great sunrises?

The answer is easy ... Most people will not get up early enough to see a sunrise!

In my experience the ones who talk about sunrises are hunter and sometimes farmers.

At least that is how I see it!

Watching High School Girls Track History

I had the opportunity to drive the Ventura Girls Track team to Cedar Falls, Iowa for an indoor track meet held on the campus of the University on Northern Iowa in the UNI Dome.

While there I was able to watch this happen live:

Video was remove because it was irritating! It started automatically every time you opened the blog!

What you don't learn from the interview that was mentioned by the Dome's announcer was that when you add in all of the collegiate and professional women track athletes, she ranks #10 in the nation!

Congratulation to Hanna Wilms!

What a cool opportunity to see a little history being made!