Husband. Dad to 5. Student Ministry Pastor. Follower of Jesus. Yatta yatta.

THANKS SETH!

Seth is a high school student in Encounter and he spent the summer working at Sea World. As a job perk, he gets ticket vouchers and several weeks ago, he offered them to me for my family to be able to go. I confessed that we had season passes given to us already, but that I would take some friends if that was ok. He said, “Sure sounds great. Have fun.”

So we invited the Bower clan to drive down and do some life with us. They said yes and jumped in their car and met us there today. That took 4 tickets. We gave one to grandpa since grandma already had a pass. That left us with two more that we pitched to Ian and Stina and that made for 14 of us on a Sea World trek this afternoon/tonight.

We go every year in December cuz the Christmas shows are fun, funny, and inspirational. Seriously, the shamu show is like going to church. It’s amazing. If you have not seen it, it’s worth the price of admission all by itself.

Here’s some fun pics we snapped along the way. (click em for a closer view)

THANKS SETH- (notice the sign language 🙂

Always amazes me what they can teach animals to do:

Hello. I’m posing.
I LOVE THIS PIC:

Who doesn’t love a good hill roll every now and then?
Grandma and Pops
This pic makes me laugh out loud. I love this kid. He is a total clown.
At the bat rays.
Shannon and Kim

TJ and I

Jake got his shirt wet at the bat rays. So here he is showing off his jacket clone chest.
Um yeah, wanna fly 30 feet out of the air on the nose of a carnivorous 10,000 pound animal? Sure, sounds great to me.
Ok… I’m in too.

BECKY AND BILLY ARE BERRYTRIBAL NOW!

Well, it’s been quite the week and I’ve been trying to post this for days, but I finally have found the time to make it happen.  

On Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 3:30pm in the afternoon, Becky and Billy officially and irrevocably became part of the Berrytribe.   When we returned from Uganda in February of this year, they had a visa to get into the U.S., were issued a residency card good for 10 years, and were ours under an “irrevocable guardianship” from the Ugandan Government.

However, the deal was not done done until we signed the final papers on this end and on Thursday we went from guardians to officially Mom and Dad.   They both will now be issued US birth certificates and have citizenship both here and in Uganda.  So cool.

Billy’s new birth certificate will read:  Billy Isaac Lochoro Berry
Becky’s new certificate will read: Becky Joy Ilukol Berry.

Here’s a pic of us in front of the Courthouse in Kampala, Uganda 11 months ago.


Here’s the signing of the official docs here in the US.

Here’s the pic of the official Berrytribe and the Judge declaring it so!!!

I LOVE BLUE COLLAR WORKERS

I know lots of blue collar workers. I know landscapers, contractors, cabinet makers, electricians, plumbers, truck drivers, tile layers, mechanics, etc. Lots of my friends and several of my volunteers are blue collar people. I’ve got my hands dirty a grip of times with them, done some life with them, and learned a few skills myself from them.

On a grander scale I personally think they are the back bone of much of our country. I also think that in terms of their specific skill set, they are the most under utilized group in the non-profit sector.

Almost across the board, the blue collar workers that I respect and love are:

  • intensely creative
  • detail oriented
  • proud of the work they do when they walk away from it
  • hard working
  • and feel like their professional skill set can’t be utilized in the church.

Now it’s true that it’s not every day that we have tile to lay, pipes to fix, cabinets to build, or electrical lines to run in the church. But when I watch shows like “extreme home makeover”, once I get past my tears, I am inspired and reminded that the heart to help in the blue collar world is over the top. These people LOVE to change lives and make a difference. But with their specific professional tools, clearly they don’t often feel like they are being used for maximum impact. Each episode, builders and workers proclaim, that this has been the greatest joy and the most significant thing they have ever done in the career/life.

I blogged about a success I experienced in using this group in ministry once before here.

I now want to tell you about a friend of mine who is also a volunteer in our ministry. His name is Jason Janik. He essentially runs a business that his mom owns called “Top Notch Manufacturing Inc” and loves to play paintball and hit sling shot carrying high school students in the desert who aren’t looking too 🙂

I could tell you so much I appreciate about Jason in his pursuit of students as a small group leader, his servants heart, his passion to be a good husband and dad, and so much more…. but lately, he has chosen to use his professional skill set to change our ministry. All on his own, without being asked or even a hint from me, he’s initiated, finished, and delivered on two ideas he had.

#1. A CUSTOM WIND SHIELD FOR OUR CHURCH BBQ.

  • Jason saw that in the desert, the wind would pick up and it would blow out the flames in our BBQ, making cooking a seriously annoying task. We tried duct taping tin foil around it one year to keep the wind out, and Jason said to himself, “enough of that, I can fix it.” So he did. Even though a schedule conflict kept him from going to the desert with us this last fall, he delivered on his idea before we left and it was a life saver. It even collapses on top of the BBQ to make it better and cleaner for transporting it. (Below is Matt, cooking on it. Who incidentally, along the same lines, is in charge of our facilities team and noticed the wheels on this BBQ were dumb and on his own, added massive ones to it which make moving it about a billion times better. Man I love get-it-done people.)
#2. A CUSTOM ORNAMENT FOR OUR STUDENTS.
  • Jason’s business has a “waterjet”. Which is essentially a very expensive metal cutting tool that uses extreme water pressure to do the work of cutting a computer generated image out of just about any piece of material, up to like 6″ thick. So, Jason gets this idea that he could use it to make ornaments for our high school group. He rips the logo off our website, re-creates it on his computer, orders the materials, cuts the ornament, shoots me a sample, and says, “Hey, what do you think?” I told him he was a genius and he donated 140 of them for our christmas party and we gave them away as gifts as students left.
Jason. You are the man. My hat is off to you, my very talented, very much appreciated, and very hard working blue collar job man. Thank you for blessing the Kingdom of God with vision, initiative, and your mad professional skills and tools.
PS. If you want hire him to do something like this for your church or business, you should contact him.

I LOVE IT WHEN STUDENTS HAVE GENUINE FUN

One of my greatest joys as a youth pastor is watching kids laugh. I know it’s supposed to be watching them repent, or ditch a bad habit, or learn something new about God… and those are great, but I think when they laugh would be in that list for me too.

I love it when they feel at home so they can laugh.
I love it when they genuinely forget about their worries for a few hours and laugh.
I love it when they are allowed to be 15 and not forced to act like “an adult” and they laugh.
I love it when they get dressed up, invite a friend, and laugh.
I love it when they genuinely have a great time, and laugh.
It’s one of my favorite pieces of our semi-formal Christmas party we throw every year. I attended a similar one like this all 4 years of high school in my youth group. I’ve now thrown one like this for 16 years as a youth pastor. Every time, it is tons of work. So much work that after 3 full days of nothing but set up, stress, hard work, and preparation, I wonder if it’s worth it. But after the first kid genuinely smiles, says something like “this is great”, and then laughs with their friends… I say to myself, “it’s all worth it, I’d do it again”
One “bit” or “element” we do solely for the purpose of silliness and laughter every year is change the words to the 12 days of Christmas. We assign tables to certain numbers and have them stand up and shout their day out as we “sing/shout” it. It’s tons of fun. This years list was Roman themed to go along with our decoration theme. Here’s the whole list, from the perspective of the 12th day.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
  • Twelve gods a-greeking
  • Eleven sculptors sculpting
  • Ten roman columns
  • Nine lions feasting
  • Eight 
Caesar salads
  • Seven gladiators fighting
  • Six abs a-packing
  • Five naked runners
  • Four big head-wreaths
  • Three coliseums
  • Two chariots racing
  • and a toga for this fine partee. 


I posted some pics on facebook, but here’s some for the bloggin world, starting with the set up, and then a few from our night.

RAINY DAYS ARE GOOD FOR…

…decorating the tree, peppermint hot chocolate, soup, fires, christmas movies, and splashing in the puddles-  or at least they are today in the Berrytribe.  Here’s some picture proof:

Becky putting up her first ornament- ever, a princess Tiana doll, in honor of both the Berrytribe and Disney’s first brown princess.

Here’s the top of our tree.  It’s a grapevine angel that Shannon and I have added something to every year since we were married.  Last year it was Ugandan beads in anticipation of Becky and Billy.  This year, she was given a classic Ugandan headdress from fabric we bought there last January in honor of Becky and Billy’s first Christmas with us.  She is looking very tribal these days.

Here’ the puddle splashin’ crew. We practically had to unplug the computer to get Billy outside, but eventually, he remembered he is a boy.