This morning I’m headed to New York City to hang with my dad for two days before teaching YS One Day on Saturday.

So, like a good air passenger, I have my laptop, my cell phone, my ipod, my carry on, and my java.

In the process of getting my java, I got a low fat lemon muffin.

In the process of peeing before getting on the plane, I placed my java and my bag on the nice shelf they give you above my conveniently placed urinal. So I did double duty and peed (is that a real word?) and read.

My muffin bag claims it:

• flavors my senses. sweetens my disposition, stirs my imagination, and nourishes my dreams

Dang. That’s one amazing muffin. I though it was talking about God for second.My coffee cup says:

• Americans spend an average of 29 hours a week watching television- which menas in a typical life span we devote 13 uninterrupted years to our TV sets! The biggest problem with mass media isn’t low quality, it’s high quantity. Cutting down just an hour a day would provide extra years of life- for music and family, exercise and reading, conversation and coffee.- Michael Medved

Dang. That’s a lot of TV. If you have 29 hours on average a week to burn. Please call me. I have LOTS of work for you. Oh… and I read a statistic the other day that said you actually burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV. Haaa! I wonder if you burn more if you sleep while watching TV. If so, my grandma would have disappeared from earth instead of died.

Last summer we took a group of students to Uganda. It changed my family radically. It also, ironically changed not just the students we took on the trip, but a mom who we left behind.

So much so that she felt burdened to turn the hundreds and thousands of dollars that are given in a weekend soccer tournament into a weekend life changing opportunity by using ALL the proceeds to help the poor.

The result? This mom has worked ridiculously hard and created a fully functioning, fully sanctioned, local tournament for soccer in San Diego called Kick for Hope.

One mom. With One team of helpers. One vision. One passion. One dream. One unyielding drive towards her goal.

You go Kristin. I’m soooooo proud of you.

Here’s the promo video which includes a shot of me, one of tyler, and several of our team in Uganda turned out great. Check it out and if you are a soccer mom or soccer coach or soccer lover- then bring a team or volunteer to serve or anything you can do to support this soccer tournament turned injustice fighting event.

Why do we bother to put time and effort into changing the background of our weekend series and giving hours to changing the decor of our weekend series?

Answer:  cuz it makes a difference when you walk in the room and see this.

(thanks to Randy Lipsey for a sweet job!  u r the man!)

Last weekend we kicked off our new series “Indignant”. We talked about apathy and how important it is to care about the stuff God truly cares about by actually having a God honoring angst about the stuff that angers God.  Next week is injustice, followed by division, followed by deception on Easter.

I’m stoked about the difference I think this series could make in our students awareness of the sin in our world and why they should declare it “absolutely evil” and choose to stand it the way.  We could become some serious salt and light to some areas that are tasteless and dark in this world.  And…. we kicked off the series with a full house!  so cool.

Tyler is the man.

He just pulled out a sweet report card this quarter.

He just got an outstanding student award at school.

And he just graduated from Ms. Alicia’s second level of piano classes. 

YOU GO MY MAN!

I put my “field trip dad” hat back on and resumed my responsibilities with my first field trip of 2009- a trip to Mission Trails with Tyler.  I’ve been before with TJ’s class, but it was fun to go with Tyler.  But it’s always wacky to me to hear some of the evolution junk the museuem teaches coupled with creation stories that claim the dirt is red cuz a coyote ate the heart of the dead creator and dripped blood everywhere turning the dirt blood colored.  Even Tyler thinks it’s nuts.

Here’s Ty’s teacher, Mrs. Taylor, decked out like an outback tour guide.  Too funny.  She pointed out all kinds of plants and even circled the “scat” she found on the trail for kids so they could observe it.  Ha!  Pretty much all dog poop.

Here’s the motley crew of 4 I was responsible for.

Here’s the whole class after lunch down by the river.

here’s a pic of Ty and I bonding.  Love this kid.