For my birthday my wonderful wife took me to Sedona for 2 days of rest and relaxation. It was the perfect vacation-hiking, great weather, starbucks in walking distance from the hotel, great food, and time catching up with Ariel after she worked 5 out of the last 6 days.
A lot of work went into this staff conference. 525 Collegiate Navigators staff embers flew to Florida all last week for a time of refreshment, encouraging speakers, and friends. I was able to reconnect with my good friends Mike and Tim from University of Hawaii, as well as Scraw from UC Long Beach.
Praise God Ariel was able to join me for all 8 days of the conference. It was so encouraging being able to experience this with her!!! She was able to really connect with a handful of other staff members in our same EDGE class and really had a great time.
One of our highlights was being able to interact with other couples our age who are on staff. It’s been difficult to find fellowship in Tucson with other young couples. It seems my EDGE class has the most married couples in it yet (almost more than single staffers actually…) and we enjoyed living with 2 other couples and sharing meals with several throughout the conference.
Jerry Bridges (author of several books) shared devotionals with us every morning over the Greatness of God, the Holiness of God, and the Love of God. They were some of my favorite times of the conference. Also a highlight was Mike Jordahl (former president of collegiate navs) sharing on the simplicity of a passion for Jesus. He challenged us to not allow anything to take that place, whether good or bad. Not other ministry related things, busyness, time constraints, or results. Both Ariel and I fell blessed, cared for, encouraged and refreshed as a result of this time.
Today marks a significant day for me as I actually finished a goal I had previously set! That’s pretty rare in my life…
5 months, 14 days, 4 hours and 30 minutes ago I set off to read through the Bible chronologically looking at some specific questions. I am looking forward to reviewing my notes and sorting out what I felt like God was showing me through this time.
Deb Masshoff, a NavRep who leads our bi-weekly staff Bible Study in California, keeps reiterating that the entire Bible is a story about God working through Jesus Christ. I’ve never found that more true than now. God’s the main character. Not us.
Last night I made Oyakudon. It was good. I nearly set off the fire alarm twice and spent 3 hours from start to finish.
Highlights from the Beach Camping trip this last weekend:
- At least a dozen students asked why we were taking I-10 instead of I-8 if we were going to San Diego. “easy” I said, “because we’re not going to San Diego. We’re going to south LA.” The irony? My caravan took the 8 :).
- A car of all guys from our caravan (which I won’t identify) somehow made it through border patrol not wearing any pants.
- Dustin and Bryce sumo-ing on the beach
- Richie and his bro Steven also sumo-ing in a Moreno throw-down
- Edwardo’s car breaking down at the meeting point before leaving and a group of guys pushing his car into a parking spot, with all the students staring asking themselves “…who’s going to have to ride in that car?”
- Asking the famous Scraw camping trip question to a tent full of freshman guys.
Statistics:
When I got out of the hospital my parents came down from Phoenix for the day to see how I was doing. They brought a dozen roses for Ariel for putting up with me in the hospital and this for me: 
Oh yeah. be jealous :)
In other news my blood is back to normal except for my Fibrogen levels. Right now they're at 36. They're supposed to be between 200-400. We're getting there!
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