You First.

Something really cool happened this summer. 16 Middle School students decided to give up three days of sleeping in, playing video games, and enjoying their summer vacation and instead worked hard serving people all over Dunn County, and even around the world. We called it the “Middle School Summer Serve”, and we did everything from painting posts in a park and picking up trash out of the ditch to cleaning houses, scraping paint and packing food to send to starving children in needy countries. The Summer Serve Team split up into three groups, each group going to two different projects each day. The 6th Grade Gals painted about 200 posts at Phalen Park, did cleaning and gardening at the historical society, and worked at Hope Gospel Mission in EauClaire (among other things). The 7th & 8th Grade Gals kept busy with things like picking weeds at a strawberry patch, and gardening at the House of Hope, (a local homeless shelter). The Guys pitched a whole bunch of straw out of a hay mouw so it could be bailed, moved old wet carpet and some rotten boards out of a basement and preped a church in the area for a new coat of paint.

It takes practice to serve others. We are so used to taking care of ourselves first and letting others fend for themselves that to put the needs of someone else above your own really takes effort. It was great to see 16 students making the effort for the week to serve others without asking “what’s in it for me”. Kudos to everyone who did “The Serve”, keep it up!

Falling Bridges and Feeding Kids.

As of this past Sunday, the official death toll in the I35W bridge collapse was 9, with 3 still missing. The story that two weeks ago commanded extensive coverage in local and national news is now all but buried underneath the next big stories. I know I’m a little late in posting something about the bridge, but there is an element to this tragedy that has hit home for me, and I thought I would share. When the bridge collapsed I was on my way back to Menomonie with a group of middle school students who had just been in Eagan, MN volunteering for an organization called “Feed My Starving Children“. By 6:05 when the bridge actually went down we were well away from the tragedy, as we left Eagan around 5:00 and came back to Menomonie on highway 29, so it wasn’t any sort of “near miss” that prompts me to write this. The reason I’m writing is because tragically 12 people died, and many more were injured in a matter of seconds when they were just trying to get home. The thing is that two minutes after the bridge fell 20 or more children in the world died from not having enough food.

I don’t at all want to downplay or minimize the loss and suffering that people have experienced because of the bridge collapse. But at the same time I don’t want to forget that there are 29,000 children who die from preventable diseases everyday, with more than half of those dying from hunger (30 hour famine hunger facts). The story of these deaths will probably never receive the attention that the bridge collapse did. But these people are no less important and their deaths certainly no less tragic than those connected to the bridge that went down.

It’s not wrong to watch the news, it’s not wrong that the news focuses a huge amount of attention on the stories that they cover. It is wrong, however to neglect those around the world who God created and loves and are dying, not because of an old bridge or a collapsed mine shaft, but because they simply don’t have food to eat. If you want to think about this some more, then read Job 22:1-11. If you want to do something, click on the link above to feed my starving children and give them some money, or go over there and help them pack food for kids who simply don’t have enough food to eat and are dying because of it. God cares about the people he created, and he doesn’t depend on CNN to let him know when they are dying. Maybe we shouldn’t either

Finally Pics

Well, here you go. I am finally posting some pics from Life ‘07. It was a great trip, and a great time. I think it is safe to say that everyone who went was impacted in some way. Click on these links for pics of the group with “Old Skool”, at Universal (Nascar Life & Surfing Through Life). There is also one of The Swift, and one of everybody’s favorite good morning song, ”Wake Up.” If you went to life, give me your pics so I can put together a CD with everyone’s pictures on it. If you didn’t go to Life I guess that was your loss, but you can enjoy the trip vicariously through what you see here. Enjoy!    

I’m Back

Hello Everybody! I know it’s been awhile, I won’t give you any lame excuses, but I just wanted to do an “I’m back intro post” to let you know that there is going to be a veritable hurricane of blog postings coming your way in the upcoming days. Stay tuned, and figure out what’s been going on for the last month!