DLmail 4/23/2009 hot technology

I haven't done a DLmail in a while. Time seems to be scarce and somethings got to give. Lately it has been my computering.

The Saturday Easter weekend service was a highly attended service, which surprised me. This past weekend our Saturday night numbers were low, but Sunday seemed really heavy (I stopped by the Factory Sunday for the 11AM service and Kendra had nearly 70 kids in the room). I believe our Saturday numbers might continue to dip as spring activities spike (baseball games, track meets, etc.) with the better weather.

I know that I will be at church Saturday along with Kevin and Momica. Tim was with us last weekend and I am not sure if the Sheuer's plan a return visit soon, but hope so. We'll take Zach anytime he wants to come. Kevin Elder did a fine job teaching about conviction last weekend and we'll finish that virtue this Saturday. Our memory verse is "Never tire of doing what is right." 2 Thes. 3:13. Our Bible story is titled Stephen is Stoned and can be found in Acts 6:8-10; 7:1-60. You can get your small group info here. The bottom line...when you stand for what is right, you can know God is with you. You can catch (or re-catch) Cal's main stage message from last week by clicking here.

My day job isn't super exciting. I sit at a desk and stare at a computer and talk on a phone. In the old days I would actually meet with people face to face. Nowadays it is rare to see them. Everything is done digitally. Years ago I got to step in as a young hothead contractor picked up and threw an old man from one office into another office in a bit of a rage over allegations of his failure to fully complete a job and the old man withheld the claim check he was given to pay the contractor. I was on the phone when that began and had to hang up on the person I was talking to. That person got concerned, called the police and they showed up. That was an interesting day. Then there was the day last year I shocked myself changing an outlet...marginally exciting. I occasionally get to chase livestock during work hours. And nothing compared with the excitement of Rt. 29 being widened in front of our office one summer in the 90's...wooo boy those were the days. So imagine how exciting it was on Tuesday of this week when I smelled smoke. I was on the phone, a rather important call at that, when the smell of smoke became so intense that I pretty much just hung up on my client. There are five computers in my office and one of them is a dinosaur that kept working so we have never bothered to replace it. Well, it caught on fire, right while I was sitting at the desk where it resides, a place where no one usually sits. It also conveniently happened during office hours and not in the middle of the night when things could have turned out very badly. So add this computer to the list of things we have that have burned up unexpectedly (my sweater, a lilac bush, a log cabin, etc.) and added a little flavor to my rather ordinary day.

Smashing good time

I am the second assistant Chillicothe Jr. High track coach for 2009. Specifically I am the distance coach (which in jr. high means 800, 1600 and sometimes 400 meter runners). The head coach and the first assistant get paid in $$. I get paid in life experience. And Wednesday April 15th was payday.

This really is a rewarding coaching situation. We have some really talented kids with a lot of desire and they are willing to work really, really hard (for instance, last Fridays workout was: 1 mile warmup run, 6 by 600 meter runs at race pace with a 200m jog in between, with a 1 mile cooldown). All good.

In jr. high track, 5th and 6th graders are allowed to participate, but must earn a spot as one of the top two in an event in order to go to away meets and compete. We have several 6th graders who travel to each meet. But this year we added three meets that are just for 5th and 6th graders, so they all can compete with kids their own age. Last Wed. we ran a meet at Dunlap with seven other teams, 5th/6th only. Our kids had a great time. I didn't think anything could top the fun they had at the meet. Until we left.

We seperated the boys and girls before the bus pulled away, girls toward the front, boys in the back. The bus got as far as the stop sign exiting the Dunlap High School parking lot onto Cedar Hills Drive when we heard a huge crash. I turned to look and saw the stop sign jutting through the smashed window on an unoccupied row of seats. Seems the bus didn't quite make the right turn as wide as necessary. It took some back and forth driving to dislodge the stop sign from the bus.

Of all the great races and memorable moments of this track season, it's likely no memory will last longer than this odd moment for these kids. There are likely a hundred different angled photos of this damage from the 20 or so cell phones the kids had with them. I heard the words "...could have been killed" at least 10 times (although I kind of doubt the accuracy of that statement).

CEC track 09 will always be remembered as the year the bus hit the stop sign.

DLmail 4/2/2009 free for all

Last Saturday we saw pretty large numbers of kids at church. Realizing we were outnumbered, we let them run wild, sort of. A week off after a very solid month with the virtue of Hope. The Hope lessons were really great and I believe that all the kids (and adults) learned so much during the month. So we ended with a fun night, injury free, no puke...all good.

Now we get down to some heavy stuff again with our new virtue, Conviction - standing for what is right even when others don't. The Easter story fits so well with this virtue and we'll begin with the lesson The Darkest Hour (Jesus' arrest, trial, and cruxifiction) found in Luke 22:39-71, 23:1-26, 34-36, 44-49. Our memory verse for the month is 2 Thessalonians 3:13 "Never tire of doing what is right." The bottom line...when you stand for what is right, you may feel like you're alone. Cal delivered another message in the Storm Shelter series last weekend, click here to listen.

This weekend we'll see Kevin & Monica, Tim, myself and maybe one other leader. The following weekend is Easter. We have DL as usual. The big question is how that weekend holiday will affect our numbers on a Saturday night. No idea myself, could go either way...either way we kind of need to know who will be serving. Please email me and advise (rlingenf@hotmail.com).

Now is the part of this post where I should put something clever, entertaining, enlightening, etc. However, I seriously have nothing. If anything interesting has happened recently, I have forgotten it. Pam and I did get out of the house together on Monday for the FCA luncheon featuring AZ Cardinals QB Kurt Warner. Our table host was fellow DL leader Kathy Arkwell. I would say more about it but pretty much everyone that reads this blog was in attendance. I just thought it was cool that Kurt took the opportunity to mention my name as he spoke. Did you hear it?