“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Wanderings

1. I joined a snap fitness and now I work out a lot. It's been great for my insomnia and stress management.

2. Durring Christmas Alex and I started refinishing an arcade cabinet. We've got a ways to go, but it's been a pretty sweet project. 

4. Witty and I are co-captains for our Trivia Team "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" We placed 1st for the first time in about two years ago. We cashed in last week and had a fun party at Fridays.

5. With some christmas money I bought a new LED backdrop hopefully it will be making an appearance at the Dan Ochs wedding. The picture doesn't do it justice. Just know it's pretty cool.

6. Youth Forum stuff is going well. The ministry is busy - we are spending a lot of time promoting the events and rental side of the ministry. I've been running a ton of gameshows recently and love it! Here is a shot of a bunch of our volunteers and staff hanging out in my living room. They are so awesome and when I spend time with them, it reminds me why we do, what we do. 

Onwards and Upwards

-T. 

Homebrew Arcade Machine Part #1

Three summers ago, I thought it would be fun to refurbish an arcade cabinet  On a whim, I bought a almost gutted case of an old bowling arcade machine off of craigslist. That cabinet sat in three different warehouse spaces and quickly became a constant topic of razzing by coworkers.

Typically over Christmas break I like to take time to work on a project that I might be too busy to tackle durring other parts of the year. This Christmas season, at Alex's urging we deiced to finally redo that arcade cabinet. So Dad, Alex and I have started on the sweet project. Alex and Dad are working on the refinishing, construction and general design aspect. I'm in charge of the guts, wires, and making the video game pieces come together.

The first step was gutting all the junk out of it and then lowering the shelf 3 inches to fit the TV we bought.




More updates coming soon.

Remembering Darby

Two weekas ago, one of my hero's passed away. Phil "Darby" McDonald

I first met Darby at a picnic bench in the quad of the campus of UW:Stout at Summer Festival my 9th grade year. I had been going to camp for a few summers, and had met the lord at my first Summer Festival as a 7th grader. Carolyn Bossen, one of my youth leaders introduced us and after our quick introduction I hustled off to whatever fun event the program team had cooked up for the day. As I took off Carolyn told me if I have ever had the chance, that I should spend time with Darby - I could sure learn a lot from him

Prophetic words.

For the last 8 years I had the privilege of spending most monday morning praying with Darby. Most of my peers would dread Monday mornings, because it meant going back to the grindstone. Not me, I know it would be a time of sharing tales of the weekend, grumbling of how disappointing Minnesota sports teams are, talking about what we'd want to accomplish at Youth Forum that week, that summer, that year and it'd be a chance for Darby to share one of his Devotions. Darby had such unique insight and such away of making stories you've heard a 1,000 times become fresh and relevant. After prayer we'd often go to get chow mien or a burger at snuffies and we'd continue the conversation, the dreaming and the strategizing. 

I'm going to miss his wisdom and counsel, his jokes and his disarming sense of humor.

Last winter, Darby invited myself, Seth, Kelley and Kelly down to come spend a few days with him in their condo and Florida. We jumped at the opportunity and while we were down there - we joined with Joan, Reid and Carrol carpenter for one of the most powerful times of prayer that I've ever been a part of it. In that moment - everything was right with the world. We were reminded of God's promises of his faithfulness. 

Darby was a visionary - he knew that teens needed a safe place, where they could be themselves, where they could laugh and have fun, where they could build trusted relationships with adults, but most importantly where they could come to have an understanding of who Jesus was. That passion that the lord put in him was how castaway got built, how Youth Forum thrived and how many teens, including many of in this room got to know Jesus. 

I want to leave you with a line from the last devotion he gave at Summer Festival

If God is for us, who can be against us. If Jesus christ is on my side, who is on the other side! WHO CARES! - If you pardon my english, it don't matter. It just doesn't matter because Jesus is on my side. 

Darby - I can't wait to see you again some day. Thank you for your time here. The way your trusted Christ in all things was inspiring and something I wish I could have an ounce of. 

What's a Hollister?

My friend Phil started working recently at the Hollister clothing store in the Mall of America as a manager. In his short time there, he has shared some remarkable things from his experience. 

#1. On Friday, Hollister at the MOA location sold over 16,000 individual items. That's about an item every 2.5 seconds that the store is open. It's simply mind blowing to me that a store could sell that many articles of clothing. 

#2. Besides print ads, the major way that Hollister advertises is by decking their employees in their brand of clothing. Technically they are only required to wear clothing that "looks" Hollister and can at least correspond to something similar that is available at Hollister. However there a huge discount price being given to the employees in exchange for representing the brand. You must imagine, that if you are getting such a good deal on clothes, that you'll wear those clothes out in public a ton and basically be a walking billboard. It's really smart marketing: hire young, attractive people and deck them  out in something "cool" and then have them just live life, while helping you sell jeans. Hollister has decided that the best way to market clothes, is through it's employees - just living life, but in all moments wearing Hollister. 

In church today, Steve Weins shared that he strongly believes something that has a similar ring to Hollister marketing style. He said:  The best program our church has is Christ in you. 

What a strong and powerful claim. Christ is working in us - to further his mission of ushering in the Kingdom now and forever and it's better then any program or scheme of the church. The challenge is being open to how God might be at work inside and outside of "regular church time." It's about walking a faith in both Karios and Chronos moments. As Hollister wants it's employees to be a channel for the Hollister brand at all times - to follow Christ is to be open to what Christ has for us at all times.

Scripture to chew on: Colossians 4:2-6

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Read this interesting article about Hosea and Gomer:

http://bible.org/seriespage/undying-love%E2%80%94i-story-hosea-and-gomeri

Found it very interesting how God used someones personal journey to parallel his story with his people.

What I'm wrestling with is how would God let someone fall in love with someone who would keep breaking his heart?

A quick life update

A. Wanted to share a few wanderings and ramblings from live.

B. I saw the avengers at 12:01 last night. It was EPIC. I can't say it's for everyone, but it was pretty freaking sweet for a comic book story, if you've seen most of the titles in the series (Iron Man I & II, Captain America, Thor, Hulk) you will really enjoy this movie. I am only running on four hours of sleep, but it was worth it. Plus as you know for a few years this lack of sleep has be my mode of operation, so it's not strange territory.

C. Went to Disney and to visit Darby on vacation a few weeks ago. It was really great. Lot's of great prayer time and 48 attractions in 2 days. Can't wait to go back.

D. This spring, I've developed some really close, but unexpected friends. Kelly, who works with me, and Reba her best friend, who recently moved up here. We have ended up spending a lot of time together. It's been awesome. Besides YF activities, playing trivia, grabbing diner and other general hangouts, one of the major activities they really like to do is to go see theater performances, which I do too. Back in high school I was pretty big into the theater, but in college this pastime waned. But, since they are both working as actors in the twin cities, they love to go see shows. So, this spring I've seen:

Narnia: The musical
The Lark
Fiddler on The roof
Kingdom Undone
Three Sisters
Deal: The musical
Spring Awakening

E. Blue Like Jazz the movie came out. See it sometime. Maybe on DVD. It's the most real look at being a young christian that the christian media market has produced. It wasn't perfect, but it was better then a lot of junk that comes out of that genre. Also, my name is in the credits. No joke.

F. Reading a book called Radical. It had kind of messed me up a bit. The thesis of the book asks the question, has the american dream highjacked the radical Christianity that Jesus taught. It's good. Don't agree with all of it, (have I ever?) but it raises some hair raising good points.


G. I've been very convicted to write about sexuality and my own experiences as I feel like God has had it be a major topic in my life this year. I'm writing a long blog post about it, but will likely end up only posting a small section of it. But, it's be very self revealing on how I'm wired and who I am becoming.