Complete Body Cleanse Update

Well, I have been taking these pills since Friday night - that's five nights. 8 high fiber, 3 laxatives, and one milk thistle liver cleanser - every night. I honestly thought that I wouldn't be able to leave the house on Saturday, but it was no big deal. This is hard to not be too gross about. But everything is moving smoothly with no effort, but I'm not running to the bathroom every five minutes or anything. I feel pretty good. I feel a little bit of cold-like symptoms, but that is probably just cause my kids are sick. Although, I thought that maybe it's all the toxins leaving my body.

Complete Body Cleanse

I popped 12 pills last night to begin this two-week complete body cleanse that I bought at Whole Foods. It includes massive amounts of fiber, laxatives, and milk thistle. The picture isn't the exact one, but it's a similar kind. I was nervous that I would wake up in the middle of the night and never leave the bathroom. I'm still nervous of what is going to happen to my body.

Have you ever done this before? What happened to you?

Formal Acceptance on House

We are in escrow!!!

Verbal Acceptance on House

Well, we finally "almost" have a house. We were given a verbal acceptance last night on the home and expect to receive an official one today. The house is in Tustin on cul-de-sac that backs up to a school's field.

Here are some pics. The kitchen has great potential but definitely needs a bit of a remodel which we hope to do.

I thought today about how this means a couple things other than getting a new home. It also means we will get Moses back soon and means we don't have to have upstairs neighbors waking us up. I will never have upstairs neighbors again as long as I live.

Am I a Hero?

Josh Simpson and I are sitting in his office (my old office) meeting about some Student Ministries issues yesterday when we hear a loud crashing sound. We hear this sound quite a bit in Student Ministries because the intersection outside always has accidents. We rushed outside to see one car across the street smashed into a pole. The other is backwards in the middle of the road with the whole front-end smashed in. Airbags are deployed in both cars. There was that one-second of "What do I do now?" But then we just went for it. Josh went to the car across the street and I went to the one in the middle. There was just one man in the car. I look in the window and try to signal to him, "Are you OK?" He doesn't say anything and looks really disoriented. I open the door while glancing to Josh and his two guys are getting out of their car sort of wobbly.

After the door is opened, the man is coughing from all the airbag dust. He is trying to get out and I say, "Wait a minute. How is your neck? Are you hurt?" He says that he is OK. Another man who witnessed the accident is on his phone and I confirm that he is calling 911. Then we notice that there is gasoline and other liquids flowing out of the car. So I say, "Alright, let's get you out of here." I help him get out and lead him to the curb and tell him to sit down and take it easy. I was hoping for an explosion at this point where we could dive away from the fireball to safety. That would have been sweet, but no fire.

He starts saying that he needs to call his dentist because he was on the way to an appointment - definitely disoriented. I check him out a bit more and he is hurting real bad, but no major gashes. Josh's guy had a cut on his head. Before Matt could even get back with some towels, the firemen had already arrived. They were really fast. We told them who was involved in the accident and then they took over.

Am I a hero? It's all part of the job.

Have you ever had any experiences like that?

It happened again...

So yesterday I had about 30 minutes between meetings and I thought I would work on my office a little bit. I'm moving this big bookshelf by myself and just sort of singing to myself. The thing that is so strange is that for some reason I'm singing, "I've found my thrill...on Blueberry Hill." Those are the only words I know to that song so I'm humming and singing those just barely out loud. Bad enough, right?

Then I hear a sound like "mmm, mmm" or something like that, but I don't know what it is. I turn around and there is Victor standing looking at me with a huge smile on his face because he has walked in on me singing another weird song.

I need help.

Potential New House

There is a new house we are putting an offer on. It's in Orange - a bike ride from the Circle - actually only 0.9 miles away. Hopefully, it will all work out. It's on a quiet cul-de-sac and seems like a good house to raise kids in.

Kind of a Huge Day

Here is how today went:
1. In both main services today, my new position was announced to the whole church. Now, it's for real.
2. I preached in the Elevation service today and it went pretty well. I was really pleased, especially with the tough preparation week.
3. Then we went looking at houses this afternoon. We actually found one we want to put an offer on tomorrow. I will do a separate post about that.
4. I went to our Adult Bible Fellowship (ABF) Leaders meeting to check it out and introduce myself to them at 4pm.
5. I spoke at my last Student Ministries Parent Meeting on my Top 10 Last Words to Parents of Teens. It was pretty cool. I will post the text of that later this week.

Pretty busy and eventful day. I'm tired.

In a Blog Funk Again

This is another one of those moments in life when there are big things going on that I can't write about on my blog but it's hard to have anything else on my mind. More to come soon.

14 Years

This January 1st will mark the date that I have been a youth pastor for 14 years. Wow! That's a long time. Being a youth pastor is a wonderful thing. It's crazy how much of my identity is in that role. It's weird to know that I have been in youth ministry longer than some of my students have been alive. I was an intern for about a year before this too so I have been in youth ministry for about 15 years. Just thinking...

On My Own

Yesterday at about 1:00pm my lovely wife, Bea, left for a Lutheran Teacher Conference in Palm Springs for three days. She gets home on Tuesday evening. We had our small group last night which was cool but I was nervous about trying to manage the kids and lead the small group. But Kevin and Michelle come to our small group and so they helped out a ton with the kids.

I'm taking the next couple days off work to just hang out with my sweet daughters. It's funny because I know how to take care of my kids and I love being with them, but I had this mild sense of foreboding as these days were coming.

My biggest fear - doing Grace's hair. She isn't going to look as cute as normal.

So Tired

I have felt like my eyes have been super heavy all week and at any moment I could lay down and sleep. Last week was pretty crazy and I think my body is just tired out from it and Ella has been waking up a bit lately in the middle of the night (I'm not complaining though because Bea goes in to get her back to sleep about 95% of the time).

I preach again in Elevation this Sunday and I'm looking forward to it, but it's weird when the last Sunday was so awesome that it takes some effort to get pumped up for this weekend. It's a different focus of a message with God saying no to David about building the temple, but then God says that He will build a house for David. I am also leading worship tonight for Jr High for their BARF Night which is an outreach focused Wednesday night. We are going to rock hard!

I have a lot on my mind with waiting for a response about the house, wanting Moses back soon, thinking about my sermon, thinking creatively about vision and branding for the church, waiting for decisions to be made about the consultant process, and then dealing with some volunteer staff issues at church.

Waiting, Not Wanting

That's the title of this chapter of my life. They asked us in the closing session of the Youth Specialties conference to give a title to this chapter of our lives. I felt like this is what I was learning at the conference. I have wanted a lot of things lately - opportunities, possessions, Angels to make the World Series.

People of God wait upon him when they need something or need God to work in some way. I need to stop wanting and striving and trying. I need to wait upon Him.

In Recovery

I'm recovering well and Bea is taking very good care of me. I'm in some pain, but that is to be expected. It hurts to move very much at all.

I also passed out after going to the bathroom. I woke up on the ground with Bea saying, "Eric, Eric, are you ok?" She caught me so I didn't hit my head, but I have no memory of falling down. Valium and Vicodin can do some funky stuff to you. But I'm good now.

Matt Davis brought me Matzoh Ball soup today. He is a good friend. Thanks Matt!

The Big Day

I have to have a procedure today that guys have when they don't want any more kids. I'm kinda nervous...actually really nervous. I'm looking forward to being forced to relax for a couple days, but I would rather be on the beach in Hawaii, not moaning on the couch.

I'm learning...

...that I'm a jerk sometimes to people and I hate that about myself. I really really hate it. I have to devote myself to changing that. I need help from my friends and family. I need help from God.

Crazy Day Confessional

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day. I only worked a few more hours than I normally do, but it was just that I was leading and speaking in every environment I was in.

#1: High School Group at 8:45am. The Kenya team presented to the High School students for about 35 minutes. I probably did too much talking, but we didn't have a video that we were supposed to have so we showed a slideshow of pictures with us talking about it.

#2: Elevation service at 10:45am. I preached in our second main worship service for about 35 minutes. I spoke on the story of David & Goliath as we are doing a series on the life of David. I liked the angle for this almost overly well-known story. The series is called THE PURSUIT: DAVID'S HEART FOR GOD. The whole series is supposed to be about us pursuing having the kind of heart that David did. So the angle on the Goliath story was, "What about David's heart caused him to be able to face the giant so quickly and without hesitation?" What about his heart allowed him to see the world so differently than everyone else? You can listen to it and see the notes and PowerPoint here. I felt like it was a pretty good morning. I felt differently than I ever have before preaching a sermon. I honestly didn't feel like preaching on Saturday. It was an odd feeling. Usually I am a bit nervous in a pumped up sort of way, but I was just apathetic. So I prayed about it a bunch - even into that early morning random wake-up time (4am) when I was out of it and I just started praying and dozing and praying and dozing and praying some more. Then I went into church and prayed while driving. Then I practiced my talk once more and I felt much different. Then I went into the Worship Center at about 7:40am and prayed some more. After that, I was ready.

#3: All Student Ministry Staff Meeting at 12noon. I spoke at our volunteer training on the first point of our Mission Statement - REACH THE SEEKING for about an hour. It was good, but by now I was getting tired and so were people listening to me - many of which were in all three of these sessions.

#4: Lighthouse Area Fellowship at 5:00pm. This is our church's small group program. I lead our first Lighthouse of the fall and it was pretty good - a bit quiet at some points, but a decent start. Poor Kevin was in all four of these meetings. I feel sorry for anyone having to listen to me this much.

So a crazy day, but a good day. I'm happy to be chilling at home this morning. I'm tired, but grateful.

First Day of School

I just had a full-on "OC Soccer Mom" experience. I drove Grace in the new Sequoia to her first day of her second year of pre-school. I walked in with Ella in the stroller and then left. Now I'm at home until I go to work at 11:30am when Bea is done teaching.
This first picture is from "Meet the Teacher Day" yesterday. She has Mrs. Gish.

The next pics are from today outside of her classroom in her pretty new dress.

Our New Car

Bea's lease ran out yesterday so we were forced to get her a new car. We had saved some money from the sale of our house for a good sized down payment and I decided to keep my old car so we had some better options. We got this for a lower monthly payment than Bea's lease was before!!


A new 2007 Toyota Sequoia SR5. We love it!!

Kenya Thoughts 1

I know that I need to attempt putting some thoughts on the blog regarding my trip to Kenya. It's really difficult to synthesize everything that this trip meant for me. It was an amazing experience and so awesome to serve the beautiful people of Kenya. They were a people that embrace life and love in a way that is so different than America it is mind-blowing.

There is a concept of welcoming someone to your home or school or nation that they have mastered. Karibu is swahili for "welcome." There were countless times when someone said to us that we were "highly welcome" in their place. We knew that we could come back to visit them and be embraced as brothers and sisters. They would feed us even if they had nothing. I felt like I could go and live with them if I wanted to and it wouldn't be a question. How horrible am I (are we) at this concept in the West? I hate our concept of privacy but I am completely ruled by it as well. I am addicted to privacy. This has really been hitting me lately in lots of ways. We care more about privacy than we do about righteous living or unity.

This is a side issue almost compared to other things I experienced on the trip, but it came to my mind first when reflecting on the trip.