Life has been very crazy for me lately, but it has been a good kind of crazy. My daughter graduated from 6th grade, which means she is now a part of the youth ministry at our church. I have waited for this day since she was born. People told me that I was nuts to be excited about my kids becoming teenagers, but when that is the age group you work with it makes perfect sense because you know how to relate with them.

So her first big youth trip was Rockpointe’s annual trip to America’s Roller Coast known as Cedar Point. We had so much fun together and I loved seeing her hanging out with the teens. As you can tell by the picture she pushed herself and rode one of the big coasters with her dad called the Millenium Force. It was a really great day.

During some of this time I went down to a church near Cincinnati, OH to interview for their open youth pastor position. Most of you know that I have been looking for a full-time youth pastor position since I graduated from Bible college in 1999. And have been looking to get back into some form of a paid youth pastor position since I left the church I was a part-time youth pastor at in March of 2005. It has been a long journey only to be added to when I got laid off in the middle of January from the factory job I had. So going for an interview was a very nice thing, but I really didn’t expect to get the job, because we had been on interviews for youth pastor positions a couple of times before.

I was really shocked when they called us back down for a second interview and was even more shocked when I was told that I was the only on being invited back down. So we made arrangements to go back down the last weekend in June, which threw a wrench into our annual 4th of July trip up to Manistee, MI. We adjusted our arrival dates with the campground and figured we would just take a day off to rest in between driving 4 hours south to Cincy and then 4 hours north to Manistee.

While we were down for the interview we fell more and more in love with the church and the people there. And they seemed to like us as well. We came back home with a good feeling about this one, but we had good feelings about other ones as well so we were cautiously optimistic.

The pastor had said that we would probably hear something back before he left for his trip to Haiti, which was Friday (July 3rd). However, I told people that we wouldn’t hear back until he came back on July 14th so we didn’t have to hear the constant barrage of questions if we “had heard anything yet”.

Yesterday I heard back from them and I am in negotiations to be the youth pastor at The River Church in Liberty Township, OH. I am very excited to be finally getting back into “the game” and can not wait to get down there.

We do not know exactly when we will be heading down there, but hope to be down there either the first or second week of August. The schools down there start a lot earlier than schools here in Michigan, so we want to get down there and get the kids settled in before school starts.

There are only two sad things in all of this. One is leaving all of our family, friends and loved ones here in Michigan. But we are only 4 hours south and we will be real close to Kings Island, so you are welcome to come visit. However, we will be home from time to time visiting family. The other sad thing is that I will be living in enemy territory with all of those Buckeyes, but they need Jesus too!

Lastly, I want to leave you with this video of Mike Yaconelli. I think it speaks perfectly to what I am getting into. Watch out River Church! It is going to be a fun ride! I can’t wait!!!