A Wisconsin Thing...

Something I saw in the parking garage this morning that struck my fancy. This is really only something you'd see in WI. If I were more talented with Photoshop I would change the sign letters and have it say something like "In case of fire, carry cows down stairs.." or something. Honestly in case of fire I will either be throwing the cows off the building or just abandoning the cows altogether.




For my Ichabodian friends...This is a joke...It's not real. Someone just stuck a foam rubber cow thing on a sign.

Victory Update

What a great July and August so far for Victory of the Lamb. The various summer events have been very successful. We handed out well over a 1000 packets of info at the July 4th parade and several people have visited church because of them.

We had nearly 200 people at the Hallepalooza event in the park. This is our family friendly music and games event at the park in Franklin. We put on a free picnic with the Victory Band playing music the whole time. We got to meet a lot more people in the community and let them know we exist and I hope they got to hear Pastor Ben’s message at the end.

Our Bible Soccer camp had 50 kids in it. After a week of learning soccer and Bible stories they have a large cookout with over 100 adults and family members staying. This gives one more opportunity for the parents to hear the message of salvation too.

This last Sunday we had 146 people in church. 26 kids in BibleQuest. (for Secret Shopper… I included a photo of everyone standing at the last hymn except for about 10 people on the far left who are cut off.. this is minus the 26 kids in BibleQuest and the 4 BQ helpers. And the 5 members of the band, Pastor, and myself)Both of these are new records for a regular Sunday.

With such a large number of visitors I was very happy that we had communion. I definitely fall in the camp of using communion as a teaching tool for visitors. Pastor does a great job of explaining the importance of communion and why it should only be taken with a shared confession of faith. In combination with his sermon which was a very good old fashioned law/gospel message having communion was a perfect follow-up.

On September 13th, 2009 we will be having our Grand Re-Launch Service. This is to announce and re-introduce our move to the Showtime Cinema. When you are a nomadic church such as ours it is important to let the community know where you worship. I have to believe that meeting in a movie theater despite its shortcomings (It is not singing friendly…sucks the sound of corporate singing away in the acoustics…sort of sad) has to be better than in the Polonia Soccer Club…a beer hall basically. We could hear the congregation sing there but it of course had a full bar and reaked of the last night’s party. I’d rather smell old popcorn than old alchohol, burritos, and vomit. On the upside…we had a disco ball.

So I extend an early invitation to the re-grand launch service on 9/13 to everyone. Fellowship before the service at 8:45 and the service starts at 9:30.

Family Update

Well it has been some time since I have updated my blog. It’s about time to get back to it. It sure was a busy couple of weeks. So jumping back a bit I left you with an update just before Hallepalooza.
Hallepalooza is Victory’s annual family and music picnic in the park for the community of Franklin. This year there were about 200 visitors. I didn’t mingle as much as the music required a lot more attention to the mixing per song based on different singers and instrumentalists. I’ll give a Victory update separately later.

The day after Hallepalooza we went to the Brewers game with the Victory folk. OMG!!! We are by far the closest residents to the stadium and it took us an hour and 15 minutes to get into the parking lot to park. PATHETIC. To illustrate we were stuck recently going through all of downtown Chicago with the White Sox fans and it only took that long to get through it. All we wanted to do was drive the 4 blocks from National Ave into the stadium outer lots. However we did manage to see a “historic game” where the same guy hit a grand slam in consecutive innings off the same pitcher. It was not cool as the Brewers sucked up the game. However I had fun with the Victory folk and drowned my pain getting high on Pixie Stix.

Directly after the Brewers game, we headed out to New Hampshire. Karen and I drove through the night leaving at 11:11pm ironically and arriving 18 hours later in Sunapee, NH at Terry and Cheryl’s. Although Karen has learned to loath this drive I think, she did very well.

We spent Tuesday evening talking and playing cards. Wednesday we woke up late and Cheryl made us these awesome ham, egg and cheese sandwiches. The cool part was the flatbread she made them on. Yummm. Then we went looking at the New London Gnu’s. They were very cool but I’m sad the battery died on my camera before getting to Cheryl’s. I am amazed at other people’s creativity. I sure suck in that department.

After Gnu viewing we headed down to Manchester to eat at the most yummiest of places, KC’s Rib Shack. We have yearned for their food ever since Caitlin’s wedding. I stuffed myself and was not disappointed. Jeff and Martha Lewis joined us for dinner. They are good friends and business partners with Terry and Cheryl. We have hung out with them in the past a few times and we definitely had a great time again.

Again we watched a movie which I highly, highly recommend if you haven’t seen it yet called “Gran Torino” Then we played spades and talked until 3:00am I think. The night before we had played spades as well. Cheryl and I still suck. Terry and Karen…still don’t.

On Thursday we slept in late. Yeah it was a trend. We finally got up and headed down to Nashua to visit the Lords. We spent the day catching up after not having really kept up with each other in a year and a half. They are doing great. They made their famous grilled food and it was fabulous. I sure miss those Sundays at their house in the summers swimming in their pool and sitting in the hottub and grilling out. Glen and Tanya have been through a lot in the last couple years and after a bit of time apart from them, I came back and found they are very different people and in a good way. I’m trying to think of a short description. Calm, cool, and relaxed…perhaps would be best. Yet another couple that has worked/keeps working through adversity and yet in relying on God’s grace finds that God does give the strength and that in the end we grow in maturity, empathy and confidence.

On Friday, we slept in late. It was raining all morning and pretty much continued all day long. That wrecked our plan to go out on the boat for the day but we stayed in and played hearts. Cheryl and I still suck. Terry and Karen still don’t. Later the Lewises came for pizza and we played phase 10. Cheryl made her famous Long Island Iced Teas and they were dandy. I swear we laughed for like 5 hours straight that night. I sure miss that.

Saturday we woke up….wait for it……early!!! But that wasn’t cool because it meant we were getting ready to head home. After arranging the purchase of Cheryl’s Toyota 4Runner we headed home. However Karen and I were in separate vehicles this time so we stayed overnight in Cleveland. We finished up our little adventure on Sunday.

Ike had stayed home during this trip and Kt was in Seattle. Since Vladik was not available to hang out with, he did not think tagging along on all our adult interactions would be fun at all. We also thought just going with the two of us for a vacation sounded awesome. OMG it was! I really, really enjoyed myself. I think Karen did too. Not once did I have to worry about what a teenager would think about this activity or that. He seemed to occupy his time by spending a day being his little cousin’s plaything. He also went to a friend’s house and helped him rip the siding off a garage. There were some visit’s to girls houses as well and a late night ice cream and George Webb run. The house was pretty clean when we got back but there definitely is a difference in standards between his cleaning and mine.

On Monday the 3rd Kt returned from Seattle. She spent this last week being a bit bummed by not seeing Tucker every day and getting back into the swing of things such as work. She had a good time in Seattle and seemed to meet many members of Phil’s family as well as all his old friends. Phil has headed off to his permanent assignment at Camp Pendleton as an Air Traffic Controller.

This last week was not too exciting. Ike started Football practice. They definitely look different than last year. The line has some size now and they actually hit each other. Funny the difference a year makes. I watched a couple of practices and I liked what I saw.

On Saturday I finally got started on painting Ike’s old room. We are getting it ready to be Karen’s library/den. Sunday we got Ike’s uniforms for school and Kt some work clothes. Karen and I trolled the clearance racks for a few nuggets for ourselves because of the 70% off on summer clothes plus Kt’s 20 percent discount. We actually did very well. We got all the clothes Ike needs for a full school year for $200. I LOVE uniforms.

Coming up Ike has football and Kickboxing filling his days. He starts school August 19th. Kt has work and CC filling hers and she starts school on 9/1. I will be coaching CC this year at St. Marcus. We will see how it goes. It has not been offered for a number of years. I think the team will start out small. Who knows…maybe I’ll be surprised. I’m looking forward to it though. I just love the fall though. I like seeing the Wisco football games. I like seeing Kt and Ike’s sports. I like coaching CC. It’s definitely my favorite time of the year.

Zach has about 1 month left in this section of training. We still wouldn’t hear until just a little bit before as to whether he stays in Pensacola for advanced training or whether he heads to another base like Biloxi. It all depends on the specialty. I think he will be much happier when training is done. He has had some intense sections there and I think he would like a break. Basically they are trying to cram two years of schooling into a one year time period so I’m sure his brain is feeling it. I think he just needs to be trained wherever it is warm so that we can visit him there when the weather is cooler.

So that catches you up on the family. Enjoy your week.