A Different Kind of Date

I treasure the memory of our day off last Thursday. It was the most spiritually refreshing, rejuvenating, awe-inspiring day I've had in a long time. Thank you Jesus!

Wednesdays are long days...I know you others in ministry can understand. We start the morning with prayer at WACO high school at 7:30 and end the night around 10:30 after cleaning up and getting organized after our Wednesday evening programs. They are long, but wonderful days. The opportunity we have to share God's truth with young people is incredible, seeing the hard work of preparation come to fruition is rewarding, and getting a million hugs and smiles from my beloved little guys and gals fills my tired heart right up! Last week I even got a "I missed you so much, Cari" from a darling 4 year old whose life at home is just plain sad. Those kinds of words are straight from the Lord, a little shot of encouragement and energy to give me what I need to keep pouring myself out for His work.

Don't be fooled. That last paragraph sure makes it sound like I always have an oh-so-positive, ministry-is-the-best kind of attitude, and I sure wish I did. The truth is - I get tired, really tired. I forget to depend on the strength of the Lord, try to depend on mine, and run out really fast. I get frustrated and discouraged. I find myself completely confused and lonely. I get so busy with the work of ministry, that I forgo quiet moments spent alone with my Savior.

Oh my...that's an honest look at what you'd find if you took a close look at my heart some days. Consider this a confession. I know as well as you do that is by no means what the heart of one of God's chosen, beloved daughters should look like. I let sin creep in.

As Tony and I packed up our offices last Wednesday around 11 p.m. - I was feeling the effects of trying so hard to minister on my own strength...truth be known -I don't have it. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that I can do Kingdom work. That's the crazy thing about vocational ministry...it is all about letting God work through you. It is all about making sure the glory is His. It's an interesting concept, one I continue to wrestle with. He gifts you with what you need to do the work, but you must rely completely on Him. I suppose that should be true anywhere, but in ministry we must rely completely on the presence and work of God to accomplish our goals. With that said – constant, close communion with the Lord is critical. I was desperate for that communion.

We both knew that meant our Thursday “date day” the next day was going to look a little different. We needed a “date day” with the Lord. I could hardly wait to wake up! I was so looking forward to my retreat with the Lord!

We packed our lunches, our Bibles, our journals, some books, some music, our baseball gloves, and a frisbee and set out for Lake Darling State Park. It was a GORGEOUS, warm fall day! I found a spot at a picnic table overlooking the lake (the lake is currently drained, so it’s not all that beautiful, good thing I have a great imagination.) For the next few hours, I sang praises at the top of my lungs, wept at the thought of how good and faithful my God is to meet with me, poured through the Psalms, and studied the book of Titus. There was no one around…just me and the Lord and that was exactly what I needed. The Lord spoke so much truth into my heart. He is SO FAITHFUL!

Let me encourage you others in ministry with a verse that blessed my heart – “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Galatians 6:9-10.

Tony and I ended the afternoon with some Frisbee, baseball, and a nice long hike along the Iowa prairie. We pretended we were Bear Grillz and tried to figure out how we would survive in such rough terrain were we left to fend for ourselves. Gotta love Man Vs. Wild.

I love my God, I love my husband!

Wow Wow Wow - Prayer Works!

It is an incredible gift, ya know? The blessed opportunity to communicate freely with the God of the universe. Sadly I often forget the beauty and power of spending time talking to my Abba Father. When I start to think about prayer, my mind begins a spinnin'. I can never comprehend it. I can't get enough of it. I'm humbled beyond belief. I'm blown away.

Every Tuesday morning at 7:30 Tony and I head to Washington High School to pray with a faithful group of students. We pray for their friends, for their teachers, for the Principal, and for one another. As you're probably aware, neither Tony nor I are "morning people" per say. I should mention that Tony is INCREDIBLY perky and pleasant whatever time he may wake up (me...not so much). Tuesdays are super early mornings. Tony's first meeting of the day starts at 6 a.m. He's out the door by 5:45. He comes back to pick me up a little after 7 for prayer at the high school.

While I dread the early mornings on Tuesday (especially after working until 1 a.m. Monday night...), I was reminded this morning what an AWESOME gift it is to pray inside the walls of Washington High School with amazing guys and gals. I was so touched this morning.

For the last year, we've prayed in Room 207...the Spanish teacher's room. We don't know her, but she offered her room to us, and we've been very grateful. Last week as Tony was walking into the school, the Principal pulled him aside. Tony was afraid this meant bad news. Quite the opposite! Mr. Bucholz informed Tony that another teacher had heard about our prayer group, and requested that we begin praying in her room!! She works with children with severe behavior disorders and is having the most challenging year of her career.

We met in Room 106 for the first time today. The Holy Spirit met with us! Two guys and two gals joined us for an AWESOME time of prayer. We got to chat with this teacher a little and she asked us to anoint her room. She said it's been years since she's been in a church, but she knows she needs prayer. PRAYER WORKS! All the prayers we've been praying for the last year are causing a movement of the Spirit at Washington High! Why else would she feel like asking us to come to her room? We certainly have nothing to do with it - thank you Jesus for being real and alive and for listening to the cries of your people! It was incredible to hear those four high school students ask the Lord to give this teacher strength and patience and to draw her into a relationship with Himself. They prayed that she'd understand God's purpose for these students, and have wisdom in dealing with them! Wow, God! I was blessed by the prayers of your children this morning.

The coolest part is that I know, without a doubt, that God heard every prayer we prayed and He WILL be faithful to answer. I can't wait to see how he works in this teacher's life and then uses her life to affect the lives of others at WHS!!

Tomorrow morning we'll meet for prayer at WACO H.S. God has been moving there too! We meet in the classroom of a teacher from our church. God has opened doors for him to have great conversations with other teachers about what kids are doing in his room early Wed. mornings. Amazing! We have students come and join us in prayer that have not yet received Christ, but want to be there as we pray. Father, work in their hearts, bring them to Jesus, and make them kingdom workers!

All that to say - prayer works! Of course it does, but God is faithful to remind me in such sweet ways. Can't wait for tomorrow morning!

We look a little something like THIS

I never intended to be THIS slow at putting some pics up of our new hair-dos. I'm feeling like I may have hyped them up a bit too much. My sincere apologies.

We started the day looking like this...(we stopped at Yotty's ice cream in Kalona on our way to Iowa City - best soft serve ice cream ever!!)

A little while later I looked like this...

Now I look a little something like this...

Together, we look like this...(can you see the hawk?!? i love it!)

And this...(trying to stay warm at LifeLight Music Festival)

I looked like this last weekend - moments before I was thrown into Pine Lake by one of our dear high school students...

Just kiddin' about getting thrown in.

J High Boys

oh boy oh boy oh boy....This weekend was a trip to Pine Lake Christian Camp with junior highers. I ate a little healthier, and laughed a lot harder. I'm not typically amused with stories of flatulence and bowel movements, but a little while into the un-ending debate over the best bathroom story, I just couldn't help but laugh. Let me give you a little taste of a few of the conversations (I've made up names to protect the future hire-ability of these boys)...

JACK: Hey Tony, I gotta tell you about the paper I'm writing for my english
class. It starts with 'I sat on the toilet and a horrible smell filled the room.'
CARI: Are you serious, Jack?!? You really wrote this in a paper? And you're going to turn this in to your teacher? Aren't you afraid you'll fail???!?
JACK: No, I already told my teacher what it's about. She just told me not to make it too detailed. Anyways, the next line is, 'I felt the log drop into the bowl and water splash my cheeks.
CARI: Jack, I hope you are joking. This is RIDICULOUS! You're teacher will be furious.
JACK: Nah, it's not a big deal. The next part is...then I felt a long one coming....
CARI: Ok, ENOUGH! I think we get it.

I feel a little rude for even sharing these conversations in a public forum, but my current state of disbelief leaves me needing to write these down to believe just how crazy our life with junior highers can be.

Another junior high boy, we'll call him Zach, felt the need to top Jack's story and shared the following one.

Zach: Tony, Tony, Tony you've got to hear this.
Tony: What's up, Zach?
Zach: You'll never believe what me and my cousin did to our girl cousin. We
took a piece of poop and tricked her into thinking it was a Snickers bar.
Cari: Zach, that is not true. You're making this up.
Zach: No, I'm dead serious. We wrote on it with a Sharpie marker and put it
in a wrapper and she took a bite of it.
Cari: Zach, she did not eat it. And, you could not write on that with a
Sharpie marker.
Zach: Uh, huh. I'm dead serious.

...I think you get the point.

I fell into the role of human lie detector often this weekend as I tried to remind these crazy boys that it's so important to be honest. Even exagerrating ridiculous stories is dishonest, and not a wise choice of words.

Aside from the crazy, inappropriate stories, we had a beautiful weekend for a Fall Retreat. The Lord uses Pine Lake in incredible ways to quiet minds and speak into hearts. Our small group discussions with girls and boys were honest and inspiring. We studied 2 Corinthians 5 and challenged one another to be Christ's ambassadors, and to allow Christ's love to control us. We were challenged to clean up areas of our lives that don't represent Him well, and encouraged to add to our lives the fruits of the Spirit that help us share Christ with others. I'm always amazed at the miracle God works when he shifts a conversation and train of thought from what was written about above into a meaningful spiritual dialogue among brothers and sisters in Christ.

Thank you Lord for blessing our hearts, for refreshing us with your Word, and for allowing us to crack up at the craziness!

Diet of a YPs Wife

I am encouraged after spending yesterday and today with 10 high schoolers at LifeLight - a Christian music festival. I am also extremely tired and much too full of JUNK food.

Over the course of the last 3 years, I have asked myself many times when the day will come that Tony and I can develop super healthy eating habits? I'm still asking...

I tend to blame my over indulgence on junk food on the fact that I spend a great deal of time with high school and junior high students who love being fed donuts, chewy chips ahoy cookies, potato chips, pizza, and pop...and who have yet to become concerned about the nutritional value of their chosen food group - junk. I however, am concerned about the nutritional value of these items, but eat it right alongside of them. My Mom's constant reminder haunts me - That's going to catch up with you. uh-oh. Thank goodness for a Y membership.

Not only do high school/junior high students love eating these foods, Youth Pastors (Tony included) LOVE feeding them these foods. Why? They are cheap and they are easy, a perfect combination. (Thank goodness our events don't have the federal regulations that schools do, we'd be sunk). When packing for a weekend of camping there is nothing easier than individually wrapped chips, boxes of cookies, and crackers w/ peanut butter to snack on. Throw in some Pop-tarts, donuts, and bottles of less than 1% juice something or other for an easy breakfast. I'll admit, even though I'm embarassed, that everything I just listed has been my diet this weekend, plus a couple of hot dogs and a hamburger from the food vendors. EEEEWWW.

Tony and I had a serious discussion on the way home and decided we're dying for a more healthy diet. Our plan is to give up a few things until Thanksgiving, to kick start our healthy eating. 1. Pop - I can go long periods without drinking pop and not really miss it, but lately we've gotten in a bad habit of drinking at least a pop a day. 2. Sweets. This will be challenging for me. 3. Chips - this will be the challenge for Tony. In addition to the removal of junk, we will be attempting to spend more evenings at home so we can prepare healthy meals for ourselves rather than constantly eating on the fly. Don't ask me what we'll do if we host an event for our youth group kids. We'll be lost. Maybe we'll introduce them to healthy eating, maybe we'll learn self control, who knows.

In college, my roommate Taylor would refer to some foods as "socially unacceptable foods." I feel as if this whole blog post falls in that category. (In college it was our love for chili dogs). Now I've just publicly confessed my love for Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies and donuts. That is certainly socially unacceptable. I should be ashamed of myself. At least they never make their way to my cupboards, right? I still feel like I can blame this on our busyness with youth ministry. I better quit trying to justify and go make my grocery list. Adios.

Urge for Spontaneity + Need for Haircut = Lethal Combo x 2

It’s true. We ended our night by significantly changing our appearances. Will we wake up tomorrow and regret it? I’ll let you know in the morning. If the answer is yes, I will not post pics, if it’s no – I may try to get some up here.

The decision came out of our conversation over dinner at the Olive Garden. Dinner, by the way, was delish. You can always count on OG for a great meal! Our $25 gift card made it taste even better. I must interrupt my own train of thought here for a moment and say that we are blessed by the most generous and loving church congregation. The gift card was from a family in the church, who out of the kindness of their hearts, decided to send us $50 to Olive Garden just as a thank you for no specific reason. I have learned so much about being generous and giving of what I have to others from the incredible examples of generosity in our church. THANK YOU Faith Baptist for showering your YP with love.

Back to our dinner conversation…

Tony has always wanted a Mohawk. I have tried to give him a Mohawk and failed miserably. He has paid for a Mohawk at a local salon and they failed him miserably. Since we’re headed to a music festival this weekend with our high school students, he felt the timing was right to give the crazy-do another try. I needed a haircut. I love Jackie @ Zenders Salon and I haven’t trusted anyone else with my hair for the last year. However, my terrible hair day left me desperately wanting to chop my hair off into a short cut immediately. (I’ve been adamant for years that I will NOT have short hair until I’m old). Our dinner discussion was a debate of whether we should act on our impulses and get the Mohawk and chop my hair, or act more reasonably and schedule an appointment with Jackie and skip the hawk. You already know what we decided.

There are three salons across the street from Olive Garden. We drove across, parked the car and marched into Blaze Salon. I sat down in the chair and told the stylist to give me short hair. As soon as I was finished, we walked outside, down the sidewalk and in to Great Clips for the hawk.

The result? I’ll admit it, I love the Mohawk. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The stylist told Tony he could totally pull it off. Is that a compliment?

The short hair will have to grow on me. I think I like it, but I usually regret it when a pony tail isn’t as easy. I’ll know when I have to style it for myself in the morning.

It was the first haircut I’ve ever had with Tony in tow. It made the whole experience much more entertaining. He took pictures the whole time just to be funny. I know I’ll look at those one day and be so thankful to have the experience documented in film. Ha.

Actually, it was a blessing to share the hour with him. We were able to engage in some really neat conversation with Kendra as she was cutting my hair. Tony was able to share his testimony of coming to know the Lord and going into youth ministry and we let her know about a new church plant in Iowa City. God provides so many opportunities for us to share His love and goodness. I pray I’m faithful to take advantage of those opportunities. People need Jesus, I want to share Him.

Tree Huggers?

I’m not sure how to properly define a tree hugger, but I know that today was the first time I really started to wonder – could it be true? Have Tony and I become nature-loving, tree-huggers?

It’s Thursday (now 12:07 a.m. Friday) and we’ve just ended another immensely enjoyable day off. It was hot and windy outside this morning, and hot and muggy inside our house. We needed to be outside.

First things first, we had to accomplish a few chores around the house. #1- Laundry. For the past couple of months, we’ve been hanging clothes out on a clothes line in our backyard on hot, windy days like today. There’s something very refreshing about hanging clothes out to dry. And something very hysterical about my husband’s underwear in the middle of the backyard for the neighbors’ viewing pleasure. Hanging clothes outside is definitely an eco-friendly move, and it makes us spend a lot more time with the 2 trees suspending the clothesline – does that classify us as tree-huggers? Not quite yet?

During lunch on the porch we had a deep discussion about whether any of the 4 trees in our backyard made for good climbing trees. Since we’ve only been in the house for a few months, everything still feels pretty new. Our deep conversation over the trees led us to realize we didn’t really feel as if we “knew” our trees. We know a few things about them– they terrify us every time it storms, they leave tons of sticks in the yard every time it rains or the wind blows, they provide some pretty sweet shade, and we’re scared silly about how large a mountain of leaves they’ll create in the next month. But we don’t really KNOW them. You may think I’m crazy with this personification of our trees…I probably am. Would you agree that there’s something about climbing a tree that makes you really love the tree?

I wouldn’t be able to get into any of our trees without a ladder, so I thought it would be a perfect job for my super-human, burly husband to experience the tree climbing for the both of us. He gladly obliged. After a few minutes of plotting his climb, he ran from the neighbor’s yard and somehow scaled the tree trunk to begin the climb. Our 60-something retired neighbor looked on in wonder. Just to clarify - it was more of a “how old are my neighbors??” look of wonder on his face than a “wow that guy is incredible at tree climbing” wonder. My look of wonder was more of the latter. :)

That simple tree climb left both of us feeling a little more at home in our backyard. Trees were made for climbing.

Readers - I guess it’s up to you to weigh in. Are the Widdels tree huggers?