Bruin-tastic, Baby-tastic

So I finally got to watch my first UCLA game of the 2008 tournament and I cant be more proud of my bruins than this. It was incredible to watch us really dominate a good Xavier team and play our way into the final four for the 3rd straight year. I feel like I finally understand how people from other schools feel during march and December and January for football. It's awesome to know that my school is playing well when it counts, and against some of the best people in the country.
Well, as for me gushing over these bruins like some uber-fan, I'm sorry, but that's what is exciting in my life now. To that you may say," uh, JD aren't you gonna become a father very soon?" and to that I say "heck yes!!!!". Today Annie and I went to Babies-r-us to get our awesome crib and maybe some other stuff. Well, our crib wasn't in stock, but we were able to buy a car seat, a play-yard, and the mattress for the crib. We feel responsible, like we are actually parents or something, and we have the number to get our crib when the shipment of six come in next week. We are so stoked that we are gonna be ready for htis kid a full two months early. Anyway, go bruins, go baby and word to your mom.

Mustache March Madness

So March is rolling and that means a couple things: first, that Mustache March is upon us (sport em with pride) and also that the NCAA tournament is in full swing. I have to say that these are some real good reasons to love this month, especially if your a UCLA Bruin who has fun with facial hair.

I know, I dont have tv or cable so I haven't kept up with the Bruins as well this year as the past, but you bet your sweet butt I keep up with them through the webernet. I am one proud UCLA fan and alum, so go bruins!!! take it all the way and keep doing what you do well.

I also wanted you all to know about how I have embraced Mustache March (see above photo). Todd Wyrick (my co-small group leader at Bel Air Pres Middle School discipleship) introduced me to mustache march (as well as Facial Hair February and manuary) and I've had a beard for the last couple weeks in anticipation of the coming mustachioed glories. So while our Friends RO and Mindy Smith were staying with us I got tired of my beard and went to shave it. I asked Annie if i should rock the stash and she didn't like the idea, but with great encouragement from RO, I decided to go for it and this is the result. I plan on keeping that beauty up through the end of the month. Props to Todd, keep it real man

Speaking of RO and MIndy, they stayed with us for a few days and it was soooooo awesome. We love these guys and continue to be blessed by the couple that sent us out into youth ministry and models a marriage and co-directorship for us as we move along in our ministry journey. We hung out with them at the beach, enjoyed Morning Brew, and vegged with a whole lot of Project Runway: season 2 (they brought it, not me. but i still enjoyed it though) Well guys, enjoy the rest of your time in Hawaii and the North Shore.

Peace out to yall. we are moving forward in babydom.
OIL

Police

I saw something the other day that made me think. We were in this roadside convenience store and deli and we were eating a delicious lunch that was more delicious than you would expect out of a neighborhood convenience market. Annie and I were enjoying our meal and noticing how busy the place was; people from all walks of life were grabbing lunch or a snack at this apparent local gem. We noticed a local police officer come in and grab a snack and step in line. This officer happened to line up after a mother and her five or six year old child. The child happened to have the same snack as the police officer and grew excited when he noticed. He began a conversation with the officer, asking all about “bad guys,” the officer’s uniform and equipment, and then proceeded to tell the man that he wanted to become a police officer so he could “shoot the bad guys,” or something to that effect.

Throughout this interaction I was touched and blessed by both the child’s excitement and reverence for the officer, and the officer’s reciprocated excitement and sweetness to the boy. The boy was clearly excited to see a “real-life” policeman in his full uniform with the gun and nightstick and everything. The officer was so great at explaining that he “doesn’t want to shoot the bad-guys,” but also accepting the child’s excited respect. Annie and I thought that most policemen probably really appreciate moments like these, in a world and occupation where they see some of the lowest lows. I also thought about how I have recently felt more respect and gratitude toward people like police, firefighters, military and other service-people.

Judging my personal experience with police officers and being pulled over, I have an incredible knack for drawing officers who either don’t like me or want to really show me a lesson because of my youth, or my size, or maybe because I feel it’s wrong to lie and say I wasn’t speeding when I knew I was. Whatever the reason, though, I have just had really bad experiences with officers being really rude and even mean to me. Now of course, these aren’t my only experiences with officers, I can remember working closing shifts at Starbucks, and in gratitude, frequently giving officers who stopped in free coffee (don’t tell Starbucks, it didn’t happen often, but you don’t want The Green Machine after you).

Anyway, this vignette reminded me of an innocence that our culture somehow loses. As kids, we all look up to cops with the highest respect, admiration and awe, but somewhere along the road, maybe through bad situations that leave us with a salty taste in our mouths, or maybe just out of unfounded prejudice, we begin to see police as “the man” or “the fuzz” or whatever other ridiculous image our culture concocts. I am ashamed to say that I have allowed my own perceptions of police and other service-people to be colored by these cultural inaccuracies. Sure there are the stories from the paper and the news about corrupt cops, but that’s simply because we live in a broken world and of course, even police can be consumed by that. I realized for me to color my perception of police on those bad stories is like people who draw their perception of Christians from the wackos on TV, radio, the news and everywhere else we see crazy “Christians”.

Well, I walked away from this lunch encounter with a little more tangible respect for our service people. I mean, I respected them before, but it grew a little deeper and more real. I am also more thankful for how much these men and women give; all the more because they do it to protect and serve an ungrateful and bitter culture which I am a part of. I hope I can continue to have more respect and gratitude towards these public servants, and I will sure try to show them more, maybe giving off a bit of child’s wonder.

I would appreciate any comments on the quality of my writing, including content, style and flow and all that stuff. so hit me up and let me know.

Rest

Well, it's vacation time for the Groves. We are resting as much as possible and loving it. Getting great time with family and will get some wonderful time just the two of us driving the whole California and Oregon coast. We love our time, and the wonderful weather, and our family. updates on the way

Winter Camp

So my last post referenced our youth group's trip to Winter Camp on the mainland. It mostly talked about my gastrointestinal problems, and I mentioned I would actually talk about the trip later so here we go. I honestly, was looking forward to the trip as a refreshing retreat. We had worked really hard to get there, and the last couple weeks especially were the big final push, so I was really looking for fun with our kids, and pure, wonderful, rustic relaxation. Thankfully, I really did get this, so I am blessed by that.

We (Annie and I) also felt like we grew into our new jobs so to speak. Being promoted in September brought some changes, but sometimes we had a hard time 'feeling' like we had the real ministry job and responsibility of it. This winter camp trip really marked a change for us in that. From airport transport, car rentals, to setting up tickets and rentals at the mountain, and leading the kids throughout the weekend, we really felt like we stepped into our roles as youth directors. We are really thankful about this weekend and how it worked out for us as youth leaders.

We are also thankful because we really noticed how young we are this weekend. Not only did Annie feel like she was constantly mistaken for a pregnant teen, we also noticed every other youth director was about 30-45. Anyway, we had a chance to talk with other youth leaders and really were able to appreciate our youth and inexperience. We don't have everything together and we know that, but this gave us the grounded reality that we are just plain young for what we do and have plenty of opportunity to grow and mature into it.

We were all blessed during this weekend with Forest Home's program. They gave our kids such a great and new experience in terms of worship and youth events. We hadn't a chance to experience the big, wild, crazy fun youth events with enthusiastic and experiential worship. There were about 600 students total and when you have that many kids, and you run a program well, you get a great experience and that's what we had.

The speakers were also awesome that weekend. We were blessed by hearing from Troy Murphy, Jeff Wagner, Chuck Hunt, and our very own Sean Palmer and these men challenged both us and our students to a deeper and more real relationship with Christ. They threw out a stat at the beginning of the weekend and the rest of the weekend's talks sort-of circled around that. Anyway, they related the stat that about 80% of high school Christians will leave their faith after they leave high school, and they then took it the step further to say, that if that is true, 80% of the students in attendance would leave faith after HS. Anyway, the weekend focused on the theme, "The Jesus that..." and the speakers went on to relate different aspects of the biblical Jesus. Anyway, I was challenged personally to know that we, as youth leaders, must try to connect these students with God in a way that leaves them changed and unable to deny or walk away from God.

I know that there really isn't anything I can do on my own to connect kids with God, so I see the challenge as "how can we set up situations where kids really meet with God?". Anyway, this is my ongoing challenge that was brought out by our winter camp weekend. Well that's all from me for now. PEACE!!!!!!