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!!!!!!

Readers Beware: Doody Alert!

Hey Readers! I've got the best update ever... if you are a guy who appreciates potty humor. If you are not into potty humor, stop reading. I mean it, stop reading or you may vomit all over your computer.

So, here's your chance...

Stop reading...

So after Tuesday's vomit fest, I felt a little better for youth group on Wednesday. I was feeling better on Thursday, Valentines Day, and I enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with Annie. We had already exchanged gifts for the most part, but I had given her an IOU for a pair of sunglasses (we tried to find some, but they weren't in stock). Anyway, Thursday went off great and we ate dinner at Saigon Noodle House, a great Vietnamese restaurant that is also cheap. We got home from Saigon Noodle and I had to take a deuce. So I sat down on the pot and experienced some explosive diarrheas. Annie was on the phone so she didn't know what was going on with me. I let her know I was having some squirts and that I hoped it would get better, since we were supposed to go to the airport in 2 hours and I hadn't packed for the trip yet. Well, it didn't stop.

I ended up pooping about 9 times in an hour and the last eight seemed to be pure liquid. it was like I was peeing out of my butt or something. At first I was concerned, even worried, but the it became pure comedy because well, it was a hilarious situation. Here I am about to take 11 high-schoolers to the mainland for a winter camp and I need to pack, need to leave in about an hour and a half, and I am absolutely pooping more than anyone has ever pooped before. I mean I am crapping my guts out and trapped on the pot. I was so trapped that I had to ask Annie to run to the Longs Drugs and buy me some Imodium. While she was out, I began to wonder what would happen if my crazy hershey squirts wouldn't stop. I couldn't stay home form the trip, and I might need some diapers or something. Annie was thinking the same thing apparently, and called me asking if I wanted some Depends. I said yes, and she proceeded to ask if I wanted the full diapers or just the liners. I thought liners would be better so I said that.


Fast forward... Annie comes home with the anti-diarrheal and the liners, which are not, in fact, Depends, but rather, they are Stayfree maxi pads. Apparently there was a miscommunication. So she packed up the maxi pads for me, and also packed some of our newly purchased baby wipes ('cause how would I clean up if I did mess the pads). I packed my bag, all except a towel and the Imodium AD worked. So we went off to the airport for our red-eye flight to LA and Forest Home, by way of Bear Mountain. Now the weekend rocked and I will share more about that later, but this post is strictly about doo-doo.

So for the weekend I am in charge (along with another guy leader) of a cabin of four of our high school boys. Anyone who has been around high school boys (or any male for that matter) knows that they love potty humor and farting and pooping. Well, this trip held true to that and by the time we left I'm sure they had to burn our room because we farted so much and had such stinky feet that our stink seeped into the walls of Cedar Inn, cabin H.

Well not only did I continue to have rank gas the whole weekend, which was probably only strengthened by the delicious camp food. But I also experienced aftershocks of Thursday and had more explosive diarrhea in public camp bathrooms because our personal cabin bathroom was clogged up (only one of those was my fault). The situation is this, I am leaving an awesome sermon and headed to our serious cabin discussion debrief and am experiencing ridiculously loud explosive diarrhea that our guys hear because they also used the bathroom. So I get back and enter the cabin to a chorus of laughter because they all heard bombs being dropped form my butt.

Anyway, this is the tip of the iceberg of "The Smelliest Weekend Ever". We laughed hard for most of the trip. One of our campers used the word "beef" more than anyone ever has (as in, "Oh, who beefed it?!?!?!), another camper referred to my farts as smelling like "rice bowl," (I don't exactly know what that means, although they also mentioned it smelling like teri beef) and so much more that has to do with smelly butts and feet. Huge props to Craig Metcalf, the adult leader in the room with us. He put up with more stink and giggling than any grown man ever has and was so great about the whole thing. Most mature adults would have been fully mortified by the display of stink, but Craig loved us through it all.

Well, more about the weekend to come, this one is strictly doody-rific.

Miscellaneous

Well, here we go...

Two weeks ago I got a head cold and got knocked on my butt a little, I then gave the cold to Annie, who got busted a lot longer than I, but also had some worse symptoms. Then tuesday morning I woke in the 5 o clock hour to some wicked gastrointestinal curiosities. I made a couple trips to the bathroom but nothing happened and I didn't feel better. Finally at about 6:30 I struck gold and tossed my cookies, big time. My uber-loud vomitting woke Annie up and she felt sorry for me. I then fell back asleep. Later in the afternoon I went for broke again and threw up the little water I had consumed that day. Needless to say, my day sucked. The next day was youth group and I am solely responsible for making the HS group happen, so of course I don't feel better. Thankfully I stopped throwing up, but didn't feel any better.

Made it through Wednesday, on to Thursday, Valentines day. Oh yea, tonight we fly on a red-eye to LA to take 11 HS-ers to winter camp. We will be driving right off the bat up to the mountains, snowboarding and then straight into an awesome, but energy filled winter camp. I am praying that I don't feel worse with the wear that my body is going to receive, but that's alot to fight against.

Also of note... Today marks the third valentines day in a row that Annie and I haven't been able to celebrate being a couple. Ever since we've been together we both had to work on Valentines day. Well, at least we work together every time....

Last, in honor of Facial-Hair-February, I am being very unshaven. Annie always tells me I look like a dirty, arab man; which is to say I look like an arab man who spent a week in the wilderness sans shower and shave, not that Annie thinks arab men are dirty, cause she doesn't. So here's a little photo-love in that. BTW, the above picture is me specifically pointing out my neck-beard.

Cannibal?

So I saw this on Mark Oestreicher's blog and thought it was funny, and my friends and I have joked about this a little bit so I figured i would take the quiz. I honestly expected the number to be lower, but its a little funny that it is this high. this is the same group of folks that recently came out and spent time with us here. I wonder if they will do that again after seeing this?

56%

You can click the badge to try it out for yourself, it's pretty funny. Well off to staff meeting I go...