A Nightmare While Awake

For months now, the students in the Middle School Ministry have been clamoring for an all-nighter. Realizing this would be near suicide for myself and my fellow leaders, I had always declined the option, seeking instead to have other events (see: Rocky Point Camping Trip). However, the students were incessant with their pleas and on Friday their wish, and my nightmare, came true. Truth be told, the night was actually a lot of fun. We had a lot of leader support in addition to some adult/college types who came to see what the MSM is all about. I was anticipating about 20-25 students. 39 showed up! By far the most we have had at an MSM event. It was super encouraging/overwhelming. We went to Boomer's (mini-golf/go-carts) and did a digital camera scavenger hunt. Dan Gillette, Charlie, Pati, and Greg did an upbeat set of worship songs at 2am. It was really great to see all of the kids sining and having fun. The students drank soda and Rockstars like water. Not a single student or leader slept a wink. We walked to Denny's in the morning from the church only to find that the restaurant was full. We then decided to invade Burger King, which went surprisingly well considering we had 50 people. God has really done a lot in the ministry and I am fortunate that he has allowed it to grow so much and has provided such strong leadership. Much love to all that helped with the event. Lets pray we only have to do one of these a year.

Walking to Denny's.

The Day of Days is Fast Approaching, or, "Time flies when you have your pilot's license!"

You may think the first part of title is referring to the impending birth of my baby boy, but though this monumental day is almost upon us (87 days away!), I was in fact referring to the Middle School Ministry All-Nighter that will be taking place this Friday. That's right folks, me, some other leaders, and 20+ middle schoolers, partying all night at the church. I have been mentally and physically preparing for this event for weeks, training, drinking Monster, and crying, all in hopes that somehow this event will be canceled. But alas, it is nearly here. It should be a lot of fun though. On Monday, a bunch of people went to my parents to celebrate Justin's birthday. My dad barbecued some excellent burgers and my mom baked a cake. The Bowen family really put on a culinary show. Justin turned 22. I guess time flies when you have your pilot's license. It was a lot of fun. As most of you know, Justin savors the spotlight and loves it when people shout his name so he found as you may have guessed, he was especially endeared when we all chanted his name just prior to the "Happy Birthday song." He loved it so much his whole body turned red. I bet I will love the all nighter that much.

More Pictures, Less CSET's

I found out yesterday that I passed the final CSET (state required subject based test for teaching). It was a super-hard 4-part test. I am glad to be done with it! Here are some pictures that Justin took on Houseboats.

Our little cove.
Matt Pine and I in our garbage bag outfits for a skit we would soon perform.
One of Oroville's hottest models.
Look closely at the stars. They are pretty.

Ugly Boat #2

First off, HAPPY 22nd BIRTHDAY JUSTIN!!! We got back from Houseboats. It was really an amazing trip. John Argo spoke and it was right up there with my favorite series of talks that I have heard. He spoke about Peter and Judas in terms of their relationships to Jesus. The way that he spoke and used the Word really brought scripture alive for me in a new and powerful way. Everyone that I talked to was really encouraged by it and as always, he was hilarious. He says the weirdest stuff. I love it. I was the only leader oh my boat until Friday night when Matt Pine and Joe Stewart showed up. It was fun spending time with those guys. I had 8 students on my boat as well. There was about 90 people on the trip. Melissa surprised me and came up for the day on Thursday with Mandie. I was glad she was able to make it. We floated around in the water (with her new found buoyancy!) and just sorta hung out. It was enjoyable. A guy (Austin) brought up 2 wave runners. Justin was in charge of driving one for the trip, a role that he reluctantly obliged to take. It was quite the insane ride. Justin took my dad and I out for a while. The thing has over 150 horsepower and easily does over 50mph. It's nuts. If you look closely at the second picture you can see my dad flying off. The group reminded me a lot of the crew that was around when I was a freshman. Overall, the demographic is pretty young and for the most part, not very mischievous. Everyone had a good time just hanging out. Six students got baptized yesterday which was a highlight. Houseboats is always a fun way to end the summer and I am fortunate that it is part of my "job." It's ridiculous how God has bless me this year. And on another freaky note, our baby is due in 89 days. That's double digits folks.

Pati requested that I post this picture documenting her declaration of love for Peter Rapine (as well as Becca's admiration of Spencer Colvin).
Funny thing is, later in the day the boys adjusted the sticks to say, "Go Away!"

8th Grade Shindig & Houseboats

On Sunday we had an 8th grade graduation banquet at the Robery's house. Though not all of the 8th graders could make it, we still had a really good time. It will be interesting when the new school year rolls around because a majority of the committed MSM students are 8th graders and the 7th grade class is sorta flaky. These things always seem to work themselves out though so I am not really worried. As of September 1st, I will have completed a full year of serving as the Middle School Director. It has been a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing what this next year (and beyond) holds. Tomorrow I will be leaving for Houseboats. Melissa unfortunately will be staying home with Bauer and the baby so that she can prepare for the impending school year. I love Houseboats and am looking forward to yet another adventure on Lake Oroville. Unfortunately Grandpa Swiers will not be attending this year due to an illness that he has. Keep him in your prayers.

This is the intro to a wedding that I shot in Grass Valley in June. I accidentally put it on there twice in a row. Forgive me!

Crawdads and 97 Days 'til I'm a Dad

Mel and I got back last night from Donner Lake. It was a lot of fun. The weather was pretty nice during the day and super cold at night. The group consisted of the Conley's, Perry's, some more of their family, and my family, as well as various other characters thrown in. During the day we spent time by the lake, kayaking, swimming, and hanging out. Mel and I brought Bauer with us. He was pretty funny. He spent 90% of the day in the water chasing his buoy. He even rode on the kayaks. He is a funny creature. Mel and I stayed with her parents in their new tent trailer. Yet another perk of being pregnant (By the way...97 days until the due date!!!). At night we hung out by the fire and played Monopoly. Josh, Chris, Tyler Moxley, and I played our brand of over-competitive, cut throat Monopoly, in to the wee hours of the morning. It was intense. Another highlight of the week was the crawdad feed. Chris and Josh (the white trash cuzo-crew) devised a method of catching crawdads using a fishing pole with bacon on the hook. The little crustaceans would grab the bacon with their claws and would hold on until we placed them in a bucket. They also bought a couple traps. We probably caught close to 200 of them. We then boiled them up and had a crawfish feed. It was equal parts gross and funny (to me at least, everyone else loved eating them). Nick Breitbart and his girlfriend, Sherry, came up as well with two of their friends, Jose and Adam. It was fun spending time with them. People popped in and out throughout the trip and it was a lot of fun to have a big group like that. The camp host, Curt, whose site was across from ours, ended up playing games with us and eating with us which was pretty fun. He was a nice guy. We are already starting to plan next year's adventure so sign up now if you would like to join us!

Six months pregnant...her, not me.
Some of the ladies (& Bauer).

Crawdads.
Justin and Bauer.
Mis padres.

Donner, Party of 20 +

In celebration of cannibalism and all things involving the devouring of loved ones, my family, Melissa's kin, and some friends of ours are all camping at Donner Lake this week. Unfortunately I have school tonight so I was unable to leave with Melissa last Sunday. Therefore, I have been a living the bachelor life the past couple of days. Tony, Ashley, Justin, and I took Mandie to a restaurant in the city called Beach Chalet on Sunday. It was a really cool place, located next to the Cliff House and Ocean Beach. She turned 21 while we were away on the mission trip so it was fun to be able to take her out for a proper celebration now that we are all home. Yesterday Tony and I drove to Santa Cruz for lunch. It was random, but fun. We showed the orphanage video at church on Sunday and the response was pretty good. Everyone wants to be involved in the process which is really encouraging. Chris Cline and his wife, Linda, will be heading out there in a couple of weeks to check some more things out and have some conversations with local churches and officials in Ukraine. I was invited to go but felt I should stay home with the wife and kid. It will be really interesting to see how God uses all of us in Ukraine (if he chooses to do so at all). I am ready to serve, which is both scary and exciting (see: Lauren Wallace). If you have the platform to do so, post the video to your blog, or MySpace to help spread the word. Thanks.

Ukraine Orphanages

Yesterday was a pretty tough day. Gary and Chris Cline asked me to prepare a segment of the Ukraine orphanage footage to show at church on Sunday. I sort of procrastinated on the editing process because I knew it would be tough going through all the footage. It was. Melissa was sitting on the couch working on school work and she looked over at me as I was pressing the keys on the keyboard, crying with my headphones on. It is hard enough watching the footage and oputting it to music but is even more difficult knowing these kids are still over there, needing food, warmth, and most importantly, love.

We are moving forward in the process of building an orphanage in Ukraine as a church. We are in the very beginning stages but there has been a bit of headway which is exciting. Pray for the people that will be making decisions throughout the process and pray for direction on what your involvement may be.

A Cleverly Titled Beach Day

Yesterday a large crew of us spent the day at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz. This is an annual tradition the first Wednesday after the Arizona Outreach and always a highlight of my summer. I took a small group of Middle School students along with a couple MSM leaders. There were about 60 or so people at the beach in total. I got there at about 2:30 and played some football with some guys. It was a really nice day and good just to get out and play on the beach. Some of us walked over to the Boardwalk for a bit and played volleyball on the nets that were on the beach. It was splendid. I thought about it a lot while I was in Arizona, and I was reminded again at the beach, about how fortunate I am to have such good friends. I won't rehash stuff I already talked about on here but it is a cool thing to have such a tight knit group of people that I love and love me in return (most of the time). Tony, Charles, and I had a bit of a photo shoot as well which was equal parts fem and fun. We took a ton of pictures and some of them came out pretty fun. After the photo shoot we had a bonfire, played some songs, and shared stories from the mission trip. It was a good way to cap the day. Here are some more of the pictures that we took. They are ridiculous.

Some of the girls doing their ever-so-clever jumping pose.
A pyramid. Much less impressive than those in Egypt.
9 People.

After the festivities of the evening we went to Marianne's Ice Cream where I was fortunate enough to enjoy the best ice cream my mouth has ever come across. Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Dough. A fat kid's dream come true. Try it.

Baby Zambia

My good friends Andy and Brittlee (from Colorado) are in the process of adopting a baby from Zambia. As most of you know, it is a rather lengthy and expensive process. In an attempt to raise money for the adoption, Brittlee's mom (a very gifted artist) created a lot of cool jewelry that they are selling. As you can see from the pictures they are rather cool. Cruise on over to their Baby Zambia where you can check out the rest of the jewelry and read Brittlee and Andy's adoption story. It is inspirational and definitely something that Mel and I are interested in doing eventually. Today is beach day, which is an annual adventure the first Wednesday after the mission trip. It is always a special evening, filled with sand, bonfires, and small sticks (they are everywhere). It should be fun!

The Berlin Wall-ace

I just finished reading Lauren's blog. I am really proud of her. It's been cool to see her openness to how God wanted to use her. I think a lot of us are scared to do the things that God wants us to do. Leaving our comfort zones, let alone our homes, is a difficult thing to do. She is in Germany right now, serving in a leadership postition for Young Life for the next 2 years. Pray for her often. It is weird to be back home still. I really like spending time on the Rez, serving alongside my friends, and in some cases, family. I am fortunate to be a part of a really great group of believers. It's a cool thing. Many of us on the trip had been there multiple times and it was cool to see how many of the Navajo remembered us. God has been able to help us establish some really cool connections there and now we are starting to have some really cool conversations with the families we are ministering to. It is something I am really grateful to be a part of.

Here is the second video that I made for Pati. She is singing "Always Forever" by Phil Wickham. She played this song during our devo on the mission trip and it sounded great.

Home Is Where the B.A.R.T. Is (Hold Up, Wait a Minute, Put a Little Love In It!)

We got home last night at around 10:30pm. The drive was fairly smooth and uneventful. Quite the opposite of the days that preceded it. The days that led up to the uneventful drive home were filled with poorly played basketball, me blowing up a Nissan Armada, 110 degree heat, lightening, and Mr. Tumnus. I shall explain the latter before elaborating on the former. One morning when we woke up, after spending the night in the magical air-conditioned house that Mel and I crashed in, Tony and I attempted to wake my brother up who was sleeping on the couch. He was shirtless and looked a bit like something out of Narnia. So henceforth he was known as Mr. Tumnus. He loves it. Though Nissan Armadas look tough and manly, they are in fact made of feathers, flowers, perfume and silk. I was driving it from the Rez to Flagstaff when it decided to stop working. It died. We realized that the transmission gave out and luckily it wasn't my fault. But we stayed the course. Things worked out. Basketball camp was a lot of fun too. It was extremely tiring but a great experience. I lost almost 10 pounds this week which was funny. I loved coaching alongside Tony, Matt Pine, Chad, Josh Moog, and the girls. Angela, Irene, and Meghan tried to pester me and were pretty sure that they drove me nuts, but truth be told, they worked hard and were a lot of fun to be around. Just don't tell them I told you that! Melissa did so well on the trip. I was so impressed with her and was reminded (not that I needed to be) about how strong her character is. She is so tough, yet still a pretty cute girl. Quite impressive. She She worked hard this week and our baby will be that much stronger for it. He told me that he enjoyed the Rez and looks forwarding to slaughtering a sheep there one day. What a stud! Mel's kids club family really wants her to bring the baby out there next year. We'll see what happens! I am so thankful that God allowed Mel and I to go on the trip. It truly is one of my favorite things to do and I hope Mel and I can go back again. God really did a lot of work through our group and within it. I was blessed to be a part of it. I will write more about it later.

On the Rez

Today is the 6th day of the Arizona trip. Things have been going really well and hopefully you have been keeping up with the trip's blog. We are leaving the Reservation today and heading for Flagstaff which is both exciting and a bummer. I helped lead the basketball camp this week and escaped virtually unscathed. It was a ton of work but a lot of fun. I got to get to know Chad Clelland and Matt Pine pretty well. they are great guys. The Ton and I got to hang out a ton too which was a treat. I am pretty tired and should probably go help clean up. I will talk more about the trip and post some pictures when I get home. Good tidings.