Life in Transition

Back in the day around our engagement when I had Tony Danza Hair!!

I was having a hard time smiling because I was concentrating on taking the picture :)

It is funny how much life can change in a matter of five years...

• After graduating from Hope College in 2005 I moved to Chino, CA...

• Three days later I met the most beautiful woman in the world (pictured above)...

• A year after that, we were engaged...

• A year after that, we were married!!

• three months later we were moving across the country to Holland, MI to begin this seminary journey...

--> --> that was a hard transition... but God was faithful :)

Now three years later and I have an M.Div from WTS with Classis Exams around the corner. Here we sit with the future in front of us and yet we are wearing a big set of blinders. We have no idea where God is leading us next. It is easy to tell friends to trust in God; that God has a plan... this is all true and I do believe it on my best days... but on some days when the future is so uncertain it is just a little bit scary and I pray that God would help me to believe in his good promises. I must remember this when I find myself in the position of the friend :)

We know it will be another hard transition to again say goodbye to the community here that has become our second family. In a couple months things will be drastically different and I am sad about that. Right now Evonne and I again find ourselves in transition...

--> --> It is a hard transition... but I know God will be faithful :)

Here are a few things that I still do know...

• I still have the most beautiful woman in the world to journey through this transition with
• We are blessed to have wonderful family who love, encourage and support us!
• We are blessed to have made life long friends along the way!
• Immanuel - God is with us!

What it all comes down to is that we still have lots of love in our lives... that is something to be thankful for... so I think we'll be ok... :)

Do people read these...?

The Question....

Why Do I write a blog...?

1. Because people read it who are interested in my thoughts, life, etc...

2. For a record of my life... like a public online diary???

3. For my own enjoyment

4. for others enjoyment...

5. because i think i am so important that my voice needs to be heard...

Something i am realizing...

I do not think anyone is reading this thing (largely because i don't add posts often or because i am not very interesting... both possible)

That means reasons 1,2,4, and def 5 are off the board or at least revised... (reason 2 amended from "public" to "completely private"... Nice :) )  so i guess i write a blog for an online record of my private life and for my own enjoyment... i can justify that i suppose...

keep blogging my friends or i mean just JB!!!

Save the Earth, be a jerk to people!!

Green Rage...

Well just yesterday Evonne and I had the wonderful experience of being on the receiving end of some dude's non-violent road rage.  This is a run down of what happened.  We are approaching a red-light so naturally like any well education...well no really, like any normal person with at least an ounce of sense i was slowing down... i think that is what one does at a red light.  Suddenly a man in a honda like the one above honks his horn and whips past us into the left turn late.  So i think, "oh my i guess i was breaking a little too early for this red-light."  He meanwhile continued into his left turn lane which was funny enough a red light as well. [I guess he was in a hurry to get to the left turn lane for a red light.]  The next thing we noticed when he zoomed past us was that he was not only driving a honda but a honda hybrid.  So i thought well that is nice, he is saving the earth but saving gas, but deep down really pretty upset he just honked at me for braking [in his opinion] too soon.  (i just try and be easy on my brakes)

Then Evonne looked over as she was talking to me and apparently this guy was giving us this dirty look and pointing at us with his finger.  Almost like making a gun shape... i think his face looked something like this....

there was definitely drool...  Anyways so i am like just floored as to why he was so upset that he was moved to honk, speed by, and then point at us with his "hand" gun all with a ridiculous drool face plastered on his wannabe environmental head! :)  So i thought well he is saving the earth but being a big jerk to people.  Wait aren't people part of God's creation as well!  Consistency people.

I love the earth.  i love God's creation and i think we need to be stewards of this earth.  In fact i think it is our call as Christians and so far we have not done a great job at it.  Being Green, whatever you want to call it, is great, but we cannot have blinders on to everything else, especially other people.  Why are we making gas out of corn? Tens of thousands of people die everyday from malnutrition and starvation and we are using food to power our cars?  I am not saying i have all the answers but lets keep the whole picture in mind.  Also i confess i do a lot wrong in all of these subjects...  be green yeah that is great... just lets not be Green jerks! :)  

Am i green to help care for God's earth?  or am i green to save money?  or am i green cause it is cool? or am i green so people think i am a great person?  or am i green as long as it doesn't affect my lavish lifestyle?  tough questions and i think i would have to confess that i would have to answer yes to many of the later questions... what is my motivation....

Anyways... mostly the purpose was to laugh at the irony.. but also to think a bit... or maybe now you can write an angry comment... either way GREAT!!!

grace and peace

Metamorphosis

.

If one concentrates really hard...

and i mean really hard...

a metamorphosis will occur...

and greatness achieved.

~ SKEETER 2009

VBS 2009

Summer Internship...

Well i thought it was about time to add a little blogidy blog entry... because well i never ever do.  in fact i have been told that people have deleted my blog-ship since i never add... ok well here ya go we can be blog-friends again...  we have been in Tulare, CA for a couple of weeks now and things have been going well.  Evonne and i are living in a beautiful guest house, generously offered by the Wittens... awesome!  i have been learning and absorbing a ton so far... like a sponge!  i got two things to blog out today!

1.  Red box... awesome.. i was skeptical at first but it has been a great cheap way to rent new releases... that is good news!!!

2.  1 Kings 22: 8  .... Great verse just look it up and think about the last time your pastor or friend said something to you that you didn't like.... eek... and its funny!

man that is lame and nerdy to blog just that... but i just need to take baby steps...

From man to legend

This is a picture diary of the transformation from... beard to Burgandy....

From beard...

to Goatee...

to foo man...

to stash...

to freakin attractive...

i would write more on this but i think the picture explains it all... from normal ugly guy to a man who looks real good. 2 quick stories about this picture...

1. This picture is the first picture Evonne saw of me before i moved out to California... for some reason she still wanted to date me months later...

i was confused as well... i mean i didn't look this good when we finally met... i am surprised she fell for a man with out such a manly stash...


2. i lost a costume contest to some good friends at the Curragh... mine was complete with a jazz flute and a rock glass filled with Scotch... (watered down cola)... it was a fun night...

thats all....

Saturday Class??

Oh man... so apparently it is Saturday Night right now... i cannot really tell however because i got out of class about 10 hours ago! yeah here at Western Seminary we like to go to class on Friday Night and Saturday morning. So tomorrow i have to work at church and pretty much every other day is taken up... so no Sabbath for this guy. Now granted i don't want to complain cause in the grand scheme of things... life is pretty darn good!! I got a loving wife and a home to sleep... so yeah can't complain. i will share what this class consists of though...

Our class is Missional Church... which sounds awesome and quite frankly it probably could be a really cool class.... here are a couple of problems....

1. Well the obvious issue is that the class meets on the weekend... um yah don't need to go into that... who wants to go to class on Friday night 2-7:00 pm and Saturday 8-12:30 pm!!

2. This eight plus hours of class in two days consists mostly of lectures!!! Are you kidding me?!? i don't think Will Farrel could keep my attention for eight hours... and believe me i think the man is freakin hilarious!

3. We keep arguing about pointless details... (this however does keep it interesting which i am pretty sure why people bring it up...)

4. Today the last hour was a lecture on our prof's political foreign policy... i mean come on... i don't need to hear about my prof's political opinions when i am forced to be there... a little weird.

5. There is so much prep work for each class... discussion posts... then response posts to each member in our group... then a summary of what we learned... this all said amounts to about 1600 words... so what is that 7 pages or so?? oh and 1000 or so pages of reading???

6. What is there nothing practical/pragmatic?? Couldn't we go out and be missional or something... paint a house or something...

Well at least we got the following... some good things

1. We got pizza on Friday... that was great!!

2. Our prof is a pretty nice guy

3. There is internet access...

4. Jesus is Awesome!

i guess that is all for now!s