Brewer Game & Craft Day

On a Sunday afternoon in August, our Life Group gathered for separate guys and girls events. The guys went to Minute Maid Park to see the Brewers lose to the Astros and the women got together and created some awesome pillows. On the right, you can see the guys at the game and down below, you can see Diana's creation and Jean demonstrating her amazing sewing abilities to Whitney.

River Dayz

Last Tuesday, Diana and I had a chance to "float the river" with the SIX10 youth at our church. After a 2.5 hour drive and a stop at Bucee's, we arrived at Corner Tubes and the Prince Solms Park in New Braunfels, TX. From here we had access to the Tube Chute and were able to float the Comal River. Once we lathered on the sunscreen, got our wristbands and found the perfect tube, we hit the tube chute. A quick walk through the park brings you to some steps to help you enter the water. The Comal River is spring-fed and thus quite cold, even though it was in the 90s outside, so it is best to just jump in before getting on your tube.

After an hour on the chute, we gathered together for lunch consisting of turkey and ham on bread (no condiments), chips, cookies and water. About 1:30, we hit the river again, ready for the 1.5 to 2 hour float down the river. Overall the river flows pretty slowly, with a couple of mini-chutes and rapids, so you get plenty of time to discuss life and other important matters. Of course, you are floating with dozens of other people (it was packed, on a Tuesday) all around you with their coolers and their dogs (why they would do that I don't know). The hot sun and the cold water were the perfect mix for just sitting there, although the tubes themselves (they were black) would get really hot, so it was good to periodically get out and get the tube wet. Funny Story: On one such occasion, I jumped back on to my tube and got a serious cramp in the calf. I am writhing in pain on my tube, trying to massage it out, while my ever-so-helpful fellow floaters just laugh at me. I eventually got off the tube and was able to "walk" it out, feeling much better, but did get a few concerned looks for some nearby tubers.

After our float, some of the kids went again, but Diana, Elisabeth and I decided to do the chute a few times. Elisabeth had not had much chance to relax on the float because she had been surrounded by teenagers, who can't seem to sit still. Imagine that! So, we did the mini-float (15 minutes w/o paddling) to the chute a few times. I did try going through the chute without a tube, which was quite fun, but certainly rougher and a bit dangerous, particularly with so many people around.

Once we got everyone rounded up, we headed to Rudy's BarBQ for dinner. I guess that they have one in Houston, but we had never been. It was some great BBQ and we had the best check-out dude who gave us samples and explained the whole process. They have sandwiches and sides, but you can just buy cooked meat by weight, as much as you want. It was pretty cool and really good. Going to have to check it out again. As well as floating the river, which was a blast, particularly with a bigger group.

PS. See more pictures from the trip on Facebook.

Orientation: What I Learned

Diana has been bugging me to write about what I learned at the orientation. This is a question that have tried to answer several numerous times since we got back and I have struggled to come up with one. Now that I have had time to reflect on it, I think there are two reasons for that. First, the conference was long and intense, leaving little time to digest any of it at the time. Second, I was not really struck by any one thing as earth-shattering or life-changing, but instead a lot of little nuggets of truth and wisdom, making them harder to pinpoint. So, with all that being said, I think that I have come up with a few things that I learned at orientation.

1. Culture shock is real. I, of course, knew this already, but I did not have a firm grasp on how culture shock worked. Teri McCarthy (she has a new book coming out in dec) gave a great lecture on dealing with culture shock and laid it out very succinctly. I will not go into all of the details here (see below), but we decided that every time you move or enter a new place, you have to deal with the same symptoms. Whether you are new to Houston, TX or Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, you can have a hard time communicating, you will get lost and get frustrated easily, and you miss the place you used to live. It is easy to slip into depression and never go outside again. And this will happen unless you can adjust, realize that things are what they are and repeat to yourself, "It's not good, it's not bad, it's just different" and you are on the road to recovery. Sounds so simple doesn't it?

2. The New Atheism. One of the speakers at the conference portion of the orientation was Elaine Storkey, a philosopher from the University of Oxford in England. She was clearly brilliant and very engaging, with some amazing stories. (Sidenote: she has her own Wikipedia page and a Facebook page, a nice mix of web-presence.) Her second lecture on Friday morning was about the New Atheism, a look at present-day atheism and how they are attacking Christianity and religion as a whole. It was a very interesting discourse on how atheism has turned away from science as its basis and become political. They still use science as a foundation, but it is no longer approaches religion scientifically, instead looking to convince everyone that religion is harmful (look at all the wars) and irrational (evolved beings don't need faith). Using these arguments and things like the Atheist Bus Campaign in England, atheists are trying to use the powers of persuasion instead of reason to convince people God does not exist. I found the talk extremely interesting and I feel better equipped to discuss books like The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. If you want to know more, a good resource is: Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments Against Evolutionary Psychology edited by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose.

Now check out these pictures!