iStand

So for the last couple of weeks, my car has been acting up. I took it to Midas in St. Louis Park and found out what the problem was, and also got a quote - which was super pricey. Over a couple of weeks, and per the advice of my dad and father-in-law, I researched and found a local mechanic who was supposed to be pretty good. I found his fairly shady garage in North Minneapolis, and really, he did a great job. Plus, it cost about a fifth what Midas wanted to charge me. Phew, mission accomplished.

Then, the next day, my computer randomly froze up. Tried turning it back on, and it just wouldn't work anymore. Once again, I was on the phone with my dad. Turns out, after attempting to do several tests on it, my hard drive is fried. That's right. I've lost everything I didn't back up since October-ish. Which isnt a huge deal. I also lost all the pictures I took since spring 2009. Luckily most of the important ones such as wedding pictures and Israel pictures are backed-up on CD's. But seriously, really inconvenient. Lost my contact list and everything for my support-raising, any talks I've given at TreeHouse, and other various documents i've written. Lame.

All this is to say that, although I was certainly very excited to have a dad who knows a lot about computers and cars and a father-in-law whose expertise is small engines, I wasn't exactly happy about either situation. Which is normal. And also wrong.

Just last week I had a Bible study with some TreeHouse youth where we talked about James 1:2-6 (one of my favorite passages in Scripture) and discussed the role that trials and hard times plays in our lives. God's ultimate goal by bringing us through hard times is to bring us to maturity and even closer to Him. Although it can be so difficult, we are called to face trials joyfully, knowing that God will help us persevere and at the end, we will know Him even better, more intimately. Isn't it funny how the day after you help someone understand one of God's promises, He asks you to cling to that same promise?

I didn't react poorly (I don't think...maybe you'd have to ask Emily about that one), but I certainly didn't react with joy. It's great to know God uses these things to lead us to perseverance. Promises are promises... and facts are facts.

Chicago, That's (not) My Home Town!

Lyle and I trying to "relax our minds" during a round of Mindball. It was weird.

Last weekend, Emily and I had a great (as you can obviously tell from this photo) time visiting our good friends Lyle and Tiffany Cruse, as well as Jeremy and Ashley Elliott. There were also some guest appearances by Lee Rowell, Eric Heater, and Hailey Morris. It was SO FUN getting to hang out with everyone again in Lyle and Tiffany's apartment, my home-away-from-home during my last years at Moody.

We always love running around the city of Chicago, and this weekend was no exception, but what we mainly loved was being near our old friends whom we wish we could see more often. It's crazy to think how much has happened in all of our lives over the last couple of years, and it's exciting to see where God is taking all of us! But we still miss regularly spending time with each other. We had some good times reminiscing. Crazy that me, Jeremy, and Lyle have been so close for more than ten years now!

It was also a testament to God's faithfulness. It's truly amazing to see how He has used us in each others' lives throughout these years, in ways that we never could've guessed or planned while we were filming crappy "horror" movies in Lyle's basement during blizzards, or jumping into a nearly frozen swimming pool in the middle of winter. Now that the three of us are all "grown-up", it's great to be able to encourage each other as we find ourselves married to amazing women, studying theology, and doing youth ministry. God is SO good!

Pushing A Political Agenda?

By no means am I breaking new ground by wondering if Television networks are pushing any sort of political agenda. However, last night, Emily and I caught an episode of ABC's Grey's Anatomy (to my displeasure). Outside of even more obvious theological and ethical problems present in the show's plot, there was an underlying message that was unsettling to me and Emily.

A woman on the show was pregnant and freaking out because she felt that there was a problem with the baby growing inside of her. She went to a pediatrician in the hospital in order to get an ultrasound of the baby. The woman said she was 6 or 7 weeks pregnant. They could see no heartbeat on the monitor, and the she became very upset at this. However, the sonographer said, repeatedly, "There's nothing to be nervous about, you can't usually detect a heartbeat in a fetus until 8 weeks into the pregnancy." She reiterated their inability to see this heartbeat until 8 weeks four different times in the show. Now, in all fairness, they did see the heartbeat by the end of the show. However, I thought Emily was going to throw something at the computer as she became quite angry whenever they said the "8 weeks" statistic.

After even a very preliminary search online, I found several places where it said 22 days from fertilization (five weeks into pregnancy) the heart is beating. Furthermore, I saw this piece of news today. Ohio state representative Lynne Wachtmann is unveiling a "Heartbeat Bill." Their findings have shown that a heartbeat can be detected "as soon as 18 days after conception." The bill would prohibit women from being able to have an abortion after this period of time.

It took me all of three minutes to find those facts. So.... a "medical" drama must do some research.... right? Were the producers/writers pushing any kind of pro-choice political agenda in touting their "8 weeks" statistic repeatedly or were Emily and I just reading into it a little too much?

Making some good headway!

Well, as most of you know, I've been raising support for my ministry at TreeHouse since November. I am glad to say that I'm getting closer and closer to my monthly goal! I am now only about $400 a month away from being able to start working program again full-time back at Plymouth!!!

Originally, I was trying really hard to get all my support in by the end of February. I might be REALLY REALLY close to actually attaining that goal! Thank you guys so much for all the support and prayer I've received over the last months. You guys are amazing and obviously, I couldn't do this ministry without you all!

I talked to Heather, the other Youth Outreach Specialist at the Plymouth TreeHouse about how things are going in Plymouth. It sounds like things have been rough lately with fights breaking out, students making bad decisions, and some of my guys going downhill. Not to say that everything would automatically be better if I was back there right now, but hearing about all these things makes me want to get back to Plymouth more than ever. Unfortunately there is no male staff member able to work full-time with the boys at Plymouth until I get back there. I'm so excited to hopefully get back to discipling them ASAP. Thank you for all your support in making this ministry possible.

you rock.

A New Blog

Well, this is the new blogspot for ElliottEvents instead of my old site on iWeb

Although i enjoyed using iWeb to post everything, I have quickly figured out that it takes a really long time to post a new blog update on there because I have to reformat every page every time i want to post something. Therefore, I am going to use blogspot because it is more simple and more clean, so hopefully I can casually update a lot more easily!

As you may have noticed, It's been a while since I updated my blog. That's a big part of why i decided i needed to switch. It takes too long on iWeb, and because of that, I fail to update frequently

So..... here we go....