Ben's Blurbs

Job Opportunities are looking Good!

2007-07-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

Well this evening at our pastoral search committee meeting I had the opportunity to speak with the ministerial director. He knew who I was even though we had never actually met, and then told me that I would be receiving yet another phone call about a prospective interview. So it looks like I will be having two interviews in the next few months.

Please keep Olivia and I in your prayers as we continue to go through this process.

Pastor Leaving

2007-06-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

Well the senior pastor is leaving our church to go to Roseburg Oregon. This presents some very exciting opportunities for me as well as some pretty scary options. I would love to be a youth pastor type forever but with the pastor leaving I will be taking care of a lot of the stuff that he would normally do. I this presents some interesting issues,

First I am only paid part time, and taking on more responsibility means that I will have to commit more time than I am currently getting paid for. I am ready for the challenge but I do have bills to pay and spending more time doing church stuff will mean that I will have to cut hours at my other part time job. Thus I will be making less money. But If it is in fact what God wants me to do I will be more than happy to do it and I trust that God will provide.

Second It is possible although not likely, that I could be hired on full time as the senior pastor. Something that I am not sure that I want.

Either way I have a lot of praying to do. And I would appreciate any and all prayers that you all (whoever you are) would pray for me.

Crazy last two weeks

2007-06-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

Well the last couple of weeks have been nutso! Olivia and I went up to Walla Walla for my cousins graduation, and then the Tuesday after we got back I got a phone call from my dad saying that if I wanted to say goodbye to my Grandpa we had better get down to Fortuna ASAP.

We left Wednesday morning in an effort to get there in time to see him before he passed away. We arrived at like 8:45 pm. My mom met us in the parking lot and told us that he had died about 10 minutes earlier. :( The week ended up being filled with crazy stories about Grandpa and lots of crying. The Memorial Service was last Saturday afternoon at 4 pm. My grandmother wanted me to give the Eulogy, so I did, even though I had absolutly no idea how. (I told her that they don't teach those things in youth pastor school)

The next day (Sunday) We got up at 3 am and headed down to Angwin for Olivia's sister's graduation. We spent most of the day there and then went to Santa Rosa to see some friends. Then on Monday we went to San Francisco for the day and walked all over the waterfront. From the Ferry Terminal to Guiradeli Square and back again. the next day we drove the 11.5 hours back home.

Needless to say it was a crazy time! And I am glad that God was watching over us!

Blazing sun + Oregon "rain tan" = Sucky!

2007-05-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have been working on Eric and Laura's farm again and I just discovered that when living in Oregon you develop what I like to call a "Rain Tan." Now you may be asking yourself what in the heck is a rain tan? That my friend is a good question, one which I am glad that you are asking yourself.

You see a "Rain Tan" is the opposite of a sun tan. All of the rain we get hear essentially sucks the color out of your skin and you turn this awful shade called pasty white.

Now the trouble is that when you mix the rain tan with a beautiful Sunny hot day and standing in the sun you get what I like to call a Lobster husk.

A lobster husk is a painful bright red, almost purple shade that your skin turns. The only plus to this Lobster husk is that when it peals away you are left with a golden brown sun tan and the rain tan is banished until sometime in mid November when the rain once again sucks the color from your body.

Solution for PC Trouble

2007-04-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

For those of you with PC troubles I have the perfect solution.

Please follow the directions to a "T"

Step one:

Lift Lid

Step Two:

Toss PC in

Step Three:

Push down on lever

Step Four:

Visit www.applestore.com
From a friends Mac

Satisfaction Guaranteed!

Exciting Stuff!!!!!!

2007-04-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

Ok so I am officially quite happy! Friday evening I was speaking with a teacher at the Adventist school in McMinnville, one thing led to another and we have decided on a youth mission project for the summer. There is this church up here in a little town called Hopewell that is in disrepair in more ways than one, if you know what I mean.

The Church building is actually the oldest church in the conference at 103 as it was the first Adventist church built in the state. Because of it's age it is rather run down and needs some paint, drywall here and there and a new roof. It also needs a bit of concrete work.

The other form of disrepair is that of it's membership. There are currently less than 15 members on the books, most of witch are quite "seasoned."

So the plan is to invade the church for a number of weeks with teens from local churches and revitalize from the inside out... In other words we will not only make the building look better but we hope to add to it's membership through evangelistic type work....

I will write more as more plans are made but please keep this in your prayers!

Tired..............<--Understatement

2007-04-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Well I went to work on our friends farm today and drove the tractor up and down 80 rows of blueberries twice on each row mowing the weeds.... For those interested that is approximately 9 hours sitting on a tractor :( Needless to say my butt hurts and so does my arm from working the hydrolics all day.

So If this post is short that is why....

Two in one day...

2007-03-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know two posts in one day.... What is the world coming too? Anyway I just had to share this.

Olivia brought me an Easter gift this evening. It is this cute little cow that when you push down on his back it poops out a yummy cola flavored Jelly Belly ;) Mmmm.... Mmmm... Good!

Will post a Youtube of it when I get a chance to video it :)

Funky Juice...

2007-03-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

OK so for the last week I have pretty much felt like poo. Had a fever, had the Hershey Squirts (sorry for ruining chocolate for everyone) and then I was barfing like barfing would soon be a fad of the past.

Anyway Last night I decided to make some Welch's grape juice to see if that would help wash out the nasty whatever, that I had within my body. The juice tasted a bit odd but i chocked that up to the fact that I was sick and the presence stomach acid within my mouth over the past couple of days had totally destroyed my taste buds... Anyway I drank almost the entire pitcher of juice, and about 20 minutes later I began to feel odd, not odd like I was getting better and feeling better felt odd after being sick for so long, but odd like, kinda tipsy odd.

This feeling continued to develop as I watched CSI and then Shark, well about halfway through the eleven-o-clock news I came to the conclusion that the juice was a bit, shall I say, OFF. But then I thought once again that it was just my sickness. This morning however I went down to the kitchen feeling much better than I did last night and took a wiff of the Juice. And well I think that I am going to call Welches and ask them if they make it a practice to sell fermented products.

So the next time you take comunion at church beware what is contained within that little plastic (almost enough to taste) cup of grape juice.

Blurbing For the Sake of Blurbing

2007-03-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

Ok so I am gonna give this whole blog thing a whirl....

I am not sure what exactly to do besides type a bunch of random stuff that just happens to be on my mind.

In other words I am about to bore you to your inevitable death ;)

Well maybe not, seeing that I can't seem to come up with anything else to say at this point in time....