the life of Jared

The week that was:

Highlighted by our 30 hour famine event Friday over Saturday.  It was amazing!  It's funny how we can put all of this time, effort and energy into putting something together and then God does something totally different.  Truthfully I was kind of bummed on Friday night as many of our kids came to check in and hadn't raised any money at all.  In fact, as a group we had about 20 more people than last year and raised only half of the money.  But over the course of the weekend many of our students became convicted of their lack of effort and have now decided to do anything they can think of raise money.  It's great to hear feedback from our students about how God has been wrestling with them over simple things as our lifestyle and the things we eat.  I'll try to put some of my many thoughts into a post sometime soon.

The week that is:

My parents, sister and brother in law are coming to town this weekend!  This is a big weekend as my 30th birthday is on Saturday, Karis is being dedicated on Sunday and I'm team preaching on Sunday with Doug in "big" church.  Needless to say my time is going to be pulled in many different directions.

What I'm reading:

Same few books.  Nothing new here.

What I'm listening to:

I'm on a serious DMB kick lately.  I've probably plowed through a few of his live albums both in my car and in the office.

What I'm looking forward to:

Well this past weekend I announced an upcoming move that Holly and I are making to our high school students and our youth leaders.  For the most part everyone was very supportive.  There were a few students who were totally caught off guard and are still processing through the news.  This coming weekend the announcement will be made to the whole church, so on top of preaching and Karis being dedicated it should be a roller coaster day.  All of that to say that we are now looking for housing in Chattanooga and it's turning out to be a difficult proposition.  Please pray that we can find a place that we are comfortable with and that will be good for Karis to grow up in for the next 3 years.  Also we are now starting to purge some of our junk and pack what we are going to take and I always hate this part of life.

Karis update:

She's over 8lbs now, which is awesome!  She's also had a few long nights lately which is making things difficult for mom and dad.  Hopefully this is just a phase and will pass soon, but we'll see.