Motorcycle Culture

I have found there to be an interesting culture in the motorcycle world. I have been riding for over 13 years and since the day I started riding I discovered an interesting phenomenon. First, there are 3 clear riding groups. There are the speed bikes (crotch rockets); cruisers and Harleys. There are also dirt bikes, low riders and touring, but these are the main ones. I ride a cruiser. It's a 1982 Suzuki GS450. It's a great bike and I have really enjoyed it.

It did sit for a few years in my move and then when my friend Randy took it to do some work on it, including a waiting period for me to save money for some parts. I got it back this summer and am riding again...finally! So good.

The other thing I discovered as a "rider" is that it doesn't matter what you ride, there is always the drop-the-hand-down-two-fingered-wave whenever 2 riders pass each other. This ALWAYS happens. I love that. There is a "brotherhood" with all bikers and there is something about belonging, even if you never meet each other.

This pic is of my bike with some things strapped to the back I had to pick up at GFU today. Great day for a ride!

UPDATE:
Clearly the scooters are part of their own world. Occasionally I will give a semi-wave to a scooter rider (Josh shout out)

Roots

I am currently sitting at Mosaic Church and doing "training"with our Roots students. There are 5 of them and they are really cool. Roots is a discipleship training "school" of sorts. They spend 3 months in community where they learn and serve and live together. It is a great concept. After that they go overseas and work with missionaries. There they will serve the communities that the missionaries serve. All designed to give them opportunities to see if this is a possible future for them.

I am taking them through the timeline of their lives. We are looking at places and experiences that have shaped them, people who have influenced them, gifts and abilities, places of pain, where their heart is drawn most to God and their dreams and passions. I am excited about this.

Next week I will take them rafting and do some team building exercises and then teach on how to put together a message the next day after that. This is a great group of students and I am really excited for them to be on this journey at this point in their lives.

Check out more info what this is all about at rootscma.org.

Street Party

Last weekend we decided to have our 2nd annual street party. We are actually having another one in August on National Street Night Out day, or whatever it's called. We like our neighbors so we decided once was not enough.

We got the BBQ out and had brats and other yummy dishes everyone shared. The kids decided that they would put on a play for us again and as is usual, we laughed very hard. They are hilarious. Then Kynzi sang Mr. Mom for us. Will she become an actor? I don't know. (side note, Karston told me he wants to be a youth pastor and do what I do when he grows up...how AWEsome is that?! Not bad since he has wanted to be a maker [McDonald's french fry maker], a race car driver and a Red Sox player for so long)

We also made s'mores in our little city approved outdoor fire place.

Here are a few pics from that fun night.

Youth Quake

We are smack dab in the middle of Youth Quake. It's our middle school service project camp that we run for our district. We have around 15 churches or so represented here with almost 200 students and leaders.

The whole concept of this camp is to help middle school students learn how to serve God by serving others. The basis of this comes straight out of the Bible. Check out this passage from Matthew 25 in the New Testament. It is a record of Jesus speaking. He basically says that whenever we care for someone else, it is like we are caring for Him. Amazing! When we give a hungry person some food, it is like we are giving food to Jesus. I love that!

These middle school students are tearing it apart. They are serving like crazy and I am just amazed. Our service projects include the following: working with the elderly at care centers; doing absolutely free car washes; working in community gardens with the area food shelters; making, serving and eating lunch with the homeless. There are a bunch more things and they are so cool.

Tomorrow we will be putting on a carnival at Grant Community School for kids of all ages. Every church will be running several different booths. There will be face painting, balloon popping, bean bag tosses and a bunch more. Of course there will be free cotton candy and sno-cones. yummm.

The evenings are filled with fun and serious times. We did the amazing race yesterday and it was so much fun. There was a dunk tank and there was getting into frozen clothes and slip and slides and launching of those marshmallow snoballs, just to name a few things. We went to a park with water fountains to play in and had a huge soccer game and enjoyed some amazing BBQ chicken.

The serious stuff is our evening sessions. We have 5 sessions and 4 speakers. I get to speak twice and then Kyle, Jessica and Michelle each get to speak. We also had some special guests from China share with us tonight too. I also have the great privilege of leading worship. There truly is nothing like leading 200 middle schoolers in song about God and to God when they have spent the day serving others. I can't believe I get to do what I do. What a true privilege.

I will toss some pics up soon.

CC Deville from Poison...new life?

My friend Rochelle sent me this info. I loved Poison when I was growing up (the band, not the "drink?"). My favorite song was "Give Me Something to Believe In." They were the epitome of 80s big hair bands. "Play it CC" was heard in many of the songs. He is their guitar player.

It turns out his life has been changed. How cool is that. I look forward to hearing more about this. I hope he is not eaten up by the "Christian world" and forced into being on TBN and all that. I think there are a lot of famous people who become Christians and they don't know what to do with the struggle of their new found faith and their fame. Pray for CC and the rest of the band. They are hot again, especially with Rock of Love with Brett Michaels and him being on that singing show with Wayne Brady (pretty funny).

Check out this video from his "official pastor."


Guitar Hero from Pete Wilson on Vimeo.

Fire and Explosions

I walked outside this morning to mow the lawn and I saw a huge plume of black smoke! It is Karston's birthday today so I told him to hop in the car and we would go eploring together. It was a nursery down the road about. It's out in "farm country" and away from homes, but it was HUGE!

We got over there and the smoke was dark black and so thick. It was gushing out. I run and ride my bike back here and usually I will see 2-5 cars the entire time I am out there. We saw over 50 cars filled with gawkers just like us.

We could feel the impact of several explosions while we were there. Turns out there were propane tanks a motor home and other things out in a storage shed. There were 7 different fire districts that came in. "Crews from Marion County Fire District 1, Keizer, Woodburn, Salem, St. Paul, Silverton and Southwest Polk County reported to the scene." They used over 32,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze. You can read the rest of the article in the Keizer Times.

Check out these crazy pics!

My Half Marathon Official Pic

Today I went over to finishshots.com and checked out the pics of me and others that I ran with in the marathon. Here are a few of those:
Casey Boda
Steve Unwin (my running twin)
John Stumbo (my Sr. Pastor)
Annie Dudley
Robb Childs
Paul Diaz
Patrick Kelley (classic patrick pics...man he is fast!)
Then there is me...
Erik w/a "k"?