We Made It!

I attended UTD's end-of-year party because I heard that there would be a flash mob for Brandon (the party landed on Brandon's actual birthday). Don't tell anyone I got it for you... but you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Q7eRcecoM

On our first day of SICM (Sunday), they had us join the end of their first service so that their congregation could pray over us, our safety and learning. What a sweet congregation! Their church really reminds me of the congregation at Northeast Garland, people who have really invested in a shared vision - in their case, it's to support and train ministers around the world. If you see the little posters on the back wall, they had posters lining around their whole sanctuary of missionaries that their body supports around the world.

On one of the sightseeing days in Seattle, a group of us took the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge. On the ferry, you depart from downtown Seattle across Elliot Bay, and get a grand view of the skyline.

The backyard of our house at SICM backed into Lake Whatcom. They provided 2 paddleboards to use which I took advantage of. If you look closely, you can see that I'm already soaked as I had already wiped out once at that point (I would fall in one more time before the end of the night).

It had been almost 7 years since I last set foot on my college campus (if you didn't know, I graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle). So it was fun getting to walk around with these guys and show them some of the highlights on campus - though, if you're a graduate from UTD you'll understand, there were some new buildings that were not there the last time I was there.

Everytime I go to Seattle, I have to grab some Ellenos Greek Yogurt (this sounds like an ad). It's probably one of the only things that I need to do when I go back because it's so good! (It is only yogurt, but it's really good yogurt.) You can get some select flavors at Whole Foods and it's still good, but it's definitely not the same.

I also got a chance to meet up with some old friends in Seattle. Gerald (in the backwards cap) is a friend from elementary school who was the worship leader for our youth group in high school, Zach (in no hat and is not me) is a friend from college that I met at the campus ministry we both attended, and Peter (in the forwards cap) is my brother who is a campus pastor at UTD.

This is my good friend Jacob. If you remember around this time last year, we had a crawfish boil because I had not been to one before. Well, we decided to make it an annual tradition (this would be year 2). We had some friends come over to enjoy some crawfish (the pot looks like dirty water, but it's actually really well-seasoned water) and celebrate Jacob getting his Master's from SMU (and continuing to get his PhD).

While at SICM, one of our guys wanted to take profile pictures of everyone on the dock in the backyard... I was eating a piece of pizza at the same time. 'Nuff said.

I got to meet with more friends in Seattle! Dennis on the far left (but not me) is a friend from college that I met at the college ministry we both attended, he also helped get me a job in college working in IT, Zach was joined this time by his wife, Jaz, who I worked with as well in college (in the aforementioned job), and Timmy on the far right is a friend from middle school!

Here are all of the staff and students we brought to SICM this year, about 113 in total! This was taken on campus at Western Washington University.

We visited Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham. I just love the different attitudes from the different pastors - but that sortof sums up the team from Denton well.

The other night we had a group of people go out and watch a local production of The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical. We were in our seats for 30 minutes after their announced starts time before someone went on stage to tell us that their lead actor had to go home sick and that they would have to cancel the show. Bummer!