Grilled Cheese and Rock n' Roll...

So, Priam and I had some time alone yesterday. We had a small situation as we were getting ready for church, and so he and I stayed back while the others went to the church cookout. We had a small talk about why he'd gotten in trouble, but we got things patched up pretty quick.

That's when the fun began. We made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, listened to WOW Top 30 Christian Music Hits, jammed out on some air guitar, and played a board-game. All in all it was a great experience! Some unique time he and I got to spend together that gave us a connection and built trust.

It made me think. You know, I could have hauled his little hiney to church, made him sit through the AWANA meeting (mini rant: really guys?! You expect a bunch of 7-12 year olds to sit through an informational meeting?!), brought him home, have him showered and in bed and still have to deal with his issue. He would have done what I wanted, but at what cost?

One of the other housparents here refers to, what he calls, "shoulder time". That's time a young boy needs to be shoulder to shoulder with a father-figure. Whether it's doing work, cooking a meal, or just goofing off and rockin' a sick air-guitar solo, a boy neds to have time to see what being a man is all about.

And that's what I was able to give Priam yesterday. Some time to be himself around me. Sure, he was missing out on  a fun party (and an AWESOME playground), but he was able to take away some small satisfaction of having time with me, with no competition.

So yeah, it was time well spent, and if today ends up being at all as crazy as it looks, it may just have been perfectly timed. But that's a story for tomorrow   :)

An open question...

So, tonight's topic is:

How do you explain "God the Father" or "Our Father" to a kid whose dad beats him with pipe when he has misbehaved even a little?

I must admit, this question is one I have heard before, but never really pondered until now. The father metaphor is found throughout Scripture, so it's not something you can just avoid til they're ready to face that particular demon. It's something that is going to show up time and time again. And honestly, many children in places like the Ranch feel broken or messed up for being here, and I loathe the idea of a child seeing God as "just another person who doesn't understand me because I'm broken."

There must be some way to explain it to them. To show them the meaning of the metaphor without necessarily hanging on the words.

For some, simply focusing on their mother works. Their mother may have been the one rock of safety they knew in their previous life, and so that vision of God as a loving caretaker can be carried through their mother. Sure it's not air-tight, but it's a start.

But others... well others simply have no real concept of what a family is supposed to be. And it's these that trouble me. How do I, as a person responsible for these children for however long God allows, illustrate his fatherly love to them? How do I help them understand?

I know that metaphor. the love of a father is strong. It stands any and all opposition. Even when I do wrong, my father loves me. Even when I need to be punished, it's because he wants what is best for me in the long run. A father's love makes him work crazy hours so he can take off time to go to his son's game, or gives up saving for a sports car so he can take his daughters to Disney. A father's love has him do crazy thiings, like beat around his kid's closet with a bat to "kill monsters", or to get up at 2 am Christmas eve to eat cookies and milk and put presents under a tree. A father's love is something most of us can grasp, but for those who can't, to whom do they look?

Is the metaphor of "Father" lost to them, or is there a way to let them see it? What other figure illustrates these unique facets of love?

Any suggestions?

Huzzah!!!!!

We have more stable internet now! The kind folks at Windstream sent a tech out to fix the chronic internet-no-internet problem we've been having. So you know what that means? MORE BLOG POSTS!!!!

So, here's the skinny; this is our weekend off, or what would be. We've agreed to come back early so our relief can go to a funeral for a loved one. We'll be tired, sure, but it's nice to be able to serve in their time of need. Makes me feel good inside :)  However, we'll get to have almost a week off next time, so that'll be REALLY nice.

Other than that, there's not a lot to talk about from the past few days. Like, things happened, but they're a little too personal for the resident's for me to share in good conscience. I don't mind sharing some stories occasionally, but the past few days were a little rough.

I WILL, however, give you some things to pray about, because ALL of us here need your prayers:

1. Ranch Staff- these folks our our lifeline. They do SOOOO much to help us be able to focus on our parenting and not all the coordination things. Their plates are overflowing, and yet they serve with happy attitudes. For them, pray for peace, focus, patience, and energy as they go about the hundreds of tasks they have.

2. Houseparents- That's us, and three other couples. They are the front line for the kids, and their days are full of, well, you all who are parents KNOW what their days are full of :) For them, pray for emotional energy, patience, wisdom, loving attitudes, and SLEEP (because we never seem to get enough). Also pray for their marriages, because (SURPRISE!) dealing with troubled boys all day every day is a little straining on the relationship to each other (who knew?!?)

3. Relief Houseparents- Some think of them as part-time, but honestly, they have a more difficult job than we do. Sure, we stay with our cottage for ten days at a time, but the relief have to keep up with a different cottage every weekend. That seems SOOO much more stressful to me. For them, pray for the same things as the regular houseparents, but perhaps add clarity of mind as well, so they can remember which boys are which!

4. The Boys- Ahh, the boys. Perhaps the question isn't what to pray for, but what NOT to pray for. These boys really need tons of prayer. Some were abused, neglected, or abandoned. Others just can't get along with their parents/guardians. Some are just having problems doing well in school. Others just have no other place to go. Pray for peace in their hearts. Pray for them to not feel like they're broken or damaged because they're here. Pray for their minds to be attentive in school and church (many have ADHD and find that EXTRA hard). Pray for them to have the absolutely COOLEST dreams every night (because so many remember the terrors of their past when they lay in bed each night). Pray for their days to be filled with fun, because many, honestly, just need some time to be a kid. But above all, pray for the same things you pray for your kid, because no matter who a kid is, where he's from, or what his family is like, they ALL need prayer.

So yeah, that's today's post. Hope you have a great weekend! I know we will!

Some deeper thoughts

So, today I got to try to share some Bible stuff (the creation story) to Ajax. He's never really been involved in church before. He's gone a couple of times, but he doesn't hesitate to admit that he's not familiar with the Bible or anything like that.

There's nothing like trying to explain the Bible to a child. If you haven't done it, I can't wait until you get to. IT's very... refreshing. They don't care about theology. Denominations don't bother them. They just formulate their own ideas and opinions without anyone else's bias. It's really kinda cute to hear their theories about they whys and hows of the Bible.

But anyway, it kinda got me thinking about what, at it's core is my faith? And how might I summarize it, which immediately made me think of the creeds (Nicene and Apostles' Creeds). So here is my take on a creed :)

I believe in one God, the creator of all things,
Who exists in three persons; Father Son, and Spirit.
The Father is the King of all things, and all things bow to His authority.
The Son is Christ Jesus, born in the flesh to a virgin, Mary.
He walked and taught for thirty years, and then was
Crucified, buried for three days, and then rose again, conquering death.
He was witnessed by many before He returned to heaven,
From where He will return to bring an end to all things.
The Spirit is the breath and will of God, who speaks
On our behalf when we pray and guides us in righteous life.
I believe in the symbol of baptism, the observation of communion,
The permanence of salvation, the exclusive salvation by faith,
And the importance of a righteous life.


I'm sure there are more things, and this will probably change over time, but that's a pretty good start, I think. So how about it? What are some things you'd put in a creed if you had one? What might you leave out?

And then there were three....

Well, we started the day with one boy, and are ending the day with 3! Today we added two boys we've worked with before. We'll call them "Priam" and "Hector". Ajax was very excited for his new friends to be housemates. He was very helpful getting them moved in, frequently carrying some of their belongings to their rooms for them. Hector and Ajax seem to get along the best, mostly because they are of compatible temperments. That's not to say that Priam and Ajax don't get along, but more that they're both assertive and opinionated.

However, I have never seen anyone lose a racing game so gracefully as Ajax. He was an amazingly good sport, in fact, most of them were really good sports. Being as young as they are, they were somewhat confused as to what cars were faster than others. They ended up decindg it by what looked fastest, which was amusing (and ed to some very confused "why isn't my car going as fast as it looks?!?"). But regardless, it was a fun time al around.

Diner was interesting. Had a roast we put in the oven, cooked for an hour and a half, and realized it wasn't done. So we did hotdogs instead. Hooray learning to cook for more than 2 people! Oh well, we'll get the hang of it sooner or later!

Another day, another FUN TIM!!!!

So today was our first full day hanging out with our new resident. To make writing about him easier without violating our confidentiality agreement, I will call him "Ajax".

Ajax is a sweet boy with a winning smile and endless curiosity. He's also one of the most helpful kids I've ever met. He is very kindhearted and quick to make friends.

Today, the highlight of our day was, well, two things:

First was what we call "Community". It's basically a meeting of everyone at the Ranch. we all get together and thank each other for things (we call it "giving compliments"), pass out allowance and mail, and give any announcements for the next week. It's a lot of fun, especially when folks are in a good mood. Today, for example, we must have spent a good ten minutes passing around compliments for everything form "good job mowing the lawn" to "thanks for the help changing our tire". It's really fun to see how, once people start thinking about what they're thankful for, just how MUCH we have to be thankful for.

The second part of our day was consumed by going to, "The Creek". Now, the name is fairly self-explanatory. We have a creek that runs on our property. It's got some fish, and best of all, cold clean swimming water for those sweltering summer days. Now, recently, we had a backhoe out there doing some work, and we asked them to dig our swimming hole a little deeper, and they obliged. It was really nice to have a deep place to swim.

Well, the last few weeks have been a mini-monsoon season here in NW Arkansas. In fact, some places have started measuring rain in feet instead of inches as of late. So, needless to say, we haven't been to the creek for a while for fear of getting a vehicle stuck on the dirt road back to it. Now, it just so happens that the creek runs through a gravel bed, so lo and behold, when we went back today, the creek was no longer a deep gurgling pool of fun, it was a chest-deep strand of rushing water. The WHOLE layout of the creek shifted. Now, it makes for really fun swimming, because you can swim the length of the deepest point in about 10 seconds going downstream, and it's really better to just get out and walk than try to swim upstream (even for me, let alone the 10 year olds we're with). It was a blast though. Found some really neat rocks and driftwood in the wake of the rains, so lots of adventures had all around.

So yeah, quite the fun day, all things considered. Looking forward to even more ahead :)

Woohoo! Two-for-One!

Well, my wife and I had an interesting discussion today, so I thought I'd write about it here!

So the topic is this: Why are "Millenials" (people born in the year 200 or later) leaving the church?

Well, here's what I think:

I think it's a lot of reasons, but namely the following:

~Intolerance in the Church
~Hypocrisy in the Church
~Lack of logic in the Church

Now let me explain.

Intolerance

Let me first clarify that this does not mean "Christains should be pushovers" or "sin? What's sin?" Intolerance looks like this:
~~~~~~~~~~~
Person A: You know, I ran into a friend from college the otherday and got to talking. It was really great to hang out with him for awhile. We went to a pub and he had some drinks while we...

Person B: SHUN THEE! I PRONOUNCE JUDGEMENT AND DAMNATION UPON ALL WHO ENTER SUCH HOUSES OF VILE CORRUPTION!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Or like this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Person A: Dude! I went to this SWEET concert this weekend! The headliner was...

Person B: ESCHEW THE NON-BELIEVER! SATAN ROMPS IN THE FIELDS OF INSOLENT HEATHENS WHO ATTEND SUCH FESTIVALS OF THE DAMNED!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Or even like this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Person A: Well, I went to visit a mosque/temple/shrine/cathedral and ended up meeting a really cool imam/rabbi/monk/priest who had a lot of interesting thoughts on ...

Person B: HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE UPON THY HEAD! THOUS HAST CONSORTED WITH PAGANS AND SATAN WORSHIPERS!!!! A POX UPON THEE, HEATHEN!!!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, obviously, this is played up quite a bit, but can you see the logic there? Many in the church seem to think that someone who sins is untouchable, someone who has different tastes is a pagan, and someone who is friendly with others of different beliefs is going to hell. That last one is really infuriating when they are mad at you for befriending other Christians (Catholics, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Mennonites, etc.).

This is obviously not in keeping with Christ's teachings. "Those who are healthy do not need a doctor. Those who are sick do" (Mark 2:17). If that's the case, then why do we spend all our time medicating the healthy? Concerning worship styles/music preferences, when King David, in the Old Testament, saw that the Ark of the Covenant had been returned, he ran out and danced naked through the streets of the city. And when his wife shided him for it later, she was struck barren by God. Now, this is not to say that we should all dance naked, but the point is that if God was not upset with David dancing naked, I find it hard to believe that he finds Third Day, Skillet, Casting Crowns, etc. THAT offensive. Finally, concerning inter-faith friendships, I think, at the end of the day,  Christ is glorified when the poor are fed, the homeless clothed, and the orphans loved. I don't think he really cares who called "dibs" on the event planning. I think the important part is that those Christ cared about most (the ones who have almost no hope) have been cared for.

So yeah, that's the "intolerance" I'm talking about.

Hypocrisy

Now let me begin this by saying there is not one singular big hypocrisy in the Church, but rather a lot of smaller ones. For example, Christians speak vehemently against spreading gossip and deceit, yet eagerly wag their lips to share the latest and juiciest  "prayer requests". We all know that person who is always eager to pass on information disguised as concern and prayer.

Another thing Christians do is sing all about "Jesus loves me" and "the deep, deep, love of Jesus" and speak endlessly of His great compassion and how OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST AND DEMOCRATS ARE ALL SATAN WORSHIPERS AND Jesus loves the little children UNLESS THEIR PARENTS ARE DEMOCRATS. Also, never forget that, out of faith, hope, and love, "the greatest of these is love", right behind SABOTAGING PEOPLE'S OBAMA YARD SIGNS!!!! And it's not just democrats! Awhile ago, it was communists, now it's trending towards homosexuals. In short, we're supposed to love everyone except for whatever social issue we don't agree with. That's hypocrisy, plain and simple.

And that's not the last of it, sadly. For a group that preaches against the sins of greed, pride, and gluttony, there sure are a lot of scrooge-y, arrogant, obese Christians. And that obese one hits me too. I'm not just throwing accusations around blindly. If we believe that moderation is a good ideal to pursue, than why are all the buffet's packed as soon as church let's out? That's not right.

Deficient Logic

I tell you what, I am pretty tired of getting the answer "one must have faith despite a lack of reasons/evidence" in response to tough questions concerning faith. If we truly believe that even "the skies declare the glory of God", ought we not be able to try to reason out why red-shift universal expansion are scientific things? If we truly believe God created all things than logic and reasoning MUST be evident in all things.

God gave us minds and the ability to problem solve and invent things. I don't believe He is very proud of us when we stick our heads in the sand and ignore our instinct to reason and discover in favor of pursuing "blind faith". The Catholic church has had some experience with that (I'm sure they would love to go back and apologize to Galileo). Ignoring and rejecting science is a terrible idea. We instead need to lend our voice to those crying out in search of a reason for it all.

And it's not just matters of science, either. This head in the sand attitude infects many areas of our lives. Why did Mrs. Bahb's baby die? "I guess it was her time?" Billy's uncle just died? "All things work together for good!" Fred lost his job? "When God closes a door, he opens a window!"

No! These things happen because of sin! ADMIT THAT!! These issues are crucial points in people's lives. They need friends who don't stand on the edge of the fight cheer-leading; they need friends who step in and fight for them! These moments have the potential to reach the most hard-hearted, and when we throw out these whimsical phrases, we do more harm then good.

We claim to worship the God who invented logic. Shouldn't the answers we give people make sense? Shouldn't we be able to use that logic? Too often it seems like, well, honestly, we're lazy. Logic is difficult, and it's easier to just say "Woah, Nelly! It's God's thing" than "no, your baby didn't deserve to die. It is a terrible injustice to have your infant taken from you so young." It's true, if Adam hadn't rebelled, no-one's babies would die (and we'd all live hundreds of years happily with no diseases). That's the truth, and we can show people that it's not God's fault, it's our own.

But it requires honesty and a LOT of hard work. People come up with some DOOZY questions for us to answer. But the wonderful news is that, God has the answers, we just need to seek them.


So, yeah, lots of good stuff. And there are many smaller issues too. These just seem to be the biggest/encompass the most smaller issues. What do you think? Do you have suggestions for other issues we as a church need to be wary of? Do you think it's the millennials' fault? What's your opinion?

Been a while, has it not?

Wow, totally forgot to keep writing here. What with graduation, getting employed, moving, and job training, it's been quite hectic, so here's a post to catch you all up!

Graduation:

Graduation went well. No snags or hiccups at all, so that was nice. Family came out to see both my wife and I, so it was a really nice time! I suppose the highlight was that I was the last person to cross the stage. It doesn't sound like much until you know that no one was supposed to clap until the end. So, being the last one, as soon as I got my diploma, the crowd erupted into applause. I know it wasn't specifically for me, but it still felt stinkin' AWESOME!

Oh, yeah, and I still don't have a diploma! That's a fun story. Turns out, one of my professors was missing a lot of work from me. It was all stuff I had done (correction, I admit missing one of the assignments), so I resubmitted it. But I was late, and the professor had gone out of the country for a couple weeks. After that, we worked it out and my grade got updated, but it was too late for the university to release my diploma (apparently they can only do that May and August), so now, I get to be an August grad! WOOHOO!!

But yeah, everything went well and all that jazz :)

Employment

So, my wife and I had stumbled across a job posting for "house-parents" at a boy's ranch in Arkansas. It looked neat, but they wanted "Psychology & Criminal Justice" majors. We figured we'd give it a shot anyway, so we sent in some papers (a letter of intent and our resumes) and just prayed for God to show His hand.

Well boy howdy He did. Literally NOTHING else we applied for went well. I never even got an interview from any of the other 50+ responses I sent, and my wife got only a handful, and those didn't really pan out at all. So, after a month or so, I called to follow up with the Boys Ranch, and wouldn't you know, they were really interested. They had us come out for a week on-site to see how we liked it.

A few weeks after that, we got a call saying "we'd like to hire you for relief house-parents" and we said "ok". Another week went by, and again we got a call saying, "actually, we will hire you as full house-parents", and we said "ok". So we moved out here to rural Northwest Arkansas, and it's been quite a blast so far.

I suppose this warrants a detailed description of our job, so, here it is:

We work a "Boy's Ranch". The basic premise of the Ranch is that boys with minor to moderate "adjustment issues" (things like truancy, bad grades, authority issues, behavior problems, etc.) come and life here a while, so that they can have receive:

-structured environment
-unilateral discipline
-positive reinforcement
-stable home environment

Now, that isn't to say that all the parents are evil cruel slobs. On the contrary, many of them are kind folks who simply don't know what else to try. But between working and maintaining a social life, it's hard to give a kid all of those things sometimes, especially kids with issues like ADHD or other social-skill type issues. The point is that my wife and I are paid to parent, basically. We don't have a job from 9-5. We're basically stay-at-home-parents, so it's our job to create those things, and we don't have to worry about putting food on the table or paying bills, because all of that is provided.

So our schedule looks (very VERY basically like this:

10 days on duty (total responsibility for the children)
4 days off duty (no responsibilities at all)

Now, there are 4 cottages, each with a set of houseparents, so they are staggered 2 and 2 for on/off duty. So when 1 and 3 are on duty, the relief parents are on duty in 2 and 4, and vice versa. There are two sets of relief houseparents, each responsible for 2 cottages. So a relief houseparent's schedule might look like this:

4 days on in cottage 1
--3 days off
4 days on in cottage 3
--3 days off

So yeah, that's the basic schedule. Also, I should mention that there a lots of great stories to tell here, but because of some of the DHS (Department of Human Services) and Licensing rules/laws, I can't give names or identifying information out, so expect a lot of goofy/generic names, or even just "the resident".

But yeah, that's our job. If you have questions, feel free to ask!

Hopefully I'll be better about keeping up the blog, especially now that things are getting interesting, what with us getting our first resident very soon. So yeah, check in regularly!!!