Higher Things - Day 4

(I'm writing this post Saturday morning, but will pretend I am writing it yesterday for consistency!)

Today is the final day of the conference. We have breakfast, Morning Prayer, the final plenary, getting the youth ready to go, lunch, and then the closing Divine Service. That's the schedule. For me, a little different. Instead of plenary, I'll be in the chapel setting up for the closing Divine Service and helping to start organizing and packing up all the chapel supplies that are no longer needed. Then, after the final service, it all has to be packed up and loaded onto a truck. Then we get to relax for the evening. :-)

Yesterday, I taught my breakaway for the second time, which is always a bit smoother, though it still wasn't as good as it should have been. A little more time and work would have been good. But that's probably always true. With sermons, too. 

I got to spend a little time talking with an old friend today, John (picture below). I met him waaaay back when I was in college and did an internship in Austin back in 1984. He let me rent a room from him in his house and rented me one of his cars to use for the summer. 

Here's an interesting tidbit: San Antonio has a big feral cat population. So the University here has adopted their own feral cat "colony" - they take are of a group of cats (12-14 or so), they feed and water them, spay and neuter them, get the vet care, and have them live on campus. Why? Because cats are territorial and this group keeps them others off the campus! How 'bout that? (Some pictures below)

Pictures!

Caroline (former member at Purcellville Mission) with boyfriend Daniel.

I got to pick on them in my first breakaway a little!

Pastor and Headmaster Steve Kieser from Plano, TX.

Pastor Jeff Ware from Charlotte, NC.

The next three are "my" summer vicars. They are actually Higher Things' summer vicars, but they were mine for the week and they were great! Made my job 100% easier. I don't know what I would have done without them.

James Gramzow (Ft. Wayne Seminary)

Justin Chester (Ft. Wayne Seminary)

Ben Heinz (St. Louis Seminary)

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller from Austin, TX, one of our plenary speakers. I caught a good amount of his first plenary (which was great), but sadly missed all the second one - chapel duties. But that's okay. This week is for the youth, not me. (Though I DO benefit, too!)

Deaconess Mary Moerbe, Athanasian, now in Houston, TX.

(Her husband had a picture on a previous post.)

This is Mina, the service dog that was around for the week, with her owner Paige, one of the chapel "deaclets" (summer deaconess interns) that help me at the chapel as well. We had two deaclets and they, too, were indispensable!

Devon Jackson, our onsite EMT and future pastor!

Below are two of the cats that are part of the campus colony.

(My daughter saw more than I did. I think maybe she saw most of them!)

My friend John from back in the day.

Tomorrow I get to go home. :-)

Higher Things - Day 3

Second full day of the conference. Still some folks I have run into here that I need to sit and catch up with (#MaryMoerbe!). Yesterday was a very full day and today will be the same. But things seemed to go a little smoother overall yesterday. The hardest part of the day yesterday was after dinner. I spent too long at dinner talking with some friends (BUT an important conversation, so glad I did!). So then I had to get to the building where I was teaching my breakaway, find my classroom, brush my teeth (so I could sing in chapel later!), teach, go over time (surprised? 45 minutes is not enough time!), hoof it quickly over to the chapel, arrive out of breath 5 minutes before Evening Prayer is to begin, vest, and go! The good part? One of my summer vicars was standing there with my cassock in his hands all ready to help me into! Wow! We had actually planned for this - we assigned one of the summer vicars all the chanting parts at the beginning of the liturgy to give me a chance to catch my breath. ;-)

My breakaway went pretty well. A little bumpy. I allowed a little too much time for the kids to answer questions and telling my (relevant, teaching) stories so that I ran short on time (see above). I'll tighten that up a little today. I teach right before dinner today, so that'll be easier. 

I did get a little downtime yesterday. As I mentioned, I did get to spend some time at dinner with some friends, and I got to go with my daughter to see some of the talent show last night. Wow! The kids were really good! I was impressed. I also got to see and spend a little time with my nephew and his family (picture below). It was their daughter Josephine's 4th birthday, so they couldn't stay too long - they had to go get birthday dinner and unicorn cake! :-)

Today is the second full day, so will be on the go all day again. I'll leave the dorm a little before 7 am and get back around midnight. But first, some pictures . . .

The bell tower by the chapel - an impressive structure!

Mollie Hemingway. She met our kids at BWI and brought them here for us!

Pastor Ned Moerbe. He picked up our kids at the San Antonio airport and brought them to the campus!

My nephew, Pastor Adam Douthwaite, and his family with Joanna and I.

Professor John Pless from our Ft. Wayne Seminary.

Pastor Steve Cholak

Pastor Gary Piepkorn

Outside chapel after Evening Prayer. (We're going to try to get another group photo inside, too.)

But right now, time for my shower!

Higher Things - Day 2

Got through Day 1! All the youth got here, safe and sound. But wow. Busy. Not much down time. The Opening Service was great. And I didn't flub anything! But it seems like I'm always running around, taking care of something. Either planning, set-up, take down, preparing, helping. These conferences take a lot more work than I imagined.

So today, in addition to all the services and chaplain stuff, I am scheduled to teach my first breakaway and also I think we will be making a video of a "teaching Divine Service" in the afternoon. That will be during the panel discussion time (which I really wanted to go to!). Oh well. My daughter will have to tell me about it.

Got to see some folks I haven't seen in a long time. I didn't get picture with them all yet, but I did take a couple yesterday:

Miss Natalie Ludwig, former member of our mission in Purcellville.

Jocelyn Benson, Head Teacher for Wittenberg Academy

Pastor Chris Rosebrough, one of our plenary speakers.

View looking into the chapel from behind the altar.

(The ugly parament belongs to the chapel. They didn't want us to take it off, so we just covered it up so it can't be seen by anywhere else but behind the altar!)

A gray fox we saw on campus yesterday!

I'm sure there's more to write, but I'll post this now and maybe add to it later. :-)

Higher Things - Day 1

Time for my annual chronicling of our trip to the Higher Things youth conference. This year we're in San Antonio, TX, at Trinity University. And yes, it's HOT!

The theme this year is Beyond Reasonable Doubt - an apologetics theme. 

This year is also a bit different for me as I am serving as the conference chaplain here. So lots more work for me to do! I'll also be teaching a breakaway session as usual.

So I arrived on Sunday night and Monday was unloading and set-up day. They have a whole truckload of stuff they bring! My responsibility is the chapel, so that's where I spent most of the day, trying to figure out how to use the space and get everything set up. Not just me - I have three summer vicars helping me, a couple of deaconess interns, and some CCVs - College Conference Volunteers. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. But we got it done, and last night had a service of Evening Prayer to dedicate the space and just take a breather to sit, sing, pray, and hear God's Word.

Today we start in earnest. I'll pray with the staff and then arrivals and registration begins at 9. Pastors will start arriving and bringing their vestments to the chapel. I need to finalize the schedule for the summer vicars with them this morning. At 1:00 I have to be at the Leaders Meeting to give them information on the chapel and how things will work there this week. Then the Opening Divine Service at 2:00 at which I am the celebrant. A little breather after that (I think!). Hopefully I'll get to hear some of the plenary speaker. Then after dinner there's Evening Prayer, followed by Private Absolution for those who want it (I have pastors who volunteered to do that), then Staff Compline at 10:00, and then Compline with my kids in the dorm at 11:00. A full day. ;-)

One of the biggest challenges this year was the travel! Since I had to come down early, I could not travel with the youth. So we linked up with the group from Immanuel, Alexandria. But they had already made all their travel plans! So we had to figure out how to link up with them. Each of our groups drove separately to the airport, so we had to make arrangements for them to find each other there - which they did! And pretty soon their plane will be off. Then, after they arrive in San Antonio, I have a pastor from Houston who is bringing his group in and then he will go up to the airport and get our kids! (Fortunately, the airport here is only about 10 minutes from the campus.) Then we the kids get here (hopefully not too late!), I se them to their dorms and get them settled in before I'm off to the Leaders Meeting. 

So yeah, it's going to be one of those weeks! Good, but tiring.

Bike Ride - Update

So, my wife (she's really smart) looked at my previous post about my bike race on Saturday. She said: "Hey Dummy!" (OK, she didn't say that!) But she said: the speeds listed there are probably a cumulative average, not the speed for each lap. Now THAT makes a lot of sense and is much more in agreement to how I felt I rode. :-)  (Did I mention she's really smart?) 

So that means the first three laps I had the speed I needed/wanted and maintained pretty well. The next three I dropped off a little, and the last two I dropped off more - especially the last lap! I was pretty tired by then. So yup, she's right. That's how they calculated it. 

So, that means I gained the speed I needed to get a gold medal, but I didn't have the strength/endurance for the whole race this year - which is what I wrote, that I was not in quite as good a shape as I was last year. But that gives me hope for next year, that if I can keep going and gain some more strength (and the dang race starts on time!), I can get a gold medal. We'll see! 

Armed Forces Cycling Challenge

I know I haven't posted anything for a while. I have LOTS to post, just been super busy and not super motivated. But I did want to post my results from the Armed Forces Cycling Challenge today. I rode this event for the first time last year and did okay - I was hoping to do better this year. And I did! But I did not get a gold medal. ;-(  Why? A couple of reasons:

1. They did not start the race on time. We were supposed to start at 7:00 am but that start was delayed by 15 minutes or so. I do not know why. But as the course had to be cleared by 10:00 am according to their agreement with the City of Arlington, that left me less time to complete the 9 laps. Plus, riders did not line up how they were supposed to, with the faster in front and the slower in back, so it took me a good 5 minutes to cross the starting line and then several minutes to get clear of traffic and get up to speed. So that was frustrating.

2. I did not think I was in as good shape as I was last year. However, I now also know better how to ride in an event like this, and how to ride smarter, period - how to shift, when to shift, how to be better aerodynamically.

So how did I do? Well, I complete the same number of laps as last year, but significantly faster. If I had the extra time, could I have done the 9 to get the gold medal? Maybe. I was pretty tired on lap 8!

Here are my results (Not all the numbers are correct - I'll explain after):

The average speed listed (18.85) makes no sense - it is the speed I did the last lap on, and the other laps are listed as faster. The total distance of 74.6 miles is also incorrect - 8-10K laps = 52 miles. So doing the math on my own, that comes to 19.73 mph, or 3.04 mins/mile. That seems a little fast to me. The lap times seem about what I saw as I went through each time, so maybe I did go that fast. 

There were 1,450 or so entries, 735 of which completed at least 8 laps. As you can see, I finished in 568th place, so almost top third of all entries. I was 568 out of 735 who finished 8 laps. That makes sense to me because there were some REALLY good riders in this event who go REALLY fast!

But overall, I am pleased with how I did. I've been trying to do more road workouts to get better at that, but none of my workouts have been as fast as today apparently was - which is why I am a little dubious about the numbers. I still have my 30+ year old bike, though, racing against folks with nice new bikes. I'd still like to get a new bike - maybe this year. ;-)

And lookin' forward to next year now . . .

Waiting to start.

After the race.

Four Ribbons

My daughter Joanna has entered the Woodlawn Needlework Show for a number of years now (as do my wife and did my daughter Sarah). This year she won four awards for her entries - two first place awards and two special awards: The Emma Matheson Award and the Cathleen R. Durkin Award, both for Outstanding Entries in the Junior division. It is quite a show if you never have heard of it or gone to see it. Hundreds and hundreds of entries from all over the country and even some international entries.

Here are her ribbons for this year: