Cali and Back

So this last weekend I just went down to Chico, California to be a part of my good buddy Tyler Curtis and his now wife Noelle's wedding! It was amazing, such an awesome time to be able to not only be a part of a wonderful wedding, but also be able to just hang out and see some good friends. This was my first time in California since I moved to Oregon 3 months ago. The sad part is the majority of what I saw of CA was all smoke.... There are way too many fires going on. I am not sure if there are any fires in Oregon right now but there is even faint smoke up in Portland from i believe Northern California. That is pretty crazy.

Ok, here is a little overview of the weekend: Last thursday night I got off work at 11:30 and got home a little bit after 12am, got to bed by 12:30 and then woke up 4 hours later to get on the road to Chico. I drove down, 2 red bulls and 8 hours later I survived the journey and entered into Chico and got to get lunch with my good bud Adam at subway. We had practice that afternoon at 3 for the songs we were playing in the wedding. I sang and lead the worship song Beautiful Lord during the beginning of the wedding just to promote corporate worship in the wedding and showing that God was the center of this relationship. We also played Take My Life during communion. Amanda Tredger sang the verses and then I sang the choruses. After practice we had dress rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. Finally, all the guys went over to one house and hung out, joking around, playing poker and just being guys, giving tyler his last night as a bachelor a great one. The next day after we all woke up, we picked up the tuxes and had another worship practice to make sure that the music went swimmingly. The wedding was in Noelle's Father's church and was beautiful. Tyler's uncle was playing flute during the intro while people were being sat and as the groomsman (including me) ushered people to their seats. Well, there was slight confusion and Tyler's uncle stopped playing earlier that he was supposed to so when the mother's were being sat i ran up and started playing something random on guitar which i made up on the spot just to allow people to be seated. Crazy, but i think it went fine. Both songs that we sang in the wedding went great and seemed to be received well. Tyler and Noelle were picked up in a horse drawn carriage and brought to the reception. The reception was a great time and once the dancing finally started, the bridal part truly took over the floor and showed Chico what dancing was all about! Fast forward to sunday, drove the 8 hours back and now I am in portland again. I was greeted last night with thunderstorms, lightening and some hydroplaning on the freeway. But this trip was amazing and refreshing The fellowship with my Cali friends was awesome for me and it was just a great time.

Well we finally heard back from the elementary school and at this point we can't use it for Colossae church service. The main reason is they haven't found someone who will work to open the buildings and close up on sundays. Please be praying that we are able to get into the school soon or that God opens some new doors. Obviously their is a reason for why there is struggle to get in and I believe it will strengthen us as a church and prepare us to move forward when the time is necessary. Pray that God will provide an employee who maybe wants to go to our church so the opening and closing part won't actually feel like work for them. Also, I am in the midst of finding a new house for me and 2 other guys in tigard and would love prayer in that. We haven't found anything yet. There are some houses that look decent online but seem to be pretty ghetto.

So life is great and the little surprises are refreshing. My sister Chrissie, my bro-n-law Josh and the cutest kid in the world, my nephew Matthew will be up in Portland in 2 weeks, so I am super excited about that. That will be a huge blessing for me and will truly uplift me.

Life is Good
God is Good

June, Almost Finished?!?!

So I continually am amazed at the speed of time and how much it is increasingly flying by. June is almost over already, WOW. I am definitely still stoked with the direction that God is taking our church and just seeing what is going to happen is awesome! We still haven't heard back from the Elementary school yet, which is somewhat disheartening but I am hoping we will hear back soon so that we can start figuring out our new service set up. On top of that, I am just trying to figure out my new housing situation. I have 2 guys that I will be living with and it should be really great but right now I am in the process of finding a house that fits the things that I need, including the proper price range. I found a place on craigslist that was basically the perfect place according to all the things I was looking for and I got really excited, called and talked to the guy and was going to set up filling out an application and all. I don't know if just the fact of it being three guys in their early 20's who wanted to rent the house but the owner really didn't give me a chance at the house and he finally sent me a text today saying that he believes he has a renter, so i was bummed to be overlooked but I guess God has another plan. A house would be awesome, especially since I do so much music stuff and music practice I really don't want to be in an apartment where people will likely complain.

Well I am super stoked because friday early morning I am taking off to Chico california to be in my good buddy Tyler's wedding and it is just going to be an amazing weekend, get to see some great people that I love and truly have a blessed time. It will be an awesome time of fellowship, worship and just the joy of seeing two friends be joined in marriage! I don't really have any new pictures to post right now, umm.... I should after this weekend.

Life is good!
God is good!
There is a true excitement in the mystery of living a life of faith!
Miss and love everyone from California!

Just having Fun

This Just In....

Ok kiddos, it is that time again where I sit at my lap top and methodically mash these black keys to hopefully align in what I like to call a BLOG post. We are going to do things differently this time. First, I will give you some pictures to look at, then we will talk about life in the Big Porteezy.

Ok, for those of you who already came to this blog post and were like, "Where is the content?" Well.... here it is! So in the pictures above You will notice that not only am I continuing my photography but I just got Photoshop so I am working on doing some more creative image design stuff. The one i am most proud of is the Colossae one. (i didn't design the colossae font, that was a guy from Cornerstone Simi Valley). But I took that picture and did the editing. Ok, enough visual stimulation. But life up in the Northwest is great right now. I am really starting to learn some important lessons from the Lord that I knew I needed to learn. I am definitely learning how to rely on the Lord and how to trust him even when I feel alone. God is good and His provision is Perfect!

Church continues to be sweet. This last week was a bit smaller than usual, 20 or so people instead of 30 but it was still really cool. Chuck was talking about the Bible as the living word of God and letting our worldview be seen through the lens of the bible. We are continuing to pray that we will be able to meet in Tigard Elementary school soon, because that would be a huge blessing and also allow us to start becoming more of an integral part of the Tigard Community.

I am also really excited right now because I am going to get to see amazing people I love and miss like every 2 weeks throughout the summertime, which is awesome!

I am stoked on where God is leading me and it is amazing to be able to just follow Him. I miss and love you all!

Portland Propaganda

Time keeps ticking away, tick tick ticking away..

I am reminded of an old song that I first heard done by DC Talk when i was a kid (most likely a redone song) with the lyrics "Time keeps ticking away, tick tick ticking away"... Very catchy tune that meant nothing to me as a child more than rhythmic lyrics sung in a melodic fashion. Now, these words sing powerful truth and also yield a sense of mystery. I still can't understand how quickly time goes by yet how far off things seem. For instance, I graduated college 6 months ago! I can't believe that. Yet there is this balance of college being so close yet so far off. I think a lot of this has to do with maturity as well and understanding what new phases of life we are entering into. But i look back at even recent event and realize how quickly things are happening. I remember just the other day preparing for my move to Portland to help start Colossae Church and it has already be 9 weeks since I moved up here now. When will time yield consistency?

One of the funny things about my gradual process of accepting this concept of time was getting over my youthful tendency of always looking to tomorrow. I don't know if this is more of a character trait which resides in young boys, but I can remember after every birthday I would be counting down the days until my next birthday. When asked how old I was, lets say I turned 12... i could be simply a month after my birthday and I would say "Oh, i'll be 13 in 11 months" Something silly like that. This general dissatisfaction with my current state of being, and though this definitely changes as you grow older, especially after your reach that God Forsaken hill that all those 39 year olds talk about, i think that nature reflects our human desire to have more, and often times our dissatisfaction.

These are just some thoughts that have been bouncing in my head (silly phrase really) but the truth is that I am trying to learn to live in the now and not just waiting for the next great thing that is coming up. God has been teaching me a lot since I moved to Portland and it is just crazy to see how things change so fast. God is definitely proving faithful.

I must say though, i do miss family and friends! Look forward to seeing everyone again!

CPK is Open...

Well it looks like I missed a week of blogging, and the main reason for that is I have been quite busy since the restaurant opened. Monday night was our opening night and so far it hasn't been too busy, since people are still figuring out that we are officially open. I have worked 3 shifts so far and it has been good, though today I was supposed to be on today working the patio, but since it is raining, there is no point. There has probably been a lot that has happened since the last time I have blogged, let me just try and think. I had to miss church a couple weeks ago because of a work training exercise but luckily that will be the only one I will have to miss because of work. Last sunday at church was awesome! We had about 35 people and 8 little kids. It is amazing to see the church starting to grow but we are actually getting to big for the house that we are meeting in. Another exciting thing is that we are probably going to move into Tigard Elementary school at the end of the month! We could use some prayer for that process though... Right now we put in our application for to use this school so we need to get approved but after that, it is going to be great!

Lets see, I feel so much is going on. I went down to eugene last monday to visit a friend and went to this beautiful park. Here are a few pictures.
There are a few pictures for ya'll (I realize that a bunch of words with no visual aide can be boring). One other recent change for me is that after praying about it for a while I have decided that I am not going to move out of Tigard, which is a hard decision because I really wanted to live with my buddy Tim Fox but unfortunately it doesn't look like that will be the best thing for me to serve in the church since I need to be close to build relationships within the church. Luckily Tim will still be close enough to hang out often! But overall, things are still great here! It has been 2 months and I do miss family and friends, but I still love it up here!