15 years ago - OH MY!!

May 24th, 1992 will always be one of the most important days of my life. I meet Lisa for the first time and I've never looked back. My wife and I got a chance yesterday to spend some time together (with our kids) remembering when we first meet and what we did together.

We took the boys out to the movie (Lisa & I saw two movies our first day together) Shrek 3. It was ok - but not that great. Then I took the boys to a wonderful youth sponsors home to be watched and Lisa went and got the girls (we babysit a girl (Becka)). We meet an Pei's mandarin (Lisa & I went to a Chinese restaurant our first time together) and enjoyed a simple snack there. Then it was off to a httsoftball game that Lindsey and I were in (we lost 11 to 12). Then we took Becka home, got the boys, and went to bed. It was a simple but wonderful time together remembering.

First Softball game

Last night was a night of first for the Eades family. Lindsey and I are on a softball team together with the Hiawatha Kids League (she plays I coach) and we had our first game. Lindsey also got to pitch for the first time and got 2 of the 3 outs (they only scored 2 pts on us). She also struck out for the first time (in fact she did that 2 times - that was a hard thing for her to go through). She had to come up a third time with the game tied. She still wasn't to happy and then of all things to happen she got hit by the ball from a pitch. The bases were loaded and so we scored the winning run. It was an emotionally fun time for us. The best part of the night was the drive home with Lindsey as she shared how she was dealing with her first game. I love spending that kind of time with my kids. Sorry didn't have a camera with us so no pictures to go with this blog.

Book Report – the Blogging Church by Brian Bailey w/Terry Storch

Well I finally got a chance to finish this book and I’m so glad I did. Thanks to Pastor Kim Pagel (Associate Pastor of NCBC) for getting this book for me. The book started a little dry and that may have been why it took me a while to read. I started with a question that I got from the book and then picked up two big ideas. Here they are:

The question – In chapter 2 it looks at some key questions to answer an overall question – Why Blog? One of these key questions, “Is it a tool or a toy?” I agree with this idea and have asked it a number of times. It gave an example of how to do this, “we talked about this great new toy called a blog. We decided to wait. We continued to ask the tool-versus-toy question over the next couple of years until the answer started to change.” Now this is where my question came up – Why did they “continue” for a “couple of years” to ask this “tool-versus-toy question?” If I have a “toy” I usually think about it once in a while but I can’t think of a time that I moved something I thought was just a toy into a tool. This just intrigued me into thinking how many other things have I defined as a toy (or a tool) and now it might be a useful tool (or just a toy).

Big idea 1 – Link, link, link – and if I haven’t said it enough – LINK!! This was a big one for me. I’ve linked somewhat but not with a clear reason why except I thought it was the polite thing to do. Now I’ve learned that, “In the blogosphere, however, the primary currency is links…” I’m really excited about this one as I want this blog to be useful to my readers and myself. “Readers are loyal to blogs that introduce them to new ideas and cool people.”

Big idea 2 – If links are the currency – posts are the life blood of blogs. The need to post and to post often is important. “… the more frequently you post, the more traffic and readers you will attract.” I want to work on this more and get into a rhythm. I’m doing some of that but not “frequently.” With posting I need to be solid, transparent, and careful at the same time. Solid – my post need to be of good content, useful, and readable. Transparent – I need to share my life, let my readers see who Mark Eades is. I also need to be careful - “remember that posts are public and permanent.”

I like to blog and I want to get better at it. I hope that as I blog my skill at writing will improve and that this blog will become a tool in other’s hands and mine. My prayer is this.

Small group - Caching together

Last night we had a free night for our small group as we finish the good sense finical series last week. We decided it was time to have some fun together and my family has been wanting to introduce everyone to geocaching. So we went out and cached together last night and it was a blast. We did four caches together (3 of them my family and I have done before) and introduced them to the world of geocaching. Here is some things I heard from the group, "It was fun; I haven't done anything like this before; challenging but fun; really enjoyed doing this with the whole group." It was a great time with friends & family. Sure hope we can do it again someday soon.

Prayers this month - April 07

One of the categorize I used with my historical retreat is called prayers. Sometimes I put a simple prayer at the end of an explanation(s) when I'm reading and commenting on a verse(s) from God's Word. I wanted to post them here. I’m doing this so I can look at them later, for anyone to read, and possibly even comment on. I hope these prayer will give you (and me) hope and encouragement in our Lord:

Prayers

Thank you Lord for allowing me to interact with your creation and see you work in their lives.

Lord help me be the instrument of your splashing, pls.

Lord you know me, you made me, help me through this, PLS!
Thank you God for filling us with your energy so we can do good ideas and acts of faith all for you.

Lord, teach me, I don't really care if it is new or old stuff I just want something to grip on to that brings you more glory, pls.
Lord help me in this area, I know that I'm weak and that I must have you guiding me. You made me to be able to not treat other like the "enemy" now help me to confront in love. Pls

Lord you know I do not deserve this honor but you have made it possible for me to do this. Thank you so much -- thx for saving me!

Lord help me keep simple, not overpowered by "wisdom," for You.
Lord help me to understand when to "guard" and when to "attack."

Lord, help me to learn.

Lord, I'm a sinner and I have sin forgive me so I might be pure, have energy, and be someone you can be proud of on this earth and after.

Lord, use me to the fullest so that you might be known.

Lord work in me to be an instrument in your hands to equip the middle school kids I have the privilege to minster to.

Lord, may these verses (Heb 2:17,18) be used to point middle school kids (and anyone else you want) to you soon.

Lord, I want to be quick off the gun when it is time for me to act for you. Help me surround myself with men/women who will keep me on my toes.

Lord, use this body of mine in whatever way you need it to work, use it until you say it is finished and then let my body die and take me home.

Lord, thank you for being our "guarantee."

Lord forgive me and use me today - I so need you.

Lord, help me to dig like I did today in your Word even more. I can't wait for the 1/2 day get away to see all of these ideas and pray to You. I love you God!

Lord, open my eyes to see how much I can trust you as well as the fact that you see all things.

Lord, help me to chew and to chew hard on this idea of faith.

Lord, what a thought, Thx.

Lord help me to understand your ways and not mine as I cannot, with this mind of mine, understand what you are doing. Help me to trust!

God thank you for pouring out your love and truth to us. That you are not deceitful, two-faced, or fickle like all other God's that man has made up.

Lord, you are all knowing and totally brilliant, You have given us examples of the faith which includes Rahab. Help me understand fully her example so that I might model for everyone that you put in front of me.

Lord, help me to live wisely for You.

Lord, keep my mouth tame and help me to share this idea with Middle Schoolers.

Lord, I want to go after the black sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son. But how do you do that, the prodigal son's father waited but the widow and the shepherd went after their things. Where is the balance Lord, pls help.

Lord, you know me better than myself. You know that I believe in you and that isn't even a hard idea for me to accept. But you also know that I am a weakling - a total wimp - I really don't know if I will hold up if the day comes to stand for You. Please help me Lord, I want to be all I'm to be on this earth to bring you glory.

Lord, help me to see my wrong and being ok with what I need to be punished with to correct and learn from that. But also help me to be ok to be "punished" when I haven't done anything wrong but was doing what you want me to do.

My Historic Retreat

This was a historical retreat for becuase in a book report post on Scot McKnight book Jesus Creed I explained an application from his book I wanted to use. Here is that application (if you would like to read the whole book report pls click here):
The very simple and practical application that I am using is this:

1) I have started reading a chapter a day from the Bible (I started in I Thess.)

2) From that chapter I find at least one verse that stands out to me

3) I then write a short (one sentence to three sentence) explanation of why that verse stood out to me.

4) My goal is to take a ½ day ever 6 mths to look over all of my short explanations and see if I find some kind of common theme(s) in them.

5) I take that common theme(s) to help me plan my next set of books I read, what I study in the Bible, change my person quite times to contemplate this common theme(s) better, etc

6) Grow in my understand of how to love God and love others better.I know this seems simple but for me, who needs things to be simple, I’m very excited about what God might do in my life while using this simple application.

Today was my first ½ day retreat where I wanted to see what I had wrote. WOW!! This has been the best retreat of my life when it comes to looking at God's Word. I found out that I can’t do this only every 6 mths but need to do it monthly. I had 12 pages worth of “short explanations” to read through, categorize, and study. I still have a lot to study but I’m even more excited than ever about this. But God is doing something - Lord use me, PLS!

Daniel is 4

Today my family and many friends celebrated my youngest child’s fourth birthday. My wife went all out as this was the first official B-day party we did for Daniel. He had friends from everywhere, neighbor kids, church kids, and kids I didn't know how he knew but he knew them. I put a fun slide show of the pictures together for you to watch (just click on the picture). Thanks to all the families who brought their kids to the party.

Hill Billy Thank You! video

Some of you were asking for the video from the appreciation banquet. So here it is - enjoy?