"good writing!", if i do say so myself

today's post brought to you by reallife.MINISTRIES.

it's not often that i flat out quote an entire post from one blog to the other, but i feel compelled to do it today for a couple reason. 1) i think it's really good writing and i'm not entirely sure i want to stay up even later tonight to write some more, and i don't think it'd be as great of writing if i did. 2) i know there is some overlap in the readership of both blogs but in case you're not one of them i thought it was appropriate for both audiences. 3) i really wanted to write something on this blog tonight because it didn't seem that my ordeal with blogger publishing frustration was good 'comment fodder'.

so without further ado:
get to know your pastor - family ministry

i love being involved with YOU - the student's of reallife.MINISTRIES. i enjoy getting together each week, hearing your successes, failures, fears, hopes. i love 'just chatting' with you either online or "unplugged" face to face. and i hope and pray that i'm making a difference in your lives in some way or another. (btw, i'm not fishing for compliments) (oh and in case you don't know btw stands for By The Way)

but let me tell you something that i struggle with . . .

you see, if you ask me what is most important to me, i'd tell you hands down that it is my family. in fact this point was reinforced in my mind/soul when i recently listened to a message by dr. voddie baucham. you can listen to this two part message here: day 1 & day 2.

my family is the most important ministry i have. i will have the greatest impact on this earth by investing in, providing for, protecting, and otherwise ministering to my own family. (you really do have to listen to the messages to get the full impact of what i'm saying) i can do no greater thing than to love and influence my family towards God.

like i said i love being involved with you guys, but 'when push comes to shove'; youth ministry isn't as important to me as my family ministry. to put it even more plainly: you are not as important as my family.

so here's the struggle . . . youth ministry is easy by comparison to family ministry. youth ministry is more or less centered around events. we have youth services, outings, camps, missions trips, conventions, movie nights, parties, etc. and so as a youth minister i can focus on the next event. planning, preparing, promoting. and when it's finally come and gone and all the youth have gone home, i can have this nice story of how the "youth ministry was successful" and "lives were changed".

family ministry, on the other hand, is day in and day out, minute by minute, every moment of the day i have little eyes watching my every move. how i react to people, how i behave when other's aren't around, if treat their mother the same at home as in public. as deut. 6.7-9 says it's all the time, in every way!

in addition to that, i sometimes spend more time involved with youth ministry activities than i do in direct family involvement. so although my heart and head say one thing (family ministry is of utmost importance to me), my actions and energies say another (ah your family will be around tomorrow, you've really got to finish this task NOW for effective youth ministry to happen).

so what am i trying to say with all this . . . i don't know. but as the title of the post suggests, i think you've '[gotten] to know your pastor' a little more.

comments or suggestions welcome.

anybody else having a problem

posting to blogger????

i've tried posting something to the reallife.MINISTRIES blog last night and i keep getting errors. i've tried on various browsers, different computers, i even used a PC. :-0

so now i'm trying to post something on this blog to see if it's just the youth blog having a problem or blogger in general?

i guess if you are having a problem and this doesn't post you'd have no way of answering the question till blogger fixes itself.
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update (12:12pm 10-28-06): so obviously since this has now posted the problem is resolved. or is it . . . ? this post didn't publish the first time i tried to post. it wasn't till i came to my sister's house today that i got it to work. so the question now is . . . did blogger fix whatever problems it had? or is it my internet connection that is causing the "publishing" problems??

i'll try posting something else from home when i get there . . . (to be continued)
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update (2.21pm 10-28-06): okay i'm home now, hopefully this will post? (fingers crossed). second try.
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update (2.23pm 10-28-06): so i ended up having to "release and renew" my router's dns settings in order to get that to work. not sure why it wasn't working in the first place, but i'm glad it's working again now.

as if any of you cared about my little SAGA with blogger. suffice it to say, i was not a happy camper.

it's taken a while

but i can now count myself as one who has seen Nacho Libre. now whether you think that's a great club to be a part of or not has to do first of all with whether you've seen the movie, and secondly, with your sense of humor.

take a look at this picture. then think of me. then come to your own conclusions about whether i liked it or not, and whether you should see it. (it's PG)

happy birthday dad!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!
75 years, congrats.

it's getting harder to know what to get you for your birthday, by this time in your life you've got whatever you need. so we got you rachel. :-)
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yesterday was a busy day for us at the lara household . . . click to read more [+/-]

first off it was the first sunday for rachel joy. deb was/is still feeling exhausted and trying to adjust to all the changes in her body. so she stayed home. i usually do announcements on sunday mornings, so i came home (next door to the church) and grabbed rachel to hold her while i did announcements. everybody loved seeing her (even the ones who knew for certain that she'd be a boy).

i also got the privelage of baptizing 2 teenagers yesterday morning. one of them forgot to bring a towel so i let her use the one i brought and i just went home all soaking wet, in oct morning cold. (ok so not as cold as our MN friends, but cold nonetheless when you've just come out of a non-heated baptismal)

it was also my dad's birthday yesterday, so after church we went to his house for lunch. we spent a couple hours there and then came home to get ready for the evening service.

last night was a special youth service at reallife.CHURCH. we had our District Youth Director for the Northwest Ministry Network for the Assemblies of God (washington and northern idaho) as a guest speaker with us. we had Jeffery Portmann come speak last year and i've decided to make it a yearly event: DYD Day! i also hope to have him come back again sooner. some of our youth suggested during spring break or summer so that he could bring his whole family. (they didn't come this time because his boys have school the next day)
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today is my last day of 'paternity leave', deb has been noticably been "getting better". but she still needs to take it easy, so i'm glad i'm able to be available for her today.

i've got to get the kids ready for school so - later y'all.

she meets the sisters

i'm able to stay home today and monday from work for paternity leave, which is better than nothing i guess. deb is still pretty exhausted, as would be expected after the experience. (BTW guys, she says she's heard it compared to running a marathon, she says "it's nothing like running a marathon. a marathon would be easy, almost fun exercise by comparison. in a marathon you are simply using your muscles in a normal way, although vigerously. there's nothing normal about the muscles you use for childbirth!" -[and all the women said, "AMEN!"])

here's some pics of rachel meeting the rest of the family:


i'll write more about the whole experience later. (nothing traumatic, for me at least. just some funny anecdotes)

our first father/daughter dance

It's a GIRL!

Rachel Joy Lara
born at 3.16 am on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006
7 lbs. 6 oz.
21 in.

more story details, pics, and videos to come in the hours and days to come.

thanks to all

i'd like to thank eveyone who is helping us out during this time. my mother who is spending the night with our other kids, maggie for watching them until my mom could get there, everyone at church for your prayers, and both grandmas for helping out with meals in recent days/weeks.here's our surroundings.

deb's contractions are getting stronger, she's having to stop talking and do some deep breathing. she's enjoying listening to her ipod nano. she's got like 22 hours worth of just songs she likes loaded up, so she should be okay for awhile.

and for those that can read this thing:

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10pm update

well deb's water was broken 3.5 hours ago and her contractions are coming more consistantly and stronger. i guess we'll have to decide on a name pretty soon.

here's some pics of our "dinner of champions":

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settling in

well, we've made it to the hospital and are ready for the night ahead. we're ready to meet you 'baby lara'! we've got our smiles on:

and our friends "pat and vanna" on the tube.  :-)

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ok people, this is it!

ok everyone, deb had a dr. appointment today. she's 4 cm, the dr stripped her membranes and said if we got to the hospital by 6.30pm she'd have us admitted and we'll get this baby on the move.

we'll update you as is allowable (i'm not sure if the hospital has wi-fi)

we appreciate your prayers,

bye for now!

i love my goofball

so i'm trying a new method of posting, via email. i've set up my blog to be able to post something just by sending the email to a "special" email address. this is my first time doing it this way so i'm not sure if i can include pictures or not. (if it does work there should be a picture of danielle sticking her tongue out to the right of this text)

i'm trying this method so that i can write the posts 'offline' while i'm at school on my macbook and then when i go home simply send it and have it post. for those wondering . . . our school does have internet access, but i've been asked to not "plug in" with my mac. because it's not an 'official school' computer.

(actually i was told - "because it's a mac it messes with the system" - which isn't true at all, but i guess the principle isn't a 'technical' guy so he reinterpreted what he was told by the tech guys. the principle actually forwarded me the email he received from the tech guys and all it said was that there was an 'unathorized' computer connecting to the net and they identified it as an apple macbook)

so even though i know it doesn't "mess up" the school system at all, i'll bite my tongue, submit to authority and not connect to the internet while at school. sooo i'm trying a new method.

now back to your regularly scheduled post . . .
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so yesterday was my first day officially unemployed by pizza hut which was really nice. my decision to "retire" (as my niece put it) from pizza hut was mostly driven by 1) my desire to spend more time at home and 2) that i want to be able to devote more time to church activities. our church is currently in a 'season of change' and my duties are also transitioning.

so did i focus on either of those two motives on my first day off work?? glad to report, YES! before my week was busy every night of the week: Sun.,Wed, & Thurs. i was at church; Mon, Tue, Fri, & Sat i was usually scheduled at pizza hut. so we never had an evening free to just relax or planning anything. so we decided to go to yakima, drop the kids off at grandma's house and go out to eat with deb.

what i enjoyed the most about the evening was when we came back to grandma's house. i was sitting on the couch and danielle came up to me asking to read her a book. and it was such a great book "sesame street's: i can do it myself". as a growing, maturing, four year old she is learning to do new things "by herself" everyday. we sat on the couch together enjoying our time together. i even helped her sound out the words to read the book to me. it was a great father/daughter moment.

now i could have done this on some nights even when i did work at pizza hut, but i was more relaxed, not tired, and focused knowing that it was moments like these that i had "retired" from pizza hut for.

it was a great evening all around. i look forward to many more. i love my goofball (danielle) and all our other kids. cuddle times with danielle are always special in their own way.

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UPDATE: it did post the text but not the pictures, so i went back manually via blogger's site to add the pictures.

not quite 100

well, first off . . . no baby yet. well there is a baby, it's just still inside deborah. secondly, my first 100 mile challenge is over, but i didn't quite make it. it seems i was a little over anxious in what i could accomplish. but if i look at it like, "wow! i ran/walked 88.6 miles in the past 4 weeks!"

anyways, i've set myself a new goal of 150 miles in the next 8 weeks. (i'll keep you updated as the weeks progress. i've also reduced my weight by about 5 lbs in the past 4 weeks too. now i do have to say congratulations to my brother-in-law who has lost weight via Prism; 5 lbs in 1 week. i was mentioning my weight reduction to deborah and how it wasn't as drastic as Jorge's weight loss and she responded "but then again you're not eating like Jorge either!" which is just fine by me, i'm losing weight without having to eat rice cakes. but then again she responded, "he's probably saying, "i'm glad i don't have to go running like aber!" so to each his own i guess.

i'm going to go enjoy a piece of apple pie now. ;-)
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oh and . . . in other news, yesterday was my last day at pizza hut. (i'm free!) hopefully i'll have more time now to devote to posting. (insert wild cheering from all the fans)

new videos

ok so it's not video footage of a new baby, but fun nonetheless. today (10/15/06) i'm preaching a church during the morning service. we're in the middle of a month long series on "Chazown" (hebrew word for Vision). and in particular trying to understand God's Vision for the area of our finances. as i've done twice before, i chose to speak the message on tithing.

here's some of the funny videos i'll show this morning - (the last one is of me interviewing one of our church members)

Donuts and Tithing


Generopoly


Kung Fu Bible


Interview wih a Tither

"i'd like to cancel my appointment"

in and of itself it's not a very amusing phrase. people do it all the time; dentist appointments, doctor visits, parent/teacher meetings, etc.

but when you're 38 weeks pregnant and have an "induction appointment" for 8 am today it sounds funny to call the hospital yesterday and say, "i'd like to cancel my appointment". i'm not sure if they didn't believe her or if it just doesn't happen very often but they told her she had to call her dr.

she did and the nurse said she was busy and would call her after her next patient. she called again around 3pm, and then again at 5.30pm; still no call back from the doctor. so around 7.30pm she calls the hospital again to tell them that she is not coming tomorrow morning, they ask again if she's called her doctor, and then after looking at the schedule realise that the doctor had already called the hospital to cancel the induction, but i guess forgot to call deb back to let her know.

so baby's not coming today (at least not because of an 'eviction notice' as my mom calls it). if the baby does come today, it'll be because if his/her own free will [actually God's Will, but we'll let the baby think what he/she wants for the first few minutes ;-)]

in other news, anna's got some sort of stomach flu or virus or something. she threw up last night before bed, again in the middle of the night, and then again this morning. tonight is the open house at her and danielle's school, hopefully she'll feel better by then.

well, that's all for now, we'll keep you posted on all baby news!

p.s. thanks to all the church members who blessed us with about a bazillion diapers this past sunday, we appreciate it!

an unexpected compliment

i'm sitting in the saturday morning session of youth convention and i wanted to share an unexpected compliment i received last night.

i went to talk to some of our students who were sitting in a different section (because another group took some of the seats i had saved) after the alter call. and i heard one of my students say to another, "hey, that guy (the main speaker) sound just like abe every week?"

now like i said i wasn't near them most of the service so i don't know if he meant that he was sleeping through it and bored to tears . . . but the tone of his voice sounded positive.

what made this even more accute was a morning breakfast for youth pastors that we went today. at this breakfast the main speaker mentioned that when he was a youth pastor and brought kids to conventions his kids would mention how awesome the main speaker was and he would be thinking "i just preached that message two weeks ago!" his point wasn't to say how awesome a speaker he was but to prove that students don't always remember your week to week messages, but they do remember if you love them. but it was nice to know that at least one of my students thinks that i'm just as good of a speaker as the Youth Conference spaaker.

no baby yet

well i know you were thinking it. believe me you'll find out here if we've had the baby or not. although today deb's felt a lot of movement and felt like it was coming today.

well if this is the place for lara news, then let the news begin.

i've got about 11 days left on my "100 miles in 4 weeks" challenge. i'm at 60 mi.

i've been working on a new website for the church. (old site vs. new site // when it's complete the old site address will point to the new address. // oh and give me any feedback on what you think would be great to add to the site or take away, etc.)

also, i've put my two weeks notice at pizza hut. i've decided i need to devote more time to my family, and i'm going to be busier with "roundTABLE" coordination at church.

well that's about it for now, i hope to write more "thought provoking" stuff in future posts. gotta go, fpu is starting the discussion portion.

oh did i mention . . .

anna's in the first grade (sorta) . . .

as i've mentioned before, we tried getting anna into first grade this year by skipping kindergarden. well she is in kindergarden for most of the day, but her teacher was noticing (with our prompting) how well anna could read. so i'm glad to report she's now doing the reading block of time with the 1st graders.

not only in with a first grade class, but the highest level 1st grade class! my sister mentioned about an answer to prayer for her daughter concerning school work. i found out later that anna was in that same prayer circle at church asking for her reading time not to be so boring (she was after all only learning about "A" and then "E", when she could read and write at a 1.4 reading level [that's 1st grade - 4th month]). and low and behold last monday afternoon the teacher asked if we'd like her to be in the 1st grade reading block and she began the next day! God cares about every detail of our lives.

trust Him.

i know . . . i know . . .

i know . . . i know . . . mag, my fans have been waiting. and i've been feeling bad if it makes you feel any better. (actually what makes me feel bad is that people don't leave comments if i don't provide any fodder for stimulation)

ok, so here's a run down of 'recent lara events' (for our fans)

> deb will be 37 weeks on monday and she's ready to get this kid out yesterday.
> i've been working on a new website for the church (when it's ready for the public, you'll be the first to know) running a lot, oh, and i got new "quality" shoes today. (asics, in case you were wondering)
> anna turned 6 and she's loving her new 'shuffle'.
> i think julia's starting to realize that she's not going to be the baby soon, she's been wanting to sleep in the crib every night.
> and danielle is just the cutest middle child on the edge of becoming a genius in preschool while getting lost in the day to day hustle and bustle.

that's about all i can spit out right now. i could make promises that i'll post everyday and never miss again but why would i want to do that to myself??

the great move & other stuff

as promised here's a picture of our "great move" a week ago. (all room names are of their new status)

we're still cleaning up from the whole ordeal. but all in all i think we like our new set up. and hopefully we'll keep it that way for a while (so i won't have to move it again).

click to read the "other stuff"

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so deb is back from her women's conference (thank goodness!). but during her absence i had an interesting experience - i watched "wwe's friday night Smackdown". i don't normally watch "professional wrestling" - grown men in underwear beat each other up. but i found myself inexplicably captivated and unable to look away. i had a pleathera of feelings during this time.

first, if the whole thing is staged then it certainly is a painful dance. and if it's not staged then these wrestlers truly are dumb. because usually one of them looks obviously more "ripped" than the other. i don't care how good the money is, why would the weaker/flabby-er guy get in the ring to get beat up week after week. on the rare occasion that they are equal in strength they fight until one of them is almost beaten and then all of a sudden he acquires some super strength in the final minutes as if he's possesed. and he's doing all these fancy trick moves to counter act his opponent's advances. my question is, "if he knew all these fancy moves why didn't he use them before he got beat up??" they must be stupid.

secondly i couldn't understand why i was so drawn to watching it. i don't consider myself to be a "guy's guy". i don't fix cars, i've never been hunting, i'm not one for manual labor, i've never driven a motorcycle, i've never been to a monster truck show, i don't watch any sport religiously, and so i certainly am not one to watch "professional wrestling". maybe it was because deb was gone i could watch for more than 3 seconds without changing the channel. maybe it was because when i was a kid i used to try to get interested in the WWF because all my friends were into "hulk holgan, 'the giant', and others." or maybe part of it was seeing how enthusiastic the crowd was during the whole spectacle. it reminded me of what days of the gladiators; with an arena full of people seeing to challengers duel to the death.

in any case, it was really wierd to find myself watching it.

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okay, my running is continuing but i need to up the pace a little. as stated on this post, i've set myself a goal of running 100 miles in 4 weeks using the nike+ sportkit to track my progress. this works out to a little bit more than 3.5 miles a day. as of this morning i'm about 2.5 miles behind my goal. the reason this is significant is because on my own i would be 'fine' if i exercised ~5 days a week with an average of 1-3 miles per workout. but now if i skip a day i'll fall even more behind in my distance goal. so in order to allow myself a day off or two a week, i'm gonna have to start running/walking 5-6 miles/week. i'll keep you posted on my progress. oh and if anyone who reads this has a nike+ system and would like to start a 'challenge' your welcome to email me. (click on my profile in the upper right for a link to email me)

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finally, the reality of the fact that we're gonna have a baby just hit me today.  what got me thinking of this is a sixth grader in my first period class.  she just came back today after a week vacation with her family to disneyland!  and it got me thinking that 6th grade is a perfect age to take a family vacation to disneyland.  i thought this mostly because they're old enough to have fun with their parents and be somewhat independent, but not old enough to think it's a drag to have to go on a vacation with their parents.  anyways it got me thinking, "if we go when anna (our oldest) is in 6th grade what grade will the others be?"  and then i had to keep thinking because there's another kid coming into the mix that i hadn't thought of before.  so if anna is in sixth grade; danielle in 4th; julia in 2nd; and the "new kid" in kindergarden!  wow, what a trip that will be.  or should we wait until julia's in 5th or 6th grade??

now we've promised "the girls" that we'll go to disneyland when we're 'out of debt' and anna for one is quick to remind us of that fact.  at our current pace we'll be out of debt when she's in 4th or 5th grade.  so we'll see when it all happens.

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well that was sure a lot to write, and even more to comment about.  i guess that's what i get for being so lax in my writing recently . . .

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