Though it may sound strange, I would describe
the last couple of months since my marriage as cyclones of blessings. Nothing has been bad—in fact, quite the
opposite, everything has been VERY good.
However, we have had so many VERY good things back to back to back, all
of which have taken up large quantities of time, that about one week ago when
things finally slowed back down, I was left just sitting, catching my breath,
wondering what had happened the last couple of months. To share them with you briefly…
Right before our wedding, things had been
exceptionally busy. The week of our
honeymoon was the week before college classes, which is usually one of my
busiest planning weekends since the first week of college holds the Picnic in
the Quad promotional event at Fort Hays State University (I have a booth there
for our ministry, one for the Aikido school, one for The Gamers Guild, and I
help there with the college Aikido club), our ministry puts on ‘The Welcoming
Event’ (formerly ‘Get Plugged In’) at the university, we have the first Unite
Game Night of the year, and the first large promotional card tournament of the
year. As such, I had a lot of make-up
work the week or two before the wedding for the planning week that I would soon
miss. On top of that, we closed on our
house at 10 am on Tuesday, July 30th. Since I had to move out of my existing
apartment that very day, it led to a hectic move; I also had been contacted by
some international students since the dorms hadn’t opened but their rental
agreements ended the next evening. As
such, the day after chucking my belongings into a house very haphazardly, I got
some great friends to help me move some international college students’ items
up to the Aikido school along a wall.
One of them needed a place to stay, and my house was not yet livable, so
we stayed up at the dojo on the couches that night. The next day, we moved all of their stuff
into the dorms. All during this time and
the rest of the time until the wedding, I was finishing the work of closing on
a house and fixing it up, moving into the house, helping with final wedding
plans, and trying to get makeup work done for the ministry time we’d miss ON
TOP OF maintaining our existing ministry projects (we still had game nights,
small groups, etc.); you get the picture—though all of the things happening were
beyond amazingly good, it was nuts! Once
we got to the big day, I felt that the wedding went very well, as did Tella,
and we had a great time afterwards with family and friends and then with our
honeymoon. It was strange slowing down
to such a dead stop after so ridiculously much had been happening, but Tella
and I enjoyed the time VERY greatly! The
honeymoon, like so many other things right before our wedding, almost fell
together perfectly in front of us (thank God for His providence!) One of my Aikido students in Plainville has a dad who has a
cabin near Leadville, Colorado, and they make a habit
of letting friends of the family use it for just $15 per night; this is a NICE two-story cabin with an
in-door Jacuzzi bath, two fireplaces, and a deck with a pretty view of the
mountain evenings. I cannot tell you how
much I enjoyed adventuring with my new wife in the small mountain towns and
retiring there to rest. It was a
wonderful week!
We returned to Hays late Saturday night, and
then we went from zero to one hundred miles per hour almost instantly! We finished settling a few things in and then
moved all of Tella’s items into our house and got ready for the first day of
college. The Picnic in the Quad event
was good for getting the word out (we did get one new small group bible study
member and several new interested Aikido students plus a LOT of new attendees
at our Unite Game Night). The Welcoming
Event was smaller than usual, but it was still a good chance to interact with
college students and welcome them to the community in the name of Christ. We had a few staple churches come and all of
the college ministries turned out, but a few churches that usually come had
leadership changes and/or couldn’t make it this year. Nonetheless, a couple hundred college
students received free meals, free coffee, warm smiles, good conversations, and
other welcoming gifts from many of the churches in Hays and all of the
Christian college ministries, which, to me, is a powerful and important witness
to our campus.
By then it was September, and we had several
more big events including the FHSU Aikido Club seminar (which is a great time
to interact with many college students), and a few very large card tournaments
at The Gamers Guild. The Gamers Guild
(the small card and board game shop that I started next to the dojo that has
been helping us connect with many more students and community members) hosted a
few major card tournaments (a prerelease tournament for a game company and
several other competitive tournaments), and Unite Game Night, in turn, has had
very large attendance almost every Friday night. For that first month, I had to focus more on
developing The Gamers Guild and preparing for those tournaments, but now it has
hit a stride, so I plan to focus more on Unite Game Night and what we can do
with all of the huge influx of new gamers into our game night. (Side note: we are looking for volunteer
baristas who are willing to love and serve students and possibly do relational
ministry, if you know of any). We also
had our usual [alt] game night (as an alternative to Oktoberfest after-parties
in Hays). It was well attended, and the
students there seemed to have quite a bit of fun—all the way until 7am the next day! During this time, our small group Bible
studies have also grown slightly—one college student in the Aikido classes knew
about our small groups and asked to join, and one knew about us through the
Unite Game Nights. Each small group is
still a strong community, but both could use prayer as the times we meet can be
a bit challenging with everyone’s schedules being so full.
We also received a very surprising and direct
answer to prayer over this time. My
parents and several others have been praying that God provide financially for
me more heavily than He has been. His
existing providence has been more than sufficient for all basic needs. However, it is true that it has been
perpetually tight since I started missionary work, and they wanted to see more
money coming in to help out. Thanks to
God for a direct answer to prayers! A
couple received an inheritance and they wanted to send some of it to an
in-state missionary instead of just supporting overseas efforts. They decided to send it to support me and the
work here in Hays. In effect, as long as
existing donations continue through December, it has raised my salary in the
2013 year from 1/3 of a starting youth pastor’s salary to a full starting youth
pastor’s salary for the year; this is a HUGE difference! It has completely changed the landscape here
for both Tella and me. It took me from a
long slow process of paying off my remaining $4,000 in student loans to having
no debt whatsoever except for the house.
It also helped with some surprise medical expenses that came up and
allowed Tella and I to set aside some of the money as a ‘blessings fund’, which
we have already started using to bless some local individuals when needs arise
that can’t be met by some of the existing systems in place in Hays. It is very exciting to have some money set
aside to bless others with and the ability to start saving up ourselves for our
own needs as they arise. Thank God for
answered prayers and thanks again to that couple for such a tremendous
blessing! Please keep in prayer that God
provide more long-term supporters for us; if my salary were regularly closer to
my goal (a starting youth pastor’s salary), it would open up several new
ministry windows that we’ve wanted to take advantage of but don’t have the
finances for! Thanks again for your
prayers and your patience during this overly-busy time in life; I plan to get
back to keeping you all more regularly in the loop (your prayers are VERY
important for us!), and I look forward to sharing more soon in next month’s
newsletter!
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