Run Joe Run!

WOW! My life has been incredibly busy since my last post. Friday was a great day as myself and many other members from the church went to Aurora which is a community about 15 minutes away from Englewood to move in the Garza's. Alfred, Christine and their four kids are re-locating to Colorado from Illinois. I've known them for many years now since they attended Living Water Church in Da Brook when I was a member there. It's pretty cool to be able to hang with them all while I'm here this summer. Good people for sure. After we got done moving their many trucks of stuff, into their house/garage, myself and some of the youths went to see Toy Story 3. I have to say, the movie is probably the best movie I have seen this year. That's saying a lot since I saw the A-Team last week. The A-Team was pretty amazing but Toy Story 3 had such a great story (no pun intended). My favorite part had to be Buzz LightYear en espanol/"You got a friend in Me" en espanol. CLASSIC! After the movie, myself and my youth boys and gals went back to the church for some pizza and hide and seek. It was a super long day but tons of fun non the less.

Saturday was another long day as we had a great church wide work day at the church. It started at about 8:30am and we got lots of things done, including laying down carpet in the youth room, which is next to the church. The youth room is now closer to being ready for the youth to meet in there for the rest of the summer and beyond. This is huge because now the youth meets in the main sanctuary on the Wednesdays but in the fall, the adult bible study on Wednesdays will start up again, leaving the youth with nowhere to meet. I'm so excited to finish the youth room. Put some game systems in, posters, t.v.'s, everything youth will be in that room (hopefully). The work day was super tiring and right after that I had to be back at the church for worship practice. At about 9pm, my energy level was at about 0 so I crashed pretty hard. It felt good. Sunday was of course Father's Day and it was kind of sad for me because it was the second straight year that I wasn't with my dad for Father's Day. I got to talk to him briefly but it still wasn't that legit. My parents divorced when I was pretty young but my dad has been in my life despite this which is cool. As Pastor TJ, talked about in his message, being a dad is tough stuff. A lot is expected from dads, sometimes more-so with dads than moms. I truly appreciate my dad and the influence that he has had on my life.

To honor the dads of Englewood Assembly we had a picnic at a park near the church. I can't tell you how much fun it was. My friend Kim, how is the Englewood Assembly grill master and myself, discovered a few weeks ago at one of his family barq's that we are basically unbeatable at Bacci Ball so Sunday was a perfect day to continue our dominance. We went 10-1 on the day which is pretty impressive especially considering the fact that we played all of our opponents either 2 or 3 games in a row. Yeah, we are da champs. Volleyball, Basketball and Football was also played. We won't talk about those. haha. I also met a ton of new youth kids that hopefully will be at youth tommorrow. I'm pretty excited about that as the group has really grown a lot since I have been here which is cool. It also worries me a bit because I'm not really sure what's going to happen when I leave in 6 weeks as far as the youth group goes. I honestly devote abotu 90-95 percent to all things youth at the the moment. It's really clear to me that no one else here has that type of time and energy. It's not that they don't want to, its just the fact that school, other jobs, family, etc. really limits the things that can and will be done when I leave. That worries me a ton but at the same time, as I have told some of the kids this morning, I know that their Jer 29:11 goes way beyond my time here and so does this youth group so I know that God has a plan for them and the youth of this church and this city. It surely doesn't stop on August 1st. So the direction of the youth group from the name to the week to week activities has really been on my heart the past couple of days because I'm starting to really care about all these kids and I believe whole-heartedly that without a youth group and a solid youth/leader or pastor, these kids and any teen for that reason will miss out on some serious good times, times of teaching, times of worship and ultimately times of worship as well. God is always good and always faithful so I know He will work in whatever way he sees fit as far as the youth of EA goes. Glory to God. The youth in the church are love doing things, whether its spiritual, fun, or whatever cause for so long, they were bored so I just hope I can spend as much time pouring into their lives as possible, starting with this weekend as we are going camping in the mountains. So pumped about that!

Lastly, I'm really excited about getting back to 24 fitness. I finally got my IPOD fixed last week and made an amazing play list called "Workin on my fitness" complete with everything from "Amazing" by Kanye West to "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. I need music to run to more than I need during my weights workouts because running in silence is pretty terrible. Later today will be interested because I haven't ran since school got out. Yep that was a month ago. I actually hate running but i hate sweating like a pig more so somethings got to give. Yesterday, I got my 24 hour fitness membership card after waiting for 2 weeks so I figured that might be a sign that I need to get my act together, so hopefully I will see someone I know on my run so they can say "RUN JOE RUN" well maybe not but it was a good thought I guess. Well, time to start getting ready for youth group tommorrow. Prayin for tons of youth to come. You can pray too! Until next time, love you all!

Blessings
Joe
Philippians 4:13