A Whirlwind

Since last Thursday things have been like a whirlwind for me. Crystal and I left for Memphis on Thursday night at about 8 pm and made our first stop in Knoxville. From there, we got up Friday morning and traveled 6 more hours to Memphis. We grabbed some grub downtown and took a nice carriage ride around the city. Saturday morning we got up and went to our pre-project meeting from 9:30-3:00, then hit the road to Nashville. We spent the night in Nashville and hung out with one of our friends there before heading through Atlanta and making a stop at IKEA. We were exhausted to say the least! Then Monday morning we had staff meeting and from there I went to hang out with students at Wren middle to try to offer support during this terrible tragedy. It was very solemn and I have never been in a middle school lunch room that was that quiet.
In more encouraging news, we had our commitment Sunday this weekend for the student building and our folks pledged 1.3 million dollars!! God is so AWESOME!! That should get us really close to paying the building off over the next 3 years. If you wanna know more about the progress of The Garage, go check out www.marathonamazingrace.com I am responsible for updating the blog with pictures, videos and commentary on the progress, so watch for more info soon!!

RUNning the Race,
Bholda

Memphis here we come!!!

The wife and I are headed to Memphis for this year's mission trip pre-project meeting. We went to Memphis last year and it changed our student's lives completely, so it was a no-brainer to return this summer. I will hopefully post an AMP'd rewind when we get to the hotel (if Crystal brings the laptop), and share some other cool that's been happein' in the life of Bholda. I don't have time for a long post right now, but be on the lookout for more late tonight, or tomorrow (hopefully!)

RUNning My Race,
Bholda

My Bad!!

I have to say sorry to all of you. I have not been in a blogging mood lately, so i've shunned my responsibilites as a blogger to update. It has been a very crazy week with a lot of good stuff going on. I am performing the wedding ceremony for Jamie and Alison tonight at 7, so the rehersal was last night. It went great, and then there was the rehersal dinner. It was AMAZING!!! It was bar-b-que from some place up in Westminister and i literally haven't eaten that much in a long time. I will update on my progress in the fitness/wellness pursuit later, but last night i abandoned all that in celebration of Jamie and Alison getting married. Speaking of food, i am still safe from having to buy Sammy(www.sammyclary.com) lunch at Zaxby's, because i have only received about 4 e-mails. I say the contest is over, but if it were up to Sammy it would go on until i got the amount of e-mails needed to lose the contest, even if that took a year!!!
AMP'd was great this week! The students had tons of energy and responded in a great way to worship. The "Garage" is still rolling along and on Wednesday we had a cookout for the construction workers that were there. It was cool just to do a little something for those folks that have been working so hard out there. I don't think the crew even realizes that they are building a place for students and families to come that is safe, and a place where lives will be changed. It's a pretty awesome thought! We are still on track for a September grand opening which would be perfect timing.
Well, that's about all i've got today, but hopefully i'll be updating again soon.

RUNning the Race,
Bholda

Chick-fil-a and Spiritual stuff

Today has been pretty cool. I met up with some students in our ministry who are on spring break this week to eat lunch over at Chick-fil-a in Easley. I got a grilled chicken club, but i ain't gonna lie, their chocolate milkshakes are AMAZING!!! I was strong and didn't have one, but man...those suckas are good!! I really love hanging out with our students when the opportunity presents itself. It may not be much, but i think if you are a youth pastor you should take every opportunity to hang out with students AWAY from the church building. I think it says a lot when we as youth pastors take the time to go on campus, ballgames, recitals (just not middle school orchestra!) or whatever our students have going on, just to show them we support them. It was a blast to just sit and listen to what they have been doing over spring break. Eat more chicken!!
Now on to the spiritual stuff. Last week i met with a student for about 2 hours who had made a bad decision and got caught. The students mom thought maybe they would open up more if they talked to me, which did happen, but it wasn't the result i was looking for necessarily. The student really didn't respond with a remorseful attitude or even a attitude of "man i really screwed up this time". It was tough because everything i said seemed to just slide right on by. I was literally praying as we met that God would give me the words to say, and i believe He did. After about an hour and a half, i finally just straight up asked the student what role God played in their life, and the response was "i don't really think about it that much." Wow, not what I wanted to hear. I left the meeting feeling beat up, frustrated, discouraged, confused, and a little angry, not at a certain person, or God, but just at the situation. I called my friend Robert (www.robert4tnr.blogspot.com)and explained what had went down and asked him for some advice. He was in student ministry awhile back, and i think he is very wise and i respect and listen to what he has to say. He reminded me of something REAL important. You see, we tend to be real quick to give the credit to God when good things happen in the lives of our students. We say things like "that was a God thing", or "that was all God, not me" and so on. Now, don't get me wrong, those statements are all true and we should obviously give Him the glory. But what about when things don't go the way we think they should? When students don't respond to the Gospel, or drop a bad habit, what do we do? We end up saying things like "i'm not being effective", or "i can't relate anymore", or "i must not be doing something right". Here is what Robert reminded me of last week. It is ONLY God that does the work in the lives of people, including teenagers. We can have no effect on students unless God has gone before us and prepared their hearts for the message we have. We are still accountable and responsible to deliver the message accurately and in love, but that is really where our part ends. God is the one the calls people to Himself. If we think or act any other way, then essentially we are kicking God off His throne and telling Him we know better and we have a better plan. Thanks Robert for the reminder, you ROCK!!!
Well, sorry for the long post, but i just had a lot to say today. It's off to wrap a few loose ends up before AMP'd tonight!!

Running my Race,
Bholda

D-Now and DSS

WOW!! What a weekend so far! Last night we kicked off "Awakening '08" our D-Now weekend with High Praises Church at Marathon. It was a great night of worship and it was awesome to see our churches come together and hang out. We are heading to the "MAC" which is High Praises youth building tonight for dinner and more worship, so I'm looking forward to getting to hang out more with all the students. I'm really pumped about what God is going to do in the lives of students this weekend. We have our students in host homes with college leaders from College of Charleston, Citadel, and North Greenville. So i have to give a HUGE shoutout to the host homes and college leaders for all their time and effort this weekend!!! I will post some good stuff next week with highlights from the weekend.
On a completely different note, Crystal and i are having our first home visit with our social worker from DSS for our upcoming adoption. I think they end up
doing like 3 visits during the process so we are getting the ball rolling. I am very excited/scared to death to think that i will be a dad soon! WOW!! my world is about to change, but i can't wait!! I will definitely keep the blog updated on the progress we are making. Guess that's it for now.

RUNning the Race,
Bholda

Tonight

I'm really tired, and it's been a long day. I will do a for real post tomorrow, but for now, it's off to "chillville"! Big weekend ahead with our students....D-Now "Awakening '08"

Until Tomorrow,
Bholda