Mini Golf, Daytona 500 and King Mackerel

Yesterday I just got home from my final 6 days of being away from home since Jan 1st. I was in Daytona Beach, FL for a week of training for Summer Mission Opportunities. This summer Christine and I are co-leading the Long Beach, CA Project. It was a great week as God brought together the vision, plans and dreams we have had with two of our other leaders, Joanna and Ethan. It was pretty cool that God is molding us and our thoughts into one unified project. I am so grateful for the work He will do in LB.

Not only was this past week a great week of seeing God confirm many things on my heart since the inception of the project in October but we also had a ton of fun. Even though it was on the East Coast (I'll need counseling for this) it was wonderful and warm. It was so refreshing to get some sun and go swimming in the ocean. Yes the waves were smaller but I'm out of shape so it didn't matter. The salt, the power, the current all were blessings to my soul. It brought such great memories of growing up in California and even more anticipation for the project this summer. Yes, I'm saving up for a surfboard and wetsuit. I even found a little bit of kid in me to go down the swimming pool slide. Yippeee!!!

One night of our training was free. So what do you do when you get some competitive men around each other. You talk smack, lay some money down and play a mean game of mini golf. We played skins game where each hole was about $1.75 each. I was playing horrible but enough guys tied and then an easy hole was staring in front of me as the purse was built up to $21. That's real money. I was the first to tee off and my brightly colored neon orange ball bounced off a rock and fell in the hole. BANG! Hole in One. Witnessed by others. I was going to rake in 21 fat ones. But I had to wait for the other 6 professional golfers tee off behind me. The mini golf gods stared down in favor of me as I walked away, chest puffed up, head held high, mouth yapping about my success and a pocket full of cash.

That championship glory filled night didn't end with my amazing shot. We headed down to D.J.s Fish house to cool our mean mini golf produced thirst. D.J.s is on the docks and we showed up Jason and Craig, our staff friends leading Alaska Men's Project, were there emptying Gary's commercial fishing boat. Gary in the previous hour hauled in over 1,000 lbs of King Mackerel. Wow. They were huge and pretty cool. After shooting the breeze with Gary about the fishing industry and recent fish market prices we got bored and then saw tons of channel catfish hanging out off the dock. What else should a group of guys do, late at night, thirst quenched? We grabbed a spear off the boat and baited the catfish to come close. Low and behold, Jason caught us a fish just after 2 tries. I witness total redneck backwoods fishing. Craig even showed us that fish talked. I was a city boy that had been blessed.

The next day I went with some friends to the Daytona 500 speedway. I admit I am an undercover NASCAR fan and watch it almost weekly after I get home from church. This week was fan appreciation week and testing of cars as the season begins in about 3 weeks. It was glorious opportunity to stand 6 feet away from cars going 200 miles per hour. I'm hooked and trying to figure out how to get myself to the Vegas Speedway in Feb.

We laughed a lot, dreamed a lot, talked to God a ton, heard God speak and didn't much. Oh yeah, I missed the story of sleeping in bed with another full grown man. I think I save that story for later or never. I'm home and getting some rest. It was so great to see the kids, hug, pray and just play. God is good.

He is also good because the Broncos won over the Pats. Go Broncos!!!

Categories: God, LongBeach, Family