Our trip to NOLA has wrapped up. We had a great time with the New Orleans Chinese Baptist Church youth group at their retreat weekend where I had a chance to teach more in depth on the elements of the Gospel, our identities in the Gospel, and what it means to be Gospel fluent. We also had a great time hanging with the students, and I also led a team to domination in a few rounds of Bazooka Ball, no surprise with my leadership and extensive studies in military tactics (meaning I've played a lot of video games... and they're just kids so...).
We also had plenty of time to hang out with several of our close friends too. Our first stop was to spend the afternoon at our old coffee shop job, PJ's on Magazine, where we both worked over 4 years each together. We caught up with several friends, as well as old regular customers who walked right past us only to turn around caught off guard that we were there, and my hair is over 10 inches shorter so that's quite a change. Since it's New Orleans, we had to eat out, so after a late lunch at Guy's Po Boys by our old house, we went to another favorite, Midway Pizza.
We also hit up the new District Doughnuts and had several sliders a doughnut sandwich, some coffees, and a cinnamon roll doughnut to go. I don't think it needs said, but it was awesome. Also the coffee is legit, with beans from 1000 Faces, and a La Marzocca Strada MP espresso machine.
After the retreat we came back to a Labor Day party at Pastor Rob's house to catch up with more of our Vintage Church family. That was a great evening, not only because we got to see close friends, but because we had finally been able to publicly (aka on Facebook) announce Keeva's pregnancy a couple days earlier, so there was plenty of excitement already. After a long road of an early miscarriage and about 3.5 years of infertility (more on that later) she's finally pregnant and past her first trimester, and we were able to thank God together and celebrate with more of our friends who have journeyed with us from the beginning.
Sadly the "smash" part of the weekend was getting a call Monday night that our car driver side window had been smashed out in a rash of smash and grabs. Other than making mess and costing us money for window replacement, they made off with my 8 year old original Zune MP3 player but forgot to take the charge cable with it. I hope they can get at least $20 for it at a pawn shop, though I may need counseling to get over the loss of my old friend, the Zune.
But this upcoming weekend (9/6) I will get a chance to share our vision for church planting in Des Moines Metro area at Waukee Baptist Church. It will be a good chance to get to know more ministers as well as inform them on how they can be a part of what we will be doing and partner with us.
So we're down one Zune, but up one baby, which may likely be named Zune in memoriam.
