I Love Home

Finished up last weekend in California and a great time of learning and presenting at Equipped for Excellence in Riverside. I get so pumped and energized being around people who love: God, working with students, and life in general. We were together for about 6 hours of youth ministry training and I was tired, but man it was fun.

I also got to spend some time with Mike and Nicole Lovato and their 9-month-old daughter, Addison. It was fun to reconnect with them. Mike serves as a youth ministry contract consultant for us at LifeWay. Addison was doing the all-fours move, but not quite crawling yet. I got in the floor with her, whispered in her ear how to put it all together and on Monday she made it real. I am taking credit for some of that.

It has been a good week in the office. It is nice to get in around some of the FUGE team and listen and learn from them. With about 60,000 kids coming to camp this summer, it is pretty wickedly busy around here getting ready for all of them. This team of folks does an incredible job.

Family is good and the school year is winding down. Morgan won a bunch of awards as the awards assembly yesterday at school. Good thing she takes after her mother. Shelbi is finishing up her first year at Union and has done a great job. This summer she will be working at Deer Run Retreat not too far from Nashville and then next school year she got a Resident Assistant (RA) job at Union which is good for her and great for our bank account. Go God!

Dad flies in tomorrow and will spend the weekend with us. That will be great! We will all head over to Jackson to see Shelbi on Sat. so it will be a very good weekend for sure.

Posting a pic of my dad and a good friend of mine from a couple of weeks back. Steve Elkins is really a Turner and one of the three sons as far as we are concerned. Dad loves the Royals and loves Steve so that makes this picture all the better.

Gone All This Week

Last week it was home all week and this week it is gone all week. I left Monday am and headed to Destin, FL (I know tough assignment) for a couple of church visits and then Metro Youth Minister's meeting. This is a group of about 60 of the largest church youth groups in the US and they meet once a year. It is always good to connect with them.

I flew to CA yesterday to participate in Equipped for Excellence. It is a large one-day training experience for the Inland Empire Association. I will be leading many things related to youth ministry. Of course, they will hear alot about the LifeWay Student Development Strategy. I enjoy these training sessions.

My running has been going pretty well. I mentioned in my last post that I had some buddies running Boston and all of them did well. Congrats to David, Gene, Bob, and Ted. I still am planning to running Boston next year and hoping to get some of my buddies from Nashville qualified this Fall.

This has been an incredibly busy Spring it seems. Many miles on this body but it seems to be holding up pretty well. I get home on Sunday and will be home all week. Dad comes next Fri. and will be here for the weekend. It will be good to see him. I know that he is missing mom pretty badly right now. Dad and I still talk almost daily and she has been part of the conversation the last few times we have talked. Pray for him as you think about it. James, my brother, just finished painting dad's house too. It was good for him to have the work and for dad's house to be freshened up.

Sondra heads to her mom's in a little over a week to spend time with her. That will be good. I need to get to dad's some time this summer. I was up there 6 or 7 times last year after mom died but have not been back since Christmas. Glad he is able to come our way some.

The Country Music Marathon runs tomorrow and the forecast is for very warm weather. Praying that my many friends who will be running it will be smart and slow down and hydrate well. Not a day for PRs and qualifiers. Just run and have fun.

At Home All Week

It has been great to be home all this week. It was good to have the whole family together for Easter. Monday through Wednesday we hosted a Student BETA Conference at LifeWay and it went great. It was so refreshing and encouraging to listen to and learn from youth ministers. We had invited 21 youth ministers here to hear about our student development strategy and to hear what LifeWay Student Ministry can do to learn from them. It was an exciting time. I love that fact that I get to work with youth ministers across the nation and even some around the world.

Last night we hosted a get together for our sunday school class from New Hope and laughed until we cried. What a great group of students and what a priviledge to just get to hang out with them.

Family is good. It is Banquet night for Morgan. She has had many of her friends come through the house today for their make-up to done by my wife. She dabbles in BeautiControl and made the girls look more beautiful than they already were. Needless to say, lots of estrogen in the house there for awhile. I decided to do laundry and lay low. Been watching a little golf too.

This next week I head to FL and CA. Will be meeting with some of the youth ministers from the larger churches across America in FL and then will be involved in EforE in Riverside, CA over the weekend. Praying for good weather.

I have a couple of buddies running the Boston Marathon on Monday. I am qualified but decided not to run it this year due to heavy Spring travel schedule. Good luck Ted and David! I will be running in '10.

Florida Vacation and Easter

We had a great time in Orlando. We enjoyed both Universal Parks even though half of the world decided to attend the same days that we did. We rode all of the coaster rides and laughed alot. On Thursday we hung out at the pool and got some good sun. I slept until 1130a on Thursday, which is the longest I have slept in like . . . oh, 2o years. I guess my traveling and Malaysia caught up with me. It was awesome sleep for sure.

We drove back on Friday and dodged storms in Chattanooga and came through Murfreesboro about 3 hours after it had been hit by tornadoes. Unfortunately there was much damage there, 2 deaths and about 41 injured. We saw a lot of devastation. Thankful we did not get into it however.

Shelbi is home for Easter weekend and she and Morgan worked an AAU basketball tournament at DCA today. Helps Morgan pay for basketball game later in May and puts some cash in Shelbi's pocket.

Mowed the lawn today and it looks great right now. Always looks good in the Spring while we have plenty of rain and cooler weather. Enjoying watching the Masters and pulling for Kenny Perry to become the oldest Major winner at 48. Funny how I pull for the older guys the older I get.

Looking forward to celebrating Easter tomorrow. I am overwhelmed by the fact that He died for me so that I might live. So very thankful for His grace.

UNC Tar Heels - National Champions

Jet Lag, YML, and Orlando

I apologize to the tens of you who happen to check my blog and find that I have not updated in almost a week. I tried to keep it going regularly when I was in Malaysia and so many of you were faithful to pray for me. Thanks so much.

This past week was pretty crazy when I got back. Morgan headed to Honduras on Monday - Friday and was involved in doing missions with 9 other people from her school. A huge thanks to Mrs. Folsom and Mr. Streng for taking them. These kinds of experiences always help us secure and take more ownership of our faith. Morgan was no exception. It was her first international trip and she continues to tell us the things that God did. So thankful she was able to go. Her stomach issues seem to be doing so much better. Our chiropractor, Don, who I affectionately call a witch doctor, seems to have helped her the most. He is also a nutritionist and Morgan is just doing so much better. Thank you God and thank you Don.

I struggled with jet lag through Weds. and then Fri. afternoon when I was in Ft. Worth about to lead a couple of breakouts at Youth Ministry Lab I thought a truck had run over me a couple of times. I led the 2 breakouts, which went great and the response was very positive, and felt energized. I was tired when they were done, but so thankful to be able to share. Being back on campus at Southwestern Seminary was good too. I graduated from there 20 years ago this semester. Hard to believe.

I got to have lunch with a good buddy of mine, Ronny Marriott, while I was in the Metroplex and also got to have breakfast with another very good friend, Paul Kelly, on Saturday. Both of these guys have impacted my life in a strong way. It was a very quick trip to DFW area and I need to get back soon to see a couple of more buddies, Gene and Shelby, who have impacted me in a great way but live the wrong direction from where I needed to be this trip.

Sondra. Morgan, Abbey (good friend of Morgan) and I are in Orlando this week for Spring Break. We drove over yesterday, 13 hours worth, and had a pretty good time in the car. We are staying with some friends of ours, Clark and Patti Keator, who live in Windermere. The Keator's are dear friends and very nice to open their home to us. We are going to spend Tues/Weds at the Universal Parks and then head back home on Friday. We miss Shelbi being with us but she was in FL a couple of weeks ago with some of her college buddies.

Pulling for the Tar Heels tonight as well. Pretty cool that Michigan State made it to the final. Hope they drive home from Detroit sad tonight after the game though.