6 months (also posted on myspace)

In the last six months my life has changed.
And you say, “but mike, you new your life was changing. In fact you initiated the process, you even posted about your expectations”
True, I had an outline of where I saw myself going, but my expected place of arrival revealed itself to be nothing like I had envisioned.
Six months ago I was in college, living at home, and faithfully waiting on God. Today, I am working full time, renting my home, and thankfully, still perusing God’s heart. In blunt phrases that is exactly what I had planned; however, almost all the details have changed. I am not living where I thought I was going to be living. I am not working were I thought I was going to be working. And my walk with God has been nothing like I thought it would be. Initially, change is hard, but in the end it’s not my will but His be done.
This week I start volunteering at the church wednesdays and fridays. Through this process, I have had to give up my claim on the church. It was My church, my own. (small giggle followed by broken tear) My kingdom must bow down; my own selfish desires must return to the selfless ambition of advancing his renown. God has asked us to give him everything, and I am inclined to believe he knows best.
So, there is my current standing in life. Hopefully, my next update wont be so long in coming.
Love you all
mike
P.S. nothing against my current living situation or standing in life, it just isn’t what I had expected. Thank you to those who have helped me over the last six months to be where I am today

Here's how it's goin down.

I just talked with my boss at caribou, and I will be starting full time work after May 20th. The significance lies in that I will no longer be going to school... ever! Well, maybe not forever but not in the foreseeable future, either. He he. I am excited because now I can devote my time to the things I really am passionate about (following my dreams, jill.) I am a bit nervous; however, the excitement cancels out any doubt I may have. If all goes as planned I should be on my own by autumn.

Sigh giggle tear smile

A bit of a sun shower

Heya!
Well as you can see I am back on g'ol' blogger again.
"Why?" you ask
No real reason, I guess except the fact that I said I was going to post about my time in Australia and I haven't really done that yet, and I am starting to feel like it never really happened. So for my benefit and I guess for yours as well, here it goes.

Story time with mike #1
For the last month in masters, my roommate Pete and I were assigned to mow a ladies lawn once every two weeks. Not a hard assignment by any stretch of the master's imagination, but as you find nothing is that easy.

obstacle 1 - Find a mower (oh, and the first day you need to mow the lawn is today... oh, and you must be back in time to go on the weakly grociery shopping trip in 6hrs... oh, and the lady lives in one of the farthest suburbs from where you are... oh, and don't cheese this lady she has been hurt by religion and we are the only church who is willing to help her)
Ok find a mower.
"Not a prob," my rural Minnesota mind is thinking.
"Wait you live in the middle of a city and haven't seen a mower in 10 months."
"Hmmm, well aren't the citycare rehabilitation workers learning how to fix things, lets just get a mower from them, I think they have a couple, maybe one works?"
"Um, no."
"Ok well is there anyone in her suburb from the church?"
"Yes, but they aren't home..."
Hour later- solution: drive 20 min North grab a mower from our good friend and fellow college student, Scottish Malcolm. Sounds good except that we need to be at the ladies house in an hour and she lives an hour and a half South.
So we get the mower which looks like it was made in 1929 and load it into the vehicle which I think was also made in 1929. Amazingly, after making a polite phone call, we arrived twenty minutes late. Finding (understatement) a very nice lady with a yippy dog we get to work.
As thankful as we were for the mower, it was louder than Andrew, Aaron and Dad trying to tell a story to eachother, so we put rolled up paper towel in our ears.
We also had to go over the lawn a few times cause it didn't always cut the grass. Needless to say the girls found another car and went shopping without us because all the stores close at like 5pm, whatever. So me and hungry Pete pay for over priced food downtown.

obstacle 2 - There and back again.
Remember how I was saying that our car is from 1929; well, it is not to far gone. Nevertheless, we made it to our destination no problem, but as it would happen, Pete locks the keys in the car or so he thinks. No problem we have gotten in before, and so we go along with our work. A couple hours later Pete finds the keys in his pocket, yeay. We get into the car, but the key snaps inside the lock. A few hours later we give up and get a ride to the train station for a two hr ride home. Week # two we pay dearly for our food.

obstacle 3 - The new mower.
After the first week we contacted the family that lives near the lady and we thankfully borrowed their mower. Being used to the old mower this one looks like lobster stuffed with tacos.
The first week we used it, it quit on us at the end. This is the same week we broke the key, so we weren't able to do much besides feel really bad about possibly ruining the families mower. Over the following week we got duplicate keys (another little adventure) and returned the mower which we found out was really a chronic problem with this mower and not our fault. Well the next time we were there No kidding, the mower stops working. This is the last time for a month that anyone will be over to help this lady because we will be at Hillsong the next week and furthermore I will never be coming back because I will be going home. I wasn't having any of this. If we could get the mower to start (every tenth pull) it would go five feet and stop. I was determined to get this done cause this was the only witness the lady got and she had it hard, so I wasn't leaving till it was done, but at this rate it wouldn't be done till next Tuesday. I prayed and God heard. I would stop praying a little and the engine would start to die down so I would pick up and the mower would do the same. I was not leaving until it was done. sure enough after the last strip of grass was cut the engine died. Needless to say I wasn't quite thinking about food that week.

Ah the inevitable update for all you who have been gently pushing for a post.
Today was quite the day
Biggest news is that I have been promoted to a supervisor at Caribou. We have an amazingly busy store and it takes a lot of thaught and energy which combined with a full school schedule had braught me to the point of breakdown, but today to counter act the stressers I skipped school, did some laundry, cashed some checks, got a mint condition and a promotion all in one stop, and baught an ipod (I think it worked.)

As it is going now I will try to post more often but unless things ease up they wont get much more coherent than this one.

here is a picture

Wow! How time flies.
This month has been pretty much everything I thaught it would be. Finalls went fine, I think. Ooh, I am going to check if grades are posted. One sec...
See I can do that now because I got a computer. Oh Happy Day.
well, they aren't all in yet, but so far so goood.

I am all registered for next semester. Early days again, but that makes room for Caribou at night, ho-yeah! I am simply loving the new job. We are going to open a day earlier on the 30th.

Christmas was great, tho it was a bit hectic. As usual we traveled around and saw the family; however, this year we had an extra service, which I didn't mind because He kinda is the reason for the season, but it did make for a really full couple of days. First a nice evening with the father's side of the family and then back home to "sleep". We ended up waking up at 6:30 to open presents. Even when we were young I think the avarage start time was 7. Oh well, after stifling the nosiation of having a late night and early morning the presents prooved to be truely inspired. We all agreed that this years gift giving was the best ever. Not that it was extravegant, but that it was thoughtful. My favorite was the complete season of the 90's X-men cartoon searies. Sweet As! I am almost through the first two disks.

Now it is time to relax. I have a couple days now when I am free from all obligation. -sigh-

Here are some random chrisy pics

Sorry, but I am going to be super busy for the next month with a new job, finals, registration, and Christmas crap, so I am going to schedule my next post to be out by the 26th of Dec. This way you don't have to keep coming back and cursing due to a lack of maintenance.
thanks
mike
P.S. feel free to comment a million times to make me feel special in the interim.

More Snow... real Snow!
I've really missed this.
Now, excavating the van in the morning wasn't too fun, but hey, I am stil in novelty mode.

Yes, We saw the bunny!

Invading it's space

and

Petting it so it can fffeel it

Of course we met some others and ate a LOT (the papa johns was good - not great)

All in all a really good relaxing (except the brats in the hot tub - wait throwing them through the wall was fun) weekend

Got back to snow on the ground

As I am sure you have all read on the various family blogs, we are going to visit the bunny this weekend. I haven't been to the place we are staying at (for obvious reasons,) but I hear it is really nice. Besides, we get Applebees! and to a lesser extent Papa John's! I have had some bad experiences with papa john's, but I've been reasured that this will be the best pizza ever. Anyway I hope you can all do without me for this weekend.
I'll be praying for you.
mike
(boy, I am evil)

Lost Picture Post

Unfortunately the humorous comments accompanying these pictures was mercilessly eradicated with the rest; however, pictures are worth a thousand words, and I am too lazy to try to duplicate witticisms.

Cards on MYC bus

Hayride and smores

For those who have been faithfyully checking my blog, my appologies. I have tried to blog but this silly computer decided it didn't like me.

Here are some of the pictures from the lost post.

Nevermind this computer hates me!

Ugh

Why?

Ask the chicken.

Snow!!! Today while walking to my car (old van with one headlight) my face was pelted by little particles of frosty water falling from the sky. Not quite what I like to call snow but hey, it's been a year. Anyway, I've wanted to post some fall pictures but it has been raining non stop for the past three days; however I did manage to steal a picture this morning. I usually really enjoy fall; tho, this is misserable. I am wet and i am cold. To put it in perspective for you Assies, it is like waking up at 5am in the middle of a Sydney winter or going to the Gold Coast at midnight in June.

These are a couple pictures from my last night in Oz and an example of the later explanation of how cold I am. I really like the first pic; if you look hard you can see tenny.

Tomorrow my dad, a few rustproofians, and myself will start some minor construction on the coffee house, the young adault ministry building. Rustproof is going through a bit of a transition time, so the coffee house is going to go through some changes as well. I am really excited; not only for the remodel, but also for the days ahead. We have a great core of people. This is just the first step.

Some pictures from painting the basement:














Jac doin' something and Dave laughing at her

and Ryan laghing at her

Well, here I am. I have been dragged into the blogging world. Please allow me a little time to learn more about the "how to's" of posting. For those of you in Austrailia and elseware in the world, I will try to keep an update on my life here in the States. For those of you who were unfortunate enough not to be with me in Oz, I will post periodically on past adventures while having an abundace of pictures to portray my points (and I promise never to do that again.)

ttfn
mike