Happy New Year

I usually get VERY nervous before I speak. Usually it's only bad for a few hours before I go on, but if the speaking engagement is big or important, I can get pretty nervous for up to several days before hand. Fortunately, I seem to have found a cure.

I was asked to give the Christmas morning message here at the 2nd Reformed Church, and I initially got very nervous. I would be up in front of the whole congregation (the home crowd is always more nerve wracking) and I knew that I'd have family there. So the nerves started up about a week and a half before I even had to speak.

I had the severe stomach butterflies, lack of sleep, and an inability to think about anything other than the message so early, that I feared this Christmas holiday would be marred by my agreement to speak.

Then I got the flu.

Not just any flu - but the real bad, horribly nauseous, I fainted on the way to the bathroom, couldn't eat, bad headache, really tired, in the bathroom every fifteen minutes for five days kind of flu. And thankfully, during the whole time that I was either sitting on (or hunched over) the toilet, I wasn't nervous in the least. I lost five pounds, got some loopy pills from the Doctor, and took many naps on the cool bathroom linoleum, but I wasn't nervous one bit.

I also didn't put much time in on the sermon either. In fact, most of it was written between the hours of 5 and 9 AM while I laid on the bathroom floor on Friday the 23rd. Saturday the 24th, I started to feel a little better, and I was probably 75% on Sunday morning when I actually had to give the message. And it went really well. Brother-in-law Kyle played a shepherd for me, and I got a lot of really great comments from the congregation. So I don't have to worry about hanging my head as I walk the hallowed halls of 2nd Reformed.

Then on Christmas day, Andrea came down with the same thing and it lasted three days for her.

Yet, despite the illness, Andrea and I had a great Christmas / New Year. We saw all the family. Got great loot. And my brother Jon and his wife Amy gave us our first nephew on December 29th. They were very gracious when we showed up to wait in the hospital all day for the baby to be born, and they even let us come into the room to see him get his first bottle and blood test. His name is Noah Warren Taylor, he's extremely cute, and we're excited to have a new family member!

We also hosted three different New Year's Eve celebrations this year. We started early on the 30th with good friends Mike and Susie Rottink - playing cards till three AM. Then on the 31st we added California friends Nathan and Dina Kinkaid with their beautiful babe Haley and my brother Chris unit 3 AM. And then on the first, Pella friends Jennie and her fiance Tracy joined us for 90's Trivial Pursuit and Apples to Apples until 4 AM. We actually went through every single card in the Apples game - which is no small feat if you know how the game is played.

All in all, it was one of the best holidays in memories regardless of the flu, and as you can guess, Andrea and I are having a little trouble getting back on a "normal" sleeping schedule after three late nights.

I'm very excited for an upcoming trip to Michigan at the end of next week with the Sioux Falls crew. We're attending a SERVE team retreat for all the sights around the country and I have to give a commissioning message. I'll hopefully have an update on that event soon.

Till next time,
Jason