Recent problems . . .

I've been lots of places and done lots of things. I've spoken in Wisconsin for a great group, and Orange City for another great group. I got to seem some fantastic theater, and work with some really cool people. I also gave the Sunday morning message at my home church at Second Reformed, which I thought went okay.

So why haven't I been updating?

Well, like the clumsy dope I am, I spilled a bottle of Diet Cherry Pepsi all over my laptop and crashed the whole thing. So, I've been a little preoccupied with getting that mess cleaned up.

It's sort of ironic, now that I type it, that it was Diet Cherry Pepsi that's almost ruined my online life. I've blogged several times about the fact that my diet pop addiction is beyond control some days.

(I've recently been trying to slowly replace my pop intake with hot tea and iced tea. But it's slow going.)

Now my addiction is so out of control that my subconcious (elbow) knocked over a pop to try and ruin my laptop and therein destroying a lot of important information (my speaking life).

I have all my talks, talk lists, presentations, poetry, stories, and the as of yet unpublished book on my laptop. It may be gone, it may not. We'll find out.

Even tougher to swallow is the fact that my entire iTunes library may be gone. I can handle losing the music. But the Ricky Gervais Podcasts will be the real knife in the gut as far as I'm concerned.

I did have an interesting comment after a talk I gave Sunday night at Central College here in Pella. My father in law, and Central's chaplain, Joe, is gone on vacation and he asked me fill in for his Sunday night worship with the students.

I spoke on one of my favorite stories from II Samuel 23 about King David, and a well, and three soldiers, and overall I thought it went all right. The faces in the crowd seemed to be smiling at all the smiley parts, laughing at all the laughy parts, and seriously thinking at all the seriously thinky parts.

Afterwards, a young woman approached me. She told me she was Roman Catholic, it was her first time to the college Sunday night service, and then she commented that, "Everything that happened here tonight completely contradicts everything I believe."

Okay . . .

I'm not sure if it was just the talk, or the whole worship service, but I figure I was implicated in some way shape or form with her complaint. So I just passed her on to Joe and the rest of the staff and told her to bring it up with them.

Sometime I'll have to blog about all the wonderfully interesting comments I've gotten after speaking . . . it can be enough to discourage a guy, but now I tend to find a lot of them quite amusing.

Well, okay, for instance, I gave a talk once for a church where I felt like I really poured a good deal of my heart out. I related some of my own favorite stories that still have quite an emotional impact on my life - several that were ABOUT me and my faith walk.

Afterwards, a guy walked up and said, and I quote, "I don't know if any of that was true or not, but I enjoyed it."

He wasn't joking, he was quite sincere. And I still can't quite grasp how someone's brain might work in that they would think someone would not only make up a "personal story", but also become emotional while telling a made up "personal story." But, oh well.

Sometimes I'll use some of my old standup stories during a talk to lighten things up at the beginning. And sometimes they really are great lead-ins to the deep stuff I'm getting to. Quite often they get very good reactions - lots of laughs. There's the finger story, and the puke story, and the zipline story, many of which are probably familiar the the blog readers.

But what I enjoy, is the occasional listener (usually a high schooler for some strange reason) who comes up afterwards, pulls me aside, and says something to the effect of, "A story like that has no place in worship."

Now, none of my stories are dirty in any way. The most they are is occasionally gross. As in someone throws up, or someone loses a finger. I always want to retort by pulling out my Bible and reading some of the scriptural stories that are so disgustingly crazy and perverse that they'd never be used in worship, and yet they're in the Bible. My stories can't compare to those.

I won't share them on the site, but a camp counselor back in high school shared a few with me under the premise, "You'll never hear this one in church!"

Well, back on to computer repair! Till next time,

Jason

Canadia

So, Troy, Dawn and I all went up to Red Deer, Aberta, Canada for most of last week. We led seminars for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then headed to the Circle Square Ranch near Halkirk, Alberta for a youth reatreat on the weekend.

Some highlights include:

On a day off we visited the Olympic Park in Calgar and got to go to the top of this bad boy. That would be a pic of the ski jump.

Once on top, I noticed something interesting. There were only two small bathrooms. One for the women, and one for men. And each only had one small toilet. I had to go to the bathroom, and as I did I realized something. All the great skiers from 88' had to use the exact same bathroom I did. That means . . .

I was two degrees of separation away from Eddie the Eagle!!!

So, while we were there, we got to see some of our friends in ministry. Of course I have to mention our great friends Dave and Cathy Tilstra. They are big supporters of Happy the Dog Ministry, and we can't thank them enough for their hospitality. Cathy was even kind enough to give me a print of one of her paintings for my wife. And I must say, the painting is fantastic. I'll have to take a pic to post on the site, but it is definately going to the be the highlight of our art collection.

We also got to catch up with good friends Sharon and Thomas. Thomas even came on board as at Happy the Dog supporter which is a pretty crazy committment for guy not far removed from high school.

Here's a pic of us worshipping. The Circle Square Ranch is set up like an old west town. We worshipped and ate in the saloon. The guy in front (with his back to the camera) in the white shirt and jeans that's about a foot taller than everyone is me.

The worship was great. We played Mission Impossible in the cooley. Billeted in some nice rooms. And we had gravy with our fries. Plus, there were Big Turks galore, and plenty of Red Rose. What does all that mean? I'm not really sure and I experienced it. . .

This group up in Red Deer is just the best to us, and they've quickly become a family away from home. We can't thank Dave, Cathy, Sharon, Thomas, and the rest of the crew enough for making us always feel welcome.

I also got Carson a sweet Calgary Flames onesie which almost got my head bitten off by the pro-Oiler crowd. . . but I figured hockey's hockey, right?

We head to Sheboygan, Wisconsin for a week on Sunday. And then the week after I head up to Northwestern College for a bit to try out some new material with good friends Jeff and Karen Barker.

Till next time,

Jason