At the end of July, I began working at Starbucks as a barista.  That’s right.  For 20 hours a week, I’ll be making lattes, cappuccinos, and frappuccinos.

I’m still working full-time at LifeChurch.tv.  But in addition to that, I’ll also be working at Starbucks a few nights a week and on Saturday mornings.  We’re using the cash this job provides to get out of debt.  Dave Ramsey would be proud.

It’s been a challenge learning all the different drink recipes.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of them.  Thankfully, it is starting to come together.  The next challenge for me will be to remember all the crazy drink orders, like a half caf, triple shot, Venti 6 pump vanilla latte with whip, and figuring out how to ring it up correctly at the register.

The people at the store that I am working at are very nice.  They have been very welcoming and supportive. They quickly found out that I am the oldest person working there.  They’re shocked when I tell them that I’ve been married 16 years and have a 14 year old son.

There are several things that I am excited about with this new job.  One is to start to make some progress on the debt we’ve accumulated.  It’s been over a year since we’ve used the credit card, but we haven’t made a real dent in reducing the debt.  This extra income will help.  The next reason I’m excited to be at Starbucks is because I get to observe a world class organization from the inside.  Whatever you think of Starbucks, there is no denying that they are the leader in their industry.  I always like to learn how successful organizations get that way and stay that way.  But what I am most excited about is that I finally get to interact with people who don’t go to church.

Since I started working in full-time ministry six years ago, I never seem to interact with people who don’t go to church.  I work with Christians, hang out with Christians.. pretty much to do everything with other Christians.  There was never any point in inviting them to church, because they were already there.

It will be nice to interact with people who don’t go to church.  My prayer is that I will be a good representative of Christ to my co-workers and that I’d actually be able to invite them to church.

So if you find yourself in the Edmond/Oklahoma City area, stop by and pay me a visit.  I’m at the store on Memorial and MacArthur.

So thank you again for praying.  And I’ll try to post more often.

The surgery will last two to three hours.  To minimize the time that Caleb is under, two surgeons will be work on both feet simultaneously.  Thankfully, this is considered an outpatient procedure.

The challenge will be his recovery.  Caleb will have to be off of his feet for the next eight weeks.  It’s going to be hard for him to be confining to a wheelchair for that long.

Please pray that everything would go well tomorrow and the recovery would go better than expected.  Thanks.

Some of the challenges that we have faced included ice storms, tornadoes, missing my family, and getting lost more often than I would like.

But for the most part the move has been good for us.  The people here in Oklahoma are very friendly.  The school system has been great for our kids.  Traffic is not bad here.  Because of a well laid out road system, I can get to anywhere I need to within 15 minutes.   Other than the occasional tornado, the weather is a lot nicer here than in Illinois.  The cost of living is lower here as well.

So even though, I miss my family, friends, and real deep dish pizza, the move has been a good one and I’m happy to be an Oklahoman.  But I don’t think I’ll ever understand my fellow Oklahomans’ obsession with college football.  

There are a couple of anniversaries that have occurred over the past few days.  Over the next few days, I’ll writing about each of them.

Today, I’m writing about my one year anniversary with no TV.  At the end of November 2007, my wife and I made the decision to no longer have cable TV.   We don’t have an antenna either.   We still own a TV, but we just watch DVDs when we want to watch something.  I’ve also started watching Battlestar Galactica on Hulu.com.  So more accurately, we don’t watch live TV anymore.  I’ve noticed that since we’re not watching live TV any longer, our overall TV watching has greatly decreased.  Instead of watching 2-3 hours of TV a night, it is now 1-2 hours of TV a week.  My wife and I have used this extra time to spend with the kids, read, exercise or  just talk with each other.  It’s been awesome. 

So while I’ve never watched a episode of American Idol, Lost, 24, or Grey’s Anatomy, I don’t feel I’ve missed out.  On the contrary, I’ve gained so much more.

How about you?  How much TV do you watch?  Have you tried cutting back?

I got some nice gifts from the family. My wife gave me the third season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD, which I’m very excited to see. But I am more excited about the gifts God has given me. He has blessed me with a wonderful wife, three great kids, a nice house, good health, two reliable cars, a fantastic church, and a very exciting and supportive work environment and most important, my relationship with Him.

Thanks God for 37 years. You have been so good to me.

So what else has been going on? Well, effective June 1, I started in a new role as Technical Director for LifeChurch.tv. My team and I are responsible for all the audio, video, lighting, and satellite systems for all the church campuses. It’s a big job and I am very thankful for the dedicated guys I’m serving with.

So what else is going on? I have been working very hard to lose some weight. For the first six months of this year, I have not made much progress in my weight loss. So at the beginning of June, I decided to get back on track. I’ve worked hard to improve the quality of what I’m eating and I am now working out 80 minutes a day, six days a week. The hard work has paid off. In the last 14 days, I’ve lost 12 pounds. I praise God for that. I’m going to continue to work at this until I get to 165 – 170 pounds. With God, I know I can do it.

For the next few days I probably won’t have internet access, so I won’t update the blog too much. But as soon as I get back, I look forward to sharing with you what God’s been doing in me.

It was nice to see some things hadn’t changed. Interacting with the family felt so familiar and comfortable. It was as if I had never left. It was a great time and I was sad to leave after only three days.

Here are some of the highlights…

My sister made sure the deep dish pizza was waiting for me when I came in the door.  I miss that pizza.  No, I didn’t eat the whole thing.  I only had two pieces.  But in the three days I was there, I gained six pounds.

On Sunday, after church, we had a birthday party for my dad.  He turned 70 that day.

On the last night we were there, I went bowling with some of the family. I am a terrible bowler. I usually get one strike per game, but for whatever reason I was on a roll that night. This was my best game ever and a perfect way to end our trip. And by the way, that is not my nickname on the screen. One of my nephews was trying to be funny.

It will be interesting going back there. Have they changed? Have they stayed the same? Will they say that I’ve changed? Six months has been a long time. God’s been doing a lot in me over these past few months. Will those internal changes be visible?

These are some of the things I’ve been thinking about. But for whatever reason when I starting thinking about home, my mind keeps coming back to the deep dish pizza I’ll be having in a few hours.

This story could have been much worse. It seems, everyday, I’ve been reading articles about foreclosures being at record highs.  Thankfully, God provided the resources for us to pay the bills. I didn’t know how we were going to continue to do that past this month, but thankfully, God provided the solution at the perfect time. Thanks God. And thank you for your prayers and encouragement.