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I have many, many things that take up my time. Most important to me is my relationship with Jesus Christ, without whom I would have no reason to even live each day!!
I have grown up in church, attending a Catholic Church until I was 27. At that point I was searching for a more meaningful relationship with Jesus, and he led me to become a part of a Baptist church. I planted myself there for about 5 years and then ended up in the church that Karen and I attend now.
It is the best I have ever been a part of, an Evangelical Free Church in Niles, MI. I am now in my fourth year as part of the church board. We are part of a great "care group" tha meets every other Sunday night in the homes of some of the memembers of our group. Our music at the church is very contemporary, and we have a wonderful pastor, Collin Seitz, who came to us from Seattle in the summer of 1997.
We have a wonderful bunch of guys who get together every Monday night during the summer to take on other area churches in some friendly competition. After several years of mediocrity, we finally put together a formidable team. We finished our regular season 9-5 to tie for 3rd in the regular season.
In our end-of-the-year tournamen things got real exciting. We won our opening game Friday night, then came back Saturday and lost our first game of the day. That put us into the loser's bracket, a tough road to the championship. We started playing better and somehow managed to put together 5 straight wins and make it to the championship game, which we won!!! It was so tiring, yet so rewarding. We played continuously from 11:15 a.m. to 7:15 p.m. What a day!
Karen is very much involved in this too. She has been faithful as our scorekeeper and "assistant coach" for as long as I have been coaching. She does a fantastic job and it gives us another activity we can share together.
Another interest of mine is canoeing. (In the picture I am the one in the middle with the green baseball hat.) Each summer Five Pines camp takes a group of High School and College age youth up to northern Minnesota to an area known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It is named that because it sits right on the US-Canadian border. It requires a US Forest service permit to enter. The Boundary Waters has no motorized boats, no cabins, no permanent residents (other than my friends, the loons, and the other wildlife). The campsites consist of a cleared area large enough to permit 2-3 tents, a steel fire grate, and a "primitive" toilet somewhere down a trail away from camp. I made my first visit to this beautiful area in August of 1986 and have been returning ever since. This last trip (August 1997) makes 9 visits. Due to factors beyond my control, I was unable to go on both the 1998 and 1999 trips, but I fully intend to return in 2000.
One of the most peaceful moments you could possibly experience is sitting on the shoreline late at night, hearing the call of the loons, a gentle breeze blowing and what seems like a million stars overhead. If you are patient you can even spot an occasional satellite or shooting star! To get just a glimpse of the beauty and fun check out these two pictures. This one is the view from our campsite on Monday night. The other is a picture of our 1997 group at Jack & Toni's canoe outfitters in Winton, Minnesota. (I am the one on one knee on the far left.) This was taken about 10 minutes before the 14 of us loaded our five canoes and headed into God's natural playground!
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