this is my dad. i love him. he’s the best. i talk very much like him, act somewhat like him, get frustrated by him (which makes me wonder how my wife puts up with me at times) and would be pretty happy to like him. however, there is one thing he and my mom have started doing, and are quite passionate about that i just don’t get. they are dog show people. yup, and they know it. mom started her kennel in the early 90’s before we graduated high school, but then took off in dog show-ness after my bro & i left the house. they love it and recognize the craziness of it, but in their richardson family geekness, they keep going on & doing quite well at it.

i might have to draw the line though if i catch them doing this.

spent sunday evening attending to the wedding of a family friend, jason blackburn and his new bride, jessica evangelist. a fab affair for sure. being family friends we were close enough that i was able to get some pretty cool photos. check out the blackburn/evangelist flickr album.

this was sent to me by one of my beloved youth ministry buddies. sad for them, but it was a pick-me-up that gave me a much needed giggle.

We did the 30 hour famine over the weekend and went on a can food
drive through a neighborhood near the church.  We were gone for about 2
hours gathering food.  We drove our old church van and we were having
trouble keeping it running while we were in the neighborhood.  We got
going and started back to the church and it died on top of a hill at a
dangerous curve on Arno Road.  It wouldn’t start and it started to
smoke, I looked under the hood and more smoke started coming out, black
smoke.  We got the kids out of the van and away from it and the smoke
increased, it started to flame up and within minutes, it was fully in
flames.  It looked like a marshmallow that had been set on fire and
then blow out.  After getting the kids out of the van, I called 911 and
the fire truck came but by the time they had gotten there, the van was
completely destroyed.  We were able to get the kids back to the church
before it really started to burn and of course they were upset that
they were not allowed to stay to see it burn.

So needless to say, it was quite an exciting lock in and famine.
All of the can food was destroyed in the fire, we could hear cans
exploding, the van never exploded like you see on TV, but the windows
blew out and the tires blew out. 

I told some people at church that God had told us to go to the top
of the hill and offer a burnt offering, after we discerned that He
didn’t mean a junior high boy, we realized He meant the van.  We are
fortunate that nobody was hurt and that the trees around it didn’t
catch on fire either.  There is a black stain on the road and I think
some metal that melted from the van on the road also.

The kids were somewhat scared but more mad about the can food that
was destroyed that they collected while fasting, I asked the church
today to consider bringing in food to replace what was lost. 

See you in a couple of weeks, anybody else need to sacrifice a van?