Urbana Together

Hello, friends! 

Urbana is InterVarsity's Global Missions Conference, held every 3 years. Urbana was postponed last year due to COVID concerns but this year we are ON for Urbana in Indianapolis from December 28-31. 

We both had our lives significantly impacted by Urbana and are excited to see how God will move in the lives of students this year. We already have 30+ students from our Region signed up to go with a few more on the fence. 

One of the biggest barrier to students saying "yes" to attending Urbana is the cost. Between registration, hotel, travel, and food, it can easily cost between $1300-$1500 to attend, which is a lot! This year, to mitigate that cost, we started the Urbana Together program. Students who sign up for Urbana Together can go for just $100, granted that they fulfill all the requirements of the program. 

This sort of thing is right up my alley. I love marrying the student part of our mission with the MPD part of our mission. The opportunity to train our students in MPD and show them the a fuller picture of what we do is pretty great. 

Because of housing deadlines, today is the LAST DAY to sign up for Urbana Together. Students can sign up after today and still attend but their costs will be significantly higher. So, for our last day of URBANA TOGETHER registration, could you please be praying for our students? Here in Nebraska, we have a number of students who are on the fence and I know that if they miss the Urbana Together deadline, they will be WAY less likely to sign up for Urbana. 

Here are some specific ways you can be praying:              

• Saying "yes" to Urbana: Pray that students who are on the fence about attending Urbana will say "yes" today, believing that the experience will be worth the cost.            
• Saying "yes" to raising funds: Part of the Urbana Together program is asking people to help share the financial load of attending. This will be the first experience of doing fundraising for many students. Pray they will have the boldness to take risks.  
• Saying "yes" to giving: Our goal is to raise $10,000 by November 25. I'm confident that we'll be able to get the job done because we have so many generous people in our networks. Please pray that God will move in the hearts of those asked to give.

If you feel so inclined to give, you can use this ink. 100% of the proceeds will go towards making sure students can attend catalytic events like Urbana.

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam 

The Evolution of (Family) Sports...

Hello, friends! 

Last week, the careers of Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols unceremoniously ended when the St. Louis Cardinals were eliminated by the Philadelphia Phillies. It was an anti-climactic end to a magical season. As the last out was recorded, I thought about texting my dad and my brother, baseball fans through and through. At no point did I think to tell my kids and I'm not entirely sure that they know when baseball season actually is. 

Yesterday, while Megan was cooking dinner and I was putting away the dishes, I looked up to see that soccer was on TV. Ezra was watching highlights from Tottenham's 3-2 win over Frankfurt in the Champions League. 

Our family has become a soccer family...

Growing up, it seemed like most of the kids in my neighborhood picked either baseball or soccer. Some did both, but most did either one or the other. Being that my dad was born and raised in St. Louis during the time of Gibby, Brock, and a 1960's Cardinals team that went to 3 World Series before he had a driver's license, it was pretty clear that we were going to be a baseball family. I grew up on it and it's still very much my first love. Going to school in St. Louis (#GoBears!) and living in CoMO for a decade were great because the Cardinals were so close. I went downtown after the Cards won the 2006 World Series and there were plenty of Cardinals fans around to celebrate when they won again in 2011. I indoctrinated the kids early enough and when they see a Cardinal out in the wild, they're still inclined to call it a "Go Cardinal," which is pretty awesome. 

When we moved to Omaha, it meant we could see our family up in Sioux Falls more often, which meant we could see my nephew play soccer more. Since we had that as a template, it made sense for us to sign Ezra up for youth soccer, which he absolutely loved. When we also signed him up for baseball, he was fine but you could tell that he was really hooked on the beautiful game. When he's looking for sports highlights online, he's asking how Tottenham did, not how the Cardinals did. He wants to kick the ball around outside more than he wants to play catch. It's definitely in his blood. 

Soccer suits Ezra better. There's more running and more movement. There's a lot of activity, which is exactly what he wants. Thaliea is more of a baseball girl because there's less running and less activity but she's not really high on sports in general. We'll see about Jonah. 

I wanted to make sure that I stay involved with the kids as much as I can, so I'm coaching Ezra's soccer team. Do I know how to coach a soccer team? No, but thankfully at this level, you don't need to know much. It's about making sure the kids are moving in the right direction and that no one is kicking anyone else in the face. 

Honestly, I'm cool with it. Ezra loves soccer and that's OK. Thaliea doesn't have much of an interest in sports but likes other things, and that's OK too. We have no idea what Jonah will do and that's also OK. Whether or not my kids are devoted to one sport over the other, so long as they're happy and thriving, isn't my greatest concern. I'll become a soccer dad, or a dance dad, or a rugby dad, or whatever, and that'll be great. 

Just so long as they never root for the Cubs. =0). 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam 

Hello, Black Hills!

Hello, friends! 

Last week, our family took a little family vacation of sorts! My father-in-law wanted to do the Volksmarch, semi-annual hike up to the top of the Crazy Horse memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This was actually a trip that we'd planned on doing in 2020, but, you know... #Pandemic

Since it's about an 8 hour drive out to the Black Hills, we really decided to go for it and try to see everything. This included:

- Wall Drug

- Mount Rushmore (twice)

- Crazy Horse

- The Mammoth Site

- Needles Highway

- Custer State Park

- The Badlands

- Cosmos

- A Gold mine

- Downtown Keystone and Hill City

- The Hotel pool (many times)

It was absolutely jam packed and a ton of fun. Here are my big takeaways: 

- The kids are growing! One of the things that has been great is seeing how much more independent the kids are as they get older. The older two did a great job of entertaining themselves on the long car rides and were able to play well with their cousins. If this trip had been done in 2020 like we'd planned, it would have been WAY more stressful, with three kids ages 5 and under. 

That being said, Jonah is also growing, developmentally, but also physically. The Volksmarch was a 6 mile hike up and back, and while Ezra walked the whole thing (what a champ!) and Thaliea walked most of it, Jonah spent most of his time on my shoulders. Friends, 6 miles, much of which is uphill, with an almost 3 year old on your shoulders is hard work! 

- The Badlands are awesome! It was the last stop on our trip (we caught them on the way home) and we didn't spend more than an hour there, but the Badlands were by far my favorite destination we saw. While not as deep as the Grand Canyon, the Badlands had much of the same features and also included some pretty cool rock formations. I could totally see myself spending a few days backpacking out there. I'll bet it's spectacular at night too. 

- History is complicated. Two of our stops have great historical significance. Mount Rushmore is a tribute to American Exceptionalism and I was a little uncomfortable with the deification of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln during the presentation we saw before the night time lighting of the faces. When you read about the history of how Mount Rushmore came to be, one has to hold both the beauty and the controversy in tension. 

Crazy Horse is also a monument carved in a mountain but with a very different history. Because no federal funds are being used in its construction, and the size of the project, I will almost certainly not see it being completed in my lifetime. Still, as I walked around the museum and learned the monuments history, I couldn't help but remember the fraught history of of broken treaties and broken relations between the United States and the First Nations. 

All in all, it was an amazing trip. Megan did most of the planning and she absolutely crushed it on the logistics side. This is definitely something I could see us doing again the future. 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam