Summer ’07 Update

Here are some things that are happening in my life right now.

1.) For those of you who do not know, I am engaged to the love of my life, Stephanie Ann Riggs. She is my best friend and I am soooooooooooo excited to get to spend the rest of my life with her. We are getting married on November 3rd so as of this date (June 22) we have 133 days left.

I proposed to her on Christmas night after her family had opened their Christmas presents. She did not know that I had driven down to talk to her mom the week before, but everybody in her family and a few of her friends did. So they were all hanging out cameras in hand, and Steph was wondering why everybody was hanging out.

One thing I will not recommend is to propose to a girl and then move 7 hours away. It is very tough! So guys if you’re thinking about proposing then moving to another state…don’t!

Even with the distance issue, this has been the best 6 months of my life!!

2.) I have just finished my first semester of Seminary. I had three classes: Matthew, Biblical Hebrew, and Vocation of Ministry. All classes were very good and very formational in my understanding of the Christian faith, and my latest posts have been focusing these thoughts. I believe that God is stretching my understanding of who He is and what He is doing in the world through my experience at Asbury.

Graduate work is intense, and I am continually learning to be more disciplined and more focused on my work. But it is doable.

I am currently finishing up Comprehensive Greek I, which is crazy. We are taking a 3-month class crammed into 3 weeks. This means that everyday we are studying 1 week worth of homework. AND that means that we’re expected to do one week’s worth of homework every night (it averages out to 7 ½ to 9 hours).

Next fall I will be taking “Kingdom, Church, and World,” “Church History I,” and “Method and Praxis.” Method & Praxis and KCW will be taken from the virtual campus. I am excited about those classes!

3.) I have been playing basketball 2-3 days a week on the seminary campus. Noon-ball as it is called (Why “noon-ball” you ask? Well, because it starts at 12-noon! Clever I know.) It has been the best part of coming to seminary for me. One of the tough parts about moving to a place where you don’t know anybody is that you don’t know anybody. It really was this group of guys who made me happy to be here in Kentucky.

It has been good for me, as the last couple years in college I did not exercise enough and I had gained a few lb's that I need to shed. The exercise has been good for me and my pants have been a little bit big on me! Hurrah for exercise!!!

4.) I am planning writing a book. I think that I’m going to spend the rest of my time here at seminary working on it here and there and then try and get it published. I still am in the extreme beginning of the process...aka still thinking stuff out. But maybe you’ll some day go to a bookstore and see my name on the shelf. Who knows??

5.) I am working at A D Carpet Care; it’s an interesting place. I am the guy who comes and cleans your carpet. Actually, we do mostly commercial so I am in hotels most of the time when I work (which is primarily Mondays for right now). So I have spent a good portion of my free time over the past couple of months in hotel rooms.

Here are some things to think about when going to a hotel: 1.) The lobby isn’t a good sign of the quality of the hotel, the hallways are. 2.) The carpet of the hotel is a dead give away of the quality of the hotel. 3.) If you see tons of stains on the carpet, it means that the hotel has tons of people party there. 4.) NEVER stay in at Hyatt in Lexington.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to put in a ton of hours over July and August with this company…“A D Carpet Care, call ‘us’ on the carpet!”

That’s what’s going on in my life!