Category Travel

Colorado Campin’

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

After my trip to Phoenix to launch the teams to the Desert SW, I flew into Denver and picked up my good friend, Mike Penberthy.  Mike and I were the speakers for the Summit Camp put on by the Colorado Baptist Convention.  This was the first of two camps we are doing together this summer.  We were honored to speak to this group of students/staff and to partner in ministry with Everfound.  This group is fantastic and they are very much the real-deal.  They love Jesus and understand that being missional is here and now, not later and over there.

Below are some pics from this week.

So nice to be with my family now, I should be back to some more consistent blogging too.

Grace,
Brian

While In Phoenix…

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I was blessed to have spent time with many people while I was back for a short stay in Phoenix on Thursday to Saturday.  Here’s the quick lowdown:

Thursday evening: My parents were down in AZ for a vacation at a time-share. I arrived and drove straight up to Desert Ridge and spent the evening with them enjoying the Lazy River pool, a great grilled steak and some time just chatting.  Friday morning my Dad made a great big breakfast as well.  No worries, I did get a great workout in both Thursday and Friday to counter the food.

Friday Morning:  I met with a Youth Leader from Anthem who is interested in Youthmark.  Had lunch with Bryon Rock, who was in town for a wedding and then had dinner with my friends Matt and Leslie Ducharme (and family).  I had the privilege of having these two in my College/Career group in Phoenix when I was a Pastor down there and later performed their marriage.  I once again had a great grilled steak!  Yummmmm!

Friday Night/Saturday Morning: The Mission Launch Weekend which you can read about right here (or scroll down).

Saturday Afternoon: After watching the Soccer game I went down to Gilbert to hang out with a former student that I had not seen in a very long time.  John and Brittany Hagensen have been married for about 18 months and are a great couple.  We enjoyed some pool time and catching up on life.

Saturday Evening: I drove up to Peoria because Erik Bedard of the Seattle Mariners was pitching in a rehab assignment for the Rookie Team that plays at the Mariners Spring Training site.  It was fun to sit with about 60 other people in the stadium, most of whom were there for the same reason I was attending.  

Last but not least.  One more trip to In-N-Out with Mike Hagen who drove down to pick up two late arriving students for the mission to Pine, AZ.

Great times!

Grace,

Brian

3 Launches and 2 Lunches

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

This weekend we pulled off a first for Youthmark!  Not only did we pull off two launches simultaneously, which would have been a first, we pulled off three at once.

Kirk Petersen, pictured here, led the YMV Launch in Spokane, WA.  The teams from First Baptist of Beaverton, Shoestring Valley, Lake Sawyer Christian (here, here and here) and Cornerstone United Methodist had a great time together in Spokane.

Jess Champers, whom I forgot to tell to get an awkward photo of himself, launched the teams from Mars Hill Church and First Baptist University Place in Renton, WA.

I had the honor of launching two teams down in Phoenix. Seattle First Free Methodist and Pine Valley Community Church converged for a launch at my former Church in Phoenix, Northwest Community Church.

On top of this, we had one three churches not able to join us for the launch because of their early morning flight to Vegas (and drive to Sandy Valley), but you can read their blog here!

Please do hold all of these teams up in prayer!

While in Phoenix, I also enjoyed my favorite lunch… Two days in a row…Pictured below.

I’ll post more pics from the launches and some great stories, check out the youthmark.com blog here and read some other sides of the story as well!

Grace,

Brian

100five50 Update #3

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Wow, I am very surprised that I have decent news in light of this last week.

I was a busy boy with lots of travel, I’ll blog about that soon… long story short, from last Monday on I was in SoCal, NorCal, Colorado and back home for some feasting on Sunday for Father’s Day.  Way less exercise and way more eating.  Here are the results:

I only got to “work out” three times this week.  Two long walks and one bike-ride.  This is the downside of staying out of state and at places with no work-out center (stayed economically with friends rather than in hotels).

I ate pretty poorly, though I would say my Carb-intake was about 75% instead of 50%.

Overall weight… stayed the same.  216 I remain.

Great news considering the week that was!  Now, time to get on my bike, probably within the next 10 minutes!

Grace,

Brian

Speaking @ Seaside

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Last weekend I was able to head south with the family to Seaside, Oregon, well, actually Gearhart, Oregon to speak at a “Beach Retreat” for Westwood Baptist church of Olympia.

The trip was a blessing on a few different fronts…

Will was SLIGHTLY fearful of the crashing waves.

1. I got to take my family.  Though I came in to the trip pretty blitzed, coming off a six-weekend stretch of YMV Spring Retreat weekends and the writing completion of three books for this summer’s YMV’s, I was so very thankful to have time with my family.  On Sunday afternoon we were able to go to the beach for a few minutes, where we discovered that Will was more fearful of the water than I am of my daughter’s being asked out on a date.  After the beach (because it was cold and Elisabeth and Will were not all the happy at the beach) we quickly jetted off to downtown Seaside.  Here we did the sights and sounds

The Girls loved the beach!

of Seaside, complete with homemade ice cream and witnessing people eat deep fried tweenkies and chocolate covered bacon (yes, you read that correctly).  The afternoon became complete for the girls when we dropped off Will and Elisabeth (nap time… I think for both) and we went back to the beach.

2. The weekend was a blessing because I got to teach something fresh.  After six weeks of teaching the same thing, though I was stoked about the “Live and Love Loudly” talks, it was a real nice thing to go through 1 Thessalonians.  What’s nice, is that it provided the groundwork for the talks I will be doing this summer when I speak for the Colorado Baptist Convention (doing two camps out in CO this summer).  If you have not read 1 Thessalonians, I highly suggest you do!  The people of Thessalonica are an encouragement to me (as they obviously were to Paul).  I see so many teens today living like the Thessalonians and I pray, just like Paul did, that their faith would ring out throughout their Macedonia and Achaia (their region)!  Can’t wait to study more and preach it more this summer!

Here’s to a weekend at home!  It will truly be a welcomed blessing!

Grace,
Brian

ColoRADo!

Brian Aaby 2 Comments

The retreat in Colorado was in fact, Rad-o.  Yes, I will have some cheese, please.

I’ll post about the retreat soon, but for today, I’ll give you some shots.

Grace,
Brian

Top Five Tuesday: YMV Spring Retreat #1

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

This last weekend was our first “Spring Challenge” the Youthmark Mission Venture Spring Retreat.  It took place at Northwest Bible Church in Spring, Texas.  It included the youth groups from NWBC and another from Vinton, LA.  The students from Vinton are going out this year, one year after having a team from West Seattle serve in their community last summer!  It was so exciting to have them there.  I did post more about this retreat here.

So, today’s top 5 is a little different in that it’s sort of a report and a top 5 at the same time.  The criteria is pretty simple, my top five memories of the weekend.

Without further ado, the list:

Five: The launch of Mission51. I’ve been working on this little project that I’d say summarizes what we’re about at Youthmark… We do mission trips, but our passion is the 51 weeks of life outside of the mission trip.  Mission51 is really the call to be a missionary always, all ways a missionary.  You know it is an official movement when you have zip-up hoodies with the logo.  By the way, you can become a fan of mission51  on facebook and stay tuned for the mission51.org website.

Four: The Moment. There is a moment in the retreat that I was really looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. Because many have not attended who will attend, I can’t describe it, except to say, it was pretty powerful and God made Himself clear.

Three: Neil. My friend Neil Moloney, who is galavanting across the nation on a road trip right now timed his trip in order to be in Spring at the exact same time as us.  I put him to use right away.  Not only did Neil do some behind the scenes things, he helped with the worship with Joe Poppino as well.  Because we all got in on Thursday we had some quality time outside of Youthmark stuff as well.

Two:  Time with the Leaders. The team leaders for both NWBC and Crossroads of Vinton are such sweet people.  NWBC is heading into two communities in Idaho this summer, so the 8 leaders they had at the retreat were anxious to be trained.  Another Rob (the Sr. Pastor in Vinton) was not able to attend, however, the Crossroads youth leader, my friend Michelle, was there in all her Southern Accented glory.  The time chatting, encouraging and being encouraged by the leaders was sweet.

One: The Album. Joe Poppino, who is the worship leader for Youthmark–oh, and a worship pastor at a church in Mt. Vernon– was with me on the trip.  For the local retreats we have a band that plays with Joe. but to keep costs down, we have just Joe go on the out-of-area retreats.  Because Joe is such a gifted leader/teacher, we encourage the host church to bring in their musicians on Friday afternoon so that Joe can form a band for the weekend with his leadership.  Well, the NWBC students were excited to do this, that is, until someone Googled “Joe Poppino” and found out that Joe has “an album.”  The intimidation of a legitimate musician got the students too nervous to play.  This, of course, became the running joke of the weekend. Humble Joe (and he is humble) became known as Mr. Bigshot who has “an album.”   I started referring to him as “the talent.” And we all wanted signed autographs, because, afterall, he does have “an album.”

Looking forward to our other five retreats this spring, but this one was special!

Grace,

Brian