Jason = the greatest youth minister anyone could ask for.

We love you!

wow!  okay, it's been too long since i updated this thing... well, of most recent interest, we went to Harding for Bison Daze again this last weekend... this one was completed with a basketball game against Henderson State U, one of Harding's biggest rivals.  we wound up loosing both girls and guys games, but the great thing about Bison basketball is that the Rhodes Rowdies have a great time no matter what the game ends up looking like... props to the girls team who exhibited the best girls game i've ever seen and wound up loosing on a buzzer beater to an undefeated team when they, themselves were winless in their own conference.  one of the coolest things from this weekend was the 30-45 minutes we got to spend w/ Jimmy Allen and his wife, Marilyn... i realize that most reading this know good and well who he is, but for the sake of those who may not, please humor me... in short, most scholars believe that this man has baptized more people than any other human ever... yes, including Paul... over his 40 sum-odd years of ministry he has had some 40,000 responses and baptized roughly 10,000 of those.  He still teaches a class at Harding on Romans (which i was blessed with as a sophomore) and will always be one of my heroes.  He did a great job of making the kids feel comfortable and encouraged and prayed for all of us before we left, at which point , i am not ashamed to say, i had tears of gratitude and humility on my face. 

we're also preparing for a visit from a friend down-under.  A 13-year-old girl from Sydney is coming to the states to hang out with us this summer for Uplift and a bit of time before and after Uplift as well. 

the past couple of days have shown a lot of progress in getting ready for our mission trip this summer, which is tentatively planned for July 13-25.  we're going to Warwick, RI and we anticipate doing a lot of fellowship type work with their youth as well as a 3 day door-knocking campaign.  and we'll hope to be able to see New York City as well as Boston while we're in the area. 

on to more superfluous things... i've been tinkering w/ my Jeep a bit lately.  i put in a Poweraid throttle body spacer and added a Flowmaster muffler.  it sounds much different than it did a month ago and has more power, for sure... but the best part is that both of these things lend themselves to better gas mileage!!! who can turn down that combination when gas is $2.20+? 

well, i hope all of you are having a most blessed day and that you're seeing God all around you... 'cause He is!

JT  <><

whew!  it's been a while since i did this!  so let's see... well, for starters, here's that pic from when daniel visited:

yeah, so over the weekend i got to do a little exploring.  Paul, one of the guys in my youth group, and his family have a ranch about an hour and a half north west of here.  the girls were at a women's retreat so we went up overnight friday night.  it's a pretty cool place.  we shot skeet and all kinds of stuff out there.  took the jeep in some off-road, rocky terrain (grunt, grunt, grunt).  if nothing else, it just felt cool to carry around a 9mm on my belt.  we were kinda hoping a wild pig would turn up so we could take some meat home, but no such luck.  we did, however, find all kinds of promising deer sign in an area that is pretty much never hunted on their ranch, so we're gonna try to take the next few months concentrating the deer in those areas so we can take our pick next fall.  paul took some pictures of stuff... this is me in the middle of the woods w/ my GPS:

HA! you can't see me!!! well, actually you can, but anywho... and this is Paul w/ the armadillo he shot with my 9... lucky for all you weak stomachs i photoshopped the picture so it's not gross, but if you really WANT to see the gross one go to www.xanga.com/texanredneck89

funny part about this story is that when i saw the thing and told paul (who gets really excited about shooting armadillos for some reason) he was afraid to shoot without his earmuffs, so he climbed into the back of the jeep while i was still driving to get them.  anywho...

other than that stuff the past week at work was pretty tough... one of those weeks that's just bound to happen from time to time.  but today is monday and i like that because i can start with a new week... only problem is Jamie's off from school today and i still have to work... but anywho... hope you're all having a great day!

Currently Listening Missing Piece By Megan McCallon Latin Blues see related

ok... so Christmas and New Year's were pretty cool.  one thing i got for Christmas was especially cool... Jamie got me a one year pass for the golf courses in Arlington... 3 courses for a year.  i was nice and waited till she went back to school to play, but so far i've played three times since monday.  we were recently visited by my bud, Daniel McGraw, who was one of my groomsmen.  (i'll have to add a pic later)  he was in town for a meeting with his mission team, which consists of a bunch of harding guys and their wives.  for new year's we had a deal at the building and played games and junk (including Scene It, disney and movie versions on the projector in the youth room.)  then we had a devotional around midnight, but we didn't skip out on the countdown. 

here's a funny story for you and then i'm out.... about a month and a half ago we'd been having trouble with the garage doors only half closing or opening... one night we were on our way to wally world or something and i got in the jeep, pushed the button and backed out... almost... the door had only gone halfway up and i backed into it, ripping it off the tracks and shoving the support beam through the sheetrock.  needless to say, i had to disconnect the door from the opener for a while and go back to lifting it by hand... so i programmed my opener to open the other door to give me a way in... well, i got a drill for Christmas because my old one had burned up (don't ever buy a 9.6 volt drill).  Finally i had the means to fix my door.  so i set to work the other day and reinforced the wall to reattach the slide-rail and got things going.  i also solved the half-opening issue by finding the force adjustment for opening/closing, which i cranked all the way up, of course.  now remember i had been opening the door by hand, which means i had to lock it from the inside with the latch to keep someone from just having a hayday with my bike, tools, etc... do you see where this is going?  well, the moment of truth came and it was time to test it out, and we did, but i forgot to unlatch it first and since i had turned the force adjustment up i pulled the center beam right off the top panel of the door... so i spent another hour fixing that as best i could and now, after all that... my door works better than it ever has before... how bout that? 

well, that's enough from my exciting life of destruction and mayhem... hope you're all having a great day!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

here's a few pics

this is Jamie and her new t-shirt... ask her about the story... it's a good one

hey, everyone!!!

      First of all

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!

i realize that i haven't updated in like three weeks or something, but here's what has happened since then.  my in-laws came for a week (8th-15th) and we had a great time with them.  they helped jamie a lot with some of her busy work from school and whatnot.  didn't have any big events or productions with them... just enjoyed the company.  then on the 15th my sister came down from paducah.  we went to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in concert in dallas, which rocked our faces off and saw the narnia movie with the youth group and had our YG Christmas party all that Saturday... Chris was the best in recieving his women's shoe and care bears calendar (maybe better luck next year).  we also had a preacher in for us on the 18th and his last name was Terry... no immediate relation.  i hope that we don't search for long.  oh yeah, if you don't know my church is looking for a preacher.  let's see.... we went to six flags monday nigh.... did you know that if it's 40 degrees outside and you ride a rollercoaster that goes 80-85mph, it gets pretty cold?  we wrapped up our Christmas shopping pretty much before we left for paducah on Thursday.  my sister caravaned with us and i guess i'm a little absent minded at times (big shocker for anyone who knows me).... i realized at the last second that i needed to take a ramp to the right and wound up loosing my sister in Dallas for about a half-hour or so, but we made it and we hit a possum in the jeep when we were almost to paducah.... funny thing was you couldn't really feel it even though we ran over it square w/ both tires.  oh well..... he's in possum heaven now, which i suppose is a better place... i guess it's full of roads that people don't drive on.  

so now we're in ptown and i've seen all kinds of people that i know.... especially at the movies yesterday when i took my parents to see Narnia (my third time).... it was fun to say "well, my wife blah blah blah" and see people say "huh?!"  So, now we're anxiously awaiting the events of the evening... at 2:30 all the cousins are watching elf and then everyone comes to my mom and dad's at like 5:30 so that we can eat supper together... oh yeah, then we'll open gifts... that's a 2-3 hour affair w/ my family.... i am humbled at the blessings that God sees fit to bring us.  then tomorrow at about 5:30 we will leave for Morristown to go do Christmas day w/ Jamie's family and hopefully i'll update again before we leave there. 

well most important i want to say sorry for the preceeding novel and wish all of you, my special people, the most merriest CHRISTmas ever!!! and God bless you and your families in the upcoming new year.  Adios!

Jason <><

ps. sorry no pictures this time guys, but paul, i got the rifle so we're on for hunting whenever you can get me there.