Erik & Michelle's Wedding

May 30th was one of the most memorable and special days of my life! I had the privilege, joy, and honor of marrying my little sister to such a great guy. Michelle and Erik were high school sweethearts, so even though their combined age once they married was only 41, they had dated for over 5 years.

The wedding was a family affair to say the least…I performed it, Holly coordinated it, the kids participated in it, the matron of honor was my older sister, brother-in-law was a groomsman, and parents were all smiles.

Out of everything I get to do in life nothing comes closer to touching heaven than performing a marriage--it is the foreshadowing of the marriage of the Bridegroom God, Jesus, to His bride, the Church…the first event that takes place once the Lord returns is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

"Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Then he said to me, ‘Write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’”
(Revelation 19:7-9)

Baby Jeremiah

Our friend Rob Wang was so kind to take some pictures of baby J before he got too big...he is about 9 months here. He is such a joyful, loving, and strong-will baby. Holly and I are amazed at the Lord's goodness toward us!

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; they will not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate." (Psalm 127:3-5)

Casualties of War

I wanted to make aware or remind those of you who track with our blog to check out our good friend Derika's blog "The Great Pursuit." She is a dear sister to our family and a key co-laborer with us in IV.

You can access it through the link on the righthand side or go to:

http://www.derikabrendsel.blogspot.com/

She titled her last post: Casualties of War

Family Photo Shot

Well we decided it would be good to take a few pictures of the family in front of the "Welcome to IV" sign as you come into the city...when we told Hope that we were going to take some pictures she immediately ran to her clothes and came back with what she calls her "princess dress". Holly looked at me and out came, "I guess you can wear that, princess." Once she had it on it was on - it really brought out the princess in her, as she developed this new tip-toe walk/swagger while she wore it (I had never seen this kind of walk before). As for the smiles...well, I told her I would give her some chocolate if she would smile for the family picture :-)

Big Bear - Men's Retreat

About 20 of us guys had a men’s retreat this last weekend in Big Bear…it was awesome!

We had some really sweet fellowship together, along with some good times of worship & teaching. I did 2 of the 3 teachings and Scott did the third.

The weather was amazing, which allowed us to play some sports and go on a few hikes. At night we just had fun and did all sorts of stuff like play games, eat more food, go get free slurpees at 7-Eleven on 7/11, and just chill out in the mountains without an agenda.

The cabin was definitely cozy with all us in a cabin that has a sign out front which says “maximum 8 people” – fortunately it belonged to the parents of one of the brothers in the fellowship so we had permission to go well over maximum capacity.

I had to include one picture at the bottom of a war wound from the weekend, as myself and a few other guys got hit…it was a men’s retreat & boys will be boys!