MAKE BEN FAIR

So every picture has a story, and looking back on all these pictures it just reminds me of how lucky I am to have such a great wife, a great family and great friends.
Some of these photos were taken by my beautiful wife and others were taken by our friend Glenna Harding. Please do not use these pictures without permission. She is professional and its not right to take things without asking.

I want to start this post with an apology for not blogging this past fall. I took the fall off from my blog, partly because of time and partly because of lack of interest. But I have felt the urge to start writing again and what better time to start than to recap the past year and get ready for the new year. I would like to send a shout out to Jim Echols from Austin. Nice guitar playing this morning on the christmas songs. Anyone who has every tried to play Christmas music on the guitar can appreciate the 15 million chord changes per song. Jim plays at Jamie's folks church First Evangelical Free Church of Austin. That is where we went to worship this morning. UBC always takes this sunday off, i mean who would still be in Waco on Christmas eve? If you are there and that last sentence offended you I apologize. I love Waco! So now I am going to attempt to sum up the past year. This will probably be a multi-phase post so keep your eyes out for more coming soon.

What a year, seriously this was a crazy year. So many major things happened in our life this past year. If we were playing that game where you said a word and i had to answer back the first thing that came into my head, and the word was 2006...i would say two things. #1 - UBC #2 - Africa. Both of those things have taken the majority of my time and energy this past year.

The year started with the continued dealings of the aftermath of Kyle dying. We were having church at the Hippodrome and the church was fully under construction. That lasted until we moved back into our building July 16th. What a Sunday that was...it was difficult and beautiful at the same time. Watermark Church from Dallas came down and served our entire church a hamburger/hotdog lunch. It was truly a gift to our community and just what we needed to help us move back into our space. The building turned out wonderfully and it is so nice to be at UBC and it be a working functional building. We feel very fortunate to have such an amazing facility.

The spring was filled with plans to get ready to go to Africa. This trip was truly a life changing experience. It seemed to be the culmination of so many thoughts, prayers, conversations all coming to this one moment in time. We have so many close friends and even our sponsored son in Kenya. Our son's name is Kennedy. He is going to be a doctor or a professional Basketball player. He loves the mavericks. I am very thankful that Jamie and I have had the opportunity to go to Africa.

We traveled a few other times this past year. We went out to California to visit the Coulters (holla!!) and we went to Florida over the July 4th week and it was so beautiful. We also had the opportunity to spend about 8 hours in London when our Africa trip had a long lay-over. The summer came and went so fast this past year. When we arrived back from Africa it was Summer, there wasn't the usual sitting around waiting for summer to get here, it was just summer. I take it back, not just summer but the hottest summer of all time.

Soccer seemed to preveil as the sport of the year again this year. The World Cup 2006 was one of the highlights of the year for me. I watched almost every single match and loved every minute of it. I think that Jamie was glad when it was finally over, but i told her it only happens once every four years so give me one month to enjoy soccer and she can go back to HGTV.

We hired a new Community Pastor at UBC this summer. John Mark and Laura Seelig joined the team in August. It couldn't have come at a better time for our church. Right as the new school year was starting, John Mark and Laura were here to greet them. I can't tell you how thankful I am for those two to be in Waco. Its weird because after Kyle died the million dollar question from everyone was, "what are you going to do? Who are you going to hire to replace Kyle?" We all knew that Kyle was irreplaceable but we also knew that we needed more staff. John Mark has come in and help us carry the load and push us forward. Its just cool to see someone function within their giftings. blah blah...I may sound like I have a man crush on him if i don't stop soon. But he is great.

The fall ushered in a new chapter in my life, i turned 30! The big 30. In some strange way I actually enjoy being 30. I was dreading turning 30 but once it happened i realized that there was no going back so I might as well embrace it. For my birthday my family got me a 46" DLP tv. So 2006 has ushered in HDTV into our lives and let me tell you what folks...there is no going back now. That stuff is the bomb. (i just typed bomb so most likely the MAN is now reading this email, so let us pause and say hello to the MAN and thank the MAN for all he has done for us this past year...) Watching football in HD is awesome! I remember the first game we watched Green Bay was playing. You could see the grey hairs in Brett Favre's beard. He is old and needs to retire, sorry Carney. But now that we have HD we have digital programming also. So my new favorite channel is FOX Sports World. It is 24 hours of soccer. (sorry Jamie, i know that i said every 4 yrs but it seems that i must have been mistaken)

I had the opportunity of a lifetime this fall. The Crowder Band found themselves short of a guitar player for a few shows and I got the call. Jamie and I boarded the tour bus at 4:30am and woke up in San Antonio where I played the first of three shows that weekend. The band was opening for third day. The next show was in Tyler followed by Houston. Houston was the coolest because we played in the Toyoto Center before a crowd of 11,000 people. I stood and played the guitar in the same spot as THE EDGE!!! I also flew with the band to California to play the Youth Specialites convention. That was fun because I got to hang out with Harris.

Ok, i am tired of typing so let me conclude this entirely too long, way overdue post. Cheers
ps more coming soon!