I heard this song on the radio today on my way home from the hospital. It is exactly where I am right now in my life, with 3 awesome kids, one of which is less than 48 hours old and Janell who is the most incredible person I have ever known.

It’s been a while since I went to Urbana ‘09, but I wanted to write down one of the greatest memories I had of my time in St. Louis. It was the second night of the conference, and since I was at my booth during most of the conference activities, I really only had the chance to go to some of the general sessions.

The general sessions were held in the America’s Center, the St. Louis Rams’ stadium. The memory that I don’t want to ever forget was when 16,000 of us stood to sing “In Christ Alone.” It was a powerful moment. The words to the song have grabbed ahold of me since I first heard them a while ago, and when I had the chance to sing them with 16,000 people, mostly college students, I was overwhelmed.

The director of Urbana ‘09 talks about God’s Mission in the world and our part in it.

Check out the video on Vimeo.

The theme of Urbana ‘09 is that God Dwelled Among Us. It’s all about how God “moved into our neighborhood” with the incarnation. In tonight’s general session, we explored this concept a little. Here are my notes from General Session #1 at Urbana.

I had a quick Skype interview last Monday with some youth ministry students and youth pastors for Boyce College’s Youth Emphasis Week. We talked mostly about Youth Evangelism in Mexico.

Once a month there is a city-wide youth leaders meeting downtown in a bookstore. Youth workers from all over the city come to be trained and encouraged.

I had the opportunity to speak to the group Saturday morning.

There are incredible things happening all over the world! That is my feeling after spending a week in France with Youth Ministry International’s worldwide leadership.

From July 23 to 31, Dennis will be traveling to the Youth Ministry International Summit in France. The YMI Summit takes place every other year in a different region of the world where YMI has a ministry. Our entire worldwide team meets to report on what God is doing in each region as well as talk about strategy for effective ministry.

A video by Lecrae with Haiti in mind. One of the best videos I’ve seen in a while.

I saw this toy in Walmart the other day, and it made me wonder why you would need a truck that comes back on it’s own.

For six and a half years we have “imported” marshmallows from the United States to Mexico City so that we could make things like rice crispy treats and chocolate fudge. Well, today we were at the grocery store and found a whole shelf full of mini-marshmallows. Needless to say we were pretty excited.
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Cuernavaca is about two hours away from where we live in Mexico City. The worst part of the drive is leaving the city, especially on the weekend. We went there last weekend so I could have a meeting with a pastor who is trying to get some youth ministry training there. I also taught their youth Sunday School class and preached in their church on Sunday morning.

Nathan wants to introduce you to someone. He’s so excited to have a sister. Ben still isn’t sure what he thinks about her yet. I’m sure he’ll love her soon enough.

We were blessed by Grace Christian School to be given a full scholarship for Nathan to attend there this year. Grace Bible Church means a lot to us. It is where we got married. It is where I (Dennis) attended school from 2nd-12th grade. We have lots of friends there and many great memories.