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My Personal Trainer, Rafael

After three years of physical indolence [eloquent form of “laziness”], I realized it was time to work out again. So Sandy and I signed up for 24 Hour Fitness near our home. With the special holiday promotion, I was gifted with 4 personal training sessions. Today I had my first session with a personal trainer, Rafael, a 39 year old Hispanic version of Billy Blanks. For the most part, it was more of a harsh lecture session than a personal training. After going through measuring my heart beat, body fat, and so forth, my health score came out to be basically off the chart. So Rafael went on trying to deposit some motivation in me while I tried to explain to him what four years of happy marriage and two kids had done to my body.
Anyway, a very interesting thing happened in the middle of this lecture session. When we were filling out a simple health survey form, he asked me what my vocation was. So I answered, “I am a pastor at a local church.” Then, all of a sudden, his face froze, and he grabbed my hand and said, “Pastor, I am sorry! I should have watched my language and paid a little more respect to you.” For a moment, I thought he was going to propose to me. From that point on, my training session took on a completely different form. He treated me like one of his revered ancestors. It made me wonder how my vocation had such an impact on his attitude. I just could not stop laughing throughout the remainder of our session. From what I gather, Rafael comes from a Catholic background. I hope that he won’t feel too stressed out about training a rusty unfit clergy. While he trains my body for the next three sessions, maybe I could be a good witness of Christ to this religious man.

January 21, 2005 | Comments (1)

Gallery Update

Gallery has been updated with some recent photos. All new pictures will now be uploaded into Family Album 2005.

January 21, 2005

Long overdue update!

Wow! It’s been over three weeks since the last post already. Time really flies! In those three weeks, we’ve traveled down to LA, spoke at a college retreat in southern Cal [FECC, you guys rock!], celebrated Abigail’s second birthday and our 4-year anniversary. That’s right! It’s already been 4 years since Sandy and I got married. I can’t seem to remember my single days anymore.
Abigail, after turning two, seems to be growing at an unusual pace. She’s now talking in full sentences [everything in question form]. Having a daughter and a wife who love to talk, solitude will soon become a very rare practice in our household. I am learning to engage in two conversations at the same time, but that’s been a challenging task.
On the other hand, Isabel is a real mellow baby. I think she takes after daddy. As long as she’s not sleepy or hungry, she can sit all day long in mommy’s lap contently without saying a word. Maybe it’s because she can’t quite speak yet! But, she has that quiet and calm presence that Abigail does not have.
Looking at year 2005, our schedule will be no slower than the last year. This year, we are planning another trip to China. At the end of last year, God blessed us with 63 orphans in Southern China. God is giving us some exciting ideas to bless these precious children and the community that they live in. We still do not understand fully what part or role we will have in ministering to these children in the future, but this new development in the past few weeks has been stirring our hearts to pray more specifically about our future. Please, remember us in your prayer.

January 20, 2005