Church Picnic

The always great church picnic holds true to it's greatness. Water balloon toss, three legged race, and tug of war mixed with hundreds from the church and excellent food is the perfect concoction for an amazing day of picnicking. I mostly rallied up youth for whiffle ball games and relaxed with Steph (as seen catching a balloon). Thank you to everyone who helped make the church picnic a success.

Preaching this weekend...

It's Graduation Sunday (The Sunday we honor our graduates). Sense I am a recent graduate and have lot's of youth graduating I am going to be delivering this weeks message at all four services. If you would like to come out, the times are as follows. Thursday Night at 7pm. Saturday Night at 6:30pm and Sunday Morning and 8:45am and 10:30am. I would recommend the Saturday Night service. It is my personal favorite. Hope to see you then.

Accept,
John

Memorial Day Weekend 2008: Success!

What a weekend! Besides a few smashed fingers and sore backs the building trip went off without a glitch. After two days of building we accomplished our goal. A 3500 square foot dormitory that will sleep 40 and an apartment to house full time missionaries (notice the sweet flat up top). This place is large and will sleep youth groups, church groups, small groups, and whoever else wants to bring a 'building team' into our little community outside of Tijuana, Mexico. There is a full dinning room and kitchen, four large dorms, and two large bathrooms. Not to mention it backs up to our church auditorium. Lot's of space to accomplish whatever it is that God has placed on your heart. The apartment has an incredible ocean view, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, wash room, and two bedrooms. The perfect place to house our full time missionaries who will travel the country raising awareness and funds for the children of Tijuana, Mexico.
What a fun weekend! You can have a smile on your face too! Simply contact us to schedule your weekend or week long trip to Siempre today!
In the face of poverty. A young girl watches the building go up next to the dirt floored shack she calls home.
At 'Siempre Para Los Ninos' children's home we house over 30 children of have been rescued from the streets of Tijuana. There are still millions of children who need our help! We were constantly reminded of that on the work site. Your group can build houses in the community or put on day camps for the children in of the town. One of my highlights during the weekend was the community fish fry. Where we invited everyone in from the town to celebrate with us over an amazing fish feast.
It takes a team. We had a large team over the weekend to accomplish our monster building project. No matter how small or large your group is there is a lot of work to be done in our small community outside Tijuana, in your community, and around the world. Take part in changing lives today!

Accept,
John Denton
Enrique, Alajandro (the director of Siempre), and Neftali taking a break. Check out the view from the deck of the apartment!

Mother's Day

We are ready! Today Ken and I wrapped flowers to hand out to moms tomorrow at church. Make sure to remember to honor your mother tomorrow!

Thanksgiving Preparation

For the last 20 years Central Community has been delivering thousands of meals throughout riverside county for our free Thanksgiving dinner. People have been cooking turkey for two days now, and tonight the rest of the meal will be prepared in order to get all of the meals out in our two hour window tomorrow. Normally the people who prepare food and deliver meals get high fives. This year I want to give my friend Bill ten up high. Each year he goes through and does the routing so these meals can successfully be delivered. He spends hours making sure the maps are in realistic groups so our volunteers will be able to make swift deliveries and return back to the church to take a few more. Thanks to everyone who makes the free Thanksgiving dinner possible.

Fun

Matt Old's having fun.

Day Dreaming

I don’t get to surf that much right now because I am so busy with school, but I spend a good deal of my day dreaming about good waves and fun times with friends. It’s hard to explain in a way that people who have never surfed can understand. There is something about surfing that feels so good. When you are on a wave the only thing you are thinking about is that wave, that moment, and what your next move is going to be. Over the last few months that clear and focused state of mind has appealed to me more than ever. Too much has been on my mind and more stuff keeps piling up. When I have gone surfing the conditions have been less than desirable but exactly what I am looking for; an escape from my daily routine.

Accept,
John Denton

Funny Voice Mail (100th Blog!)

What a better way to celebrate my 100th blog, than with this voice mail I received yesterday. Thank you to everyone who keeps on reading my blog for some crazy reason. I love writing everyday and I always wait around for comments, and try to respond to everyone. Yesterday I was even able to help a guy get online with grand central. Thanks for reading my blog.

Accept,
John Denton

Call Me (Grand Central)

Another day. Today take a few seconds and give me a call. Just click the above button, enter the number of the phone next to you (you have to click off the leave my number private box if you want a call back), your phone rings, you pick it up, magic: its already calling me. Then leave a message in my voicemail inbox. Grand Central is pretty neat. It allows you to choose any phone number you want in the United States, and forward all of your calls from you new number to all of your existing numbers at once (its does tons of cool stuff check it out). Oh yeah, as of now its invitation only, leave your email address in your message and let me know why I should invite you, and maybe I will (I can invite 10 people). I can’t wait to here from you.

A New Starbucks

The anticipation is building here in the office at Central Community. We have a new Starbucks coming our way (only a block away to be precise). There was not a Starbucks in Riverside three years ago, now we will have four locations all within three miles of us, on the same exact street. The new Starbucks looks pretty big and it has a drive through. I think I might walk to it every day; maybe I will go read a book, drink coffee, and lounge around?

You can do it!

I haven’t played golf for two weeks and I miss it. Check the picture of Sean teeing off at Oak Quarry’s signature par 3. Sean is a great friend; we enjoy golfing together, talking about random sports facts, and sharing our afternoons with each other. Sean golf’s way better than I ever will but is still patient enough to wait for me when I am struggling on a particular hole or simply playing bad golf. The last two weeks I have let small things get in the way, and stop me from golfing on Mondays with Sean. Often we let these little minute details destroy our big plans and fun times that we could be having. This week get out there and do it, don’t let small things stand in your way.

Accept,
John Denton

New Shoes and more (Video Blog)

Click twice to play!

Click twice to play!

Angel's Lost (sad face)

Artivist Film Festival

On November 10th, Glue boys, a feature length documentary, will make its world premiere at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood as part of the Artivist Film Festival. It will be screening at 8:15. You can purchase tickets now at www.artivists.org or find out more information about the film at www.glueboys.com. Bring a friend, date, or spouse and come out to support this great film project. Philip Hamer, the film’s director, contemplates the future of the world’s estimated 150 million street children and documents the day-to-day plight of a handful in Kitale. The film also unveils the distribution chain of their addiction to sniffing glue, from the small-time street dealers who facilitate it, to the authorities who enable it, to the massive multinational corporations that profit from it (www.Glueboys.com). I had the privilege of working on the project with Phil and have seen his heart and passion for these children first hand. You will not want to miss the world premiere of Glue Boys.

Accept,
John Denton

How to make a video blog

How to make a video blog:

Step 1
Record yourself talking with your webcam, video camera, or cell phone camera
Tip- unless you are great at improve you might want to make an outline

Step 2 (optional)
Edit your video blog: Add title music, funny pictures to support your vlog etc.
Tip- You can use the software already on your computer such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker

Step 3
Post your video blog to a video host such as video.yahoo.com or use bloggers built in upload video utility to let blogger host the video for you (Safari users don’t have access to the blogger upload video utility).

Step 4
Insert html provided by video host into your blogs html (if you used bloggers insert video utility you will not need to do this step).

Step 5
Publish your blog and look super hi-tech.

Word to the wise: Go out and buy a MacBook and perform all of these steps with ease thanks to the built-in webcam and iLife 08’

Random Video Blog

Click twice to play!

Click twice to play!

The Angels (as in the baseball team)

Stephanie and I are big fans of Angels Baseball, not the strange kinds of fans who paint rooms red, buy red cars, and haven’t missed a game for five years. We like going to a game now and then and watching a few games on TV each week. I think it’s interesting the community that forms around a baseball team and this community grows in times of excitement, like the play-offs. I, like most Angel’s fans, hope that they make it to the fall classic. If not, it’s ok; they’ve had a great season. Every day I check my email to see if I have been selected to purchase World Series tickets, but I have not received an email yet. To end this random blog I have one thing to say, “Let’s go Angels!”

Accept,
John Denton

What should happen to Marc Echo (Vote Now)!

Marc Echo, as you have probably heard, purchased Barry Bonds 756 home run ball and held a vote on what should be done with it. The vote came in and 47% of the voters said the ball should be branded with an asterisk symbol and sent to the baseball hall of fame. It bothers me that Barry Bonds has never tested positive for steroids yet so many people are quick to jump to conclusions. If steroids were the magic homerun pill every high school baseball player trying to get an edge by using steroids would be blasting home runs. Not to mention years of Major Leauge baseball players who used them and never came close to hitting 756 home runs. Why would Marc Echo want to destroy a piece of history by putting an unfair and unearned mark on the ball? Let’s Vote on what should happen to Marc Echo (The poll is located in the top right corner of blog)!

Golf in the rain.

Today I played in a golf tournament with my dad and a few guys from church (as pictured...sorry about the low quality image). We signed up for the tournament a month ago looking forward to supporting a great local ministry and having a fun day of golf. Last month it was 110 degrees for a few days in a row, and if you would have told me we were going to have insane rain and 60 degree temperatures today, on the day of the tournament, I would have laughed. Not even the rain could hold us back from having a good time golfing together. In the end it was a nice day of golf and it will give each one of us a good golf story to tell for the next few years.

Fast Food