2009 CMBC Car Show

On Saturday Aug 8 CMBC hosted our 2nd annual car show. Our goals were to have a great show, provide an opportunity to connect and reach out to the community, and collect food donations for the CMBC food pantry. The show exceeded my expectations. We had over 70 cars, and a good mix of church member cars and cars from outside the church body. We met a lot of great people from the community. We collected several shopping carts full of donated food. We had great music led by Larry Haggin and his band, and a great BBQ lunch that was organized and cooked by Jay and his volunteers. The weather forecast was for rain on Saturday, but God had a better plan (he always does). The weather was absolutely perfect, warm and bright, with filtered sunlight behind the clouds. Kudos to the car show committee (Ron C, Tom, Ian, and Dave Mc) for lots of great planning. Thanks also to several others who volunteered their time to ensuring a successful event (Jay, Larry, Curt, Mazie, Dave M, Miles, Jerry, Tim, Liz, Melissa, Kari, Ted, Robin, Ron, Chuck, Greg, others I missed?)

Following are my pictures from the event. There are 2 albums. One for the casual viewer, who wants to get a quick flavor for the event. The other is for the serious car lover, many more pictures of the cars.

• Abbreviated Car Show Photo Album (57 photos)

• Full Car Show Photo Album (128 photos)

Harry Marsh also has a great photo album of the event, available below:

• Harry Marsh’s DLight Photography Car Show Album

2009 Luau

Our 4th annual Luau was last weekend, it was a good time. It was the tail end of our Oregon heat wave, so it was a hot day, nearly 100 I think. We had lots of umbrellas, a mist system, and tons of cold bottled water on hand. Robin did a great job with the food again this year, we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, meatballs, fruit salad, cole slaw, potato salad, ‘Orange stuff’ (a recipe from Louisiana), and more. We had huge help from John & Barby Ellerbrook again this year, they helped prepare the yard, decorated, cooked, served, and helped clean up and tear down. Melody, Kelsey and Jared came over to help also, they washed all the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen while we ‘caught our breath’ and relaxed at the end of the evening. What a great gift to us. Our neighbors Fran and Wendy pitched in on the tear-down the next day, and it went pretty quickly.

Fran amazed us with his juggling, Kennedy told a few jokes, and there was a rousing game of ‘name that tune’ as the sun went down. (Jon survived a couple of disputes over the rules) Special thanks to Chuck who gave me the hat off of his head!

Thanks to all who braved the heat to join us. It was great to spend some relaxing time together and good to see some new acquaintances being made.

Pictures from the 2009 Luau:
Gallery View

Slideshow View

Twitter

It took me a while to warm up to Twitter. Like many people, I worry about the temptation to use it as daily nutrition to feed the appetite of narcissism. I was absolutely stunned by the power of these paragraphs, written by John Piper in his blog post titled "Why and How I Am Tweeting".

Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: "Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?"
To which I respond:

The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.

So I am not inclined to tweet that at 10AM the cat pulled the curtains down. But it might remind me that the Lion of Judah will roll up the heavens like a garment, and blow out the sun like a candle, because he just turned the light on. That tweet might distract someone from pornography and make them look up.


Photo Copyright © 2009, Jon McDermott
Location: Newberg, OR