"There once was a girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very, very good, when she was bad she was horrid."
I think they may have written this nursery rhyme about me! Unfortunately it's applied to my adult life more than my childhood! It definitely applied to my time as youth pastor. I was both an awesome youth pastor and a terrible one! Who hires a 21 year old, with no experience to mold young minds and hearts? A guy who knows he's going to resign in a few weeks, that's who! ha! We survived 6 years and when I look at the life of today's featured supporter, Lauren, I think I may have done a few things right.
Lauren was only 10, when I arrived at Englewood and was always a fixture in my life there! Always serving, always the first to show up to help and the last to leave. I'm going to guess that in 6 years she missed less than 6 preservice prayer meetings, youth services, or outreach opportunities. She continues this life of serving to this day! At the end of every service we would open up the altars and the band would continue to play so if anyone wanted to continue to pray or worship they could. Lauren always stayed. As a matter of fact, she always made a bee line for the right hand corner of the sanctuary underneath the balcony where a little artificial tree sat, she would always kneel and pray there. I tried to explain to her we don't worship trees, but the behavior continued! So to this day she sends me texts and emails and stuff signed, "your little tree worshipper!"
I shake my head and smile every month when I see her name on my contributors sheet because I know it's a sacrifice for her. She teaches at a church daycare, so I know she can't be making much more than minimum wage, yet each month she gives. I figure she's working a full day each month just to hand over that day's pay to me!! Her giving humbles me, it encourages me, it drives me to work harder, and represent her well here in Thailand! Plus, she's a reminder to me that even though there were many, many mistakes made in my tenure as youth pastor, that God still blessed my efforts and brought good out of them! And 10 years after leaving youth ministry, I still see fruit from that ministry in Lauren's life! God is pretty cool like that!
Thank you Lauren! I appreciate you and am so proud of the young woman you have grown up to be!
Today's featured supporter is probably the cutest of them all! He's also probably the youngest of them all!He's pretty funny too, I sent him a thank you for his generosity and he sent me back a message saying, "No problem, but I'm going to have to go to public school now!"- Kellan 
I figure his really cool parents have something to do with his generous spirit. His mama and I go way back, like elementary school way back.
This is the oldest online pic I could find of us. She supported me when I wanted to wear my hair like this and now when I want to share Jesus with the world! I'm miffed about the first one, but extremely grateful for the second one. Pretty proud of our quarter of a century old friendship, there are very few people in life who will turn out to be forever friends. Yep! All those people who signed off their notes, BFF, GFF, or FF are just a bunch of liars! (Sorry Jr. Highers!) But if you hang in there though, it's pretty sweet to have support system for the rough times life may throw at'cha! A huge perk being they need no back story! I mean we'll be friends forever, we know too much and it'd take a lifetime to catch someone else up! Some other perks are the great times like annual Christmas dinners, when they take you on vacation to their beach house, let you play with their super cute kid, and support your mission's habit, just to name a few! Seriously though, if you can hang in there, getting old is a bit easier and a lot more fun when the person you're sitting next to is the same one you jumped on the trampoline with, discovered warp zones with, braved Jr. High with, and owned high school with! Very grateful for the continued support of my forever friend! 
