Friday, January 08, 2010

The Decade that Was: A Retrospective

Now that it's a good solid week into 2010, I thought I'd write up a brief retrospective of the past 10 years.

2001: I was in my last year of seminary at Asbury, living in Nicholasville, KY, running a 3 mile loop pretty much daily with Nate and Scooter.  I got a job offer in Ohio, so after graduation, I became the Associate/Youth Pastor at Stonybrook UMC.

Life changed pretty quickly with two events in 2001: the death of Troy Simpson, a young man I'd just gotten to know, but who was good friends with pretty much everyone I was friends with in Gahanna.  I'll never forget his funeral... mostly because it took place on September 11.

2002: Work. That seems like all I did.  60 hours per week usually. I played bass in the praise band at church, and I started guitar lessons.  Tara got her Master's Degree at Ohio State, and I got to play (guitar) in her recital.

2003: Another year of tons of work with little respite, but this year we got to go a couple of neat trips.  We went to England to see my brother, and that was a wonderful trip.  After we got back, we got to see the Grand Canyon when we were in Arizona for a conference.

2004: Life changed forever as we welcomed Jonathan to the world!  I don't like any pictures of me from this time period because I gained a lot of baby weight (and stress weight).  I didn't get any time off for the baby, and that added to the stressful life. That summer we got a new senior pastor at Stonybrook, who we were really looking forward to.  My biggest accomplishment at church was starting youth ministry small groups.

2005: This year we figured out that the senior pastor and I didn't see eye-to-eye.  After a surprise call from the district superintendent, I found out that we were moving from Gahanna.  I learned a lot about both obedience and betrayal this year. This summer we moved from Gahanna to New Knoxville, Ohio. Once again, I was involved in high school soccer, as I volunteered with the team.

2006: Right at the beginning of the year, Tara blew out her knee.  But she had surgery and rehabbed it fast enough to go backpacking in the Grand Canyon in May!  What an awesome trip. This summer at Vacation Bible School, I joined with the pastor of the "other" church in town to do some improv skits.  This morphed into a deep friendship with "PD" in which we would routinely get together and share and pray for one another.  One of the highlights of New Knoxville life was this friendship and the fellowship between our churches.  It was hard being "on my own" in ministry, so it was great to have someone to share with.  In the Fall, I officially became a marathon runner, when I ran the Columbus Marathon. It honestly was a lot of fun.  Until the 19 mile mark. Finish time: 4:26.  But more important than all of that was that this year in August, Andrew was born! 

2007: After having custody of Andrew for six months, we got to adopt him!  So he officially joined our family this year.  I joined an accountability group of fellow pastors, which was ministry-wise one of the best experiences I've had.  I ran another marathon, this time in Louisville (finish time: 4:17).  This was fun until the last couple of miles, and after the marathon, I felt horrible.

2008: We moved again - this time to Millersport, Ohio.  I was so excited to move to Millersport; we already had friends here, and it was close to Columbus. It was a lot of work to move, and even more work on the new house, but it's exciting to be working on a (church staff) team instead of alone.  Jonathan started preschool this year, and he loved it.  He also started piano lessons!

2009: This spring, Jonathan started on a soccer team, and he continued his piano lessons (even had his first recital).  Andrew started preschool in the fall (and was the first to catch his teacher's fish).  We welcomed Baby Jason into our family for 4 months (August 10-December 8) and got a chance to love him.

Now it's 2010... who knows what this year holds for us?!

3 comments:

Big Mama said...

Gee, how interesting and uplifting! I don't even remember what happened last YEAR (maybe I don't want to)let alone the last 10! God's richest blessings on you these next10. Hey, do you realize that by your next decade's update, Jonathan will be 15 and Andrew 13???!!!! How exciting.

Rev.Dulce said...

In the last decade, I was barely a Christian. It is amazing what ten years can do.

Plus, I realized that some friends are ones that you have never even heard their voice.

Brian Vinson said...

@Big Mama - I had to look over some of my blog posts to figure out what year what happened.

@Rev Dulce - it's amazing how far God can take us in "just" ten years. And you've been through quite a bit - praise God for His faithfulness.