Make that all Five

Well, what a weekend. SpringHill Camp, 700 Jr. high students, 4 talks, snow, El Pepe and Tracie finally got sick.

Make that all five! The kids are feeling great, I am just tired from speaking all weekend and that's because I am a big pansy. But, Tracie finally got the sick bug that we all had. I think it's because she could actually relax at camp and so Saturday night was pretty bad for her. Chills, fever, headache all that stuff. She could relax because we were kidless.

Because she's sick, that meant that I had to stay home from the Willow Student conference and take care of her and the kids. I am bummed, but taking care of them is my first priority, of course. I was looking forward to hanging out with some friends and checking out the conference and I always love spending time at Mecca.

Lot's to post about in the next couple of days, how springhill went, the 311 youth workers lunch coming up, starting at a new church, the future of 311, thoughts on communicating to students in 2006, and some other sweet topics, if you know what I mean.

Are they twins?

No, they are not. Bobby is 3.5 and Zach is 20 months, but only 2 pounds seperates them. Zach gets some girth from his dad, if you know what I mean!

My Sassy Girl

Rebekah is 6 and is feeling so much better after her double ear infection and fever. She is a complete delight!

Awesome Weekend Ahead

I may not be blogging a whole lot this weekend, considering my laptop is still not fixed. Ugh.

But, Tracie and I will be SpringHill Camp in Evart, MI as their Jr. high Speaker this weekend. It took me a long time to get my head wrapped around their topic, but with the help of my buddy Jason S., we got the talks completed! Yeah

Then after the retreat, I will be heading to the Willow Creek Community Church Student Ministries Conference. Thanks to Scott at Willow, I have a ticket and a place to stay, can't wait.

A life changing moment

Today I attended the funeral of a former student's dad. It was so moving, so emotional, so sad, and so joyful. Jameson's dad died of A.L.S and it only took about 3 years for it to do it's work. No cure. That just amazes me. This man was a great dad, a great husband, and an incredibly joyful person. That's the kind of people I relate to the most. I hope this doesn't sound too harsh, but I can't stand negative people. People that view everything negatively. I just don't get it. Christ promised us a life of joy and even though life sucks at times and crappy stuff happens, we still have that joy. He promised us an abundant life, a life full of joy and yet I see so many believers living like they can't experience that joy till heaven. I just don't buy that, I believe at the moment of salvation, eternity begins, and thus, joy.

One of my hero's and mentors, Ken Davis, says he thinks Joy entered the world when the stone was rolled away. So, today was hard and it's going to be hard for Jameson and his mom (who is just about the most incredible person I have ever met) for a long time, but They Have HOPE! They have the promise of salvation and the assurance that their husband and dad is walking on the streets of gold. I was hanging out with Jameson last night in the funeral home and I didn't want to say the lame Christian thing we always say at this stuff, but I had to say, man, your dad is loving not being in that wheel chair anymore. Jameson thought his dad was already running again and playing some baseball, I agree.

It also made me think of how many moments I miss with my kids. Why do I do that? I am too busy, got too much too do, too tired. Enough already, I need to cherish every minute I have with them. Today was definitely was life changing moment.

My Princess is 6 years old!

My girl, Rebekah Sue turned 6 today. We picked her up from school and went to Chuckie Cheese, what a crazy place. Just about everybody else with kids 6 and under where there, crazy times.

I love her. I love her smile, I love her eyes, I love her hugs, I love her laugh, I love watching her do her ballet, I love hearing her learn, I love hearing her count, and in Spanish, I love hearing from her teacher that she is always super friendly to everybody in class, I love how every now and then she will still cuddle with me, I love watching her play with her dolls, I love how she is a little mommy to Zach, I love her! I am absolutely in love!

I can never forget that day at the hospital when she was delivered, I almost feel like my whole life changed in an instant. It was like I was going one way, and then all of sudden, oops wrong way, time to go this way. I can't believe 6 years have gone so quickly.

What a Beautiful Day!

We have water! The kids no longer have fevers! What a great night. It's amazing the weight that feels lifted off when your water returns.

The best story, I called a few plumbers and they wouldn't come and then I found one that would, but he let me know it was going to be a lot. Then I call my friend Chad, Chad's like I will come over tonight and fix it. And He did! He and his partner, Miguel did it in no time and they fixed my garage door opener. Wow, we can breathe a little easier.

I do have to say that Tracie and I have a ton of people in our lives who care for us deeply and love us like we can't imagine. Like...My parents, Bob and Shelly. Tracie spent all day over their doing laundry and they always help us out. Tracie's parents, Ron and Sue. They are watching the kids this weekend so Tracie can come with me to SpringHill. Dave Kurt, that guy called me tonight and prayed for me on the phone, meant a ton! Chad and his wife Janis for allowing him to come over at 8pm to fix my pipes. My friend Josh called me today and offered their house if we needed it. My buddy Jason Shinn has been helping me write talks for this weekend and kept asking me if he could do anything else. Then there's Rod, who just keeps helping us. Todd and Bev, their giving hearts blow me away. Tim, who is always an encouragement. I can't even talk about my buddy Joe, there's not enough room. Then there is my long time buddy Tom, who is always there. Jimmy, that guy would give me the shirt off his back. Mike Krick, what a great friend, always have a blast talking with him. I know I am missing a ton of people, but these are the people that I have had contact with these last two days. The list would be forever long if I went back a week.

I am so thankful for people that reguraly show me God's love and I pray that I would show God's love to others like they do to me.

Frozen Pipes Day 5

What a Glorious day, the sun is shining, it has warmed up and oh, my pipes have now burst! I can't even believe it, my crawl space is now filled with water, that is just great. Man, I know I sound a whiner, but this is the worst week for this to happen. I am in the middle of some major prep work for retreat this weekend at SpringHill and it's my first time speaking there. You the first time you speak somewhere, you put in a little extra, just to make sure you are over prepared, well, it's been hard this week with all the miss haps.

I am now praying we can find a plumber who will work under our house and one that we can afford.

Pipes Frozen Day 4

I hope I don't sound like I am complaining, but I can't stand not having water. Man it makes like tough! I am praying, praying so hard that with the warmer weather today and tomorrow, our pipes will start producing H20 again.

It's a big week around here. I am in the middle of major SpringHill Camp prep work, editing our next newsletter (really just reading it, Stefanie does all that work), we had a P311 board meeting last week, getting ready for the Willow Student Conference (they hooked me up with a Comp pass, can't wait), getting ready to start at our new church (more to come on that) and just trying to make it through the days without running water.

To top it off, one of my former students dad died a couple of days ago. Man, my heart aches for his family.

Double Ear Infections All Around

Well, the sickness continues in the Raitz house. The boys both have double ear infections, cough's and are not their smiling selves. Tracie and I are praying they get better quick.

I miss my healthy boys!

Last night was another rough night! It's like everything in our lives comes to slowing crawl when our kids our sick. Tracie's up all night, I was up with Zach and fell asleep on the couch in a horrible position and now my arm feels like it's not attached and oh yeah, we still don't have water. But, I would rather have power than water, I was watching the news this morning and so many people are without power.

We are praying our doctor can see them this morning!

David Crowder Band

Tonight, James, Jason and I met Jason Shinn and his buddy Mark H. at Eastern Michigan University for the David Crowder Band and Third day concert. It was worth the trip and the cold weather.

I felt bad for leaving my wife though. Our youngest son Zach is still really sick and it's a little tricky with him. When he's sick, he doesn't eat and when he doesn't eat his levels get all messed up. He has a genetic condition called PKU and he is on a very strict low to no protein diet. All that to say, it's been 4-5 days that his eating hasn't been good and it's starting to show in his mood. When his levels are off, he gets moody or grumpy quicker, one of the fabulous side affects of PKU. On top of that, Bobby is still sick and when she was bringing the kids home from my moms, both boys threw up. What makes that even more fun, is that our pipes are still froze and she couldn't just throw their coats in the washer. Our laundry tub sink has a little water pressure, so she had to hand wash them in that sink.

So, probably bad move to leave her and I feel bad. She said it was alright and gave me her blessing, but I still feel bad.

Other than that, Crowder was his typical self. We were sitting by some Crowder newbies and they were cracking up with his antics. Oh yeah, Third Day was there too. A couple of years ago I loved them, they are still great, but I am more of a Crowder fan now.

The kid with the Bling

While I was the Lock-In the other night I noticed a kid come walking in who I knew was going to try to make trouble. I knew it, he knew it and the other leaders knew it, he was tagged. He was your typical "wanna be gangsta", he even had some bling on, and some cornrolls to go with it all. We get to the "Rally, program, session" (Whatever you want to call it) part of the night, and he sits in the back, the last row, typical. The youth pastor gets up, and this kid starts right away mocking him from the back. An adult leader comes over to him and says "hey, we don't want that stuff here, so stop or we will send you home".

I was sitting there and thinking, "really, you don't want his stuff here" and really what does that mean. Now, I think the adult was good intentioned, but I wonder if I need to re-think how I deal with kids like this, because this is exactly the kind of kid I want.

Here's what I did, I sat in the row (this church had pews, sweet) right in front of him and as I walked to my seat, I looked him right in the eye, enough to make him a little uncomfortable but enough for him to know I wasn't afraid or turned off by him.
Then the next time he made a smart comment, I joined him. I did, I laughed with him. Now, I made sure it wasn't really bad. Don't roll your eyes, I can see some of you. Here's the deal, I want to reach this kid, I want him to feel safe with me, so I let him know it through laughter. The next time, I said something too. Mine was a funny and loud and lot's of people heard it and laughed and the kid gave me this look like, "you are supposed to yell at me or tell me I am wrong, so what's the deal".
I didn't strike up a conversation, nothing. Just sat by him, and laughed with him. Craziest thing happened, when I got to talk, I looked back, and he got up from laying on the pew and he put his arms on the pew in front of him and leaned forward. He was listening. Wow, that was wild. Now, he didn't come forward for the altar call, actually, no one came forward, kind of awkward, but I will post about that another time. So, there you have it, good or bad, that's what I did.

What a Great Weekend

This weekend couldn't be better! Hanging out with family, trying to keep warm in our -9 weather, watching Thomas the Train and Barbie the Nutcracker, it's a whooping good time. The boys and I have a blast fighting, we practice punching and kicking, that's fun. We also love playing hockey in the kitchen, that's real fun. Bekah loves dressing and redressing Morgan, and I love to watch. It's almost like we are camping out, with electricity and heat in our house.

We still don't have water and were making the best. Tracie's incredible, she heated a bunch of water last night to do the dishes and all that stuff, but our pipes our still frozen. The good news is we got Mr. Roto Rooter out here to snake our sewer and we no longer have the back up problem. YES.

I just don't understand why kids don't what to sleep when their sick. Zach is up on the hour, everyhour the last 3 nights. Basically last night from 4pm to 12am we sat the chair and cuddled. That's all he wanted, hey, I'm not complaining. I am not looking forward to the day when their too big to cuddle. We missed church today, they would throw us out if we rolled in with 3 sniffly, coughy, running eyes kids.

Finally, in this really awkward post, I think my dad I are going to try to crawl under my house today and re-ramp my pipes with a special kind of heat tape. Here's the hitch, the space we have to get in, not very big. So, we will see.

What a Cold Day in Detroit

What a crazy night! Went to the lock-in, left about 2:30am, you read that right. Oh yeah, got pulled over for speeding. My bad, he let me go due to my Gloriously clean record. Got home around 2:45am, still very awake, could of been the pizza at 1:45am, who knows. Got on some blogging, lights out.

Thought for sure Tracie would let me sleep me in, I was wrong. Zach comes in around 7:45am, good morning Zach, I love your running nose kisses. Then comes Tracie, she had some more Glorious news. She says and I quote..."Jason, sexy husband, who is so smart and insightful, when I turn on the faucets nothing happens". Huh, that's weird, because I think water should come out, actually I know water should come out. Great, what's going on. Well, last night was the coldest it's been this winter and our pipes are FROZEN! THAT'S JUST GREAT! SON OF #$^&, YOU GOT TO BE $^&^*((*U&, SERIOUSLY I DON'T (*&*%&^.

Now just so you know, I really didn't swear. I am actually getting ready to post about some of my thoughts on the ever growing trend among evangelicals to use profane language, man, that sounded smrt!

So, there you have it. Our pipes are frozen and to make matters worse we have a little water running in our laundry tub and that's caused our clean out in the back yard to over flow, so we had to call a plumber, hope he gets here soon. I really hope he will work for back rubs, because that's about all we have.

My Kids are sick!

I hate it when my kids are sick. It's hard. Bekah missed an entire week of school, she actually went to bed on her own the last three nights at like 630, that's weird. Zach has pink eye, had a 102 fever. Bobby has a bad fever. Thank goodness my wife isn't sick.

Pre Game Ritual

I wonder if I am the only one who does this. So, before I speak, doesn't matter where or how many people. I have a pre game ritual. Does that sound weird? Well, let me tell you what it is.

First, about 6-7 hours before the event I start to get pretty impatient, don't know why, gotta work on this.

Second, I get ready. I love to shower before every time I speak, weird, I know.

Third, I show up, find who's in charge. Mingle, meet people.

Fourth, Drop into a crazy shell. This is weird for me, people think I am sick. I was speaking for a youth pastor a couple of weekends ago and I was sitting in the crowd about to fall asleep and an adult leader next to me was like..."Aren't you the speaker? You can't fall asleep". So, then the youth pastor introduced me and boom I am out of that shell or tiredness.

Fifth, I do some mad strecthing. Yeah, you read that right. I move like dog on a cold summer day, so I need to. I sometimes get some really weird looks, but I think that's funny.

Sixth, I pray like crazy. I seem to think too highly of myself at times so I always pray Phil. 2 before I speak. I don't know how I started but I remember when, the very beginning. I always pray that I would consider myself nothing, you know it's easy to get a big head when people start laughing with you.

Seventh, I communicate. I love to try to find the unhappy people in the crowd. Tonight, it was an older gentlemen who would just not laugh. So, I locked eyes with him the whole night, and yes, he did laugh.

So, there it is. I know it's weird. But it's not a wear my lucky shorts or my lucky cup like baseball players or do I?

Rush Hour Lock In

Tonight was a blast! I just got home and it's 3 am. You see normally my bedtime is like 931, but tonight was great. It was great on so many levels:

Level #1...Jim Stolt. Wow, I am so proud of him. Let me say this first, Jim's wife Karen is incredible. I love her because she loves my wife. Tracie my wife is not the most out going person and for some reason people forget about her, not Karen. She has been an incredible support to Tracie for 12 years. So, back to Jim. Jim was my first intern. Then he went off to Moody, graduated and has been the Youth/Worship Pastor at Union Lake Baptist Church for almost 5 years. He did great tonight and I admire him greatly as a pastor, a person, a husband and a dad.

Level #2...The Environment. I think too many people forsake the environment at events or regular programming because it's too much work. Don't tell that to Walt Disney, that man loved the details. This lock in was set up nicely. Including huge cut out letters on the front lawn of the church, special lighting hung everywhere, cool signs, it was just done well.

Level #3...The Youth Workers. There were a couple of youth workers there tonight who are in community together and boy you can tell. These guys share life with each other and you can tell how deep their relationships are. It was fun being around them.

Level #4...The Kings Yomen. What is this you ask? Only the sweetest yo yo people on the planet. At first I was like, yo yo's, yeah right. But then they turned into some kind of Jedi yo yo ninja's and they were everywhere. It was sweet.

Level #5..Project311 Merchandise. We now have official merchandise. We have devised a plan to make t-shirts based on some of the favorite stories I tell. So, you get a: I like Cheese shirt, a Who Loves Baby shirt, a Tag your It shirt, or you know it, an El Pepe shirt. Not too spiritual, not like those awesome "you are going to hell". Chad at Rebornwear is awesome and I can see a sweet partnership forming in some kind of form.

Level #6...This should be up more towards the top, but I got to share the awesome message of God's love to students tonight. I have been busted up sick the last three days, all three kids are sick, actually we had 4 Raitz's with a fever over 100 yesterday, not a record we are proud of but my throat has been killing me. And I need my throat to speak and about 16 minutes before it was my time, my throat just felt a little refreshed. So, what a great honor to tell kids about Jesus. There was this one kid in the back, who was your typical rebel wanna be. He whined and complained and then halfway through my talk I could see start to listening and then I saw him laugh, and look out when they start laughing it's over, they will LISTEN.

SIDE NOTE: I don't understand why some youth workers see laughter as a negative. It's not deep enough, it's not theological to laugh, God is serious, Jesus didn't die for us to laugh, do you think Jesus laughed? YES, I DO. What these people don't understand is that students will LISTEN like mad when they laugh with you, notice I said WITH you, it's all about speaking WITH them, not AT them and putting them at ease and they will listen and then they will learn.

Level #7...It was cool running into students who knew me. It was weird, I almost felt like a rock star for a moment. I rounded a corner and a bunch girls said..."he came to our school, he's really funny". So, there you have it. I am a big deal. People know me. My house smells of rich mahogany. Keep it Classy.

So many great highlights, kids came, were loved, and were encouraged.

Wow, what a week

Man, what a week. Started off pretty good, only Bekah was sick. Now she has missed a whole week of school, Zach has Pink eye, and now Bobby is coughing like a mad whooping cow. So yesterday 4 out 5 Raitz's had a fever over 100. Pretty talented I know. I am feeling better, no more fever and I can swallow again. But, what a day I have

Lunch with Jack, the Jr. high pastor at Highland Park Baptist
Drive out to Aaron's work to pick up some lights
Study for the lock-in tonight
Help Tracie clean the house for Bekah's party tomorrow
Take the lights out to Jims church
Put the kids in bed
Put the last minute touches on my talk for tonight
Head out to Jim's Lock In
I speak at 12:00am, wow, that's late

Alright, I can do it.

We are Blessed

So, we don't have prescription coverage, and that's not fun when you have 3 kids. But, Tracie's Aunt works at our pediatrician and the doctor she works for hooks us up with free samples. That's especially a huge blessing because the boys have some breathing problems and without prescription coverage a box of their medicine is $270, wow. So, we are blessed.

Can we get a break?

So, I have been sick a lot this Winter. And yesterday afternoon I started feeling pretty crappy, came home and had some monster chills. So, Tracie takes my temp this morning and it's 103. It's gets better, Zach has Pink Eye, and Bekah's getting over a Double Ear infection and a monster cough. We are praying that Tracie stays healthy. She was sick a couple of days last week and it's not fun when mom's sick.

Metro Detroit Youth Workers Lunch

What is this? Well, Project311 and SpringHill Camps is hosting a lunch for all of the Metro Detroit Youth Workers on March 10, 2006. We consider Metro Detroit to be...Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, and Washtenaw counties.

The lunch is at the St. Mary Cultural Center, the 18100 Merriman, Livonia, MI 48152.
The lunch is from 11:30am-1:00pm.

You can RSVP to lunch@project311.com. Or if you have questions you can email us at lunch@project311.com or call (877) 762 3046.

Right now we have enough food, and trust me it will be good food, for about 50. I don't know if we will hit that, but that is our rough estimate Now 50 you say, that's all? Yeah, I know. Right now in my database I have at least 132 youth workers who I have made personal contact with by either phone or email. On top of that I have a database going with over 500 churches so far in the Metro Detroit area. So, prayerfully more youth workers than 50 will find some it important to attend.

I have been a youth worker (youth pastor, youth director, student ministry director, guy who loves working with students, whatever you call it) for 11 years. It's still wild to think that an extremely conservative church hired me when I was only 19, what were they thinking? Well in that time, it amazes me how many youth workers do not place a high value on connecting with other youth workers. Some call it Networking, some call it building friendships, some call it a waste of time and some call it building a community for yourself.

I just can't figure out why youth workers don't connect with other. One person said to me once, "I don't do it because I don't have anything to offer". Who cares, learn. I started connecting with other youth workers so I could learn. I started to realize that I thought the way I did things were the only way and after meeting with other youth workers I started to realize that I could reach so many more students by learning as much I could from others. I am going to post a lot about this is in the coming days, more to come. So, back to the details.

WHY SHOULD A YOUTH WORKER ATTEND? Great question, my next post will have some answers.