Pastor Mark

As mentioned in the previous post, we just finished celebrating our high school youth pastor, Mark, for 20 years at church. I know that so many people who went through youth group have the same things to say, or even more than I do, about how Pastor Mark changed their lives. But while we remembered all of our glory days in high school youth group, I think everyone was giving due credit to Mark, who made a place for us to become who we were, to grow spiritually, and who invested so much into our lives. You have to know the guy to really know how great he is, how he can look at situations differently than anyone else, how he teaches by example and by using your own life, how he speaks truth without judgment.
My husband and I both hold great respect for Pastor Mark, who, in different ways, influenced us and changed our lives. He was part of a healing process for me, and for my husband, he was a friend through a really dark time.
I could never share every memory I have that Mark was responsible for, directly or indirectly. But because I've been thinking about it this weekend, I will share some of my favorites. In no particular order.

1) Driving home from Chicago on the bus, in a construction zone. Mark, deciding to see how close he could get before hitting the cones. (Many of them did not survive).
2) Mexico. 1998. Sand, sun, building houses. I was 16, and I did not sleep more than 3 hours a night the whole week. On the way home Mark told me he would never let me get that little sleep ever again. But he was the only person I ever saw fall asleep while STANDING.
3) Worship time. Our youth group was really into music. By my senior year, we had formed bands that would lead the music time every week. That year, before school started, Mark invited me to discuss how I thought the worship time should look. I remember, we sat in his office eating salsa out of cups (he didn't have any chips), and he listened to me. And I think that was the first time I really felt like an adult valued my opinion. Also, the salsa was really tasty.
4) When I was still really new to the church, they were doing a banquet for the graduating seniors, and I didn't really feel like I was part of the group so I planned to just sit out in my brother's car the whole time. Mark noticed, and sent my brother out to get me to come in. He also invited me to go on their work trip that was coming up. I didn't go, but it just meant a lot to me that he noticed. There were at least fifty other kids in the group, and he had all kinds of other responsibilities, but he noticed me when I was in the loneliest, darkest time of my life. And it made me know, in some small way, that God had not forgotten about me.
5) We were at a youth conference and by the middle of the week, I'd hit my limit of social interaction. I was hauling around a big burden of unforgiveness and confusion from the church my family had left almost two years earlier, and I just wanted to spend the large group session crying. Actually, I did. I went out and sat on the sidewalk alone and cried. When I composed myself, I went back in but I couldn't get to my seat so I stood in the aisle by Mark. He turned to me while everyone else was busy singing, and asked if I wanted to talk. We went into a stair well/landing thing away from the crowd and I cried more and he hugged me and then I told him about how badly I wanted to forgive and how I didn't know how I could. Then we sat on the stairs and he told me his own forgiveness story from his life. And somewhere in the whole exchange, after he prayed for me and gave his advice, something inside of me healed a little. The conference went on and people had their own personal experiences with God, but for me, that day in the stair well was life-changing because it was a huge bend in the road to forgiveness. I don't even know what Mark said exactly. I just remember that he understood and he listened, and no one else had been able to really do that for that particular subject.
6) My wedding. When Daniel and I got engaged, there was no question who we wanted to perform the cerimony for us. We'd met because of Mark (another long story). We'd basically fallen in love in youth group. ANd Mark meant so much to both of us at that time. We were the first couple he married, which I think was pretty cool (he's done a ton of weddings since then). He and his wife mentored us through our premarital counseling, and then he did the most awesome thing a pastor could ever do at a wedding. In his charge to the couple, he made each point an acrostic that spelled Batman. Because he's cool like that.

Annd there are probably a thousand more stories I could tell, but I guess most of them just aren't as interesting to everyone else as they are to me. So I'l leave it at that. And I'll say the cliche, how privilidged I am to know Mark.

This song was in my head this weekend as we reflected on all that he's done in 20 years. It's Cheer Up Church by Charlie Peacock, and some of the words don't really apply (especially the past tense part) but here are the ones that do:

His was a voice, fueld by truth
spoke to us/ of God's love
In a way/ we could understand
and take hold of.
His was a life/ defined by grace
for a time/and for a reason
so we bow/and give thanks to God
for the life/of our brother

Reunion

This last weekend, we celebrated our high school youth pastor's 20th year at the church with a reunion and reminise time for all of the people who had passed through youth group with Pastor Mark. As I wandered around and looked at the pictures of events, all of my peers hanging out together, remembering the hours I spent at church and on trips and retreats, I just felt... happy. They were great memories.
I think with the past, you pick out the best parts and they become sharper in your mind and the bad parts become duller so that you're left with these shining gems that become your memories. Unless you're bitter, and then it probably works the other way. The youth group compartment of my teen memories is full of really wonderful times.
There were tables labeled with each year Mark had been a pastor, filled with pictures and mementos from that year in youth group. I wandered around and purused, remembering. Talent shows, work trips, service activities, friendships, music, joy. And so many moments not caught on film that shaped who I was. SOme of them were hilarious, some tender, some were just part of every day life. Some of them happened when they were supposed to, at a key moment, like a speaker at a retreat or a worship song. Some of them were on the outside, and everyone saw. And some of them were quiet moments that fashioned my heart and drew me closer to God. Conversations with one of the leaders, a lesson about some spiritual principle, or just watching the authentic way people lived their lives in front of me.
So many memories on those tables, and in my own photo albums. So many treasured in my mind, chapters written in those high school years that are part of who I am.
I loved youth group, having spent my freshman year in a not-so-healthy group of people who cared more about their shoes than about the Bible, it was so refreshing to become part of a group who genuinely cared about each other and about their relationships with God. I look back at those times, those three and a half years in youth group with Pastor Mark and the other friends I had (including my husband), and cherish them. I am so thankful God took me to that place. And I'll be thinking about that reunion for a long time, because there was something really special about it.

New Baby!

I don't know if there are readers out there who I don't know in real life, so I figured I should update about the baby. She's one week and one day old today.
The surgery went really smoothly, and I felt great through the whole thing. (Last time I had some pain and then I got a spinal headache which really sucked). The only hiccup was when they did the spinal block, he couldn't get the needle in between the vertabrea because I have a curve, but they fixed that easily by having me sit on a towel to straighten it out.
I cried when the baby came out and I heard her little scream coming from the corner. She was so cute and tiny and I was so relieved that everything had gone smoothly.
She was 7 pounds and 2 ounces and 20 inches long. Born at 7:57 AM
We hadn't nailed down a name yet, so when we got back to the hospital room, we kept trying to figure one out that would work well. We had a lot of different choices we'd been considering, but none of them ended up being the name. THe ones we picked became options just that morning while we'd been in surgery prep.
She's Lois Svetlana
We always liked Lois but we didn't think it worked well with our last name, but then we realized that she's not always going to have this as her last name (probably) and I never cared that much anyway. It means "agreeable" or "desireable" which I thought was fitting for a baby I tried to have for two years. So far, she has been pretty agreeable, too!
Svetlana is a RUssian name that means light. We want her to be a light that draws people to Christ, and brings brightness into the dark world.
And that's how we picked the name. And that's the baby.