Jennifer Held, 14 years old, died in her sleep Saturday morning.
Just typing that sentence doesn’t seem right. Fourteen year old girls are not supposed to die in their sleep. They are supposed to grow older and get a driver’s license, go to prom, agonize over college, maybe get married and have a family.
Jennifer was part of our church and is a follower of Jesus. She even sang with the exchange worship crew a time or two. She was a lover of music, life, people, and her creator.
On Saturday I was in my daughter Mariah’s room. Mariah had been in camp with Jennifer earlier this summer and knew her from youth group. Mariah, Hannah (one of her best friends), and I were processing the whole thing. “Processing.” Like you can process something like this. We were all just kind of in shock at the whole thing. Hannah made a comment that Jennifer would always smile and would go out of her way to find people who were alone. Just Friday at school there was a new student standing between the pool and the cafe at school. He was all alone. Jennifer walked up and talked to him. A simple act that was normal for her. She was an example of a lover of people and of God.
For some reason, she was fond of green.
Some of my best blokes and I were spending some quality time in Chicago this weekend (check out Shawn’s blog for more details).. Lots of laughs, lots of memories, and lots of gas. Correction; tons of gas. Most produced and executed by the Fox man.
Friday night we hit Blue Man Group and headed to Buca Di Beppo for a late night feast of Italian. It’s all family style at Buca and we ordered WAY more than we needed. Looking at the massive leftovers Shawn says “Box it up and let’s give it to a homeless person.” Sounded way better than the alternative of adding to the Chicago trash.
The bill was paid and we hailed a cab back to the hotel. Side note: it is legal to pile as many people as you can in a cab in Chi-town. One cabbies said he had carried 8 girls at one time. Can’t imagine that. There were 5 of us and it was highly challenging.
Amber Gentry has been around MCC and exchange long enough to know better. She came first as a college student and now is a part time Children’s Ministry Staffer while she works on her masters. Amber is a wonderful young lady with one glaring fault: She picked the wrong person to prank. Enter Jack Fox. Jack is one of my best friends and the Associate Pastor of Exchange. One day, Amber decides to fill Jack’s office with cups full of water. 
Actually 364 cups, 100 straws, and 4 gallons of water. She thought it was funny. I thought it suicidal. Doing something like this to Jack is like walking up to Dog the Bounty Hunter, kicking him in the groin and thinking that nothing will happen.
So Jack waits, and plots. And waits. The return prank, and beginning of the avalanche, was Thursday night. Jack was finishing his artist reception at The Coffee Ground (side note: Jack’s art is flat out groovy). Jack, myself, and Jeff Gormong instructed Amber to head down to the Terre Haute parking Garage and wait outside for Jody to show up with name tags for Blues Fest staff. Amber went, evidently not realizing that the Blues Fest was TWO DAYS AWAY. About 40 minutes of sitting in front of the parking garage, she figures something is up. Mess with Jack, you mess with his blokes. We instruct her that it is just the beginning.
For the family vacation this year, we loaded up the family truckster (metallic pea with the optional rally fun-pack) and headed to Orlando. We scraped some money we had been saving and handed it all to the mouse. Since we travel as much as we can and as cheap as we can, we look for every opportunity to save a few coins with the whole Disney experience. Sidebar: free ice water at counter service mixed with some cheap single-serve lemon aid powder packets snuck in and you can enjoy a cool cup of lemon aid. It’s all part of my mission of sticking it to the mouse.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I hate the mouse, I just don’t want to give him anymore money than I have to. Anyhow, on our third day at the parks, we headed to EPCOT and started the day. When I say “started the day,” what I should say is “deployment of operation Stick Mick.” My wife Stephanie is our travel guru and resident Disney expert. With some intense planning we watch the crowds zig and we zag. While others are standing in line, we are riding the most popular attractions for a second time; again, stickin’ it to the mouse. On with the story. On Monday, we went to EPCOT and were one of the first 500 people in line (of course). We walked thought the gates and headed to a fountain just beyond Spaceship Earth (the giant ball at EPCOT). At the fountain we were stopped by a rope as well as several employees (cast members) from Disney. An expected barrier. Cast members hold the crowds so that there is not a mad stampede to the most popular places. We strategically located ourselves at a pre-determined point at the rope for maximum zagging.