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sellhart53
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Name: Brian
Birthday: 9/4/1981
Interests: My Passion:
I love sharing the gospel to children! I know that small children can become saved because of my personal testimony and that is one reason I get so excited about AWANA. I'm thrilled that I can use my gifts in Awana by helping teach and mentor kids as well as helping them understand and memorize God's Word!!
Outside of Awana, my passion is for business. God has built finance and numbers and entrepreneurial skills in me from an early age. I currently work for the government as a financial manager. I could see myself starting my own full-time business or using my business and finance know-how for a non-profit Christian organization in some capacity.
Expertise: The Bible, anything financial (investments, budgeting, loans, retirement, stewardship), entrepreneurship, Ebay, baseball/softball, Ultimate Frisbee, Table Tennis, Alan Trammell, sportscards, AWANA youth program, Cedarville University (2003), University of Michigan Football.
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
9/22/2005
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| After a brief hiatus, the RQoTM is back. This is a basic question, but it seems that enough folks have gotten it wrong to warrant some deep thinking on the issue.
Q: What is love and how do you know you're in it?
I know there will be less of an audience since this isn't transferring over to FB, but I would appreciate it if I could get responses from a diverse spectrum of people. Please share your thoughts.
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| Time to harp on one of my pet peeves....There is absolutely no place I can go to look at the ballot I will see on election day! You would think in this day and age that it would not be difficult to have a PDF copy posted on a state or county website of every ballot that every precinct/district will see, but NO!! After visiting the Ohio website, my county's website and Google-searching for a Dayton Voter's Guide, I have to hope and pray that I've found all the issues and people I'm supposed to be knowledgeable on. On top of that, with the exception of a Dayton Voter's Guide which I assume many areas of the country don't have, forget trying to find out who the best qualified candidate is. There is no information! SO FRUSTRATING!!! Why not have an area on every state and county website where all the candidates are laid out with their website or at least their resume and an answer to a question or two relating to the office they're trying to win?
Personally, I would be fascinated to take a pole to see how people voted for their candidates and why, especially for the local elections. I hypothesize that a significant chunk don't know who they vote for when it comes to the local elections where no one is really a Democrat, Republican etc. They'll vote the incumbent or go with the person they saw the most signs for along the side of the road. What does that say about our democracy?! It's almost to the point of asking how you can blame them because there is no information out there.
After all my searching, I still walked to the ballot box and missed a race. I had no idea I would be voting for Township Trustee. So, guess what....I just didn't vote for anyone there. It's pitiful that that had to occur.
Ok, I'm done.
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| There has been so much to write about this last week or so, but when I sit down to write about all the great times and challenging times I've had this week, nothing seems interesting enough to write to an audience. 
I will say that God has been challenging me a lot lately. He's driving me to be more dedicated, more devoted to him. Just when I think I've given everything I have to God, he shows me something else. As confident as I am in my skills, in my passions, I often feel so inadequate. Inadequacy is a good place to be though. It seems that only then will God do amazing things through you.
I've been struck by God's immense mercy for the humble. Over and over and over again in Scripture, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. I've been reading in 1 and 2 Kings for my devotions lately, and I came across the most extreme example in King Ahab. After murdering an innocent man for his own greed, the Scripture says that there was "NEVER a man like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord." He behaved in the "vilest manner" and he "caused Israel to sin." Yet, when God's prophet, Elijah, confronted Ahab, he put on sackcloth and fasted and went around "meekly." And guess what God did because of his humility? He put off the punishment that was pronounced on Ahab's family until after Ahab was dead. He did this for the most vile, wicked King in Israel's history!
Lord, help me to come humbly before you. You are my everything, Father. You call me your own, and you provide abundantly for my every need. Help me to trust you with all my heart, all the time.
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| I haven't told you about a weekend of mine for quite awhile, so I think this is a good one to share!
After getting off early from work on Friday, I had a great conversation with a great friend for an hour or so. Later in the evening I headed out to the 3rd-6th grade boys Awana Overnight at the church! It is always a blast every year. The boys love it. I have fun, and I get to learn all their names with the Awana year just starting up. We ate lots of healthy food and went to bed early. Ok, we ate hot dogs and cookies, and I got back to my house @ 2:30am. For the 7th consecutive year, the clubbers did not find me during the final round of hide-n-go-seek when all the kids have to seek the leaders! I hid inside the communion table this year.
On Saturday I woke up early and left @ 9am for a 50-mile bike ride through the fall colors with a friend. It was a pretty tough ride, but wonderful to be outside. I came home just in time to buy a new (to me) mountain bike! This fellow purchased it for over $300, rode it twice on the road, then sold it to me for $150. There wasn't even any dirt on the tires. It's a pretty sweet Mongoose bike with Shimano gears, disc brakes and a serious front suspension system. Following the bike purchase I went right to watch the Michigan vs Penn State game. Lousy game, but a good time with friends. The husbands and me were watching football while the wives made some delectable food. That's hard to beat. Following the game I drove straight to a rural farm. Some other friends invited us over to watch (and partake) in cider making. What a great time!! This family makes the cider every year and they invite friends over to watch the cider being made and then allow everyone to take a half gallon home. Everyone brought a snack to share and there was a nice fire you could sit around and enjoy afterwards. Awesome day!!
Sunday was a blessed day as always. I ate lunch with friends after church at the brand new Five Guys restaurant. Came home to watch a little football then went to evening service with an emotional, God-centered testimony from one of our pastors. Everyone came over to my house after church, and we all hung out, talked, ate and watched the ALCS. Good times.
Monday kicked off a new challenge for me at work today. While I don't officially become THE supervisor for a couple weeks, we had a brand new government employee come into my group today. She comes with 30+ years of industry experience, so I need to find a good way to challenge her yet still balance needing to teach her a lot about government. She seems wonderful. Ready or not with the supervisor thing, here I come.....
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| My living room wall has endured enough scuffs, scrapes, splatters and miscellaneous other abuse that I have finally decided to paint it as an accent wall. Now...what color should I paint it? The rest of the room is a light tan. The picture frames on the wall are black and a burgandy. I'm thinking about a burgundy-ish color. What do you think??
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