My First Half Marathon

Many of you know that I've been training for the Chicago Half Marathon. Over the last few months I have run a few 5k races in the Chicago area and have been doing as much running, biking, and strength training as possible to train for it. I was doing really well at first but then the last few weeks of training I kind of slacked off a little bit so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. The half marathon (13.1 miles) was this past Sunday in downtown Chicago. It also happened to be the rainiest weekend on record in Chicago with 10 inches of rainfall. It rained the entire race so it was somewhat miserable, but I finished and beat my goal time. I had hoped to run it in 2 hours and 10 minutes and my actual time was 2 hrs. 4 mins. and 31 secs. so I was really happy with that. Unfortunately because the weather was so bad Hannah wasn't able to get pictures so I am going to be ordering some that were taken by a company at different points along the race. I will put those up when we get them. I hope to run the Indy Mini-marathon in May and my long term goal is to train for the Chicago Marathon (26.2 miles) next October!
Randy

The End of Summer

Another update anyone?

> August 11th - 15th: The Oregon Home goes to Green Bay!

Our co-worker Sara is from Green Bay so she invited the girls to visit where she's from and her father kindly hosted us at his home. Our first stop on the trip was to the Jelly Belly Factory.

Packers pre-season game at Lambeau Field!

The following days we went to Heritage Hills. Heritage Hills is a plantation of old homes, a village of old homes really. The girls got to tour and see how they lived in the pioneer days. Then we went to the Green Bay Moose lodge for dinner that evening. The girls went around greeting and thanking the Moose memebers for all they do to keep Mooseheart running.

The next day, Wednesday, we went to Bay Beach where they had a little amusement park. I, Hannah, got sick from all the spinning rides and had to sit out the rest of the morning. Then that evening we went to a local water ski show. We ended the trip with a visit to the beach.

All in all we had a wonderful time. We ended each evening by watching the Olympics. We just had a very nice restful time relaxing and bonding with the girls and were greatful for safe travels. Oh! While Randy & I were in Green Bay we recieved the news that we are now approved drivers. So we helped our co-worker by driving home from the trip.

> August 29th - September 1st: Labor Day weekend at Lincoln, IL

We just got back from a long weekend away with the girls camping. The Illinois Moose lodges hosted a camping trip for our campus down in Lincoln. We had beautiful warm days and nice cool evenings. They had all kinds of games Saturday morning...

Water Balloon Toss

Sack Races

Balloon Walk Egg Toss

That evening we enjoyed a little karaoke and a lot of dancing.

The rest of the weekend we hung out and visited with the other homes from campus, had a camp fire and roasted some marshmallows, went to Church in Lincoln, went swimming at a lake in Clinton and just had a great time. So summer is officially over now and school has started. Now we have girls volleyball and football games to look forward to. Autumn here we come!

Some have requested photos of our quarters and house on the inside. So stay posted and we'll try to get that taken care of. Well I know this was quiet a general update. Randy tends to be better at giving detail so maybe he can post the next post. We thank you all for your continued prayers and support and look forward to catching up with all of you in the near future.

-Hannah

Update by Randy!

I guess I've been slacking on my postings on here. There is quite a bit to catch up on so this one could be a little longer than usual.
One of the things that has been consuming our time lately is running. Hannah and I are both training for races on September 14th in Chicago. I will be running the half marathon and Hannah is going to be running the 5k. We have been training with Mark and Rebekah, some friends of ours here at Mooseheart. As part of that training we have been running in some local 5k's. The area where we live is pretty active and running is huge in this area. It seems like there is a 5k in the area just about every week. It's definitely been nice to be able to be more active. It's been a lot of fun so far, but 13.1 miles is still pretty intimidating. If anyone wants to come up on that weekend to cheer us on let us know!

Mark and I proudly wearing
our t-shirts from our first 5k,
the Windmill Whirl in Batavia.

Our group grew for the Viking Sunset

5k in Geneva. A couple of girls on campus

went with us and ran the one mile fun run.

A couple of weekends ago we were able to take the Oregon Home girls to Wisconsin Dells for a weekend of camping and waterpark fun! Special thanks to the Wisconsin Moose Association who paid for Mooseheart Day at Noah's Ark, the world's largest waterpark. We had a great time and it was just another example of the extreme generosity of the Loyal Order of Moose.

We were able to go camping, visit local shops, spend a day at the waterpark, and go to a drive-in movie. I really wanted to go bungee jumping while we were there but it didn't work out, maybe next time!


Trying on some pretty cool hats at one of the shops in Wisconsin Dells.

Hanging out at Noah's Ark waterpark.

Posing before the movie starts at the drive-in.

This coming Monday we are leaving for a home trip to the Green Bay area. While in Green Bay we will be visiting several Moose lodges. The Moose members always appreciate being able to visit with the students that are supported by thier financial generosity and commitment. We will also be going to a Packers game, (Hannah wants to wear our Colts jerseys but I'm not so sure that would be a good idea), going to the beach, and touring the Jelly Belly factory as well as visiting a few other local attractions. It should be a great chance for the girls to be able to have some fun before going back to school.

Speaking of school, Mooseheart school begins on August 2oth which means that our girls who have been visiting thier guardians for the summer will be coming back soon. Some of these girls left shortly after Hannah and I started here so we haven't had a chance to get to know them real well. We are also going to be getting a new girl into the home who we haven't met at all. This will put us to full capacity with 10 girls in our home for the school year. Please keep us in your prayers as these new relationships are formed.

In one of the last posts Hannah mentioned our desire to be able to give the girls a Bible translation that they would be able to easily understand. A few weeks ago one of the girls noticed me reading my Bible and started talking to me about it. She told me that she had a
Bible but didn't really read it because she had a hard time understanding it. She brought her Bible to me for me to see and even though it was a fairly modern translation it is very difficult for our girls who have no church background at all to make sense of what they read. Our students are also on average a year behind where they should be academically so that just adds to the problem. We just found out this week that Hannah's mom has ordered The Message paraphrase bible for each of our girls and want to thank her for that!

Once all of our girls are back we hope to be able to implement a bible study of some sort once a week. We have discussed purchasing some Nooma videos to use as part of this. If anyone has ideas of video or other materials that you think would be useful for this we would love to hear your thoughts. We are also excited about receiving our clearance to be able to drive the girls soon. We have to wait for the Department of Child and Family Services to approve us but once we have that we will be able to take our girls to church off campus every once in a while. We are praying that we will receive clearance soon!

Wow, this was even longer than I thought it would be! I will try not to take such a long break between posts next time!

-Randy-

July 4th, 2008

Okay, so I'm going to make another post however this might be my last cause no one appears as interested in my posts as they do Randy's (look at the ammount of comments, I mean the lack of comments).

So a couple weeks ago Randy & I were able to make a trip up to Michigan to visit with our friends back home for the 4th. We had a great time visiting and relaxing on lake Michigan. The first day we enjoyed kicking back and hanging at the beach, floating on the lake, kayaking & flying kites... yes flying kites! OH AND SAILING!!!

That afernoon we took a dune buggy ride and finished the evening with a camp fire on the beach and repeated the day after.

We ended the trip with a nice walk around town and a dinner together. We couldn't have come up with a better way to celebrate the freedom of our country then with a fun weekend away with friends. We love you all and can't wait to see you all again.

July 7th, 2008

So what's new with the Riggs? About three weeks ago Randy & I were able to make a trip home to Indy for a suprise Anniversary party that the Riggs children have been planning for the past 6 months or so. Yes, Dale & Vicki Riggs celebrated 40 years of marriage this past month.

It was so wonderful to celebrate a marriage that has held together through keeping their lives centered on the Lord. We praise the Lord with Mom & Dad Riggs for their hard work and commitment to the Lord and their marriage. God is Good!

While we were in town we also had the pleasure of visiting with our friends from Indy, Knightstown & church. We joined our First Church group in Indy to watch an Indians game. We had such a great time catching up with everyone. We are so blessed to be surrounded by such great friends. We see God at work in each of their lives and it's so exciting to share in that with them.

We were also able to visit with Randy's old co-workers at his Hinsey-Brown boss's surprise 40th Birthday party. It was so wonderful to share with them how our ministry at Mooseheart is going. Randy checkes the obits often to see how they are doing. Although he has changed profession his heart is still with them and we pray for God's blessing on Hinsey-Brown. Happy 40th Kevin!

I admit it was difficult for me to re-adjust to life back at Mooseheart after such a great visit home. The Lord has been great to us and provided us with wonderful friends right off the bat. I just find myself home sick for our Church and Church family. I just have to keep reminding myself that this home sickness for our Church is the very reason we are here. To share with these girls what that would/could feel like. To find a love that's so great they don't know how to live without it. The love of the Lord that never fails and grace that is new every day.

Please continue to be in prayer with us that we may see every opportunity to show Gods love to these girls. That we would find a church off campus that would fill a void in their lives that they can't help but desire the Lord to be a part of their lives. Also pray that we would be able to implement more activities into the home that would image the Lord, i.e. Christian video's, bible study, prayer time.

On that note; I know some of you have been asking if there is anything the girls here are in need of that you could buy and donate. In all honesty these girls have their every need provided for. However, if you would want to help in regards to our minstry here we would like to have a bible for each girl here at the house for their use, The Message translation that is. The girls have access to Bible's but have a very difficult time understanding even the more modern translations, as they have no background to base their reading on. One of the girls just recently made this complaint to us and we would like to make something available to them that would encourage them to read. We have a total of nine girls in the home. Also we would love to start a collection of Nooma video's by Rob Bell to watch with the girls and any teen girl related devotionals or books (even fiction would be great).

-Hannah-

Update by Hannah

So I feel there is a lot to catch all of you up on. so I'll go date by date.

May 24th
Mooseheart Graduation. Oregon home had one graduate this year. Her fun personality has been missed by all and we are excited to see where her future takes her.

That afternoon our home entertained Oregon Moose members for lunch. The girls did a great job expressing their appreciation to the Moose members and all that they provide us to keep our house up and running. The Moose members presented the house with and their state flag.

This is the whole gang except for our graduate and one other girl who went home for the weekend, this particular weekend.

May 27th

We had a new addition to our house this day. Some of you may remember that we asked for prayer as our house adjusted to a new youth in the home. She put forth a good effort and we look forward to her return this fall as she is visiting with her grandmother this summer.

June 13th

RANDY'S 27th BIRTHDAY! We enjoyed a Friday night celebration with few friends at Mooseheart at the Roundhouse in Aurora, http://www.walterpaytonsroundhouse.com/ . We had a great evening having dinner, watching a stand up act and then enjoyed some live music in their outdoor garden/patio.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY!

June 14th
Batavia Moose lodge put on a fishing clinic for all the youth at Mooseheart at our lake. So we took all the girls to go fishing for the day and believe it or not ALL girls fished and caught a fish; multiple times! All the girls got to keep the fishing poles so you can trust we will make many more trips across campus to the lake so Randy can get in his man activity as he's dominated by much girly time.

Whose Role Is It?

Great posts from the last discussion. Continue with those thoughts!
I think the question of "Does Faith affect our politics?" has been answered pretty clearly and our goal will be to define exactly what that looks like for followers of Christ.
Several different topics have been mentioned and we will get to all of them eventually. Right now I would like to focus on one in particular.
Much has been mentioned about the role of government, specifically when it comes to caring for the poor and oppressed. As followers of Christ we are called to care for and love those who are seen to be "in the margins" of society. It was mentioned in one post that "we are all children of God no matter what our status, race, gender, nationality, etc." We are to follow the example of Christ in loving and caring for all people. However, when it comes to "government programs" and subsidies to help those less fortunate in society, we find that many evangelical christians would line up against these programs. Is this contrary to the bible? Another post mentioned that although we are called to care for the less fortunate the bible does not say that it needs to be provided by government. I think this point will define our discussion. We know that the early church had a practice of caring for each others needs. They sold posessions and goods and pooled their resources to give to whoever might have a need. (Acts 2:44,45) For the next two thousand years the church continued to care for those who had needs, and not until the last century did the government get involved. Is the "church" still capable of caring for those with needs or has this problem become too big? Did the government step in because needs weren't being met?
Does our biblical calling push us to support a candidate who will create larger and more effective programs to care for the poor and oppressed in our country? Or does it call us to reject government involvement and stand up as followers of Christ to support those with needs both in our country and around the world? What say you?
-Randy-