The Sommers

So before we came to Maranatha, Carolyn told me that Jason and I would just ABSOLUTELY love a family called The Sommers....and boy, was she RIGHT! We met Charlie (the dad) first, he's about 35...We played Scrabble and I beat him...which, as you know, I love to do...but he was great competition and he was beating me for a while...

But then last week, the rest of the gang arrived! The mom, Christina, and the three kids, Grace (6), Nathan (4) and Rose (2)...Here is a conversation I had with Nathan last night, after Grace told me that I was having a sleepover with her, and, Jason, that he was going to have to "sleep by himself tonight!"....hilarious!

Grace: It's time for a sleepover!!

Nathan: But don’t you want to learn about God?

Lisa: Sure. Pleeeeese tell us about God, Nathan. (I could definitely see a good story coming!)

Nathan: God died on the cross. The soldiers nailed him there. They had some spears to make sure he was dead.

Lisa: Then what happened?

Nathan: They buried him in a tomb and then he walked out!

(pause)

Nathan: I don’t know the rest of the story. Now it’s time to play!”

Grace went on to tell me that Jesus had risen from the grave...

I love this family! They are definitely hilarious...and the couple is definitely going to be a good parenting model for Jason and I (they are the calmest quietest parents I have ever seen!) and good mentors for ministry stuff (they work for a group called Navigators that does college ministry).

Fun fun fun for sure!!

Zzzzzzzipping!

Here you have my first attempt at zipping at Maranatha! You'll have to turn your computer on it's side to watch it correctly since my husband taped it sideways, but no biggie...

Being up on top of that little pole is a lot harder than it looks! It's definitely pretty freaky to climb up on the staples and trust you are connected on the bottom, and then stand on this little 2 ft X 2 ft board with a guy you trust to connect you correctly. But one of our middle school girls said she'd do it if I did it, so here I go!!!

Week One Wrapped

Well, it's been a great week. We just finished up our second full week of ministry at Maranatha and I think it went very well. In our teen program we looked at the Parable of the Lost Son from different characters in the story. We had a an awesome guest speaker named John Guest who has an amazing English accent and was a huge encouragement for the teens. The mission focus for the week was Urban Impact, which is an inner-city community outreach program for youth in Pittsburgh.

Lisa and I got a away to Grand Rapids to visit our friend Nate and his new wife Tessa who were on tour from Oregon. We went on a double date with Maranatha's Recreation Director and his finance. We went to see Nunsense, a play that one of our teen staff directed.
I got to introduce Lisa to disc golf for the first time and managed to twist my ankle pretty bad playing the most un-athletic sport known to man. And now we are relaxing on the porch enjoying the breeze and the small children playing a rousing game of hide the flip-flop/hot and cold.

This week we are preparing to teach Andy Stanley's Best Question Ever to 60 kids from Moody Bible Institute families. As we have spent time getting ready for the week we read our notes from the small group leadership retreat we did with Wildwind and realized how far God has brought us. A few years ago we weren't sure where we were headed. For a moment we thought we might go live in England but God had other plans. We still don't know where we'll end up but this experience at Maranatha has given us some amazing opportunities to sit and talk, and to dream. I am looking forward to finding out what's next.

It's been a while...blame it on Jason!

Hey all!!

I haven't posted in a while, sorry--Jason told me I was posting too much and he wanted to be the next one...but it's BEEN TOO LONG and I'm REBELLING! We just returned to Maranatha after being home for the weekend, so we're sitting at the Sweet Shop "Starbucks" drinking coffee and hanging out...

Our first week with kids is over and done with--a little overwhelming...but definitely FUN! We had about 20 kids, which is the lowest we'll have all summer. We heard from a speaker, Greg Speck, who ROCKED, studied the book of Ephesians, and got to know our teen team of six college students....Pretty cool.



We also got to know the missionaries this week, who were a young couple from New Tribes Mission...played a rousing game of Phase 10 Dice and talked a lot about our pasts,our lives, babies and futures. What a testimony this couple has--seriously rocked my world. Missions is definitely a foreign (haha!!) topic to me and so I think this summer will be a learning experience in that respect, for sure! It was just amazing what a story these people had and what a passion they had for what they wanted to do...

This really is going to be a great opportunity for Jason and I to be immersed in youth ministry every day and feel what it feels like to work in full-time ministry. We've already learned a million new games, activities, songs, and ideas for getting kids talking and interacting. We played bang-ah a million times, had a digital scavenger hunt (complete with a slide show immediately following), went into freezing cold Lake Michigan, drank Oreo slobber for a laugh,
and made a movie with slides and videos from Maranatha Teens Week Zero.

Kickoff Week was a success...and although Jason and I had to miss the end-of-the-week-festivities for my Uncle Steve's funeral, we also got to see that when we leave, things continue, and leaving the Saturday Weekly planning to the team was okay. We came back and they had competed their task and are ready for Week One! So although we hope to get into a routine now, and not have to leave suddenly again, we can trust that things get done and our team is awesome no matter what happens!


So anyway-here we are--sitting in the Sweet Shop on a Sunday afternoon, reading, writing, and drinking coffee here at Maranatha...waiting for Week One to begin in a few hours and praying that you are all doing well wherever you are...hoping that you are having as much fun as we are over here in West Michigan!!

Rock Band

We're beginning to get to know some of the staff around Maranatha and I think they like us!

At least the young ones. We (mostly Jason) has this little following of middle and high school resident kids who just seem to LOVE him! We 're not sure exactly WHY, but they joke with him, ask him to go places and just generally shower him with love. It's pretty hilarious. I'll put some pictures here of our first Rock Band Session...Jason singing Enter Sandman and the kids just eating it up! Love it!

We had our first two sessions yesterday and today. Pretty awesome! I was so nervous, and I just don't even know why...Youth Ministry basically ROCKS! It's like getting paid to hang out with kids, love them, and just pretty much act stupid.

Graduation!

Here's a small clip of Jason graduating! Our pictures of him got cut off by a man in a blue shirt--who you will see at the very end here! Grrrrr...

Our party turned out to be a blast--even though the tornado caused things to start a bit late...People still came in the rain and ate in the garage and then as things cleared up, we ended up swimming too! Yay!

On another note, I'm having a hard time with all the non-sensical order of this-here-blog...but hopefully as we get the hang of the blog world and also get into our summer routine, you will see things in more correct order--otherwise, I just couldn't handle it...

Today's drink of the day is a medium diet coke with a slice of lemon in honor of our Qdoba lunch and in hopefulness of less lunches out since afterwards we went to good ol' Meijer and bought lunch fixin's!

See ya!

A Tour of India!

Watch this video for a tour of our summer home!

I know this is really really REALLY out of order, but these are the only pictures I have so far on my computer of our time at Maranatha....
Climbing the rock wall was an evening activity for the staff and this will be something we get to do every week with our teens. I made it to the top of the medium wall, and Jason made it about half way up. One of our Teen Staff is a belayer...and he was so encouraging and helpful...plus he was really nice to his sister! We're excited to have him on our team!

So maybe this weekend I will have time to get things in order here, post pics from Jason's graduation, and also a pretty funny video of our first day here!!

We'll see!

I'm drinking the same coffee as I was yesterday...but there needs to be an extra shot of espresso in Jason's, since he stayed up really late last night writing his paper! :)

Have a great day all!

Maranatha--here we are!

So here we are at Maranatha...We don't have enough time right now to post any pictures or videos, but we'll work on that today!

We've been busy getting ready for the start of next week when kids come--learning about the camp and planning our schedule.

Our team is pretty cool...We've got Tyler and Jared, Bekah and Jess, and Meredith and Melinda who we haven't quite met yet (they come today and tomorrow!)...It's gonna be an awesome summer, but this week is very busy and a bit overwhelming...

So there you go! We'll try to post pictures later today! :)

The coffee of the day is from a machine in our new dining hall...pretty bland coffee made better with splenda and two international delights flavored creamers!

Good morning everybody!

Dancing Machine

This is really just a test, but also a hilarious video of my wife and her sister dancing at a cousin's wedding a few years ago...

Enjoy! We hope to have more fun videos in the future!

The Focus of His Love

"Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love." -Ephesians 1:4, The Message

Lisa and I sat in bed last night reading through my old Live Journal. It was very fun to go back to September of 2002 and see how things began to unfold in our relationship. I can remember how much I thought about her, talked about her, and thought about being with her. I had settled on Lisa as the focus of my love. The more I got to know her, the more I wanted to do nice things for her. I mean, I drove to Chicago every other week, and one time I even spent $5 on a Coke just so I could hang out with her.

As we grew together as a couple, my life changed. I had a shift in priorities. I was interested in things I never thought I would give a rip about. I made some sacrifices. I was doing my best to move towards love. It was a very exciting time in my life.

When I think about how much I love Lisa, and then read a verse like the one from Ephesians that I posted above, I can't help but be in awe of God. As I was riding my bike this morning, I looked around at the beauty that was surrounding me. The wind was blowing the leaves, the trees were dropping buds, and the river was pushing little sticks and twigs along and it was pretty amazing. But in spite of all the beauty of the created world, God chose us as the focus of his love. He gave us the honor of joining him to extend his love to the living things we find around us.

What makes this so amazing? The trees and the leaves can't hurt God's feelings, they can't let him down, they just do what they do. Humans on the other hand, well, we sure know how to screw things up. But he keeps loving us and he keeps his focus on us as the object of his love. When I screw up with Lisa, she still loves me, too. Looking at how my life has changed over the past few years as I have grown in my relationship with Lisa and with God, I am so thankful for the way that God uses the people around me to teach me about who he is. Being married has taught me a lot about the unconditional love that God has for us. I hope to continue to narrow my focus on God and his creations as the object of my love.

Stressed and Undercaffeinated

It's late and I'm going to sleep soon...but just wanted to welcome you to our fun new blog and say....very calmly.....

I AM STRESSED!!

6 days and counting until we leave for Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference...and a party to throw for my husband in 4...yikes!

So here, for my first visit to our blog-posting-world-of-wonderfulness, I'll take a venti coffee with three shots of espresso.....yuuuuuck! I'll take it in the morning though!

Good night! Talk to you soon!

In the beginning...

Welcome to the Kotarski Cafe! This site may very well become the internet home of Jason and Lisa Kotarski. We are an incredibly cute couple living in Flint, MI. We're about to embark on a summertime adventure to the west-side of Michigan to influence the minds and hearts of teenagers. Since, we know we'll be missing our friends and family, we wanted to be sure to keep in touch! Please feel free to leave your thoughts for us to ponder or just to keep us up-to-date with your goings on.

The name for our blog, which may be a mixture of blog and vlog, is The Kotarski Cafe. We love hanging out at coffee shops because they provide and atmosphere for friends to get together to share a sense of community and authenticity. Sometimes, authenticity goes pretty deep and other times it's just plain silly. We hope to provide both sides of that coin here.

We hope you enjoy your visit to our virtual bean-hut. Today, your baristas are serving up a skinny latte with four pumps of carmel, it's sweet without all that sugar. Come early, come thirsty, and come back soon.