NICKEL MINES, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Exactly six months after a tormented milk truck driver shot 10 young Amish students in Pennsylvania, killing five, then killed himself, a new school building will open Monday close to the site of the rampage.

The one-room schoolhouse in will come with a new name -- the New Hope Amish School.

"It's just another part of the closure process, I guess, and a new beginning," said Mike Hart with the Bart Township Fire Department. He met last week with members of the Amish community, a plain-living sect that often shuns modern technology.

The new school -- with more sophisticated locks and a location reachable only by a private drive -- can be seen from the site of the West Nickel Mines Amish School, which was torn down Oct. 12. Ten days earlier, milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV shot 10 girls inside the school, then committed suicide as police closed in.

Four of the five wounded girls have returned to school, but the fifth remains in what Hart called "a comatose-type condition." The 6-year-old girl is fed by a feeding tube and is not able to communicate, he said.

Hart also said Roberts' widow, Marie, and their three children have moved from their home in the village of Georgetown, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the shooting, to another community within Lancaster County.

Charles Roberts, apparently tormented by an unconfirmed memory of having molested relatives 20 years earlier, and by the 1997 death of his own infant daughter, shot and killed himself. Amish families attended his burial service.

Hart said the new school, partially made of brick, was funded by donations to the accountability committee, donations made directly to the school board, and by in-kind contributions.

Associate Press

Sanjaya Anthem

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I'm currently in both a reading drought and a blogging drought. I can't explain it.

Peter Pan: Maybe it's because I haven't had any Peter Pan Peanut butter in a long time. Since I was but a wee bairn I've been eating Peter Pan peanut butter and now...it's nowhere to be found. Jif is close but not quite.

Mailer: Here's a look at our two mailers. The Palm Sunday one is arriving at people's houses today and the Easter will arrive next week.





The boy: And now for a random picture of Nathan.

Heather and Nathan are in GA for a few days. I'm at home by myself and I know I sound like a cry baby but it's pretty tough. I'm just not being by myself for long stretches at a time.

Amazes: It amazes me almost every day when I remember that I have friends all over the world working for the same kingdom I'm working for. I thought I'd give them a little shout out in my blog and a link to their websites.

JB and Iris Hecock- they are finishing up Language school in Krasnodar, Russia and will soon be placed elsewhere in Russia most likely working with university students and/or church planting. Iris' blog is in my blog roll on the right.

Jason and Stephanie Cooper- They just moved to Rome a few months back. www.travelingcoops.com.

Frank and Kelly Alexander- Are in Malaysia with EE. www.winasia4him.com.

Homeless: Since reading Under the overpass a few weeks ago I've been prompted to open my eyes to the homeless in this area. Heather read the book to so we've even tossed around a few ideas but one major thing we decided to do is to speak with the homeless when we pass them and not avoid them like they have diseases.

Today the fellas and I were walking out of Starbucks from a planning session and this lady was riding by with a bike and towing a trailer. One of the guys said we should probably go talk to her. Well before we had a chance to respond she started yelling at us. "Where's the the Elizabeth River?" Not being a smart alek I said any direction you go. She said where's the one with the bridge that I can cross on my bike.

So I walked over and talked with her, asked her how I could help her out and tried to figure out where she was going. In a few short minutes we talked about her trip on her bike, faith and some other stuff. In the end she just seemed a little lonely and just wanted to talk for a few.

Life Groups: Tonight we started our Life Groups. Life Groups represent one more piece of our ministry/discipleship plan. Like any other part of this plan is room for any person no matter where they are on their pursuit of Christ.

We are starting with two groups and I'm excited about both of the groups. My role is interesting in these groups, I want to be a support to the facilitators but don't want to be in their way. I want these groups to be theres. Up to this point...I've been the main guy, sort of the conduit of all things The Bridge. I know by design our church will never grow this way and I have disciplined myself to not pastor this way. I don't want to pastor this way.

Heather and I have decided to not be part of a group. This will free us up for other ministry ventures that will arise in the near future and will help keep my schedule clear. I have admit that I'll miss getting to know so many new faces. I love hearing people's faith stories and I love geting to know people. So it's hard to sit this round out but necessary.

Life Groups: Tonight we started our Life Groups. Life Groups represent one more piece of our ministry/discipleship plan. Like any other part of this plan is room for any person no matter where they are on their pursuit of Christ.

We are starting with two groups and I'm excited about both of the groups. My role is interesting in these groups, I want to be a support to the facilitators but don't want to be in their way. I want these groups to be theres. Up to this point...I've been the main guy, sort of the conduit of all things The Bridge. I know by design our church will never grow this way and I have disciplined myself to not pastor this way. I don't want to pastor this way.

Heather and I have decided to not be part of a group. This will free us up for other ministry ventures that will arise in the near future and will help keep my schedule clear. I have admit that I'll miss getting to know so many new faces. I love hearing people's faith stories and I love geting to know people. So it's hard to sit this round out but necessary.

Snoop Dogg: I saw on the news today that Snoop Dogg was arrested for suspected drug use... I totally didn't see that one coming.

3 Billion: I heard on the news today that americans spend 3 billion dollars on pet care. Let's back that up and hear it again...Americans spend 3 billion dollars on pet care. Now I know pet care isn't the only thing we spend too much money on, there is so much excess like houses, cars, coffee, and food but holy crap 3 billion.

Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski. The story of two christian college guys that decided to learn what it was like to live among America's homeless. They did so for 5 months in 2003. They picked several american cities to be homeless and literally lived with no home. They had no cell phones, no debit cards, literally just living off what they earned from playing their guitars.

I knew this would be a fun read and one that I would go through quickly. It's a great story and very eye opening to me to be more interested in helping out with the homeless. The main idea is to treat them like people, give them respect and help out in appropriate ways.



Book 11 of 52

Up next is a- What Jesus demans from the world by John Piper. I'm looking forward to it and while this may be an abomination to admit...I've never read Piper before.

Google: I was first annoyed that google's homepage had been infultrated and was now covered with litter like every other search engine...but then I realized they were trying to let me customize it. So now when I hope google, which is set as my homepage I have headlines from around the world (and CNN) as well as any blogs I keep up with, thanks to google reader.

I was going to throw in a screen shot but I'm just not feeling it.

Kitten Cannon

Friday funny comes early this week.

Understanding the difficult words of Jesus by David Bivin and Roy Blizzard. I bought this book hoping to get a little scholarly on the difficult words of Jesus. My curiousity as piqued when I knew I'd be preaching on the words of Jesus and wanting to get that right as possible. This book was short (128 pages) but more like a college text book than a book I'm used to reading.

About half the book was dedicated to defending the idea that the gospels were originally written in hebrew and then into greek later. Through that the hebrew idioms were lost in translation and some of the harder to understand things in the gospels might be attributed to this.

The other half of the book was actually given to the difficult words of Jesus and the authors opinion of what they may actually mean.



This is book 10 of 52.

Second Birthday: Yesterday was Nathan's 2nd birthday so we threw him a little party. Here are a few pictures and perhaps I'll post a video when I get it edited.

Caffeine: Because I was sick a few days I wasn't drinking any coffee so of course going from 4 cups a day to 0 can bring on quite the caffeine headache. I've been wanting to stop drinking so much caffeine for a while now but didn't want to have to endure the headache. But I was so tired of having to wake up and literally not being able to think straight until I had the wonderful cup of coffee.

So I figured I'd push through and alas this morning I woke up with no caffeine headache. I have exorcised the demon! So I have a new favorite drink at the bucks. The shaken iced passion tea. Yes that sounds like a woman's drink doesn't it.

Court: While at the court house today taking care of some stuff, like getting approved to perform marriage ceremonies, the lady told me that she would get me a conceal carry permit for me. It will be legal but knowing her will make it go through faster, she even told me that my hunter's safety course will work for my training class I'm supposed to have. So watch out Virginia I'm getting my conceal and carry.

Sick: So today I'm finally starting to feel better. On monday my stomach starting hurting and it was hurting in a bad way. Then on Tuesday it started getting worse but in typical Nick fashion I kept on going thinking I was tougher. Well yesterday it became too much and I surrendered and went to bed. I slept and I slept and then I woke up to drink some sprite and then I slept some more. This morning I woke up feeling much better.

Funeral: Mom called me on monday and asked me for a favor. When momma asks you for a favor you tell momma yes, just one of those life rules. Well she told me her friends mom had just died and she was 87 years old. Would I do the graveside funeral? Reluctantly I told her yes. I planned as best I could. But knowing this woman wasn't a believer made it very hard. I was sort of angry, so many poeple live their lives void of God, they shut him out, tell him to go away but then call to him when they need him. Seems like pastors can be the most unpopular people in the world until a wedding or funeral needs to go down.

But I did it and I tried to do my best. But in all this I learned something, or rather something was reemphasized to me. As we were standing around the hole in the ground that was the final resting place for this old body I asked if there was any fond memory or story someone wanted to share. Silence. Anybody? Silence.

87 years of life and not one memory from her loved ones. It was the most depressing thing about the whole funeral. What am I living for? How will my loved ones remember me? What will they say at my funeral?

He was a man that knew what it meant to walk with God and he wanted others to know as well. He deeply loved his family and friends.

Sex God by Rob Bell. I just realized that it was probably weird having people see me holding a book titled Sex God while sipping coffee sitting in Starbucks for the past few days. Have you met Nick he's the pastor of The Bridge Church- oh you're reading Sex God...is it a self help book.



Rob Bell continues to be one of my favorite biblical teachers and while this book was much harder to follow and sort of drug at spots it was still a good read. He has such a way of digging the hebrew meaning of the original text and the purposes and deeper meaning of the scriptures. He explores the idea of our sexuality and our spiritual being connected. Rob also does a really good job making it clear that we are sexual beings, neither animals or angels. Neither ignoring sex nor giving in to our every "primal" desire.

I also likes his idea that as far as I know is original with him that we shouldn't seek to suppress our sexual desires but rather put those energies into other passions. There is no such thing as a non sexual human but not every human is having sex. It's a matter of focusing passions not castrating them.

This is book 9 of 52