1. The first time I preached was at the historical Massaponax Baptist Church in the fall of ‘96. This building was used as a hospital during the Civil War. Since my first sermon, I’ve preached over 200 times.
2. I love books (I own roughly 1,500)—indeed my language of love!
3. As a teenager I went through the underground pipes with flashlights at Manassas Mall in search of pipes to skateboard. None were found. Covered a considerable amount of ground, underground—and in hindsight, scary and stupid.
4. I became a follower of Jesus Christ at the age of 17 on September 20, 1992 at Bridgewater Baptist Church during my freshman year of college.
5. Contrary to the majority of Americans, I cannot stand the taste or smell of coffee. And I also dislike tea. Water is my choice of drink. Or good fresh lemonade.
6. I once hit a hole-in-one on a putt-putt golf course. (Stop snickering!) The ball flew off the course, smacking a bridge before bouncing back onto the course and into the hole. Tiger Woods would’ve been envious!
7. I’ve never played the lottery. Though I felt like I won the jackpot when Aneta said yes to my proposal! You can read about it here.
8. The first time I skipped school was with Sean Karicher in 10th grade. We drove to his house to devise our plans for the day. Suddenly I rushed to the toilet with horrendous diarrhea while throwing up at the same time. Not fun! Never again did I skip school with Sean.
9. When I was a little boy (5 or 6) I used to kiss the pretty ladies from the make-up commercials. I can still distinctively recall the tingly, shocking sensation of my lips touching the television screen. (But if you want to see real sparks fly, you ought to watch when I kiss my wife!)
10. My favorite card game is SPADES. (And I do NOT like losing!)
11. When I throw up, I’m really loud—I yell like an elephant in distress, but I can’t help it. My wife thinks it’s rather strange.
12. I love taking walks with my lovely wife. For a season we lived downtown Fredericksburg, which was such a delightful and convenient place to walk among historical landmarks.
13. I’m still trying to forgive my sister for taping over my videos of my BEST gnarly skateboarding tricks. Get this, she used it to tape MTV’s Head Banger’s Ball from the 80s. I’m still banging my head over that one. (We had some tense moments growing up!)
14. I was knocked out (with amnesia) at my last college football game against Davidson College on November 14, 1992. At the end of the game there was a bench clearing brawl. I was out there somewhere. But I don’t remember a thing.
15. My favorite candy is Reese’s Peanut Butter Big Cups!
16. While on our honeymoon in May of ’01, we spent two weeks in Oregon. As we travelled throughout the beautiful state, we arrived in Albany to discover a Christian conference in full swing. We checked into a hotel that just opened that week. The next morning as we were in the elevator, one of the conference speakers stepped into the elevator—Randy Clark. So we spent about 90 seconds, in silence, with Randy Clark on our honeymoon. But rest assure, that was NOT the highlight of our honeymoon!
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