Shawn in the Springs

My good friend Shawn Geer is in town today and until Sunday.

Shawn is a pastor in Plainfield IA, and other than that, we have little to nothing in common. Shawn, I believe, is in his late 30s. He has four children, all with his high school sweetheart Yolanda. The older ones, Jacob, Joshua, and Caleb I know better. Hannah was just a baby when I left KC.

Shawn, Yolanda, and I met when I was interviewing to be the youth pastor at Armourdale Baptist Church in KC. Yo was managing a doctor's office at KC Medical Center, and Shawn was general manager at a parts company for small planes. For two years we worked together with the youth of Armourdale. After my first year of seminary, Shawn also joined me at the seminary. And while at first he was thinking he was going to be an OT professor, he soon felt called to pastoral ministry. He took the "extended" plan at Central Baptist, and graduated in 5 or 6 years with his MDIV.

The Geers are a family that I had refrigerator rights with when I was in seminary. Which basically means that whenever I dropped by the house I could open the fridge and get whatever I wanted out of it. They were sweet that way.

I would usually drop by about one night a week, watch a movie, watch the Geers try in vain to put three toddler boys to bed at the same time, and stay up late on a Friday night chatting away. Some how we went from co-workers to good friends.

(Michele and Sean Grabbe-see a pattern in my behavior here?)

Shawn Geer is the only pastor I know who put that he knows how to tow and back up a double-tongued trailer on his pastoral resume under "other skills".

Anyway...thats just so you know who he is. He is in town at the FOCUS ON THE FAMILY PASTORS WEEKEND with the family. And since Yolanda, Shawn and I only get to see one another every year or two, it will be fun to hang out this week.