3/7/08 Update

Hey everyone, Dan here. I just wanted to stop in and update everyone as to how Vivian and I are doing…

• Vivian started student teaching in January and is now at her junior high assignment. She loves the students and the experience that she has gained and in fact has come to a realization that if she had to, she could actually teach elementary art.
• I am still working hard at Valley View Productions designing t-shirts. I love my job and the future that it holds for me.
• My launch of Truth On Cinema was very successful and after 7 reviews, I have, on average, about 30-50 viewers and about 10 subscribers. It’s been very exciting to read all of the comments on my reviews and see that people actually read it.
• I turned 28 this year and it doesn’t feel any different, though it definitely doesn’t feel as young as 27 did. 30 is getting ever-so-closer.
• Vivian and I started reading “Captivated” and “Wild At Heart” respectively, by John and Stasi Eldredge. We are very excited about reading these books together and after only a few pages in, it’s already starting to challenge us and God is really speaking to us!

Well, that’s about as much as I can remember at this point. We’re doing very well and everyday, God continually and constantly reminds us of His Love and His grace in our lives. Praise God for His Love and for loving us first….

Love you all,
The DeHart’s

 

Movie Blog News

Well, I’m sure everyone is biting their finger nails in crazy anticipation of my Exciting New Venture, and I’m proud to announce, though a few weeks late, that a name has been officially decided upon. After many drafts, many ideas, many hours of contemplation, many opinions from numerous trusted and reliable sources, and after an arousing approval from my beloved wife….(drum roll sound)

My Exciting New Venture, aka my movie review blog, will be called “Truth on Cinema.”

I am in the process of securing the rights to the name, and I will be working towards a mega launch sometime in the month of February, but from now until then, I will let you in on more and more details. I am sorry for not releasing much since the initial announcement, but trust me this time, I WILL be updating!!! It’s official now, and I’ve got some great people in my life who are excited with me and who are going to be keeping me accountable with how it’s going.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions, encouragement, opinions, accountability and general curiosity…it’s meant the world to me. This is something I truly feel I am supposed to do, for whatever reason, and I know I can’t and couldn’t have gotten this far without all of you*.

Looking to the future….

 

Suggestions for Names

Hey everyone, I am back with an update of sorts as to how my Exciting New Venture™ is going (I will now refer to it as ENV™). I have shared my idea/project with a few of my trusted advisers and have received some very positive feedback, as well as some early-on suggestions. I am really excited about what this can become, and to be honest, if the only people that jump on board my ENV™ are my trusted advisers, then that’s a success to me.

Since I am writing this and unveiling this here on my family blog, I wanted to give you the chance to be a integral part of it. I would like some suggestions for a name. Now, I know what you are thinking, how can we give suggestions when we don’t have a clue as to what IT is…well, here’s all I am going to give you:

It will be a blog combining movies, humor, wit, observations, and user-interaction. Armed with that, please leave me a comment with any name ideas you come up with. I don’t care what it is, just start sending them this way. If I like it and I use it, I may even award a prize for the winning suggestion.

So, keep checking back and I’ll be back with some more updates, including the look of the site, and maybe even a glimpse into my first post….

Thanks for your support and love!

 

Exciting Venture Ahead

• As most of you know, I love to write.
• As most of you also know, I love movies.
• As most of you know, I have opinions.
• As most of you also know, I have opinions on writing and movies.

Starting January 2008, I will begin a new online writing venture that will incorporate both my love for writing and movies. It will be a weekly-updated feature that you will want to tune into and bookmark.

I’m not going to say much more about it now, but over the next few months I will be slowly unveiling bits and pieces about it.  I am not going to reveal much about the overall content, as much as I am going to share with you my heart about this project, and why I am starting it.

Trust me, you will WANT TO STAY TUNED!!!

 

Same Kind of Different As Me

I just finished reading this remarkable book over the weekend, and as I finished it on the patio of a cabin set alone in a desolate but beautiful, natural, woodsy-ranch, I was left speechless pondering what I had just read. I’ve read a lot of “Christian-this-is-how-you-are-supposed-to-live” books throughout my journey with Christ, and I have to honestly say that this is the BEST I have ever read. The reason is ranks so high in my opinion is because it’s a true story. It’s pages after pages of heart-wrenching love, injustice, slavery, depression, joy, and the clearest picture of “living the Gospel” that I think exists today.

As a reader, you are allowed the privilege to be the “fly-on-the-wall” in the lives of 3 people living in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth area throughout the last decade. We are invited to watch from above the inner-twining of stories and adventures, all told by either Denver Moore or Ron Hall, with, at times, both of their perspectives and thoughts on situations they both experience together.

I thought I could write my thoughts on what I read, but seriously, they wouldn’t compare to what the book will actually make you feel. If it’s done anything, and if I can say anything (besides GO GET IT), it’s that I am totally not living the Gospel. We hear it all the time from pastors or high-end book writers, but seriously, I’ve never really known how to do that. I’ve never seen it modeled like I have in this book. How do you really “live out the Gospel”?

If the book gives me my answer, it’s to love. To love without boundaries or conditions or rules or expectations of being loved in return, to give of yourself 100% to the people who receive barely 1% from anyone. It’s the old cliche, “to love the unlovable.” When you drive up to the intersection and see the man carrying the sign “will work for food” or “god bless, hungry veteran,” what do you do? You glance at your locks and make sure it’s safe, right? You sternly look ahead at the light, just waiting in anxious fervor that it turns green before he comes within your peripheral vision, right? Or, are you one of those who fakes being on the cellphone? Or, while you’re walking through downtown Dallas or Fort Worth and you pass the man laying against the curb, how do you feel? Have you ever felt such love and affection for that man, an affection that resembles how you feel about your spouse, or kids? No?

…are you like them? or are they like you?

Do you think you could love someone who steals food for money or money for food, beats up people for getting too close to him, makes death threats to women and children, or cons people out of their money? He walks around with the same clothes on for years, has barely any teeth, smells like the port-a-potty that’s near the construction site, worked as a modern-day slave for nearly half his life, watched his mom burn-to-death in a shack the size of most people’s closets, can’t read or write a single word of English, was roped and dragged behind a truck when he was a teenager….

…is he the same as you? or is he different?

Check out the book and you’ll see God’s plan like you’ve never seen it before.

Update: The book title is “Same Kind of Different as Me” by Denver Moore and Ron Hall

 

My niece!!!

Here is a picture of our newest addition to the family….isn’t she gorgeous?!? Hey you, yeah, you little boy, stop oogling at her, I’ll cut your face. She’s my niece, and you can’t look at her that way.

 

Summer Update

Well, it has come to my attention that I need to update our lives for the onlookers. So, here’s the update in bulleted list style:

• Vivian will be starting up back at UNT for her LAST YEAR on the 27th of August, and she is really excited! I mean, think about it, this is her LAST YEAR of schooling. Praise the Lord!
• We are actively serving at our church, 121 Community Church, in the youth ministry. I am leading the 10th grade guys lifegroup and Vivian is leading the 11th and 12th grade girls lifegroup. It’s great to be ministering with students again.
• My sister is pregnant and about to pop with my niece, Feliciti! We are all excited and can’t wait to see her! Meanwhile, Mikah, my nephew, is 15 months old and a joy to be around. He knows me now and can almost say “Bobo.” (Bobo is my name to him)
• I am currently on Weight Watchers with my mom and have currently, as of Friday, August 17, 2007, lost 12.5 lbs!! It’s crazy to actually tell someone you’ve lost that much weight. I can really feel the difference and already, I’m fitting into some of my “pre-marriage” clothes that have long-sat in the back of my closet.

(Here is an updated, yet pre-weight watchers photo of my family)

I think that’s about it. I am still working as a t-shirt designer in Grapevine and I still love my job! God has really been speaking to me lately about what He wants for my life, and the passions and desires He has given me and how those will work out one day….long story short, there’s some exciting things to come!

 

Fasting

My wife and I are starting on our 21-day fast today. It’s essentially taken out of the book of Daniel, where Daniel refuses to eat what King Nebuchadnezzar (I had to look that name up, that’s a hard spell) commands his soldiers to eat, so he takes it upon himself to train his soldiers to only eat vegetables and water for a period of 10 days.

Our extended period of time is 21 days. We ventured out this way 2 years ago and it was a very rewarding experience, a tough one for me, but still rewarding. My body felt lighter, healthier, cleaner, and just my outlook on food was radically changed. It’s amazing how good grilled chicken with lemon sauce sounds after 21 days of leaves and fruits. My eyes were opened to so many more choices on the menu and though that’s kind of fallen by the waist side as of late, I’m hoping to revitalize that appetite in me.

There are a lot of spiritual and Biblical reasons to fast, and albeit not a lot of them are “to lose weight,” but I am excited to see what happens to my body as a result of this. I also want to spend some good disciplined time praying for our students at our church, because our fast will lead right up to summer camp. And, what better way to occupy our time, as we are denying ourselves the comforts of greasy and meaty food, than to consistently pray for the youth of our church.

I have a lot more ponderings to walk you through, things I am feeling, humorous observations, amazing wonders of God I personally experienced, etc., but I will save those for a day when I have a little more strength.

 

…disciplines those He loves.

The term “lazy days of summer” is something that I find myself constantly fighting with. Now that we are entering the summer days, I am finding myself being more and more lazy in my attitude and in my spiritual walk. My personal worship times with the Lord have been lax and just few and far between if I may be so honest. When my wife asks me to do something around the house, I usually end up doing it “half-ass” which leads to my having to finish my work….and I can continue the list pretty far, and frankly I’m sick of it. It’s affecting my spiritual walk, my health, my relationship with my wife, my service in the youth ministry, etc….and I really feel like something needs to be done.

I am really seeking the Lord’s hands in this one and am needing some help. There are a lot of options presented before me that I know will help create and concrete discipline in my life, I just need to know which one to take and run with. Maybe it’s all of them….maybe I need to just grab the bull by the balls and dedicate my life to discipline. It seems like throughout my whole life, I haven’t ever really had discipline, and I’ve seen the results and the “ripple effect” through and in my relationships.

“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.” (Proverbs 12:1)

 

For Me This Is Heaven

Continuing my active involvement in all things internet and web 2.0 related, I want to tell you all about my venture in a new startup called InnerTee. I’ve been a part of it since September of last year, and have really enjoyed being a part of the community of artists and users who contribute to InnerTee everyday.

For those on the outside who do not know what it is, it’s basically a t-shirt creating site where you can design your own shirt from artists’-submitted designs. Now, that may sound familiar (threadless, cafepress) but it’s not, it’s something totally unique! See, if you are an artist, you can create elements and send them to InnerTee for possible inclusion in a t-shirt, and if enough of your element(s) is used on a shirt that’s printed, YOU GET PAID FOR IT!

I’ve submitted numerous elements that have been widely used, and I’ve created a shirt that I wear a lot. What I really like about it is that the shirts that are created are very unique, I mean, these are elements that people have actually drawn themselves, they are personal, they are weird, they are creative…they aren’t just the typical Urban Outfitter shirt that has the giant skull overtaking the shirt with eagles wings exploding from the nostrils. You won’t find the shirts at InnerTee anywhere else, I guarantee it!

The company is located in Austin, which by the way, already makes it a cool company, and is founded by Miles Sims. I’ve really appreciated his dedication to getting InnerTee off the ground and getting the word out about it, and he’s been real instrumental in tweaking and “cutting the fat” off the site to ensure that it’s an authentic creative community.

If you’re tired of the same ole’ shirts that you get from JC Penney or Target, then PLEASE check out InnerTee. Sign up and start creating some really killer t-shirts! My name is Dan, so if you see me, drop me a line. I’m the one they call Dan.