A Mini-Biography

As If You Care…

I was born on July 9, 1979, and things keep getting better every day.

My parents are Larry and Pam Aldrich. I mostly blame them for the way I turned out. Thanks, Mom and Dad. My mother has been in the health care profession for most of her adult life. She is a total encourager and a constant support and friend. She has a distinct vocabulary. Let's take a look:

My dad has worn many hats over his years, including fire-eater, clown, candy and tobacco salesman, computer whiz, sword-swallower and electronics repairman. Did you ever see McGyver? Well, I'll bet if you gave my dad a piece of string and a cheese wrapper he could build a working nuclear bomb.

Shawn is my little brother. He's good at everything I'm not. Sports and music come to mind as things he is awesome at. Shawn likes to play with his garage band (or basement band, actually).

I am a totally committed Christian. I had always been a pretty good kid, but in middle school I realized how lonely I was and that something was missing inside of me. So one night when I was twelve, I lay on my bed and prayed that God would forgive my sins and come into my heart. Since then He's taught me new things almost every day. God is so awesome.

I was baptized probably about a year after my conversion, after we had joined Cornerstone Church and Ministries, a very cool church family. My pastor and spiritual father is Doug Yoder, who was actually one of the people who baptized me.

I felt God's call one day in high school to work with missions and languages. I don't know how they're going to work out, but knowing God it will be really cool.

I went to Spotswood High School in Penn Laird, Virginia. I rewrote the fight song for an underground paper I did with a friend as a junior in high school. Here's the reworked version, which gives you a feel for how Spotswood felt for my first couple years there:

By senior year, however, Spotswood felt like home and I really do have lots of fond memories from there. A lot of that had to do with the awesome principal, Dr. Robert "Bob" Grimesey. A lot of it did not have to do with the assistant principal Jerry "Bear Claw". I was involved in the SCA, drama, an academic competition team and lots of other stuff. One of the neatest memories was this very innovative class I had called Research and Inquiry Into Science, taught by a guy named Bob Failes. Basically, we spent the whole year preparing awesome science fair projects and learning about effective communication. It was a very rewarding experience, and in fact I won third in the state one year and first in the state the next year in the Botany category.

I graduated in 1996, and I even got to give a speech at graduation where I thanked practically everyone I had ever met and several people I hadn't.

I enrolled and was accepted at James Madison University, right in Harrisonburg, where I am studying Modern Foreign Languages and minoring in Secondary Education.

The spring of my freshman year I did a semester abroad in Paris. Some of my favorite memories from that trip were in London and at a beautiful French town called St. Malo, which has a gorgeous beach where the shells are deep like cups. I want to live there when I retire.

When I got back from my semester abroad, I spent a year living at 75 Ott Street with three female friends of mine. It was pretty crazy all around, but some of the most interesting moments were 1) when our landlords called us in the middle of the night to demand an early morning meeting, where they told us our neighbors believed we were selling crack and 2) the day my third car burned up for no apparent reason out in front of the house. My, those were exciting times. Thank the Lord for Prozac.

I now live with a longtime friend of mine named Matt Swortzel on his parents' farm. I'm still attending JMU as well as Cornerstone Seminary, I work at Auntie Anne's Hand-rolled Soft Pretzels in the Valley Mall, and I work in DOCSide, Cornerstone Church of Rockingham's youth ministry, as well as with our Missions Task Force.

A real highlight of my week is the cell group I lead on Monday nights. Some of the most awesome guys in the world come together to pray, share and worship together.