Finaly Made It

We moved into our trailer this last Saturday. I say moved in because we are sleeping there now but we still have about 25% of our stuff at the old house. That's the stuff that needs gone through and some of it thrown away. The trailer is beautiful it has been completely repainted from top to bottom on the inside which took forever to do but was well worth it. We now have a baby room for the little one who's coming at the end of May. We are way excited and although there is still more to do to finish up completely we LOVE our new place.

Almost There

Hey we are almost ready to move into the trailer that was given to us by the church. the city is putting in my sewer tap right now and then some painting on the inside and we are there. I want to thank all my family and friends for helping make this possible and helping do alot of the work as well. Thanks you all are great

B.U.S.Y.

I have heard that being busy mean Burdened Under Satan's Yoke I'm not sure if I agree but I know I have been "busy" lately and it has been allot harder to fit in my bible reading and prayer. I also know feeling busy makes my stress out and my personality changes from being ready and willing to help people to being ready and willing to tell people to shut up and leave me alone. Hey the truth hurts. So maybe B.U.S.Y. does actually stand for burdened under Satan yoke at least in some sense of the term. For me busy is defined as "worried I won't get everything done" and I know that worry is not having faith that God can take care of your circumstance and we are supposed to trust God and give Him our burdens. So there you have it I guess that stupid acronym is right. So whats a synonym for busy that I can use? :)

A little Rain

We got a little rain in Welch around 5 1/4 inches. So as you can imagine we had a little flash flooding to go with it. I grabbed some pics so everyone could enjoy the look around the church and around the trailer.

Blessings

Have I mentioned what a blessing it is to have a nice trailer house GIVEN to my wife and I? I was recently reflecting on the many blessings God has given me. A 1000 sq ft house for 8700 dollars four and a half years ago. Yea it needed work but WOW. We own four paid off vehicles, sure they all have over 100,000 miles but they are PAID OFF. A job to go to everyday during a downed economy. A place on the city council were I can serve him in our community more. A awesome wife, not perfect, but awesome. :) I am surrounded by loving family and friends who will help me WHENEVER I need them. Caring senior pastors who WANT to mentor and train their staff. GREAT neighbors who keep an eye on my home and kitten for me. The list could go on but I think I made my point. God really is good. My cup is more than half full it runs over.

Our new baby

My wife and I got a kitten. Yea we now have a little baby. What a pain the thing whines all the time. Is this normal? But he's really cute I will include some pics. So we get to play with him and hopefully this one won't get taken like the other one we had.

One more Step

Well I worked on my garage last weekend and got more done. I finished the framing, there was more there than I thought, and I went and stated cutting the sheet metal to length for my roof. WOW what a job. I decided to cut it will it was still screwed down to the old building I am taking it off of and there was a tar roof underneath it. So when I was running my grinder with the cutting blade on the metal it was going through and the hot blade was melting some tar and flinging it on me. OUCH. I only wore a T shirt didn't expect to get stuff slung on me. Sorry no pics of it though I was too worn out.

The Weekend is coming.

I am planning on working on my garage this weekend. It needs a few more boards framed on to it and then it needs the metal skin put on. We will see how far I get but I am excited about having a Saturday free to work on it. This will be one more step toward getting moved into the trailer that was given to us. We have gotten the gas line in but that is it so far so there are still a number of steps to go.

The Lake

We went to the lake this last weekend and hung out with my old boss from ORU. He goes out once a year and takes those who want to go from the office there, since I worked there for so many years he always invites us too. Thanks Steve. So we went out and did some tubing and I got totally sun burnt. I forgot how hard it is to sleep with a bad sunburn but I still had fun and a great time of visiting with Steve and Lisa.

A Chance to Refocus

I am enjoying having my senior pastors back. It is nice to not be the one in charge I should have some time to focus on getting moved into our new house which includes hooking up gas, electric, sewer, water, and repainting the inside. After all of that is done then we can do the pack up and move thing. YEA. I also still need to get the metal for my garage, but one thing at a time and everything in it season. In other words it will get done when it gets done and I'm not sweating the details. So a quick step back to take stock and refocus and away we go again. :)

Crazy Life

Well life has been crazy this last couple weeks. My senior pastors have gone on sabbatical (a well needed time to rest and refresh) and I and the other staff members have been holding down the fort at the church. :) We had a death of an elder of the church and there is a funeral tomorrow. Luckily I do not have to do the funeral as I was close to the deceased (my cousins grandfather). He lived a long life and God has allowed him to finally come home, I know he will be missed here but as Christians we have the promise we will see him again when it is our time to go. The Bible says there is a time to Live and a time to die, what are you doing with your time?

My new garage

I have an awesome family, my uncles came down from Kentucky and up from Arkansas to help me frame in a garage for my new house. It was good fun we had and it only took us two days yea I know but we were hanging out allot too. So anyway my family is the best who else drives 500 miles to come work for free for two days? I did not get enough pics but here are some i have.

The Hay Monster is Alive

Yes its true the Hay Monster has been resurrected. I had the wonderful opportunity (yea right) of using it last night. Dad drove and I stacked the good thing is with a hay monster is the hay bails come straight to you and you just pick them up and stack. The other good thing is dad cut the weight of the bails down from 60-80 lbs to about 40 lbs. So over all we picked up and barned about 120 bails all in all a good reminder that I am not in as good of shape as I used to be. :)

The Motorcycle is almost back

My Bike (a 1985 Honda shadow 700) has been broken down for years now. While it was broken I had a guy put a new paint job on it, of course it was done in a barn but it is awesome for the environment it was done in. My wife is great she let me spend the money to get it fixed and I found a guy who would do it for cheap. So my bike is ready and I am going to pick it up tonight. They went through the carbs, the clutch, fixed some wiring, replaced all the filters, replaced some burnt out bulbs, and changed the oil. It should be good to go for awhile now. The only problem should be planning where to drive it. :) I will try to get some pics of it on asap.

God's Blessing

I finally got in to see the dentist. They checked out my broken crown and said they would replace it for FREE. Thank God that is $600 I don't have to spend. God is good even in the middle of trials. On a side note our Acura which is our backup car has broken down again. I did have it running for a few days, ended up just being some bad connection to the battery. Now a bearing of some sort has broken on the back tire. Oh Well back to one vehicle, at least we have that God is still good and revival starts tonight.

Broke Down Car

I hate it when my car breaks down. It normally doesn't bother me to much because I have a back up but right now my back up is broke down too. Yes I know the plot thickens. I know it will be alright as someone told me today "it's only money". So there goes my garage for a few months because I broke my porcelain crown on my tooth also. YEA. I go in next week to have that checked and if it needs replaced its another $600. I know God supplies all my needs and Thank God we have a little in our savings account. So we will make it through and it will be interesting to see how it all happens.

Filling Potholes

I had a wonderful time yesterday working with the city filling potholes. No it wasn't community service like you may think, but it was service to the community. Our church has been looking at ways to help the city fill potholes since last year. At the time our proposals did not work and we hit a dead end. But recently I was appointed to a position on the city council and I talked to some of the other council members about filling potholes again. We got together and with the help of four awesome guys from Craig county detention facility we got almost half the cities potholes filled in one day. It took awhile and ended up happening a totally different way but the community outreach of filling potholes still happened. God takes some crazy detours sometimes.

Hot Tubs

I love hot tubs. I have spent many a night before I was married just hanging out talking with my buddies in a hot tub. We covered everything from God and Stars to Mickey Mouse. It was the best place to just hang out and relax. So when I saw that the hotel in Branson had a twenty person hot tub-I was in. I was good fun hangin with my wife we went early in the morning so we were the only ones there and it was little cool so we didn't stay too long, but here are some pics for your enjoyment. There was also a really cool pool area with waterfall so I will include it as well.

But I'm so little

I am constantly being reminded that God wants to use us to do his will. It may be in my personal life that he tells me to do something or a reminder in the book I am currently reading but the reminder is the same. There is always a character that thinks "God can't use me I'm too small" whether it be physical stature or position in society. Then God steps in and uses them to do something great and once again I am reminded it doesn't matter how big you are but whether or not your willing to be used.

Vacation

My wife and I went on vacation a little while back and enjoyed is immensely. She was telling me last night she is already ready to go on another one, but I think we will wait a little while. We went to Branson, Mo on our vacation and we had a blast going to Silver Dollar City while we were there. We even took the time to see the cave they had there. We enjoy doing the cave thing although that is only the second one we have been in. I thought I would share some pics of us going through the cave.

Renaissance Fair

Last weekend my wife and I went with another couple from our church to the Muskogee Renaissance Fair. We had a blast looking at the swords, the falconry, the swords, the jousting, the sword fighting, the trebuchets, the swords, the armor, the chain mail, and the swords. We ate funnel cake, turkey leg, lemonade, homemade nasty root beer, homemade nasty cream soda (if you get one bad thing from a stand don't go back again), and roasted almonds. We watched a couple of the shows and had a lot of fun. Did I mention there were swords there. Way cool swords that you could bend in half and they would pop back straight but they wanted $300-$500 for them so no sword for John. There was some other way cool weapons from that time period there also. We had a blast and enjoyed ourselves allot.

Bridge Update

I am pleased to report that the largest wall on the bridge is now complete. I will not say how long it took to complete however there were multiple interruptions like summer, winter, fall, and spring. But now we are just over one forth the way done. :-) This project is huge as it is 100% to serve our community children by saving them the walk around the creek, which eliminates two blocks of walking for them.

A row of Rose of Sharon

In an effort to catch up on my past project I took some photos of the Rose of Sharon bushes I have planted at the church. They were donated to the church and we decided they would go perfectly down the east property line. Keep in mind these bushes are only 8 to 24 inches tall, but they will grow to 8 to 10 feet tall and fill out to 5 feet if I remember right. In a couple of years they will look sweet. I put up a fence post every three bushes and ran some green line in between as a reminder not to mow over them. Any advice on how to best care for these bushes is welcome.

Hot, Hot, Hot

I love it that the rain stopped and now I can get some work done outside, but why is it so hot. It is not even to the hot part of summer yet and I am sweating a river here. I need to get back into shape and yes I know a pear is a shape but that's not what I mean. I have been working outside on the bridge. I would upload more pics but the work is slow and not much has changed since the last pics so stay tuned for new time.

New Earrings

I love teaching my nieces new tricks, I mean stuff. They are at that age were they are just so much fun and then you send them home. This is my latest instruction to my sisters middle child. "Those are not shoes they are the newest fashion of earrings. Of course to really sell it I had to model some, but it was worth it.