Whatever Takes Us Away

God can work miracles, I more than believe this to be true.

Yes, God, the One who controls the weather, even the extreme bad weather, works miracles through the bad times. Very early this morning my wife and I experienced extreme weather and God’s awesome hand.

The city sirens sounded, the power was cut, and the wind howled louder than I’ve ever heard; something horrible was about to happen. And it did. The sound of the wind rushing grew louder with each passing moment. As I ran through the house lighting candles I noticed flashing lights out the kitchen window. I looked, but with the power outage I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Upon closer inspection for our upstairs bedroom I could tell that at least one of our trees had fallen into the street, taking with it a power line. I popped my head out the door once the winds had subsided, only to look in horror as two, three, four trees in our yard had fallen prey to the weather.


Part of the tallest tree had broken from the top, taken out our 20 foot blue spruce, which had landed in the street with the power line. Another tree in the back yard fell towards, but not on the house. But the worst of them was the one directly off the back porch. By far this tree was the largest, not necessarily the tallest, but the girth of this tree is astonishing. Half of the tree had split, falling on our shed, back part of the house and on Tina’s van parked in the driveway. Here is where God’s hand of mercy and blessing were displayed for us. The shed took most of the weight of this might tree, sparing both our roof and Tina’s van. Some minor damage to the back corner of the house, the downspout and a few shingles, but nothing major. Tina’s van has one good sized dent and a few other scratches, but everything works.

My dad and I cleared everything from the shed, van and house this afternoon, but I still have much work to do with clearing the rest of the debris – I should be done clearing by this time next week!

At any rate, I thank God for keeping watch over my four kids, my wife, my house and even me. And I think I’m taking this all pretty well, and I know it’s my faith that is keeping me together; God is amazing, even in the worst of our storms.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I've been a little busy . . .

For starters I'm getting back to college! I start next week and have 18 credit hours my first semester. Thankfully everything is online, I have no where to go other than out of my bed! I've got a small bookshelf already filled with books. It's amazing how much stuff I have to read; guess it's a good thing I like to read.

Secondly, we've decided (Tina and I) to remodel the kitchen and laundry rooms in the house. All new appliances have been ordered, cabinets and counter tops will be ordered within the next couple weeks, wall colors have been chosen and we hope this all will make things a little less cluttered around the homestead. Pray for us as we begin demolition and rebuild!

We had a great Christmas, time spent with family and friends, gifts exchanged, etc. Looking forward to taking down decorations this week!

I also managed to harvest my second dear in December. There's lots more I could fill you in on, but I'll leave it at that for now.

House, school, youth group, children's church, work - I'm sure something will come up that I'll post about in the near future. Until then . . .

This Saturday night, November 3rd, our youth group is going to have a movie night and lock-in. So far we have two movies lined up, along with pizza, popcorn and other snacks to hold us over through the night. The movies we are planning on watching are Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" and "Facing the Giants". Depending on response to the first and what may take place afterwards, time permitting after the second, we may watch "The End of the Spear" - but that will largely depend on the reaction to the "Passion".

So, if you read this much at all, you may already know that I really enjoy music. It takes many forms, functions and all different kinds - most of which I truly to love and appreciate listening to. Last night was no exception. I took two of my three girls for a night out complete with a concert with BarlowGirl & Toby Mac. I love my family and I love music, what better way to spend an evening and a birthday gift. We sang, danced, praised & worshipped God with both groups. I was a little hesitant about BarlowGirl, after hearing the latest album, thinking it may not be a rock concert, but they proved that notion all wrong. Those girls have really got it going on when it comes to music! They are truly amazing (young) women for God; taking vows of purity and not dating and using the talents and gifts God gave them to share the message of Jesus - really awesome!

Likewise was Toby Mac. He's been around a while, formerly being a part of dc Talk. He and the Diverse City Band brought the house down. A real professional and a good man of God, his show lacked nothing.

I'm so glad I was able to share that with my wife and oldest daughter, who happened to turn eight yesterday! It was equally great to be able to share in fellowship with so many other believers. During both BarlowGirl and Toby Mac there was an awesome moment of Bible reading, sharing testimony and God showing up in our midst. Something I will always remember, me and my girlz, a night on the town and with God!

To the Youth Group at New Harmony UMC,

The Youth Director has challenged you to get as many young people (6th – 12th grades) to come to our Sunday evening gatherings. The challenge is to have at least 20 young people attend our gatherings for no less than four (4) weeks consecutively.

If this challenge is met I will do the following: Dye my hair black with streaks or patches of white. The current group has one week to decide whether or not to take this challenge upon themselves.

(Brittany not pictured)

Our group currently consists of 6 young people. That means at least fourteen (14) additional people have to attend four consecutive weeks, totaling 20 in all. This challenge has to be met before the end of January 2008 for the Youth Director to consider it accomplished in full.

The challenge has been issued. Will you step up to the challenge?