5 Rock Ranch

So while our family was in Oregon this summer. I was a chaplain for the Boy Scouts...in case you didn't know. Cessie met a young lady who, in hearing our story about the ministry plans we have, said we had to meet a couple who where like parents to her. They just opened this ranch, through some amazing God circumstances and we just had to go a see them and share our hearts for fatherhood together. So she set it all up for us to visit the ranch during our off time one weekend.

Well getting there was going to be a challenge. You see, we had no car, and the little town of Tillamook, Oregon had only one car rental shop. The prices where good locally but you could only travel 150 miles total before they started to charge $0.35 per mile overage. So I ran a scenario of traveling to Seattle where we have family and we discovered it would cost $735 in mileage not including gas! We had low hopes of pulling this little getaway off; well, I plotted the course to McMinnville, Oregon and it was only 68 miles away, and the ranch was officially 73 miles from door to door. We took that as a God sign, since we could only travel 75 miles each way.

So I show up at the car rental place to sign everything, estimating around $125 cost to get to the ranch and back, but apparently as long as we took the car after 4pm and got it back by 8am we would not be charged for 2days. So we left on Friday and returned on Sunday only paid for 1 day of car rental and total cost with gas for the weekend was less than $75.

The Bradleys where so hospitable that they let us stay in one of their AMAZING cottages free of charge, in real beds...yeah we had been sleeping in a pop-up camper for 4 weeks at that point. They took care of all our meals, lodging, and got to do a little square-dancin' in the evening. The FOOD...don't get me started. I was reunited with an old friend, THE BLUEBERRY, I had never had naturally sweet blueberries before...shakes and IHOP don't count. We had cowboy burgers and fries and even an sundae party on a Saturday night even.

The most amazing part of the trip was just hearing the story of how 5 Rock came to be and the God moments they had experienced in stepping out on faith to affect a fatherless generation. We were truly inspired by their work, and the heart of the staffers to serve others. God has got his hand on that place.

Video Coming Soon

Aint they Cute?

The flower of my eye

Yeah that is Caleb and He caught that bass all by himself...for real he is a true fisherman!

Pretty Little Lady

Thanks for the blog advice Strickland!

Random Thought

Have you ever noticed...

During a season of rest we are looking to get busy, and in a season of busyness we are looking for rest.

Officially Domesticated!

So I just got done scolding my wife for making a mess. I warned her before I complained, that I was not sure where this was coming from but I said, "Cessie, for my sanity's sake could you please clean up after you are done with something." The moment it left my mouth, God flashed back all of the times that I left an irresponsible mess and all of the dumb ideas that failed and she had to clean up. I am not ashamed to be a stay at home dad, but I am realizing how inconsiderate I have been over that last 6 years. I hesitate to make any vows about how things will be different once I am "back to work", knowing myself that is when things come back to bite me. But I have noticed I am more aware of the neat and tidiness of my home and I hope I can do a better job of taking care of my messes in the future.

Open House

So, we really felt like God was telling us to change the price of our house 2 or 3 months ago. but, what he was asking us to change it to, was pretty steep. I hemmed and hawed over the last few months, with no action on the house...not even a sniff from a potential buyer. Well we pulled the trigger and lowered the price to a ridiculous $199,900. We got a call on it that day even before the price change was published. We can 'see the writing on the wall' and have scheduled an Open House this weekend. It feels good to be obedient and just ask for you to pray for this huge faith step to work soon.

Cool Homes

The best thing about moving is house hunting. I am a bit of a dreamer, ok lets not kid ourselves, I am a big dreamer, visionary, optimist, and all that positive outlook stuff. So when I start looking at houses they kind of fit that mold. Now, I am realistic too; I only dream slightly beyond our abilities in the realm of "possibility". So here it is a house just beyond our reach but full of potentials, even possibly a possibility, of improbable possibles...yeah you got it, it just might happen...maybe (wheeooh, my brain hurts!)

So, this is a small house 1450 sqft but it has a 2130 Barn/Man Palace plus 13 secluded acres. I am talking skeet shooting, paintball, fishing pond, horse back riding filled acres. Yup, the house is small enough to keep us outside but still livable. This would be an awesome place for the boys and men's ministry.

I am Trying Part 2

So we established that I am a self proclaimed movie buff. So it is not surprising that I got part of the question "what gives God?" answered from a movie. It has been a growing frustration that we are not where we are supposed to be, in Greenville, support raised...yada, yada, yada. Well, along come a little movie called Facing The Giants, and I know what you are thinking, "no not the sappy Christian, low budget flick. How cliche'! " But I have to say the movie was good, and I waited to watch it for that "cliche'" reason. I was afraid it was a church jargon fest, with a classic southern church feel. Honestly, it had its moments, especially when they won the big game, and they wanted to celebrate by praising God. So their best offering was to kneel and silence the room. What about celebration songs together? What about press conferences, declaring the favor of the Lord? Maybe I am not spiritual enough, or too much but I would be up, standing, praising, singing!...Whoo hoo!

Alright back to the "I am Trying part." The one line that got me was, when the old man who had been praying for revival in the school for the last 20 years came to the coach's office with a "word from the Lord." He gave the "open door" speech, very moving, and left with a short parable.

Two farmers where praying for rain during a drought. One man prayed and did nothing and the other farmer prayed and began to prepare his field to receive the rain. Which one do you think got the rain?

Well it got me thinking, I have been the one waiting and not preparing. I heard God, but have not prepared my fields. Now, I have done the minimum requirements, getting my house on the market...etc. But, I haven't been "preparing my field" by being aggressive in my prayerful preparation, creating lesson plans and family bible studies, on top of pushing in harder to raise support and finish my ministry vision, mission, purpose on the Fatherhood of God. We spent most of last year not knowing what was in store for our family, so I kept pressing in, opening all the doors God would open. Now that we have the answer, everything has slowed down.

So the question is, "Is it laziness, lack of faith, or some other personality quirk?". Maybe it is God's sovereign will working itself out, and I am over thinking the process and just need to wait on the Lord's timing. All I know is that when I ask God specifically if it is His will for us to go to Greenville, He says "I don't have to answer you anymore; I have spoken."

We are going; when and how remains to be seen.

Comments? Questions? Insights?

I'm Trying Part 1

So September 07 we get the call...God made it clear that he wants us to move to Greenville, North Carolina and partner with Discovery Church to influence the families of the town for Jesus. It was unmistakable, glorious, and an answer to prayer. Cessie and I knew that something big was about to happen, we just were not sure what. So we began making preparations to move, starting with raising support and selling our house. It started out as a whirlwind, I went to training on raising support and began that process plus the first day we put our BY OWNER sign out someone wanted to see it that weekend. To be honest we were not surprised at all, because so many times in our life we dreamed big and stepped out in faith and God came through in amazing ways. It looked as if that was the case again. Our plan was coming together and we would be out in a very conservative 3 months. Fast forward 6 months, no sold house, not enough support, and a weekly sometimes daily faith crisis, battling second guessing, depression, bickering between spouses, financial problems. What gives, God?
Post a comment, give me some fresh perspective.

Nanny Diaries

Those close to me know that I am a movie buff. I love movies and I thought that I would use this media outlet to give some perspective and insight to our movie culture. That being said I never thought that my first movie post would be a "Chick Flick" called Nanny Diaries. The movie was billed as a comedy but Cessie and I were appalled at the dark nature of the rich white folks. The most disturbing was the constant desire of the nanny to keep the kids quiet and out of the way. The crazy irony is that the mothers had no job or responsibilities except to manage their households, the women just could not find time for themselves so they hired nanny's to cook, clean, teach and love their children. The rich dad's where completely disconnected, worked too much and had mistresses on the side. It was an eye opening view into the world of the rich and it reinforces that money does not buy love.

Rating *** stars out of 5 stars

Testing Testing 1..2..3?

This is a test, only a test....so make a comment and test the test and I'll take care of the rest;)