My friends and family, today, this morning at around 9:30 am, I have to make a court appearance to help settle some discrepancies in a case brought about by my ex-wife. I believe the Guardian Ad Litem did a little too much digging and has stirred up a hornet's nest, in which was better left alone. For the last three years, my ex has been trying to get my youngest son Mike to come back and live with her. I have been telling her no, based on not wanting my son to live with her due to the abusive nature of her husband to my children as well as his own, and the size place that she lived in. I had found out that my youngest daughter was sharing a bedroom with her step-brother. I know from a run-in with Child Protective Services of Brown County that two teenagers of the opposite sex can not share the same room.

I am asking for prayer for wisdom and peace, for the right words to say. Our pastor is joining Lisa and I for support. I have this feeling I am going to need it. Thank you my friends.

Trial or Tr

So 2008 was looking to close out ok. I was still employed, my daughter Tiffany had come home for Christmas, and 2009 was looking to start of ok considering the economy and the direction it was going. December 30, I went to work at normal time, started doing what needed to be done. I was told I was to meet in a conference room at 7 am that morning and I had roughly 5 mins to get there. Something told me that this sounded good, but I was clinging to hope it wasn't going to be drastic. My friend Jim and I were just talking that morning about whether the company was going to cut more employees or start laying off employees to help make it through this rough time. Well I walk into the conference room and my friend Jim was there, along with three others. By 7:05 that morning we were told our positions were elimated and we no longer were going to be employed by them. Thank you for all that you did for us. Good Day. By 8 am we were walked out without so much as saying goodbye to any coworkers that we developed relationships with.

So 2009 has me on the unemployment line, looking for work, and kind of going crazy. Oh I still get out as I donate plasma twice a week. But it doesn't take the place of working 8 hours a day, Mon thru Fri. So it is in God's hands, and I go from there. We will see what God has planned for us. Until my next post

IN GOD WE TRUST

The joy of children!

As most know, I have 2 natural children, but also have 6 step-children. :) I love them all, and we would love to add to that number, God willing. All are doing relatively well here. The eldest is in TX with the army, God Bless her! :) The next one in line, is doing what she has always done, and we pray that she finds the right way soon. Next in line is turning 18 soon and dad is hoping to be able to have a good discussion with her soon. After that is the 14yo who is turning 15 next month. He just had a heart procedure done, so now bio mom finally said ok to him doing sports, when he has already been doing TKD for years, doesn't make sense. He is doing track this spring, and keeping up pretty good in school, for what he deals with. then comes the 13yo. She lives with mom and we only see her everyother weekend, which is a bummer as we would love to have her more. She is homeschooled there, and also if very few extra curr. activities. Next is the 12yo. He is in band, but right now is struggling so much in almost all his classes that he hasn't been able to go to his ex. curricular's because of our policy of c's or better. He says he wants to do them, but yet he doesn't think of speaking up about extra credit at school, still expecting the parents to talk to the teacher, so he is learning the hard way. He is 12 and is more than old enough to remember to do this on his own. Almost done, two to go. :) After that is the 11yo. He recently transfered to another school outside our district, which we all know is exactly what he needs. It is still a public school, but it allows the students to work ahead and be placed ahead when needed, not keeping them with their age grade, which is stupid. :( Anyway, He is taking violin, and next year wants to add percussion too, in which this summer he will need to learn drum rolls and work on Bass drum as well to be able to be in band 1 instead of beginning band. Because of his ability to read music and play piano, he doesn't need to start at the very beginning! He is also coming to the end of his third year with the Green Bay Boy's Choir. Lately, he hasn't been too sure as to wether or not he was going to continue next year, but when he was told that if he continues for a while, he could beat the family record for years set by his uncle. :) He liked that idea, so decided to stay with it. He has a tour coming in June, of WI. He is also in the Heart of Wisconsin Gem and Mineral Society, in the Stevens Point area, in which he is goign to Point this weekend with Nana, and going to make some Cabachons, which he loves doing. A cab is a slab of rock that you put into the shape you want, then you grind it away so it is flat on the bottom, but convex? on the top but can be circle, tear, square, pretty much anything, and that is usually a main design for most basic jewelery. He also has a Gem show there in Two weeks, in which he will be having two display cases there. One with special specimens from his collection, and the other will be fossils! Lastly, is the 7yo. :) He is homeschooled and skipped 1st grade! He to is in the Boys' Choir. He has been doing great lately and really pulled his music grade up because of it! He has a mini tour this weekend, in which yours truly gets to go with! They are singing at the capitol, then staying at a hotel with a water park! He is dreadfully excited! He is really hoping he can convince the director that he deserves the highest grade, and that he caan handle more songs at the concert on May 11. We will see. For school today, we have friends coming over, and for sure the youngest and I will be glueing petrified Dino poo onto info cards for the gem show in 2 weeks. :) Joy! If you keep it simple and make sure you keep the mindset of that, everything can be peaceful and yet exciting at the same time. Only when you get into a rut of routine, then there gets to be problems. Sure, routines can be fue and good, but you set in them and then they get to be like religion, not faith. Religion is just doing it out of habit or because you feel you have to do it, where if you live by faith, you are living for the understanding that you believe something will happen and it does! EX. Next week friday our house church is doing a guys night to the Green Bay Blizzards, which is also a buck night. Well Jeff is taking 3 boys. I am looking at finances, and it is like, we can't do this, but boys will be really dissapointed if they all can't go. Anyway, I commited it to prayer. Jeff really needs special guy time with his boys. Last night, out of the blue, Nana said she would pay for 2 of the ticket just so that the boys could go! God is awesome! Do things because of your heart, not your mind! Life is always an adventure if you have God!

Security

One should be able to feel safe in their own home, right? Well last night, I was not. Jeff and I went away for a wonderful weekend the next town over from Friday till Sunday afternoon. Heard nothing from the family back here in our home town, so, no news is good news, right? Well, we got home to find the garage light on. You might thing, so what? Well I turned off every possible electrical item before we left as only the cat would be home. I even turned off the surge protector for everything in the living room. I had closed all the doors possible except for the cats bathroom. I had pulled all the blinds too. After we got inside, something just didn't feel right. I went upstairs. All the doors were still closed. Went in to the boys' room. Did a look around. Lo and behold, Jeff's two boys' Tae Kwon Do uniforms were missing. So what? There was TKD testing this weekend that both boys were not being allowed to participate in, by their father, because of poor grades. Typical sports thing too, right? Bad grades, no participation, right? Well, not in their mothers eyes. She doesn't care if we tell them no because of academics. You would think a parent would be more concerned about school, right? What had happened, as soon as Jeff dropped the boys off at their mothers house, their step father asked Steven if he had a house key, which since he had his backpack with with homework in, he did. His step father then said that his sister was going to bring him back here, knowing Jeff and I were gone, and never calling to find out why they weren't able to test or even to ask if someone could bring him over to get their TKD stuff. As part of the punishment, the keys are to be taken away, as we can no longer trust the boys. When we went into Steven's backpack last night, the keys are gone. Even checked his jacket, not there. All night I could not sleep knowing that there was a good possibility that someone over in that other house has our house keys and could easily get into OUR house. What happened to trust? What happened to Security? Is this world so corrupt that we can not even be safe in our own homes, in the town you grew up in? Because of this, it seriously wants me to move away, to somewhere where that other household cannot have so much caniving control on what happens here. The police do nothing, it is considered a parental issue. Will the landlord change the locks on the house? How long do I go without sleep?

Shame, is it really a dirty word?

It can be depending on your point of view. It could be that it also goes along well with guilt as if you are doing something and you feel the presence of somebody watching you. In Psalm 139:8 states "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." Today, that was the bible verse in which I read a sermon devotion by George Morrison. He was talking about the presence of God being everywhere, with God watching everything we do. Here are some clips of the sermon devotion that I was reading about today.


"There was a certain shopkeeper who had a portrait of Frederick Robertson, that great preacher, in his back shop. Whenever he was tempted to be dishonest, he went and looked for an instant at the photograph, and then the sorry thing he wanted to do became impossible. It was not Robertson's sermons which did that, searching and beautiful though they were. It was not the memory of those flaming words which scorched and shriveled what was bestial. What gripped that man and stayed his itching hand when he was tempted was the constraining power of a presence. "

"There is an old story of a little girl who went to the attic to steal some apples stored there. On the wall hung the picture of some venerable and long-forgotten ancestor. And as she crept along the attic floor, the eyes of that old portrait seemed to follow her until in her childish fear she tore them out of the picture.
If one could only tear out eyes like that, sin would be infinitely sweet for multitudes. But there are eyes no human hand can reach; the eyes of memory and the eyes of God. And that, I take it, is what Scripture means in that text so often misinterpreted, "I will guide thee with mine eye."

Sometimes we see something and misinterpret it wrong, and hear something and do the same thing. Before we jump to conclusions, we should ask ourselves, if not God first, "Am I comprehending this right? Am I really understanding what I am seeing or hearing, or am I a confused little man? Yes you may laugh here if so desire. ......... Okay, enough laughter.

Seriously God watches us just as Satan does. If you are feeling shame and/or guilt about something then confess not only to your Heavenly Father but to a person you may have offended.

Until my next blog entry.


Psa 18:35 Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation; And thy right hand hath holden me up, And thy gentleness hath made me great.

Chapter Closed

Well, we are done with the institutional church. We let the pastor know yesterday. There is just so much stuff that shouldn't be happening that is happening there. We are supposed to be in the world but not of it. Basicall we live here, but we shouldn't be worried about material things, or speaking bad of people. That is all that is happening there. We can't keep allowing our children to see that and believe that that is ok behavior for Christians. We are going on the way of hopefully starting a house church sometime this year. I am not in a hurry, but what ever God wants, we will do. We are hoping to get some credit issues taken care of, so we can hopefully build this summer. This time we are keeping it mum from the kids so they don't get their hopes up again, like last year. Keep us in prayer. I am sure the pastor would love to see us crawling back to that church just so he can say " see, I told you it wouldn't work"

2008, Wow

What can I say, I know that God is got some amazing things planned for us this year. We will be opening up our home in the near future to meet, worship, learn, seek, and celebrate Him. God is so awesome. Am I having to give up things? Yes, but to follow the will of God is more important, and that is what is important to our family. Why would I do this? One, God has always had some aspect in my life I believe since I was a little boy. As a boy, I don't remember going to church a lot, but I do remember watching cartoons on weekends. This was before cable tv. Now cartoons were not on very long on Sunday, but one in particular was Davey and Goliath. It was about a boy name Davey and his family and their dog, Goliath. The family served God in some aspect but the show focused on lot on Davey and Goliath and the everyday adventures that they had. Now we have talking vegetables and fruits and pirates, OH MY!. I like watching them too. Especially with the kids.

Two, I believe that it was God who got me through the Persian Gulf War. I don't believe I did that on my own. Did I see battle?, No, but I did pass some scenes of remnants of us moving into Iraq and MP's guarding EPW's (Enemy Prisoners of War, we were told that a lot of them gladly gave themselves up because they knew how they would be treated by Allied Forces.). I didn't have much of God as far as learning and was really walking with him then but one thing I did have was the music of Stryper. Their songs did help my get through some of the times there.

Three, He joined my life with Lisa. Lisa and I have seen some dark days that without God as a
central part of our life and the church we belonged too, we wouldn't have made it. Our Pastor, believed in us a lot knowing that God would pull us through. I wished he wouldn't have retired but God knows what He is doing.

So now 2008 has come around. A year that will see big things happen and to allow big things to happen. So ask yourself this question, what will you allow God to do for you in 2008?