Father's Day Weekend

Happy Father's Day to all you fathers.

We got to go as a family today to the "Wings Over Waukesha" airshow. Joshua has been enjoying pointing out airplanes and I also enjoy planes so we thought it would be a fun endeavor...

Joshua was able to sit inside the "Flight for Life" helicopter...

We also saw this P-51 Mustang land and park. The P-51 is one of my favorite old military aircraft so I thought it was really cool to see one up close...

They had a B-17 Bomber at the show as well. For only $400 a person you could take a ride in it! While I would have loved to take a ride we didn't think it to wise at this point in life :o) They were offering tours of the plane for $5 a person, which I would have done, but they were not doing that till afternoon...
Another shot of the B-17...

I believe this is the first airplane that Joshua has seen up close and personal. He is incredibly observative and constantly pointing out airplanes in the sky, even when they are jetliners that are REALLY high in the sky. It amazes me that he sees them and recognizes them as planes...

Here is a Blackhawk Helicopter that we were able to look inside and saw it taking off as we were heading home...

I was walking around I was thinking that I would like to spend more time at each airplane (Having a two year old keeps you moving). Elissa suggested that I could come back later, but I am realizing that life is better doing it with other people. I was very glad to be there with my family! It wouldn't have been the same without them!

Johnathon: 3 months old!

Here's a few things about Johnathon you may not know:

He has been smiling at people pretty well, as long as he is rested and fed ;o) (Takes after Dadda)

Yesterday he laughed when Elissa was cleaning out under his neck (Takes after Mamma)

He likes to sit up and is always moving (Takes after Dadda)

He likes to be with people (Takes after Mamma)

He is starting to coo (We'll leave this one alone :o)

My Ebenezers: Part III A Place to Live

12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." 13 So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. I Samuel 7:12

When Elissa and I got married we lived in a small upstairs apartment in a house in Marion. It was a nice little place to start off in, but after a year and a half of living there the owner sold the house and the new owner needed the upstairs space for their family. So Elissa and I started looking for another place to live. We soon realized that we were absolutely BLESSED to have only paid $350 a month for rent in that apartment. As were looking around we found some other places and got a place reserved for $575 a month, not including utilities. Though the place was reserved, we were not locked into the deal and I wasn't entirely satisfied so one day while I was driving down the road I prayed, "Lord, would you be so gracious as to provide another place for us for $350, and it would be really cool if it had a fire place." I remember that it wasn't in any demanding way and knowing the prices of apartments I doubted there were any places out there anyway, but I simply put the request out there.

A few days later we were spending our weekly euchre time with dear friends, when the husband out of the blue said, "I have the place for you guys. But you need to call now because I think they have some other people coming to look at it." So we called his friends and went to check out the apartment. When we walked in there was a HUGE kitchen area (I could literally touch both walls of our previous kitchen if I stretched out my arms), a HUGE living room area, a small bedroom, a bathroom and a fireplace. After looking it over the wife of the landlord said, "We were thinking $350 a month, is that too much?"

For some reason I said, "Elissa and I will talk about it and let you know." I think we got to the end of their driveway before we called them back and said, "We'll take it." Thank the Lord! Not only did the Lord graciously give us a place for $350 a month and a fireplace, but the Landlords became our friends and the wife was a grandmother figure for Joshua. We also had 80+ acres to run around on!

This is one of my Ebenezers. Just a reminder that God cares and the little details of our lives, and is able to give us much more than we ask or imagine. ( My point is NOT that he our Sugar Daddy and will answer our every desire, whim or request, just that he cares and wants to bless his children the way I want to bless my boys!)

Moses, Joshua, and Brett Farve

¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: ² "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.

I was having a conversation with a co-worker at lunch this week. I was sharing that I had recently listened to a message on Joshua 1 that was encouraging and challenging (You can hear it on iTunes. You will find it in podcasts under Telling the Truth, it is the Frontline Christianity series, General Marching orders message). Pete Briscoe was sharing that Joshua was receiving instructions from God. God says to Joshua, "Moses is dead, now you and all people cross the Jordan" Which in essence he was saying, "Joshua there is a huge leadership hole and guess who gets to lead? YOU!" Joshua took the challenge and said to the people, "We are going, get ready!"

As I was relaying this to my co-worker I couldn't come up with the words to explain the depth of despair that the Israelites might have been feeling with the loss of Moses, a man who had lead them out of slavery and interceded on their behalf time upon time upon time. As I was trying to come up with the words to express the kind of despair they may have been in to my co-worker, he came up with the words for me. He said, "It's kind of like the Packers losing Brett Farve."

...only in Wisconsin...but I suppose Jesus often told stories in the context of culture so people could understand a principle. It's quite a stretch to most of us, but in the context I guess, yeah, as losing Brett Farve is to a lot of Packer fans, so it was to the people of Israel to lose Moses.

(I admit I got a good laugh when my co-worker said this!)

My Ebenezers: Part II Miraculous Healing

12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." 13 So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. I Samuel 7:12

Along the lines of what I said in yesterdays blog, there are many times that we forget what God has done for us. It's often in those times that I have the greatest doubt, often times struggling with his very existence. Here is another story that I think of when I am in times of doubting God's existence.


When I lived in Mississippi while at College I had some friends (a husband and wife) who where attending seminary. There was a night where the wife's hand was badly burned in a cooking accident, if I remember correctly. It was burned bad enough that the skin had literally died and they needed to do a skin graft. The day before she was suppose to have the skin graft a group of people gathered around my friend and asked for God's intervention. I wasn't present for the meeting so I don't know exactly what was prayed for, but I know that when she went the next day to have the skin graft the doctor said, "Let's look at it one more time before we do the skin graft." When he did, he found the skin had regenerated and no skin graft was needed. The skin was DEAD and it had come back to life. God had intervened in a miraculous way.

This is another one of my Ebenezer's. I look back on this and am reminded that God is active and working and that he is still the God of miracles.

My Ebenezers: Part I Great Doubt, Great Existence

¹² Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far has the LORD helped us." ¹³ So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. I Samuel 7:12

Many times in the Bible the Israelites where told to set up alters as reminders of what God had done for them. It's easy to forget where God has brought us and how he has been with us and worked on our behalf. So as a reminder for myself and hopefully an encouragement for those reading this, I thought that I would share a few instances that I look back on and can say "Thus far has the LORD helped me."

I attended a Bible College. I was very unsure of what I wanted to do in life so I was excited about the opportunity to be around focused people who were preparing for ministry that I gain wisdom from and insight into life. Much to my chagrin, most the students who attended the college where like me...unsure of what to do in life so thy were attending a Bible College to get some basic classes out of the way while learning Bible and also trying to figuring out what to do in life. I'm not going to go into detail, but the moral of the whole school was pretty low and I came to the point my Sophomore or Junior year that I was miserable because I tired of, among other things, Christianity as a legalistic way of living, I was tired of trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be, I was tired of not feeling alive. The whole God thing the way I was living it out was making no practical sense in life.

One weekend in particular this came to a head. I went to lead music at a youth rally. As I stood on the stage prepping my equipment I thought, "I don't even know if God really exist, why am I doing this?" As I was thinking this one of my teammates was also making preparations for the youth rally. He was placing a sticker on the bottom of one of the chairs so that later on he could say, "Whoever is sitting on the chair with a sticker on the bottom gets a great prize!" He was walking around in the 4th or 5th row to my right looking for a chair to put the sticker on. I was ready to "quit" Christianity but out of my absolute desperation to know if God really existed I prayed, "Lord, if you are real, have my teammate but the sticker on the second chair in the second row on my left."

I don't remember how quickly it happened but pretty soon after my teammate went to the chairs on the left side, moved to the second row and plopped it right onto the bottom of the second chair. It was an answer to prayer...It was God saying, "Yeah, I exist!" When we got to the point in the rally where my teammate asked people to look under their chair I was watching the chair I had seen him put it under and it wasn't there anymore. My teammate had later moved it. I believe God had him put it under that chair because I desperately needed to know if there really was a God. In times of doubt this is one of the things I can point back to and say, "Yeah, God REALLY DOES exists. Thus far he has helped me."

This is one of my Ebenezer's.