Marriage

Divorce is fruit of bad roots. Most marriages begin in lust or being in love with being in love. You need to find the one you are compatible with. Unconditionally. People don't seem to understand that. Marriage is not, no matter what you believe, just a commitment to the other person. It's a commitment to God that you love that person as Christ has loved the church. That's how it was designed from the beginning. No matter what you believe. So, maybe you married the "wrong" person. When you married that person, they became the right person and now, you must be the right person for them. Marriage is work. Hard work. Not magic. Marriage is communication. Not assuming the other should know everything I'm thinking. Marriage is open and sometimes painful. No secrets. NO SECRETS. I'm referring to "normal" marriages, for lack of a better word. I understand that one must seek outside help for an abusive relationship. I understand your safety and childrens safety are of priority. But, even then, with Gods help, a marriage can be saved and flourish. It's a matter of the heart. Only God can intervene there. Every story is different. You can't just throw a blanket on it and say there's your answer. But, no matter what is in the past, you can change the future. Be open and slow to anger. Breathe. Listen. Pray for help. Ask for forgiveness. Be forgiving. You are a team. Not 50-50 but 100%-100%. All in. One more thing. Find an older mature person of the same gender as you that has a good marriage that you can go to. Someone who has beaten the typical challenges of life and marriage. One who is walking upright and true with God. Not your stupid friends at the bar. Not the ones that talk bad about their own marriages and try to give you advice. Someone you can respect and trust.

Baseball, Coffee and God

    A certain Sunday school teacher stood before his class and placed a large, empty pickle jar on a table. He then dropped a baseball into the jar and asked,"Is this jar full?" With puzzled looks on their faces, they shook their heads.
   He then dropped in a bunch of golf balls. "Now is the jar full?" The young people began to chuckle and replied,"Yes...", not knowing where their teacher was heading with this. "Are you sure?" he asked. Some changed their answer and reasoned their choices.
   As they discussed, the teacher brought out a bag of corn and poured it in the jar. The kernels filtered down into the gaps between the golf balls and some reaching the baseball. "Now is the jar full?".
  They all agreed that now the jar was full and nothing more could go into the jar. With that, the teacher then brought out a cup of ground coffee and poured it into the jar. He then gave the jar a couple taps and the coffee settled down between the corn and golf balls leaving no room at the top of the jar. Patting the coffee down so that it was even with the top of the jar, he asked,"Now is it full?"
  "YES!" they exclaimed exasperated by this nonsense.
  "You see", he explained,"if this jar is your life, you have a full life. The ground coffee is the stuff that doesn't really matter. It's like Facebook. There's stuff there that grabs your attention and occupies your time, but, it really doesn't matter in the long-run.
   "The kernels," he continued,"are the the things that do matter. Your material needs. Clothes, money, job or school. Things you should care about but shouldn't obsess about.
   "The golf balls," ignoring the comments about obsessing over clothes,"are the important things in your life. Family, relationships, your health. These things require your attention. Although, most of the time, these are the things you take for granted. When was the last time you really noticed your parents? Took out your ear buds and asked them about their day?"
   "And the baseball?" someone asked.
   "The baseball is what we take for granted the most." Pointing to the baseball in the jar, the teacher continued, "Although the baseball is a huge part of our life, we give it the least amount of attention overall. The baseball represents our relationship with God. In Matthew 6:25-33, Jesus says,   
²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?... ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." 
   "By 'seeking' Him first, all the things in your life fall into place. I'm not saying it will all be butterflies and cupcakes, but, you can have order if you start your day with seeking God first. Pray, read your Bible. Sincerely seek God"
   With that, he pulled out another jar just like the first. He then poured a cup of ground coffee in the jar. Followed by a bag of corn and the same number of golf balls as . Not all the golf balls fit in the jar and 2 or 3 fell to the table.
  "What about God?" a young man asked.
   "Exactly Jesus' point! If you aren't putting God first in your life, where does He fit in?!"

How about you? Is your life full? Are you occupied by the things that don't matter? How do you start your day? With God or coffee? 
  
  
  
  

Hmm

We are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of the closing of Magna Design, my former company. It's an odd feeling knowing that it has been almost a year that I haven't been securely employed. Sure, I did that stint at Watson in Poulsbo, but, I knew that was just temporary. More temporary than I thought as it turns out. Never the less,a blessing. That company is struggling and if I had signed on as a true employee, I would have been cut by the end of the year. Also, from what I hear from people that stayed, I would have been miserable. So, it was a good thing.

Well, what have I been doing? Getting by mostly. I've been increasing my presence around church and picking up jobs here and there. The 2 big things I'm currently working on are the Tecate trip in June and starting my own table refinishing business.

I'm getting pretty excited about the Tecate trip. The people that are going and the projects that we are planning are going to be alot of fun. We have a few first timers coming along and thats always fun to watch them through the week. It's an eye opening experience to say the least.

The table business is big because that's income! I'm hoping that it turns into something that I can bring others into and help them out. I'm getting a web site up and it's coming together nicely with the help of my bro-in-law. You can get a peek at it now at www.bornagaintables.com. Born Again Tables- giving tables a new life. I chose Born Again Tables because people make furniture personal. A table will be given to them from a grandma or someone and it takes on a life of it's own. There is a history to it that is meaningful to that person. Sometimes, the table is worn or scratched from it's journey through time and needs a little fix here or there. Reglued or sanded down and stained and finished. This is alot like people. Titus 3:4-7 says,"⁴But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, ⁶whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life." As we go through time, we get dented and scratched and beat up a little bit. But we have hope in the "rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" and "by His grace" we can start again from right where we're at. Being born again we can be refinished. Our story is the same, but, because of Gods grace, we can say," My scratches have been fixed. My dents removed and now I am a new work because Christ has removed all my damage from the past." That's a great story. This is my before and this is my after. So, like God works on us to bring out our real beauty, I work on tables to bring out their intended beauty.

Please visit the web site. Pray for our trip to Tecate, Mexico. You can donate monies for the trip. A few of the kids need help raising funds.

Tecate' 2009

This should have been done along time ago and perhaps as it was happening but, whatever, right?


I cannot tell you how many times God revealed His awesomeness to us and myself while on this trip. There are times that we may not know about until we go back next year. This year, we almost bailed on the whole trip for economic reasons and the belief that we weren't doing any good in Tecate'. But, I think it is safe to say that at least three things happened every day that can only be accredited to God. I think my big lesson was trust and listen. My philosophy, if you will, is if you want something done right, do it yourself. God was letting me know that aint so. Don't tell anybody, but, I was really nervous about this whole trip. I prayed more about this adventure than anything else. Ever. That's just dumb. The cool thing was, I was so at ease by the time we were leaving. It was like we were just going down the road to the store or something. God had this. I just had to trust and listen and do.


It was snowing when Tal, Steve, Doug and left Tal's house on April 4th. How crazy is that? As we went south, snow turned to rain then clouds then beautiful sun. Our big concern was getting to Siskous before the deer start roaming. If we hit a deer with the church van it may end in a draw.


Anyhow, we didn't make it, but, with Tal at the wheel(as he likes driving thru the Siskous) we got behind another truck and he "plowed" the path for us. He didn't hit anything. That's just the word Tal used.



So, from there to Sun Valley was uneventful and smooth sailing. To avoid morning rush in LA, we cut across Bakersfield, down thru Hesperia to I-10. I think. I was driving but Tal was navigating and I just trusted him.



That was also a blessing. To have Tal along. Tal is an "Ol Truck Driver". He knows stuff. He's been on these roads many, many times. I know enough to listen to experience. This was my first time to run point on trip like this and Tal has done it before. I was in his ear the whole 10 days.



Now we are at Al and Brendas' home in Desert Hot Springs. Hot springs... aaahh. Tal couldn't figure out why I wanted to drive straight thru and get to Al's so early. Hot springs. we sat in the jacuuziis and swam and relaxed. We had plenty of rest so that we could get an early jump Friday for whatever we would encounter in Tecate. We all slept very well that night.



Brenda's son was there, too. He's a missionary in Mongolia. At dinner I had a great time asking him questions about mission trips and relationships and experience. What I came away with was you can't put a value on relationships. Meaning, this is our 6th year going to Tecate. On the surface, it may not appear that we are doing much good. It may not appear that there is much progress or growth. But, we have developed a relationship with the Leons. We have a bond of love and trust with them. For any REAL growth to happen, you need that first. Wow, that was cool. You know whatelse was cool? He wasn't supposed to be there. He was there for his mom's birthday but they didn't think he was going to able to come. Somehow, it worked out that we were all there together. Weird



Let's go to Tecate!! We got there and hooked up with Dan Bender right away. Dan is the short term mission coordinator. From there, we went into Mexico to the church and found Pastor Leon and his wife Letti. This is a recon mission. We survey what has been done and what we need to do before we can start, yadda, yadda, yadda. I let the other guys do all that while Letti and I sat and talked. I needed to find out what's been going on down here.



This church does not appear to be growing. They have 40 -45 people every Sunday and Thursday night. It's been like that for the 6 years. It's been like that since the church started 20 years ago. But, the thing in Mexico is you go where the work is. People come and go all the time. It's unusual for a family to stay in the same location for more than 3 years.



So, even though they have a steady 40-45 people, it is a different 40-45 year after year. This is the cool part. Pay attention. Families come to the church, get saved, baptized, discipled then leave. They go to where the work is or tend to family members in other cities and, are you ready? Share the gospel and leading others to Christ! The Leons know this because as people migrate around they come to the Leons and say,"Yeah, I know so and so in Mexicali and he said I should come here because I'm a Christian and you share Jesus with him and he shared Jesus with me..." This happens all the time.



There is a family that lives behind the church. When we show up, we use their backyard for game time. Last summer, the lady came to Letti and asked why we built that roof. Letti explained the practicalities of it. The lady said "No,why do the Americanos come here and do these things for you?" Letti said, "This is how they can show you how they love you because God loves them. And that God loves you, too." That clicked in her head and she started coming and bringing her kids. They are all now believers and were baptized.



There are 2 other churches that visit the Leons' church. Our group is the only one that the locals ask,"When are they coming back?"



We were to demo the kichen and rebuild a 2 story structure in it's place. It was also supposed to rain our first day. Sunday night we prayed for no rain. Monday, no rain. "It's going to rain tomarrow" they said. We all prayed. No rain. "It will rain tomarrow for sure" we were told. We all prayed. No rain. It didn't rain until we had all the kids home and all tool put away on the very last day.



Thursday night was our big parents night. The kids were to go home and invite their parents or signifigant adult to come. The regulars and even Pastor Leon said no one would come. We all prayed. We canvassed the neighborhood and prepared for a crowd and believed. That night, 4 families that have never been there before came and continue to go to this day. Never underestimate God.



This is just my experience. I can't tell you all the things other people have shared with me. All I can say is trust, listen and do