Over that last year or so I have been feeling the call to preach the gospel. At first I didn’t know what to think, however over the months the call has gotten stronger. I hadn’t shared this with anyone but my wife until just recently as I wasn’t sure if it was where God was leading me and probably more importantly if I was ready to obey God’s call. Fortunately over the past couple of months God has affirmed to me the call that I doubted, and He has grown my faith and wisdom considerably.

Just Friday I made the next step in the process of Ordination or process of going in the ministry of the Church. I had a long overdue talk with our wonderful pastor at Grace Covenant Church in Grand Island. We talked about my walk with Christ, my history, our family history/testimony, the call I have had to the ministry and the process in the Presbytery. Afterward, I felt even more excited to begin this process and amazingly blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive church family.

The next step in this process is finding the right school to attend that will teach sound reformed doctrine and hopefully at the right price. However the cost I am dedicated to continue the process whether it be full time or one class at a time.

I can’t help but feel more gratitude each and everyday, as God works in my life and those around me. I can only praise God for His divine grace and mercy in saving me, a wretched sinner. God works in amazing ways in His children and throughout their lives. I see the gratitude that Paul had now more than ever going from Church persecutor to Gospel preacher to the Gentiles. I too was once a Church persecutor, and now maybe through the grace of God I’ll be half the preacher Paul was.

On Saturday August 15th we began our journey for the next 9 months with our new foreign exchange student, Samuel. We have opened up a new chapter in our lives, and have opened our door to experience a different culture. We also hope to teach our new friend a little about American culture (good & bad) as well as encourage him in his walk with Christ.

It has only been 5 full days since he joined us and we have already learned quite a bit about his culture in Nigeria. Where he has come from doesn’t give him some of the blessings that we have so we have had to teach him how to do many of the things that we do everyday and take for granted. Many of the appliances that we use on a daily basis he has never been exposed to. This in itself has been an eye opening experience. This has made me really count my blessings all the more as each day passes. So far one of the things that has been most surprising to me is how polite and obedient he has been. We were told that he would be very polite however we didn’t expect that he would be so obedient and enthusiastic about doing some of the most mundane tasks. The other day Samuel gave us a little insight as to why he is so obedient. He told us that in Nigeria it is customary that any person who is senior to you either by age or status, you must do anything they tell you to do. He told us that if a person does not obey they would likely be beaten, and nobody would say anything. He has great respect for his elders.

We have also learned that in Nigerian culture if one does not attend either a church or a mosque they are considered very evil. The rate of divorce is also low there due to the fact that many villages and churches do not allow divorce. It is also frowned upon heavily. Samuel told us this was one of the things that surprised him about America was the high divorce rate and amount of people who don’t attend a church service.

We did expect there to be surprises when we started this adventure and we have not been disappointed. We know there will continue to be surprises and challenges ahead for all of us. We are excitedly looking forward to our next week as Samuel gets into American football and the games ahead, as well as the start of the school year on next Wednesday.

Over the last several weeks my wife and I have been going through the process of applying for a foreign exchange student. My wife received an email about a program in Iowa that was short on host parents, so we tossed the idea around for a few days. I felt this would be a wonderful opportunity to minister to a teen, and perhaps to strengthen their faith and share the gospel of Jesus Christ, whether they are Christian or Muslim. The students for this program all come from either Nigeria or Tanzania, and are approximately 50% Christian and 50% Muslim.

After a week or so of examining and reading student bio’s we chose a student from Nigeria. I am keeping his identity hidden to protect his privacy. We decided on a boy student because we felt for our first year it might work out better due to the fact that we have 2 boys ourselves.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been preparing our spare bedroom for his arrival. The students are already all in the United States and have to do orientation for their stay here in America. They also get to take a trip to Washington D.C. to visit some of the historic sites from America’s history. In 3 days we will travel to Omaha to pick up our student. We are extremely excited to meet him and to start our yearlong journey. We can’t wait to teach him some American culture, watch him experience some American foods (which they have almost no exposure to). In the process we hope to learn more about his home culture as well.

All in all we hope the whole experience goes well and that our student can learn about American life in a Christian home as well as teach us about his own country and customs. If this goes well this year we just may continue to do this every year from now on.

I will be sharing some of this experience on this blog over the next year. How much I will share about our student has yet to be decided, and will be up to them.

Throughout the last week or so leading up to July 4th, I’ve been doing some serious thinking, and praying for our country, it’s leaders and it’s citizens. I think what set this off was hearing the usual sayings around this time of year; “God Bless America.” I have a small problem with what that implies. It wasn’t until the last couple of years that it really dawned on me the irony of that saying. The irony being that this country(that I dearly love) has been more blessed than any other country in the world a hundred times over; and yet we hear this message repeated every year on and around July 4th. “God Bless America!” God has blessed America greatly, and unfortunately most Americans continually turn their backs to Him when it really counts. Most of America only turns to God when they need something from Him. As Americans we pride ourselves on our independence, so much so that we feel we can be independent from the one who authored our liberty. Only when our way of life is threatened do we fall to our knees and beg for God to step in and save us. It really should be no surprise then when God turns His back upon us. We should expect this, however God is more gracious than we could possibly imagine or comprehend. He continually blesses this country while this country continually spits in His face.

Oh how I wish this weren’t true. All one has to do though is look at the American culture, and one can only infer the obvious. We are a Godless country at heart.

This is why I have been fervently praying not only for our nations leaders, but also all American citizens. We continually squander the blessing that God so graciously pours down on us. It will not be long before His grace dries up like a stream, and we are left wandering through the desert.

I encourage all who read this and agree to join with me in praying for the heart of our nation. That God would soften the hearts of American citizens, and it’s leaders to repent and turn to God. Not only on this day of our independence but on everyday that we are blessed to be called Americans.

This weekend Vanessa and I decided it was due time to start painting the upstairs rooms, which we had been planning but putting off. We did end up spending over $200 in supplies and paint combined since I did not have anything to begin with. It has also been a good 9 or 10 years since I professionally painted last so I no longer have any painting gear. We made the final decisions on our colors and took a trip to Menards to stock up. For the paint we decided to go with Dutch Boy Refresh, which is more of a Kitchen/Bathroom paint as it helps fight odors. It also is wear resistant and scrubbable. We figured this would work well in a dining room, and we decided to just go with it for the sitting room as well.

Saturday night I began prepping the room for the paint. I removed all the wall plates from any outlets or switches exposed on the wall. I took the fan blades of the fan, rather than removing the fan completely. Next I put down and taped the drop cloth over my hard wood flooring, and began taping/papering all the woodwork on the baseboards, around the doors/windows, and around the partition/built in wood hutch.

After I got about halfway around the room with the masking gun. Vanessa started in with the roller. She was anxious to get started and to see the results. I can’t say that I blame her as I was curious to see how well this paint worked. At first I wasn’t really all that fond of the paint color, and I was a bit skeptical about how it would look against our dark walnut stained woodwork in the room. As we started painting the room though it changed my mind. It makes the room almost have a warm forest feel. The light green walls and ceiling and the dark walnut woodwork, almost gives a forest feeling.

The paint looked good after the first coat however the texturing on our walls is very rough so this left some small tiny holes and small patches that needed touched up. It needed a second coat.

We let it dry overnight and we started working on the second coat on Sunday evening. we are both very satisfied with the results of the color, and with the paint, which is good because the paint was $20 a gallon. Today I took down all the tape and paper and put all the cover plates back on and put everything back together, and got the room cleaned up. Our next project is the dining room, which I will start prepping tomorrow. Hopefully we can get the first coat done tomorrow night and if needed the second coat by thursday night.

Here are a few more photos of the finished room:

The wife and I are in the middle of moving our blogs and starting a new one that we both will share to our new domain http://reformedchristianblogs.net. The plan is to merge our doctrinal/theological posts/pages to the main blog and use our personal blogs for our personal pages/posts. We’re hoping this will make the blogs overall a bit more organized. We’ve also been wanting to get our blogs on a dedicated host so we have a bit more flexibility in customization.

Please bear with us on any changes you may see on the new site over the next couple of weeks. We are still in the process of deciding which themes we like and in the process of customizing those to fit our needs, so the blogs’ looks may change a bit.

On Monday I took our oldest son Gregory (who’s almost 3 now) to Grand Island to take a train ride on a real train. As compared to the little mini train at Stolley Park which he has ridden numerous times.

Our original plan was Gregory and I would ride the train and Vanessa and Zeke would go shopping. We wanted to take Zeke with us but weren’t sure how long it would take and didn’t want him to get too fussy. As it turns out we ended up taking him anyway and took the ride as a family. This was our first train ride as a family. This was also Vanessa’s as well as the kids very first train ride.

The whole event was sponsored by Operation Lifesaver to educate people about the dangers of rail crossings. They had a small presentation before we started which was very informative. I have decided that I will be taking the kids to do this again in a few more years when they can understand it a little better, as here in Nebraska we have a lot of railroad crossings and a ton of rail traffic.

Our route started in downtown Grand Island and through a small town called Campbell and stopping in Central City about 22 miles north-east of Grand Island. The trip to Central City we went backwards and then on our return we went forward, since they don’t turn the train around.

All in all we had a good time, and will probably do this again next year.

We also happened to be riding the train with the Grand Island news crew who were doing a piece for the evening news on Operation Lifesaver. We made the news for about 30 seconds on each broadcast. Gregory made the spotlight and got a nice close up shot.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcMWdq183RE]

I have not been keeping up to date on the blog here recently, at least not since our big move into the house. I thought I’d update what has been going on in my life for those that have been checking in on a regular basis.

Just Tuesday my wife and I closed on our first house together. Which is a very good part of the reason why I have not been posting regularly here lately. I guess I didn’t realize how much there really is to do when you move into a house and start to do improvements along with the normal chaos of any other move. Now that we’ve closed on the house and are a good deal settled into the house, it’s time to slow things down a notch and relax a bit before the pace gets picked back up again.

I will be making a better attempt at making some more regular posts and try to get back into the swing again. I have been trying to do some studying on theological issues and will have more to talk about once my head clears.

Today I brought the last few items left at the apartment and did the final cleaning. I didn’t do all that much cleaning as I know they are going to take my security deposit and will pay someone to come in and clean the place anyway. I’m also not going to do them (property manager) any favors, since they wouldn’t do me any favors let alone take care of their responsibilities.

Now I am just glad that the move is over (for a few months), and I don’t have to deal with that horrible place anymore. Now I can concentrate on getting ready to move into my new house.

Yesterday we spent half the day looking at carpet for the basement of our house. We will probably get carpet in the main, family room and up the set of stiars going to and from the basement. A small strip of vinyl for the newly repaired side entry, once we decide on what kind of vinyl we want there. Hopefully there will be enough budget with HDC to carpet the second bedroom/office downstairs as well.

I am also really looking forward to going to church this weekend. Due to our emergency move, I have missed my last off-weekend to go to church. That means I haven’t been to church service in 3 weeks so I am ready to get back to my normal schedule, which is only every other week.

Over the last week or so, since our sudden move began, I’ve had a sudden realization, a wake up call. I’ve had the realization that over the last 6 months since I have been in the control room at my job that I’ve gotten way out of shape. Originally when I first started there I would walk anywhere from 3 to 7 miles a day. This I know because I would wear a pedometer to work every day to see how much I was doing. Now that I’m in the control room, I’m lucky if I walk 100 yards all day, besides the walk to and from my car.

Over the last week since I started moving all this furniture, I’ve continually found myself out of breath and tired. Also added to that is the fact that I had just quit smoking about 2 years ago and the excercise I was getting when I first started was taking off most of the weight I put on after I quit smoking. Now I’ve put that back on and few more pounds.

It’s now time for me to wake up and smell the coffee and renew my YMCA membership and get back to the gym. If not just for myself but for my kids, so I can be healthy enough to see them grow up. Not that I have any real control over how long I’ll live or anything but why add another risk factor for my health.