Living the New Life

Today is a holiday, so I slept in till 6:00.  This has been a busy week with today being no different.  I have family coming in and a long list of things at the house that need to be caught up on.

I am closing in on my goal weight so I hope that at some point in the next few days we will have a blog party!  hahaha. 

Bethany will be back from Florida and then Andrew leaves on Sunday.  It seems like we have not been together as a full family in weeks.  Life will return to normal before you know it.

I have so much to share and so little time.  I was so proud of our team tonight.  You really did show what New Life was all about.  Tomorrow is so busy…… I need another day between Thursday and Friday to get everything done.

I just want to encourage all New Lifers to come to the softball game tonight.  We are playing My Father’s House.  The game is at 8:00.  Be there!

It is great to be home this week. I am playing a lot of catch up.  I am leaving early this morning for Macon to see Steven and Melissa Bridgers.  The had a baby boy last night.  They named him Landon.  Congratulations.

I weighed in this morning and was very happy to see my weight has continued to go down.  I have now lost 48 lbs.  I am only 6.5 lbs from my goal.  I set August 1st as the deadline.  If I keep working hard, I think I can make it.

See you at the game!

I have been doing a lot of different things today.  Basically, I am playing catch up.  I have made many phone calls, studied the church budget, and made a few home visits. 

I wanted to take a few moments to talk about last week.  I have a deep heart for youth camps.  It made a huge impact on my life, and I feel that the least that I can do is to sow into the next generation as well.  I have been doing team building games for the last few years.  It normally takes a lot of time of set these up and this year was no different.  The last few years I have been blessed with a staff to help me.  I have always had some good workers, but this year I was overly blessed.  Let me be honest, I have never had such a talented, hard working, and dedicated group of people to be around.  We worked hard, but never once did they slack off.  Each one brought different gifts to the table:  Lori was simply amazing in her knowledge and skill of so many different things.  She is the mac daddy on Excel.  She designed a program during the week that we will use for years to come.  Keleigh was a delight.  She won teen talent as the vocal solo for female and didn’t even share it until the end of the week.  She had such a humble spirit that you would never guess that she has the talent of a diva.  Keleigh, Kayli, and Kristen were the hardest working teens that I have ever been blessed with. (I have to put Yuri in this group as well even though now she is married and older)  Daniel Bunce has a great worker in Kayli.  Kristen was so quiet and looked like she was 10, but she loved campers so much that she decided to room with them when she didn’t have too.  I know that this was long -but this group of workers are definitely worth the time and space.

Just in case you were wondering, I am alive.  I may be dead tired, but alive nonetheless.  It was a great week at youth camp.  I will give you more details tomorrow.  Just wanted my faithful readers to know that I have not kicked the bucket or anything.  Check back in tomorrow.

I am so glad to be back home.  I had a great week at Campmeeting but I am very excited to be home.  I can’t wait till tomorrow’s service.  I have an expectation that God is going to do something unbelievable.

I recieved my Ordained Bishops liscence this past week and I am very humbled and honored to have reached that point in ministry.  To God be the Glory. 

Thursday at lunch I had the opportunity to have a luncheon with 10 other Pastors.  I hope it was the start of something greater to come.  We need to connect with one another better.  It is the power of agreement.  We all shared and everyone had their own story of God at work.  It was lengthy, but what I should have expected that with Pastors sharing.  Special thanks to Pastor George Moxley for blessing us with your words of encouragement.

I have so much more to share, but I will end in an update on my diet.  I was very concerned about how it would go with me being away at Campmeeting.  I got up everyday at 5:30, walked two miles and watched for the most part what I ate.  I weighed in very nervously this morning and I was shocked to see that I had lost another 4 lbs.  I was blown away.  I have now lost a total of 44.5 lbs.  I am only 10 pounds away from my offical final goal.  Canaan Land is just in sight!

i have been sort of out of the loop this week.  I am borrowing a friends Internet access to blog in Tifton, GA.  I have been down here at our denominations Camp-meeting service.  I really enjoyed Tommy Bates on Monday and Tuesday night.  I guess what I was most impressed with was his flow.  Cool Stuff and way talented.

I have been diligent on my walking at 5:30 every morning even though I am away from home.  I just wish that I had my scales here.

Last night I received my Ordained Bishops ministerial license.  It was a great moment of reflection for me.  I also want to thank all of my family and church folks who showed up to support me.  You all are the best.

Lastly, I really miss my wife this week.  She is having to work so she is not here to share this time with me.  I hate it when she is not around me.  She is the greatest thing in the world and proved it once again by bringing me another fresh gallon of my sugar free tea.  She is smart, has a great personality, my best friend, and looks like a super model.  Sarah, I love you!

This has been quite an eventful week.  I have been trying to play catch up since I was gone for on vacation.  Yesterday, I recieved a huge honor for me that blew me away.  I have been invited to speak at a morning Campmeeting service for the Congregational Holiness in July.  I am very honored at the opportunity to speak to this body.  I was raised in the CH Church and in many ways it is still home.

To give a quick update on my diet, I have now lost 38.5 lbs.  This morning was a new weight low-so I am very happy with the progress made so far.  I have to leave now for a meeting of Pastors at Red Lobster—pray for me hard saints!

Yesterday was once again filled with some bad news.  The accident report was completely wrong (they had her on the interstate) so not only do we have Sarah’s pre-op, but we have to go to the Police as well.

They pushed Sarah’s surgery up to Wednesday, so keep her in prayer.

I hit a new low weight this morning on my diet.  I have now lost almost 31 lbs.

Later on this week, I am going to be publishing a few cool things.  I really think that it will be beneficial to some people.  Stay Tuned.

Saying that this has been a rough week would be an understatement.  Some of you may know that Sarah is on the state board for girls club in our denomination.  This weekend is their biggest weekend of the year.  Even though Sarah didn’t really feel like going emotionally, she went.  During the drive to the event, a taxi ran a stop sign and charged right into the drivers side of the automobile. 

We are blessed that Sarah is okay and is just a little sore.  The car (our new Honda) has extensive damage to the front drivers side of the vehicle. 

Before Sarah left, we went to Macon to hang out.  We bought her some new water ski’s, and I got a sweeper that goes behind my new lawnmower.  That’s right, I got my lawnmower yesterday.  Andrew and I rode on the mower til after 8 pm last night.  He loves it!  I will close with this;  my lawnmower has cruise control-how cool is that!