The first 48 hours

Our family has had a busy, fun, productive first 48 hours in Alaska.  

We now have an Alaskan mailing address.  

We opened an Alaskan bank account.  

Greg opened all the FedEx boxes that contained our instruments - they all arrived intact and still in tune!  

After living out of them for two weeks, we are completely unpacked from our suitcases.  

 We took a walk through the neighborhood where we are staying - at 9 PM in the bright sunshine! 

We saw Denali right above the steeple of our new church.  

We ate lunch in Anchorage with the high school missions team from Ingleside.  

 

We went by our new church - The Crossing at Birchwood - and saw the pastor and a few of the other staff.

It has been an incredible two days!  We can't wait to see what God has for us tomorrow!

Here we go!!!

Well, the day has finally come.  We have spent months praying and asking God for His guidance and wisdom.  We've spent the past couple of months preparing our hearts and our home for a cross-country move.  We've spent the last few weeks saying goodbyes - first to our church family in Macon, then to Greg's family in NC and mine in SC. And now...it's time.  Time to pack the suitcases one final time.  Print off the boarding passes.  Say our final farewells.  And step into this new adventure, this new chapter of ministry that God has called us to in Alaska.


Over the past months God has used His Word to encourage me in countless ways.  But there is one verse that He has me going back to again and again. 


Isaiah 41:10 - So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.


There is much that is uncertain in our future.  Many unknowns.  But one thing I DO know - God is faithful to His Word and His promises, and because of that we have nothing to fear!


So...here we go!!!

Hitch Up the Sled Dogs, We're Moving to...

 ALASKA

It's official.  Our family is making a move.  To Alaska.  Never really thought much about Alaska.  It's far away.  And cold.  And dark in the winter time.  Sun's always out in the summer time.  People hunt big animals like caribou and moose and dall sheep.  People fish and catch giant halibut and salmon bigger than anything we've ever seen.  But, nope, never really thought much about Alaska.  Until last summer.  We heard of a need there for a Worship Pastor in a growing church.  As we found out about this church and began to talk to the Pastor and leaders of it, we discovered this church was really working hard to impact it's community for God...in a place where the Gospel is just not as accessible as it is here in the deep south.  God was using all of this to absolutely draw us there.  Julie and I made a visit there last October and found out there was actually real possibility to a move there.  We prayed and talked and prayed and talked and prayed some more and decided we needed to make a 2nd visit - this time, with our kids.  We were really serious about it to make a 2nd visit.  After this 2nd visit back at the end of March, we've determined this is where our family should be doing ministry right now.  We are stunned.  And grateful.  And excited beyond words.  While we are excited beyond words, we are also saddened at the thought of leaving a place that has been home to us for 14+ years.  Macon, Georgia: Our kids were born here.  Many people we love live here.  It's home.  Ingleside Baptist Church: what an amazing team of staff leaders and a church committed to taking the truth of the Gospel literally around the world.  What an absolute privilege and blessing to have been on this ministry team.  We will do ministry for the rest of our lives having been impacted by our wonderful church family here.  In so many ways, because of the strength of the ministry and the team and our experiences at Ingleside, we feel God has been readying us for an assignment like this one.  So here we go.  To Alaska.  This summer.  Specifically, we will be in Chugiak, Alaska - this is 20 miles northeast of Anchorage and is just south of the Knik Arm (pronounced "ka-nick").  Denali (Mt. McKinley) is some 300 miles north but is easily seen on a clear day.  You don't step off of the plane and see igloos and polar bears, but you do see a few things you don't see around Macon:  snow and mountains and glaciers and moose walking through your back yard to name just a few.  The church we are heading to is The Crossing at Birchwood.  A great team of God-following people who are working hard and trusting God to help them to be a bright light in a dark place.  Pray that as we join them, we will be able to help them to do that very thing.  Ephesians 3:20-21.

49 Reasons to Rejoice This Easter

There are many, many, many more reasons than these, but it was good to just think about and write down the difference in our lives Easter makes.  Every one of these is an enormous truth that is worth pondering.  Do you believe this?

"...He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5

Christ is freedom from fear,
Christ bears our burden,
Christ heals our hurt,
Christ handles our hardship,
Christ descended into our depravity,
Christ dissolves our darkness,
Christ forgives our failure,
Christ walks with the weak,
Christ helps the hopeless,
Christ holds the helpless,
Christ binds up the broken,
Christ carries our concerns,
Christ is the foundation for the fallen,
Christ is riches for the ruined,
Christ rewards us with rest,
Christ preserves His people,
Christ presents us faultless to the Father,
Christ ran our race,
Christ defeated our doom,
Christ won our war,
Christ controls all creation,
Christ receives the repentant
Christ rescues the ravaged,
Christ is always aware,
Christ shelters in the storm,
Christ restores the rejected,
Christ renews the rusted-out,
Christ secures our safety,
Christ obliterates our obligation,
Christ defends the desperate,
Christ patiently pardons,
Christ's love never lets go,
Christ character is changeless,
Christ is our matchless mediator,
Christ is a limitless Lion,
Christ roars at our regrets,
Christ runs after the rebel,
Christ is compassion for the condemned,
Christ is confidence for the confused,
Christ finds the forgotten,
Christ is our future forever,
Christ saves the sinking,
Christ will one day sink Satan,
Christ conquered the Cross,
Christ devoured death,
Christ is greater than the grave,
Christ is our everything,
Christ is not dead,
Christ is Risen.

Lots More Thankful Than We Are

I will be sharing this with our family today... Why?  Because I don't want to just be glued to a cell phone, facebook, or resolve to just be an incessant blog reader :)  I am pretty certain we should turn off all the electronic gadgetry for more than just a little while and just be lots more thankful than we are.

Maybe the link below will encourage you toward a deeper level of "I'm thankful...".  It's a short read and a profound one.  Or, better yet, maybe it will encourage you toward a first-time trust in and gratitude for our God and Creator.  Contrary to all of the popular human-sufficient thinking these days that says: "We can do anything!" with our super-human ingenuity and unstoppable know-how, um...we don't make rain...

The Great Work of God: Rain

Isaiah 64:4

Treehouse Update (again)

 

Fun times working on the treehouse! Good progress... Gotta figure out how to cut the roof to fit around the tree... and time to build the ladder this week.

Oh and we plan to decorate it for Christmas. We'll work on some video of that.

Treehouse Update (it's been a while)

So the work on the treehouse has become a little bit of an obsession.  I do nothing for days and days and then I work furiously on it all at once...  Lot's of progress over this past weekend.  Take a look below...working in the dark and hoping things are level and plumb.  The kids and Julie even braved the ladder and came up for the first time today... easier coming up than going down, right guys?

Next step:  build a ladder.  You should've seen my Dad and me driving back from Home Depot with 2- 2X8s 16ft long hanging off the back of my truck by 6ft and shoved through the open back window all the way to the rear view mirror.  ...He was skeptical.  ...I said that's why there is car insurance.  We made it!

LADDER:  To prep for this, today I pulled rise and run calculations from the good ol' internet (trust but verify).  We're gonna do a ladder at 65 degrees, 8-inch rise, 3.5ish-inch run.  Never done this before.  Maybe we should consider more medical insurance?

I'm seeing lights and a Christmas tree sittin in this thing soon... with timed Trans-Siberian Orchestra music.  Look out chick fil a!