A Morning Miracle

Well, here we are! I know I haven't written in a while but it hasn't been purposeful. We have just been out of town. The places that we stayed promised wireless Internet but they didn't all deliver. Many times the connection was slower than dial-up. I tried several times to share pictures and stories about our trip but it was to no avail. A couple of times I even got the post written, yet when I hit the "publish post" button, it disappeared.

I don't yet have all of our pictures downloaded on the computer but I will try to post some of the pictures that we have. Our trip took us to Denver, Grand Junction (CO), Moab (Utah), the Grand Canyon (AZ), Mesa Verde (Colorado), Ouray (CO), Gypsum (CO), and Ogallala, Nebraska. We saw many incredible views and spent days admiring the handiwork of our Lord. I want to thank those of you that prayed for our safety and refreshment. The Lord was definitely good to us.

As enjoyable as it is to take a vacation, my girls were saying today how much they are looking forward to being with our church family tomorrow morning. Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

By the way, did you know that the Grand Canyon is on Pacific Time during the summer? Our first night at the Grand Canyon our phones had changed to Mountain Time. Karen and the girls wanted to see the sun rise over the canyon the following morning so we looked up what time the sun would make it's appearance.

5:21 a.m.

The free shuttles that run inside the park were to make their first stop at our campground at 4:30 a.m. (they run at 12-15 minute intervals). Karen decided that they would try to catch the 4:45 shuttle so that they could hitch a ride to the rim and be in place to see the sunrise shortly after 5:00 a.m.
Morning came quickly that first night. Karen awoke and saw that it was 4:45 a.m. She scrambled to get the girls up, not allowing them to brush their teeth or anything, and rushed them down to the shuttle stop. She kept telling them to hurry or they would miss the sunrise. When they made it to the shuttle stop at the entrance to our campground it was still pitch dark. In their rush the girls hadn't grabbed any jackets. They huddled together (in shorts) waiting impatiently for the shuttle to arrive and pick them up. Without the heat of the sun it is rather cold in the desert. However, fearing they would miss the shuttle (and hence the sunrise) they refused to return to the camper for warmer clothes.
In their own words,  they "waited forever". When the shuttle arrived, they scrambled on, anticipation mounting. After they were seated, the driver turned off the interior lights and all was dark. Too dark.
Karen was confused as to why there was no hint of the sun. They had woken late, they had waited for over a half an hour for the shuttle, the sun should be rising, and they weren't even to the rim of the canyon yet. It was at this moment that she looked at the clock in the front of the shuttle...
4:30

How could this be?

Pacific Time.

Our first morning at the Grand Canyon my family, excluding myself, was up at 3:45 a.m.
An hour and 36 minutes later they saw the sun peek over the rim. Yep, the Lord is always on time. He does it so often it hardly seems like a miracle. No, the miracle was that without any help or encouragement from me, my family was early!

Additional pictures...

A picture to verify the story

My nephew Jordan playing praise songs on his guitar. He played his guitar in every state they passed through during the trip!

We spent a few hours hiking along the rim. All of us wore water packs because of the dry air and the heat.

My three girls with their cousin Justine.

Praises

Wow! Did you know that Internet service and telephone service is not available everywhere? For the last several days I have wanted to give an update and share some pictures but I haven't even been able to make a call, let alone post something on the blog. Let me get you up to date...

We spent last Sunday evening in Moab (Arches National Park) after spending the morning in a little Baptist Church in Grand Junction, Colorado. The church was friendly and the sermon was a good reminder that as believers we have been granted privileges but not "rights". The promises we have from the Lord may seem like rights because he has promised them to us, yet they are still privileges. The text he used was from Luke chapter 1.

Arches National Park was beautiful. We were continually praising the Lord for his creativity...

Monday morning we headed to the Grand Canyon. I took a lot of pictures with my phone so I'll show one here...

Wednesday we drove to Mesa Verde National Park. We had a great time on the tours that we took but the road construction was horrible! Even though we camped inside the park it still took an hour and a half to drive the 15 miles to the place that we wanted to tour. This means we left the campground at 7:30 to take the 9:00 a.m. tour.

I took some pictures on the tours and I have some good pictures of the cliff dwellings but I haven't downloaded them from the phone to my computer. I hope to get that done in the next couple of days so that I can share more here. Till then...

A Smashing Success

We (Jon, Karen, Emily, Kaylin,  and Audrey) were riding in the truck today on our way across Colorado. What beautiful scenery! We remarked over and over again how thankful we are that our Lord created (or caused through the flood) mountains. We started out the morning just east of Denver and drove to Grand Junction on the western side of the state.
When we started traveling down the western slopes (Karen had her eyes closed) the girls started talking about rattlesnakes. We had watched the terrain change to a mixture of rocks and sand. As they discussed their dislike of rattlesnakes Emily remarked that if she saw one she would just smash it's head. Her sisters laughed at her but she stated again...

"Seriously, if it comes down to the snake bruising my heel or me smashing it's head, I'm gonna smash it's head. That's Biblical!"

The conversation then turned to speculation on how they would each accomplish this task if they stumbled across a snake. Emily wanted to knife one if she could but she realized the knife would have to be tied to a stick. Kaylin joined the conversation but she wasn't really into the whole "how to" part of the plan. After Audrey considered the various methods that Emily was desiring to employ, she just piped up in a very practical voice, "I'd just throw a rock on it's head".

After setting up camp in Grand Junction (and eating a quick lunch in the camper) we set off on an afternoon bike ride. The trailhead was about 5 miles from our campground so the girls took the truck with the 4 bike rack and I road my bike through the traffic and met them there. We biked for several hours along the Colorado river but none of us saw a snake. I would guess that mainly had to do with the fact that not one of us ventured off of the paved bike path. After all, talking about smashing a snake's head is a lot more fun than actually having to do it.

Let's see if I can find a picture on my phone...

Ignore the dust covers (for the camper wheels) that are on the dashboard, that's another story...

I guess they don't like posing for pictures. 93 degrees and dry, dry, dry. I would have gotten the river in the background but the sun was in the way.

See, no snakes.

4th of July Exercise

Happy 4th of July! I know that I have been preaching about the terrible direction that this country is headed, yet I have been talking about society and the culture, not our Republic. Though Christians are beginning to be persecuted for teaching (and practicing) holiness, we still live in a republic where we have the freedom to worship as we choose. Many men have given their lives to allow us this freedom, I need to remember to be thankful for that sacrifice.
A couple of weeks ago our family sat down and watched a DVD on the history of the church. The DVD was titled "A Lamp in the Dark". It was a good reminder that, as believers, we haven't always enjoyed the freedoms that we have today. Many Christians were martyred in their attempts to not only worship freely but to pass on the written word of God to others. Today we have so many copies of the Bible that we begin to take it for granted.

This evening we will be celebrating together at the home of one of our church members. I am looking forward to enjoying the freedom to fellowship and worship with our church body. We will celebrate without fear. We are not concerned about government interference, we are not concerned about other religious zealots, and we don't have to fear interruption from the civil authorities. God has been good to us but it is a good reminder not to take it for granted. As we celebrate tonight, we must remember that their are hundreds of missionaries around the world, that though they are U.S. citizens, they don't have the freedom in the countries they are ministering in to worship our Creator freely.
This thought also leads me beg each of you to continue exercising the freedoms that we have. Through constant exercise we may continue to enjoy these freedoms into the next generation. When the church doors are open, exercise your freedom to attend. When your family is together in the evening, exercise your freedom to study the Bible together. When you are in the workplace, exercise your freedom to witness! When you go out to dinner, exercise your freedom to pray. As parents, exercise your freedom to educate your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord!

One of my favorite verses...

I Timothy 4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

Yes, exercise holiness this week. We enjoy no greater freedom!!!

Pun Intended

Last Sunday was the end of our 3 week series on creation. When I started preparing the first message I never dreamed that it would take me 3 weeks to complete. However, once I started writing the sermons, I quickly realized how much ground there was to cover.

This caused me to divide up the things that I wanted to teach. The first week I preached the morning message and then combined the adult Sunday School classes into the auditorium for the second hour so that I could keep preaching. That was the most creative solution I could sea to sharing the material I had prepared.

However, even after spending two hours on the topic that first Sunday morning, it still took me two more Sunday sermons, and one Adult Bible Fellowship hour in order to finish the series. Additionally, we spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings on the doctrine of creation  at Vacation Bible School . By my count, that makes six days of creation.

This coming week Pastor Dan Herman will preaching. I know many in the church have been looking forward to hearing what he has prepared. I am excited for him to have the opportunity to preach as well. You see, after six days, my next should be a day of rest.