Christmas is Rapidly Approaching!

OK, so Christmas is not really approaching that rapidly, but I am leaving pretty soon and I really have no idea whether or not I will be home at Christmas. God is still blessing us in so many ways. Last week, our vacation to Tempe was wonderful. We were able to spend almost a full week with Grandmom and Granddad and on top of that we were able to visit with all but two of our relatives down there at least twice. (Sorry Alison, you did not get to see us twice! And Jay, I really feel for you, you did not get to see us at all!) Anyway, we are very grateful for such a relaxing vacation only a few weeks before my departure to boot camp!

We are still praying about the sale of our house, we really don't know what God has in store for us there, but we know that all things work together for good for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. We trust that He will resolve the issues that we currently see in His time! Please continue to pray with us.

Now, back to the title of this post. For those of you who have frequented my blog in the past, you know that every year I have done a digital Christmas list. This year will be no exception, but I have to post it a lot earlier than usual. I did decide to put a list up for each one of us (Brenda, Emily and me) on the same site so it is easy for y'all to find. Mom and Dad, since y'all are the only people that I know for a fact have used these in the past, if you have any questions, feel free to call me. If the rest of you have questions, just lump it! Just kidding. Here is the link!

Thanks again for your continued prayers and moral support!

A Brief Vacation

Well, with only a month and 2 days remaining before I depart for boot camp, we figured it would be nice to go visit some family we haven't seen in a long time. On Saturday August 22nd we will be leaving for Tempe, AZ. We will be staying for around a week, although our departure date is not yet set in stone. We are very excited because Emily has never visited Grandmom and Granddad at their home. She will love the swimming and the puppy and the playing and probably within a day or two or arriving, she will love Gmom and Gdad too. (It takes her a while to warm up to people) Anyway, we hope to see a bunch of you Arizona folks while we're down there. We are expecting a fairly relaxing time hanging out and are very grateful to be able to do this before I leave. We love y'all and look forward to seeing you soon!

Philippians 4:6&7

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:6-7 NASB)

Wow! God is truly amazing! This verse has been proven so true to me over the last few weeks. In the midst of struggles that seemed as though they should have weighed me down very heavily, I felt strangely at peace with the situation. That peace truly surpassed my understanding! I am usually quite stressed out by things not half as big. Thank the Lord for His overpowering peace!

Yesterday I went down to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) and endured the longest day I have had in a long time. Throughout the day, many of the prayers that I have asked you all to pray were answered. First of all, I did well on the ASVAB. (this was a huge relief) Secondly, I passed the physical. I had never had a physical prior to yesterday, so I was worried about it. Thirdly, I had been very worried about the lack of available Navy jobs due largely to the current economy. I had heard a rumor that the next available job was to start 9 months from now. Not having a job right now, this would have been very hard on our family. There are many details to this story, but in an effort to keep this post somewhat short, I will leave it at this. After being told by the job counselor that there would be nothing available prior to May of 2010, she made a phone call and God provided a job that I would enjoy starting September 22nd, 2009! I will be leaving for boot camp on this date. God provided everything that we needed and more, He is truly awesome!

There are still some concerns for us, selling the house being the most bothersome, but we know He can do anything and He will be there for us no matter what He chooses to do. Continue to pray for us, but give thanks that God is an awesome God!!!!!

Some Promising News

Well, I heard from the recruiter today. It looks like I will be going down to Sacramento on Sunday evening and spending the night in a hotel before taking the ASVAB, having a physical and hopefully choosing a job on Monday. Apparently all of the new jobs are likely to post on Monday, so hopefully that will be a benefit if the time comes for me to choose a job. I ask for your prayers. If I am accepted after the tests, I will be able to choose a job from the list. Please pray that there will be a job on the list that fits with my desired field, computer networking. If not, pray that I will know which job to pick.

As we know, the Lord's will will be done and we pray on top of these other requests, that we will be accepting of whatever He has for us.

No News Yet

Well, God is teaching me patience! Why does learning patience have to take so LONG???? I have talked to the recruiter two more times since my last post. The first time, we learned nothing at all, the second time I just filled out a bunch of statements regarding my traffic tickets. Now we simply await a call from the recruiter who is waiting on a call from Sacramento. If he calls, I may go down to Sacramento this week, if not, I guess we continue to wait. I talked to Grand-dad today and he reminded me that sometimes God uses us while we wait. What he meant was that God may not give us a definitive decision soon, if he doesn't, we must remain faithful to Him and remember that no matter what, God's will is what we want!!!!

Well, we obviously need your prayers as we WAIT. We will keep you updated with any new developments (or the lack thereof). Thanks again for your support and prayers!

Well, the time has come to update once again!

Big Changes in "The Life of Me"

Well, when you don't post for a while it is hard to know where to start. To forewarn you, this is likely to be a lengthy post as I have a lot to talk about. While I would consider it worth the read, I will try to highlight the important sections for all you skimmers!

Old News:

We have decided to try to sell our house and join the Navy.

About 4 or 5 months ago, Brenda and I had been talking and praying quite a bit about what we should do with our lives. After all the praying, we came to the conclusion that God was leading us to try to sell our house and join the military. Our reasons were many, including: Getting money for college, getting into a larger house eventually to expand our family, having a job that I would enjoy more than Wal-Mart, and eventually getting out of the military, completing my education and getting a computer networking job that I would make my career.

More, Not as Old News

We are leaving Cloverdale Community Church.

Last October, Brenda and I came to the conclusion that it was time for me to resign as a deacon at our church, we felt stressed out and were no longer excited about church. We thought a little bit about leaving the church at that time, but decided that we should stick it out for a while and see if my being off the deacon board would help our attitudes at all. I resigned from the board and things felt a little easier for me, but we still didn't really feel like this was where God wanted us. About mid-May, Brenda told me that she still felt like we should leave Cloverdale, I had been having the same feelings so we prayed about it a lot more and, once again, felt God's leading. We made the decision to leave the church and then, after much prayer, came up with what we felt was the best way to go about doing that. We chose to talk to all the church leaders prior to planning any announcement from the pulpit (The announcement seemed appropriate to us because I had been leading music for about 3 years). After talking to the church leadership, I made my announcement to the congregation in early June and stated that my last Sunday would be July 5th. The announcement was very well received and our pastor, Dave, stood up after my spill and said some very nice things. Throughout the process we felt God's leading and are so grateful that He made it so easy on us.



More Recent Old News

The sale of our house is looking promising

As you are all aware, this is the worst time to sell a house. We were fully aware of that when we made our decision to let God sell it if it was His will, but we did begin to struggle after nearly 4 months with no offers. Then, out of the blue, our realtor called us and told us some interesting news. Our house was purchased with a Downpayment Assistance loan from the city of Redding. When we bought it, they gave us 75,000 that we would pay back with interest only on the profit from our house when we sold. Our realtor had contacted the city and found out that our loan was non-recourse. We learned that this means if the market drops and we decide to sell, the city may forgive us the debt we owe without any negative repercussions on us. While this sounded pretty good, it sounded far too good to be true, to me. We went down and had a meeting with a lady from the city who explained it to us and it was just as we had heard. Pretty excited, we began to tell people about it. When I talked to one of my friends, he pointed out that we were getting away with not paying our loan and hurting the city. I began to feel incredibly guilty and basically decided that we should not go through with it. I talked to some other people about it, including my dad, who told me that they didn't necessarily feel like it was a wrong thing to do, but that bad feeling was sticking with me. I told everyone in the know to please pray for us that we would know what God wanted us to do. Only two days later, with no new information, God had changed my heart and I suddenly felt like we needed to leave the whole process in His hands. If He wants to allow this huge debt to be forgiven and help us out in this way, then I must be humble and willing enough to accept it. Our prayer now is that if this is not God's will, He will close the door on this opportunity and make it clear to us that we should not continue to pursue it.


Fairly New News

I lost my job at Wal-Mart!

On Thursday, July 16th, I was at work and as is common, I was walking under some catwalks. Something hit me in the hand as it fell from above. I turned and saw that it was some shaving cream that had been squirted from the catwalk. I noticed some broken bottles of conditioner lying on the ground next to me, so I picked one up and ran up the stairs to get the guy back for squirting me. When I got up there, I couldn't bring myself to cover him in conditioner, so I let him go back to work. As I was leaving the area, I thought it would be funny to put some of the conditioner on the rails by the stairs so it would get on this guys hands as he went down the stairs later. I oozed some out onto both rails and walked away soon forgetting about it. When I arrived at work the following day, the manager from the other shift asked me if I had heard what had happened. I didn't know what he was talking about. He then explained to me how someone had been coming down the stairs that morning and had supported themselves using the rails and had slipped in some conditioner and nearly fallen. I quickly thought through my options and realized that if I wanted to keep my job I needed to keep this quiet. I told him that was terrible and I was glad no one was actually hurt. I walked away feeling very badly for lying, but thinking it was really the only option.
Later that day, I was questioned by one of my managers as to whether or not I had heard anything about the incident with the conditioner. I told him I had not heard anything. This same manager later sat down with some of the guys in my area to question them. They either didn't know anything, or were helping me out.
When I left work Friday night, I felt terrible, I had lied and the guilt was horrible. On Saturday when I woke up I felt worse instead of better! I kept trying to put it out of my mind, but I just couldn't shake it. As we sat in church Saturday evening, I couldn't sing or do anything but dwell on this guilt. (We now go to church on Saturday nights with Justin, Katie, Neil and Alicia.) I now knew that I had to tell the truth even if it meant losing my job. I made the decision that evening to tell my managers first thing on Tuesday. Immediately the burden lifted, I knew that I had made the right decision.
I went in Tuesday and told my managers what I had done and they thanked me for my honesty. They let me work my regular shift on Tuesday night and then on Wednesday they let me go.



Almost brand new News

I went in to talk to the Navy recruiter on Friday.

Friday morning I rode over to visit with the Navy recruiter and ended up staying for 3.5 hours. I learned a lot of useful information and then came home to talk it all over with Brenda. Our plan all along has been that if I ever lost my job, I would join the Navy so we felt that God was just opening that door even wider. I went back to the recruiter yesterday, Monday the 27th, and signed all the applicable paperwork. Currently my paperwork is being reviewed in Sacramento and if all goes well, I should be going down to Sac to take a physical and the ASVAB sometime this week. I have been told that if that happens and I pass the physical, I will be asked to choose an available Navy job based on the score of my ASVAB. We beg for your prayers over the next few days as once again we feel God working and desperately want His will for our lives!


The Newest of News to date.

We have accepted an offer on our house.

We received a call from our realtor today that an offer had come in on our house. We went down to her office and decided that the offer was fair, based on market value and other things. Now, the city of Redding has to consider the offer and it is in their hands as to whether or not we will sell the house for the offer price. Again, we are praying that God's will be done in all of this, He ultimately decides if this offer is accepted.


That's all the News, now a blurp from me.

God is awesome

Wow, looking back at all God has done in our lives over the last few months is overwhelming. He is teaching us so much! If we are simply willing to give up and let Him lead, He will do amazing things. Brenda and I both know all of this, but it is so easy to grab hold of life and try to do it by yourself. We are so thankful for all He has done for us and can't begin to express our gratitude to Him. We ask for your continued prayers as we continue to move forward to wherever He leads. Thank you all for supporting us in this way. We love you.

Some additions to the computer family!

So, I added a computer to my collection about a month ago. Unfortunately, it was damaged during shipment. It still functions correctly, but doesn't look its best. Here are a couple of pictures that show the damage.

I have a claim with UPS right now attempting to get them to purchase me a new case, but I am not holding my breath. Again, for those of you interested, here are the specs.

• Mac Pro 2.8GHz, 8 Core


• 10 GB 800MHz Ram (upgraded from 2GB)


• Dual DVD Writers (upgraded from single)


• (2) 1TB 7200 RPM SATA II Hard Drives in a mirrored RAID for Media


• (1) 80GB 10000 RPM SATA II Raptor Hard Drive for the OS


• (1) 700GB 7200 RPM SATA II Hard Drive for User Files


• OS X Server 10.5 Operating System


• Dual External eSATA ports connected to a Dual Bay external hot swappable drive


• Dual ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT video cards (connected to 3 monitors)


• Bluetooth Module


• Dual Gigabit Ethernet Ports

In case you can't tell, I am very excited about my setup. For a little comparison, my Mac Book Pro takes about 2.5 hours to rip a DVD to iPod format using Handbrake. My new Mac Pro completes the same task in about 22 minutes. AWESOME!!

When I purchased the last few components of this system, I decided to get a couple more flash drives too. I love flash drives! Anyway, I took a picture of all of my flash drives side by side to show the different sizes. I am amazed at how small they can make these things now. Anyway, hope you enjoyed my ravings about computer stuff. I will leave you with the pictures!.