How We Got Here

It's amazing how scary it is to make your own thoughts public and globally public to boot.
When I was ten my neighbor took me to church for the first time . and I met Jesus and that was cool, but I also heard about this missions thing and how believers don't always treat each other with utmost love. This has been reinforced countless times in my life. Coupled that with the sensitive spirit God gave me and you come up with a heart for missions, reaching out of yourself to someone else, but not just the guy who doesn't know Jesus, but the guy that knows him but is stuck in his walk, trapped in some crazy broken loop he cant get out of. That takes a community, young people, with zest, energy, fresh eyes and thoughts. Middle aged people, committed to the journey but not finished ,they have fresh expediences and some first hand knowledge of the battle at hand. and lastly older folks. They may be the most amazing of us all. seasoned veterans, sound wisdom, tried and true advise, long range perspective, and most precious of all, hope! They made it. They figured out how to get to the end of life without giving up or giving in.
I'm in this community, I've lived through two of the three life stages and I'm excited about the future.
Okay, that is the best tool and greatest asset we have, COMMUNITY. It forms us and shapes our thinking , it reflects our person back to us so we can be aware of who we are.

When I met Jani, throughout our courtship, our conversation had a common thread. 'What can I/we do to demonstrate my love for Jesus and my brother; how can I help my brother on the mission field be and do better?' So with countless hours of driving and talking we came up with MASH(Missionary Assistance Service and Help). Our dream vision was to provide a place for a missionary or church worker to rest, heal, hear God about the next step, and learn and experience more about His love for them. we even built this enormous house and facility in our hearts and minds. Practicably however, we opened our home to anyone who needed a place to rest, to freshen up their vision, to recover from life's scrapes and bruises.

When we found Tacoma Foursquare Church, we found a safe place to be us and grow that vision.We learned some stuff about ourselves and about hepling others healing. This part, the "Joining YWAM" part has been stirring, vibrating, tingling in us from the beginning and now it seems God is releasing us to go into another facet of training.

Enough for now I'll have more later.
b



Okay, it's later and I have more;
Watching God work in real time is just amazing!
I think that is the most exciting part of this whole adventure.
When we left Sunday afternoon we left with the level of faith God gave us. We felt we needed to stop and visit with family on our way: We needed to stop at my moms, my youngest brothers, our youngest son Brandon, and his family and our oldest son Nick and his family. When you calculate travel time into the mix we had to leave a week before the school started. That meant our fund raising time was week shorter. On our way, just outside of Sisters, Oregon, we got a call from someone responding to a "Craigslist" add we posted a week ago. She wanted to buy some doors. In the middle of the conversation she suggested she wire the money to an Idaho Wal-Mart ahead of us. PRAISE GOD WHO PROVIDES!

Another story of Gods faithfulness happened the Wednesday before we left, Jani and I were feeling particularly discouraged about the size and scope of the task at hand and out of the blue my buddy called from Alaska to tell me he was planning to undergo two surgeries in the near future. When he heals from said surgery his plan is to buy a business he's involved with and hire me to operate the equipment.
as I hung up the phone I saw God in the middle of the whole conversation. I almost laughed out loud at The God of The Universe caring about how I feel!

More Later
b