I am not going to........

Those were the words that came from my mouth as we sat in a meeting about the finishing of the extension going on the back of our church. They were said pertaining to the fact that I was not going to do any sanding of the walls!
I started the next afternoon holding strong to my conviction. I painted and no one was going to change that (it helped that no one was there when I decided this). Well more people started to show up, and the need for more things to paint arose. The next thing I knew I was standing in a room with a sanding block in my hand, a mask and goggles on my face and surrounded by DUST! (I mean a lot of it too).
As I looked around in disbelief at my situation I could not figure out how I got here? What went wrong? I still can't figure that out, even as I sit here now and write this to you. Were did all that conviction I had the day before go? (it was there up until I was actually sanding as well)
But as I looked around and realized that others were there and lending a hand, how could I not do what I was doing. I recently read about how we should do everything for the honour of God. That when we do this with the right heart we are actually worshiping him. It even went on to say we must even do this sometimes in things we don't like or want to do. I looked around and saw all these other people doing something because they wanted too and having a heart that it was for something bigger then them, who was I not to do the same? Even if it was something that I did not want to do( which is why I had a hard time getting it).
So as I reflect on last night and when people ask "how it went" I have to reply "it was a great night of worship." Because really that is what it was.
So yeah I did not do what I said and yes I did something that I really dislike doing, but in the end I realized I got something out of it that I never expected and something that was so worth it.
Now please do not think that I went into last night thinking all this or even that I got right then. But the thing I can be thankful for, is that I see it now. Isn't that how it usually works. We are blind to these things , that is until God helps us see!

Lata

P.S Going away tomorrow to Atlantis with the whole family. Really looking forward to having some time with my family. It is My grandmothers 80Th B-day, so we going to get are party on!!!!!!!!

Death

So I was watching House last night (i know more TV, if it makes you feel better it was really the only thing I watched seeing as I fell asleep after it). The episode was really on death and how this guy wanted to die. Because he wanted to know "what was on the other side".
So, this got me thinking (i know big deal). Should we live life, even at its worst, to be eager to leave it? I mean no matter what is going on should there ever be a point were we should only be focused on the here after? Should we want to control how we die or when, or should we be more worried about what I am doing when I am alive.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that we should not think about life after death at all. What I am asking is should this be the driving force, Living life to get to death.
In religions the one (mostly anyway) thing they have in common is they believe that there is life after death.
My thing is though, when talking to others there is this longing to belong to something. Something that is here and now, something that is going to touch someone or have some sort of impact now. Not when they die. So should we not be putting are efforts toward that?
I know as Christian's we make this a big part of our "religion". Even so much as to do things just for the reward we may get when we die. But lets think about what rewards are there in the here an now in just doing something good now. The smile on a face the life that could be touched and better yet changed because of it and not that this is why it was done either. But because we did it because we just plain old wanted to help in LOVE! To me that is the key.
Now I write all this and not even pretending that I know what all the answers are. I write it just to maybe get a conversation started on it so that maybe we could find the answers and maybe we won't find the answers. Cause that is what a community does. They work together. How great would it be that we as "Christian's" or better yet people in religion can just converse and openly talk about things and just maybe we could learn something from each other.
I saw this quote which I think is so good "God expects unity, not uniformity." We often confuse the two. We think in order to have fellowship we all have to be fellows in the same ship. Fellowship does not mean we think alike on everything.

So lets just take this and think about it and maybe just maybe start a converstion on it.

Lata

Must see TV!

Well the big news today! Survivor started last night for the new season (I know this after that last one on time and TV, hey told you I had issues). What a good season I think it is going to be.
I mean come on they split the teams (or tribes) into there different races. Is this not a season that could just be full of confrontation and disaster? I know things will be all good right now, but wait until they are then put together. You know they are still going to stay in the separation by race. Then what!!!!!
As last night goes it was not that eventful. Only the fact that I have already picked out the one who I think is just cooler then cool. I mean come on with a name like Cao Bui what is not to like. He is a nail salon manager who is from "the old country" and he can get rid of headaches by removing your bad wind,in his words "What I'm gonna do is pull this `bad wind' out of you," Cao Boi said, as he plucked at Brad's face. I am going into the face plucking business
I did not even know that is where a headache cam form( I always thought bad wind came from other places not your face). I mean in a place were they all seem to be afraid of stereotypes, he just simple states "the facts are the facts" wow what a concept. I mean come on, he is the one you can't stand to watch but can't help but watching cause you are afraid of what you may miss.
As far as the first voted out. What did you expect when you gather all around to "focus on getting the fire going" and you rub the twigs together twice and then give up. That deserves being voted off in itself( were was the conviction).
well this is my take on the first night. I know not all agree and you know what if you want to tell your side start your own blog. There is one thing I am sorry about. Now that I have chosen Cao Boi as my favorite he has now received the kiss of death. I would not be surprised if he even is done next week. But hey his saving grace is he seems to have a good team so that may keep him there a few weeks at least. Crap! I did it again now the team will lose next week. A well I am just going to stop there before I write anything else.

Later

Time!

I read something a day ago that has had me thinking since I read it. It said, " If you want to know a persons priorities, just look at how they spend there time." It went on to talk about were you spend the most time is where you have the most love and how time is one of the greatest gifts you could give someone. Because it is so precious.
WOW! So this started this thing in me to examine my time and where it is spent. I went a day and kinda kept this track of my time and was floored at where it was mostly spent(and no I am not telling you). We always talk about how we have so little time for people, friends ,family and all these other things. The reason is because we fill our time with so many other useless things(myself included).
As parents we fall so short of this as well. We get home and our kids beg for our attention and we blow them off because we are tired, or we don't have THE TIME. I want you to really look at your life and see where all this time goes. How much do you use it to sit and do nothing or watch TV or whatever(not saying TV is bad I love TV, savivour here I come).
But are there times we say well I have to watch this or do this or be here. When in reality we really don't. We could be spending that time some where were it is needed.
One of those areas is in building relationships by loving on others with our time. We were created for this. I would like you to try and think about what your life would be like if you had no relationships in it. It would really suck! I mean as we go through life we long to have a relationship with others.
So lets keep this in mind, what are we doing with our time, and are we really building meaningful relationships with others?

Good Day

Well today was good.

I helped along with about 35-40 others from my church, in cleaning up the yard of some one in our community who needed it. I was very happy that I had about 12-15 of my kids from church join us in this activity. This really impressed me(way to go guys). I am glad they came out and even better they were glad they did as well(or so they said).
We carried away about 6 large dump trucks full of garbage away. I mean there was a huge amount of garbage there and it was still some left when we left. But we got a lot done. So it was good. All this happened this morning.
Got back home and hung out with my kids. My daughter in particular. She got me in her room to play house and other such activities that entailed wearing a crown (princess that is too). After some play time got to do some reading ,which I love to do. Brian McClaren Rocks!
Well that was my day. I know it was not much but it was very fulfilling. I do not just mean because I did something for our community but because I got to spend some time with my daughter as well. Because as we all know, doing things with family is where it should all start. If we do all this other great stuff but forsake our family's, what good is it? So let us not forget where it should all start. No matter what goes on lets all remember were it should start, which is

THE FAMILY

later

One Week

Wow!

I have finished a week at my new job and it just seemed to fly by. I have told a number of people when they asked me, "how things were going", that I can not get over how quick this week has gone.
It seems like the days are getting shorter. Or is it just me? What has really gotten me is that I have not even had like a little time in between stuff to sit back and reflect on what has been going on. Now don't get me wrong I am really liking the fact that I have been busy. It has just been a surprise.
It has been really great though to just concentrate on the one thing for work then having to split my efforts into two. I really did not realize how much more I could have been putting into this work until I started to do it full time(well I did just not as much as I do now). I am hoping that others will benefit from this free time.
I will say this, I am more prepared for tonight then I ever was before. I have also changed some stuff around. I hope the kids enjoy what we are going to do.
Well got to go and finish a couple odds and ends. I will have to let you all know how things go tonight (all two of you).
Oh and by the way. I could not write this post without mentioning that football season is finally here. YEAH!!!What better way to kick it off then with a loss to the dolphins. Ya got ta love it!

Good looking boy!

Here I was, I had just got home from a long day. I had a meeting to attend and other things and walked into the door of my house just feeling this longing to just shut it down.
I walked in to the bathroom were my son(Maddox) had just taken a bath and was just hanging out in his bouncy seat. I leaned over him and looked at him thinking I am just going to say "Hi" and then go out and be lazy on the couch.
Then is when it happened. I looked at him and said those words "Good Looking Boy" and with them I opened something I thought would never come from them. As the words finished coming from my mouth he (Maddox) broke into this huge smile, his eyes lighting up, his face beaming with delight and then he laughed. I mean a whole hearted can't contain it laugh. For him this was the first time and for those that do have children you can relate to hearing your child laugh for the first time. I then stood there repeating that phrase over and over again, getting the same reaction from him every time(and me laughing whole heartily as well at his laughter). At first I did it for personal enjoyment. Then it hit me he was just so happy from this one simple phrase, that in then switched to me doing it so I could see him happy.
After all the laughter, all that weariness I felt and desire to just crash had completely disappeared. From this simple act of laughter all my thoughts were changed.
This morning as I sat and thought about it and replayed it in my mind I couldn't help but think how amazing all that was. Also How we need others sometimes to get us past what only we may be seeing and it does not have to be this great big act, it can be as simple as little laugh at some simple phrase by a simple person.
It has made me examine what I let define who I am and how I act. That sometimes we just need the simple thing to get us to change.

My First day

Well here I am.....
The first day in this new story in my life. So far it does not seem real. I am still thinking that I am suppose to go to my other job. I guess when you have done something for so long it takes a while to get rid of that habit?
I have just kinda of spent the day so far just settling in. Getting myself in a little bit of a comfort zone. I am sure that it will take a little while to get myself into a schedule. WAIT! Is that what i really want? For my life to become this endless schedule that just keeps going in the same pattern?
NO! I see now that as people we get caught in this act of life as something that must always be structured and the same and if we don't then something must be wrong. Well it is not going to happen here (I hope).
I know you are thinking that there is nothing wrong with having structure in our lives. Yes I agree, I think the problem is when we let that structure dictate how we run our lives (and I am probably the worst at this most of the times).
So were do we draw that line? Where do we define ( I so dislike this, definition is something we need far to much) Where that line should be?
You know what? I don't know! I think it is something we will always struggle with, I think that this is something that in life will always be there. Because we let culture change were that line is for us constantly. So we are always in a state of confusion.
So please think about this as the days go by and maybe we all can come up with an answer to this(if you do please share with the rest of the unintelligent folk like myself).

HMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

WOW! A new Story to start

So here I am. My first time to blog. HMMMM what do I say. Well I thought this would be just as good a time as any to start this. You see this is not the only new thing in my life. I have just made a career change.
I am finally going into ministry full time. I have been a youth pastor for 11 monhts part time and now I take the big plunge. It is a big deal for me as I have been in a family owned and run business for over 13 years and was a big part of it. My family has been great about it. They have kinda seen it coming to so they were a little prepared.
I think that this will be a great place to share as I go through all this stuff which I am sure will be new to me. Things I think that will have to be written out. Right now I am so excited about it.
I can give a little info on me, I am 30 years old, happily married and have two kids, a girl 4 and a boy 3 months. I live in the Bahamas on an Island called Abaco. I know tuff life, but hey someone has got to do it. The work I did before my career change, I was jeweller and designer of hand made jewelry. I loved the work but not as much as I love working were God is calling me and building relationships with the kids in my ministry.
So I am not going to just ramble on I will leave more for the next post. But I will be posting alot, so keep checking in, to see what will happen next.