It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago today, I was getting married to this beautiful woman. The day before the wedding I used my last star wars check to see Episode I. Thank you Alisha for putting up with this Geek!

I love you more now than ever!

Anyways if you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say business time, then you need to watch this!

Another one of my favorite things is how many of my friends are on twitter. @alilem, @jayarelinkous, @erinnlinkous, @tyralemons, @annab1, @george_les, @theabelincoln, @brittlynn, @jdubharris, and @dbralley

Houston has been an awesome experience. I have been challenged and have grown a lot while here.  I feel like God called us here for many reasons:

• Being away from our extended families has been an awesome experience that I think everyone should experience. It has helped us to mature as a family and also to depend on God and ourselves more.  Also it has helped us to appreciate having our families closer and we are looking forward to being with our families again.
• God has used this time to first challenge our marriage and test it and now it is growing stronger than it has ever been and I know it’s going to continue to do so.  I love my wife more now today than I did when we dated or early on in our marriage. There have been times where I couldn’t have said that.
• God has used this time to restore my confidence.  I went through a hard time with so much on me at Highlands that I felt like I wasn’t good enough because I had too much to do so everything suffered.  Here it has been healthier and God has shown me that he has given me many talents to use ONLY for HIS Glory, not mine! (this is not a slam on Highlands, we were just understaffed)
• God has restored my love of music. I went through a two/three year phase where I only touched my guitar when I HAD to practice a song.  Now I play on a weekly basis for the fun of it and I have grown a lot as a musician.  Also the vocal lessons I took while at the church seemed to have helped me a lot.
• To help bring some organization and structure to The MET Student Ministry Worship Arts.  I feel good about the time I have had here and I have hopefully impacted some students lives here.  A few of come up and thanked me for something I said/did/preached and that was awesome to hear. Thank you those of you who know who you are!
• God gave me an experience – another chapter in my story.  There’s not too many people in tiny Abingdon, VA who can say they packed up and moved 1,000 miles away to follow God.
• He also gave me an opportunity to be a part of a large (350) student ministry where I can take what I learned/observed here and apply it to wherever I go.

One of the biggest things in my opinion has been that God showed me how lucky I am to have an awesome wife like I do.  She has stood by me through a lot of crap.  I KNOW that God has impressed on me that I am to do whatever it takes to allow her to have her time now.  We have been married for almost 10 years and she has stayed home and raised our 3 kids and now she wants to finish college so that she can have a careeer of her own.  If that means I stop working in ministry long enough for her to go to finish college, then that’s fine with me.

One of our struggles here has been financial.  Anyone in ministry knows it is hard to survive on youth minister’s salary (any minister for that matter) but especially when only one spouse is working and you have a five person family to support.  So if Alisha goes back to college and is able to do nursing, then that takes some of the pressure off of me and frees me up to do ministry as a vocation again.

So what’s our plan?  You just heard it.  That’s about all we have.  We feel like God has released us from where we are.  Neither one of us have a job lined up.  We are trusting God that where He guides, He will provide.  For now our plan is to find a job, get Alisha in school and I’ll probably volunteer at Highlands Fellowship.  Would I work there again? HECK YES! It is an awesome place and I feel like sooner or later I will work there again.  I have missed Highlands and all the people there that I would consider my family.

Saw this via Twitter the other day and thought it was laughable.

Hey all family and friends.  Rather than ordering a bunch of pics of Mia’s 2nd grade picture we just ordered the CD so you could take it and get it printed somewhere.  So here ya go! go here and download the large quality pic and take it to walgreen’s or walmart and print a copy or just order a print from Flickr if you’re a member.

Anyways, go to my flickr set to see pics from my trip to Watermark!

We have a little Bible Action Heroes Jesus action figure.

Other funny quotes with Jesus Action Figure:

• Alisha said, “She really loves Jesus!”
• Alisha said, “Everytime she plays with her pony, she always has Jesus”
• Alisha said when getting off phone, “Pray I find Jesus!”
• Tyra said, “Luke hurt Jesus!”
• Tim said, “Pick Jesus up and put him on the table”

Feel free to add your own quotes below and stay tuned for more quotes to come!