My Next Chapter

I've been waiting for some time to pass to write this post but it's been coming for some time. The last couple of months have been the most hectic since I became a husband, dad, and first time homeowner with a new job all in about 4 months (I could be wrong but I can't see those 4 months ever being topped). It honestly kind of difficult to even figure out where to begin. Maybe just being straightforward will be a good start.

At the end of July, I accepted an offer from the Northwest Church of Christ in San Antonio, Texas to become their new associate minister. My family and I are  officially out of Huntsville and out of youth ministry. This move comes with an array of emotions. Some of those feelings I will be diving into and others I will not. My role will have me primarily working with young adults in this church. I'll be overseeing all those 18-35. There will be more challenges and responsibilities, something that I have desired for some time now. I am now a couple of weeks in on the job and it has been really great so far. This church has never hired for a position like this so we are both learning about each other and ourselves as we go along. A very popular term in church and ministry right now is "organic" which is a reference to the desire that churches have to make ministry and mission happen naturally as opposed to programs. I'm a fan of this.

For some time now, I have felt God calling me to something different from what I have been doing. There have been some very high and low moments throughout this process for me. I am forever grateful to my students and parents who were and are a part of the youth ministry in Huntsville. They will always have a special place in my heart and I could write a completely separate blog about so many individuals having such a huge impact on my life and my family's lives (and I just may at some point!). With this being said, God opened a number of different doors at a number of different times and places that have ultimately led me to where I am now in San Antonio.

We are very excited about this new chapter for our family (also don't worry about the picture at the top if you don't watch the NBA or know who Kevin Durant is). We have always loved getaways to San Antonio and all that it has to offer. The church is about a ten minute drive from both SeaWorld and Six Flags as well as 15-20 minutes from downtown and the riverwalk. We are in the TexMex capitol of the world which happens to be Ashley's favorite kind of food. We are a reasonable drive from virtually every kind of restaurant and shopping store in existence and about 20 minutes from the San Antonio airport. The church has been wonderful to us as well. They have solid youth ministry and children's ministry programs and a terrific lead pastor who has been working alongside this church for 25 years. This church even had several people spend their Saturday morning a few weeks ago helping us move most of our things into a storage unit! They have all been very good to us early on and we're excited to continue this work for years to come.

One very difficult part of this transition has been the selling of our house. We simply struck out in finding a buyer for a very long time and while there is a contract on our house now, the in-between part has been rough on our family both financially and mentally. We are staying at an Airbnb townhome about 10 miles from our new church and the girls' schools. This has been fine for the time being but we are basically paying double rent on only my salary. Ashley is still in the hunt for a job out here and there are a couple of very nice possibilities but she is mainly staying focused on caring for the two littles while getting our housing stuff situated. We have a contract on a house that is a mile from the church and 3 miles from the girls' schools. One thing I am now pretty sure of. Buying and selling houses is absolutely miserable on so many levels. Our buying and selling realtors have both been fantastic but the process is still awful and don't get me started about moving..... ok now that I've mentioned moving I'll just say that it blows and that's all.

I think that perhaps the most difficult portion of this has been watching Ashley go through everything. Ashley voluntarily walked away from her job as the executive director of the Care Center, a job she openly referred to as her dream job, a job where she daily felt fulfilled, a job that she dearly loved, a job that she was crazy good at. This ministry more than doubled in size and clients in her four years there. She walked away from that job for no other jobs in sight. She walked away because she wanted to follow me with our children to San Antonio. I have held her as she has cried on multiple occasions. She has been supportive despite her giving up what she loved for my calling. She has strong during this time of crazy transition in between houses and moving schools for our girls. She has transformed herself into a temporary stay at home mother in order to care for and love on our kids. She has potty trained our son, which has been quite the task to say the least (he wants to facetime people every time he goes so that they can see his "finished work"). She has also tried to control this little one as she has learned to walk. 

Millie

This has been good because we're discovering that there's nothing that she is afraid of.If there is anything that this move has reminded me, it is that, by God's grace and the Spirit's guidance, I am still married to the most incredible woman I have ever met. 

Despite these transition pains, things our wonderful with our family and we have not stopped discussing and imagining all the things that God is doing in our family and in our new church and city. We are always experiencing something new and exciting. Audrey is 16, we all know what that means. Addy is the oldest at her new school (who's to say she doesn't shove all her classmates and the occasional teacher in a cubby?!), my main man is learning to use the potty, and the little sweet girl has a sinister side to her (check out my last fb video. girl is a savage!).

While we will miss so many faces back in Huntsville, we are looking forward to so many things here with Northwest. We look forward to what God has laid out for us working in His Kingdom and He has plans we didn't even know were a possibility. 

Amelia Ella Kay

I have a confession to make. I'm in love with another woman besides my wife. As a matter of fact, I'm in love with three. They all have their different quirks about them. I wouldn't trade them for any other girls in this world. They are my daughters. The journey with the two older girls has been fun, frustrating, rewarding, glamorous, disheartening, and incredible. The good has outweighed the bad and it's not even close. 

Being a dad to a high schooler has been interesting to say the least, particularly when she expresses interest in a boy who happens to be in the very class that I teach at her school (so is Audrey!). I try so hard to sound impressed when she tells me about all the different boys whom she found out have a crush on her, the whole time I want to beg her to talk to me about anything else. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

Addy is the most consistent 10 year old that I have ever met and I mean that in a good way and bad way. We always know exactly what to expect from her. She is most definitely not going to make her room look like a tank drove through it. She will by all means not clean it up until we make her. She will definitely take a good 4 hours to clean up this mess when Ashley or me could accomplish this task in less than 30 minutes. 

Some of these things will change over time. Some I'm not sure ever will (Dear God, bless the man whom Addison marries and shares a room with. May he be wealthy enough to hire a maid. Amen). However, there is a new girl who has overwhelmed me for the past year. She goes by Millie and she calls me "da da" currently. She has blue eyes and somehow reddish hair that sticks up like it's a magnet. She is the happiest baby I have ever seen. Everything is wonderful and she never wants to go to sleep because she doesn't want to miss a thing. While my generation or Millenials are noted for living by the term "YOLO" Generation Z (those ages 7-22) are noted for living by a term that most of them live by but few ever say, "FOMO" or Fear Of Missing Out. This describes Millie to a tee. 

Two weeks from tomorrow, Millie will turn a year old. She is our final and youngest child. She befriends everyone whom she makes eye contact with despite being virtually unable to speak. Perhaps her favorite person to be around (obviously besides her mother) is probably her big brother, Gatlin. This is ironic to us because in his quest to love her and be affectionate towards her, he beats her up. I promise he means well, we've just had to be very diligent about explaining to him repeatedly what the word "gentle" means. She constantly tries to follow him everywhere, play with the toys he plays with, eat the food he eats, and even talk to him even though she doesn't really say words.

The Millie experience has been a poetic one for me. God gave me three women in my life when I married the most incredible woman I have ever met. Learning to live with all women was quite the challenge. At times, my seminary degree would have been easier to do. God gave me some backup with Gatlin, but he opened my eyes once more with Millie. Millie has caused me to imagine Audrey and Addy when they were babies, something that has been difficult for me to do simply because I wasn't in the picture when that was happening for either of them. I can imagine their eyes when they experience things for the first time. I can picture them laughing. I can envision them gazing upon their mother. I really think that that look hasn't changed hardly at all since that time when they were Millie's age. 

Millie's role has been to bring joy into our world. I thought that we had plenty of that already. God showed me through Millie that there was more to have. I don't think that I can put limits on these spiritual fruits any longer because every time that I think that I have hit the ceiling. I'm shown more through Ashley, one of the kids, or one of my students. 

She makes her mommy feel like the most important woman in the world, and to Millie, she is and not just because she is her food source (yep, that's exactly what she was for Gatlin). They have a special bond. Ashley will openly admit that she's a girl mom and is still learning the art of raising a boy. I equate it to riding a rollercoaster blindfolded: you really don't know what is going on but you also know that you'll be ok in the end. Millie and Ashley are smitten with one another. The again, I'm not sure if there's anyone who isn't smitten with Millie after spending about 5 minutes with her. 

I wasn't sure how I would feel about having yet another girl in my life. I mean, think about it, that's not only another college to try and pay for, but also another wedding (am I a horrible dad for secretly considering encouraging my kids to elope if it's the right guy and they're ready???). That's another hormonal 13 year old. I'm already in an estrogen ocean. What's one more right? It's another person to gripe about the toilet seat being up, it's another person to fight boys away from. 

But then I think about all the privileges I get to have once again. I get to express to yet another woman how she means more to me than any other man. I get to have her first dance (it was like 6 months and she won't remember it, but I'll never forget it). I was the first man she ever kissed. I mean it was open-mouthed and she slobbered all over me, but it was a kiss nonetheless. I get to share with her the story of God's divine plan for her that runs through the life and cross of Jesus. And with Millie being a girl, that's another sex talk that I don't have to be the primary voice in! (sorry not sorry Ashley). 

God knew exactly what he was doing when he gave our family one final girl. Millie makes each of us whole. She brightens our faces and brings us joy on incomprehensible levels. Thank God for Amelia Ella Kay. Happy first birthday sweet girl.

An Update On the Crashcourse

It has been far too long since I last updated this thing. This issue has been addressed with me by all of my avid readers (all both of you...). I'll give a quick update since it's been almost a year and a half.

Ashley and I welcomed our first son, Gatlin on August 1st of 2015. He has an insatiable appetite for food and life in general. He constantly moves around and plays with different toys whether they are actual toys or not. Making messes are one of his spiritual gifts. He could talk before he could walk. The picture below is from this past 4th of July when he was told to show his muscles.

Two weeks after G man was born, I began my pursuit of my master's degree in ministry at Lipscomb. It was also during this month that I discovered that I would spend a short period of time being the lone minister on staff at my church as 2 of our ministers took positions elsewhere. I spent most of the rest of 2015 being the lone guy. The members of my church did an incredible job stepping up and filling in gaps where things were missing. The church hired an interim preacher to fill in on Sundays which helped take the pressure off of me and I was extremely grateful for that. 

I have loved my studies as a seminary student. If I am being completely honest, this is really the first time that I have truly applied myself in my education in an attempt to truly learn and better myself (but I promise I had fun at all levels of my education!). I am very grateful to have been able to learn from the men of God at Lipscomb like Dr. Earl Lavender and Dr. Rubel Shelly amongst others. I am currently on track to graduate in May of 2018. I have now gotten a terrific taste for what Ashley was going through when we first got married and she was both a full time teacher and a graduate student and I have gained a lot more respect for her as a result of that. 

My church hired two terrific ministers to fill in the college and preaching roles. The are both in their 40s which allows me to make the joke of being 28 and the "most tenured minister on staff." This year, my life was theoretically going to be smoother..... theoretically.....

Ashley and I are expecting our fourth child to be born in early June. This should be interesting in that June is when things really take off in youth ministry at basically every church in the US simply because you aren't competing with school schedules. Ashley is due to give birth to a girl (to be named Amelia but will be called "Millie") on June 7th. I also must take one of my online graduate courses to begin around that time and run through most of the summer. If that wasn't enough, I will be leading a group of about 30 from my church to Nicaragua on the 16th. Needless to say, June will by no means be a boring month for me. 

One of the more eye-opening experiences since my last post would have to be having my own child in my youth ministry as well as simply having a teenager in general. I'm saving this for a separate post. The age gaps we have in our family including Ashley and myself is dynamic to say the least: 1, 9, 14, 28, and over 28 (love you babe;)). The girls have been an incredible help with keeping on eye on Gatlin to allow Ashley and me to get different things done or go to meetings or even occasionally date nights together. Despite what they may say, it is very evident that they love their little brother so much and he loves them too.

With all of this being said, I have to admit that, as the saying goes, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Audrey is still becoming drop dead gorgeous and it blows (we experienced a guy "taking her out" since then. I'm so not ready for this). Addison is still and always will be herself and is never changing (she told me that felt like a rebel this week when she ordered a burger instead of chicken nuggets at a restaurant...). Ashley still convinces me on a daily basis that I won the lottery when she said "I do" almost three and a half years ago and that she is the most amazing woman that I have ever met. Gatlin is finding his role in our family in that he is constantly providing us with entertainment on a variety of levels. He'll display what new word he learned or show off his ability to smear food all over the entire top half of his body during dinner. I'm still a sports nut surrounded by women who care nothing about sports. Gatlin can now say football and loves throwing his balls back and forth with me so I can say that there is some light at the end of that tunnel. I have become captivated by creativity in all things that I do since beginning the pursuit of my master's degree and particularly in thanks to Dr. Lavender. I live with four creatures of habit who want to know what is going to be happening at every waking hour of the day. I am happy to make life up as I go and if you have read any of my other posts, you might have noticed that that is what this blog is all about. I have been relieved to hear from several people older than me that they too made up much of their own life as they went, particularly in reference to parenting, which I am openly admitted to making up as I go. It has been nice to know that I am not alone in this mindset even when it is wrong sometimes.

My life is still a crash course and will most likely stay that way for some time. I believe God put me in the place He has put me in for a reason. I will be continuing to earnestly learn on the fly and I could use all the help I can get. 

Audrey, Addison, and Gatlin. Christmas 2015

My Lunch Date with Another Woman

Now that my summer craziness is finally dying down, I can write a couple of things that I have experienced over the summer that I have wanted to write about. This one started up a couple of weeks ago when Audrey had to join Ashley at work one day.

During this time, the girls had to go to work with either me or Ashley and since Ashley had limited mobility, Audrey went to work with her to help with things around her office. Addison went to a friend's house to play for the day. I decided to take Audrey out for a lunch date. I don't always get one on one time with the girls as I'll usually get them both together.

I picked up Audrey and we went to Chilis. It's really important to me that I treat her in special ways when we have this one on one time because I want her to expect those types of things when she starts going on dates with guys. Even though it's gonna be at least another 3+ years before that happens, I want her to be able to notice the differences between the guys who are worthy of dating her and the ones who are not.

I opened the door for her to get into the car. I told her that I liked her outfit and how it was nice, but also appropriate at the same time. I tell her how I love that she is not like other girls and that her uniqueness is what makes her special.

I love that Audrey has standards for the guys she dates. Only time will tell if those standards change or not, but the fact that they are already there give me some peace. Audrey will set the bar for the type of guys that Addison dates. The guys that the girls date will set the bar for how their little brother, Gatlin sees how dating should be and how he should treat girls.

At Chilis I asked her about how she felt about dating. She told me that she has no intentions of going out with a guy until she is 16. The best part about that is she said that because when she goes on dates at 16, she will meet the guy at the place they go to instead of ride with him because that way if the date goes poorly then she can drive herself home (I swear I didn't give her that idea). She said that she wouldn't walk through any doors unless he opened them for her. She said that she won't pay for a thing on any of the dates she goes on.

My favorite comment she made about dating was that she told me that she would not let a guy kiss her until the 7th date, but that isn't the best part. I asked her why the 7th date and she said that 7 is a holy number and it's not too long or too short. I have no way of arguing this because it was both moral and biblical, so I moved on after laughing for about 5 minutes straight.

We talked about her being in the youth group. This is something that I think is hilarious because the only guys who ever have their own kids in their youth ministry stay in youth ministry for at least 10-15 years. I'm going on year 5. The guys who I interned under, Kody Speer and Robbie Forrester, have both yet to have any of their own kids in their youth ministry. We talked about what her expectations are and will be. We talked about how she fits into the group and what she likes and doesn't like about the ministry. I think her being in my ministry will present some challenges, but it will also present some advantages for me as a youth minister. This will also mean more time with her, which is good because of the phase of life that she is about to go through. This is a highly influential phase and because of that, it presents some things to be aware of.

I'm already starting to pay more attention to the friends she surrounds herself with because they are playing a huge role in shaping her into the woman she becomes. Family plays a big role in that but many times, friends play an even bigger role. Last week, Ashley and I finally caved in a bought her a cell phone. We figured that we might as well skip the "why don't I have an iPhone when every one else does" argument and got her an iPhone 5s. We have set about a billion restrictions on it already because I am convinced that cell phones and social media play a huge role in a girl's negative self image. She now has a private instagram account and became addicted to texting about 1.25 seconds after the phone was put into her hands. I have been ok with that because the people she has sent most of her texts to have been family. She is in full blown junior high girl mode in that she lives to blow up people's phones with meaningless texts. My dad was the most recent victim (take that dad!).

Ashley also told Audrey that this is the year that she is allowed to wear eye liner. She has worn it to church for the last couple of weeks and Ashley is already regretting it and so am I because she looks like she is at least 15 years old and she still isn't a teenager yet. Ashley handles all of the dressing and makeup rules because I'm an idiot when it comes to that stuff. That's not to say that I would let her dress up like a prostitute when she goes out. It's more to say that I'm comfortable with her going out wearing a trash bag because clothes just aren't really a big deal to me (I made a good decision marrying Ashley).

After saying these things I am realizing something. The little 10 year old that I met almost 3 years ago is starting to become a woman. Audrey will always be the leader of mine and Ashley's children regardless of the point in life that they might be at. I am so proud of the woman she is becoming and continues to grow in to. I love her little quirks like her love for following rules, her need to be overprepared for everything she does, her love for John Wayne movies, her ability to be so gentle and patient with Addison, and most of all, I love her desire to please God in all the things that she does.
I am blessed with an incredible family and Audrey Bonine is a big part of that.

Living in the Village

I have had this on my mind for some time now and with me speaking in church this coming Sunday, maybe I will be able to refer to some of this while talking about this topic.

People say that it takes a village to raise a child, not just parents. I couldn't find this to be more true. However, the one thing that brings me concern is who that village is.

I lived in a neighborhood for 7 or 8 years where I actually hung out with my neighbors. They would walk over to my house or I walk go to theirs. It was heading into the 5th grade that my family moved to a house about a mile away where we were no longer in a neighborhood of any kind. We were literally a house on a hill all by ourselves with the nearest neighbor literally being a good 500 yards away. I still had friends from my new school and of course there was family, but the neighborhood friends faded from my life pretty quickly after the move.

I believe that kids conform to the village that they spend the most time with. When this expression was originally formed, it was a long time ago when kids had this one thing in common: their village was the place that they lived. There were very few exceptions to this. The kids in the village went to school together, played on sports teams together, went to each others houses together, and went to church together. Many of them would date and end up marrying each other. Villages were tight knit, they looked out for each other because they knew that they could trust each other (they had no other choice). Everyone knew everyone and everything going on in the lives of the people in the village.

The same village scenario is exactly the same today...... except that it is the polar opposite. For a few years in my life, I had friends separated into categories like colors in a crayon box. I had school friends, basketball friends, baseball friends, soccer friends, church friends, family friends, college friends, and sometimes just good ol friends friends. Most of the time, those friend groups never really overlapped. I never really realized this until the rise of Facebook when I thought about how many different ways I knew people and how many of my friends only fit in one category.

We have become a culture of options. There are options for literally everything. We have options on the food we eat, the tv shows we watch, the cars we drive, the technology we use, the schools our kids attend, the teams they play on, the churches we attend and the houses we live in amongst thousands of other things. Options vary from likeability to affordability to competition to potential and eventually all the way back to likeability.

Thanks to social media, smartphones, and the internet, we have every option laid out in front of us at all times. Any kid with a smartphone gets pretty much the same options and because of this, they get to choose which village they spend the most time with. They don't have to hang out in their neighborhood unless they want to and I'll say it again: We all eventually become a product of our village.

I say these things to go back to the village that raised me. The people who affected me the most from my village were people whom I still look forward to going back to Nashville and seeing every chance that I get. They are people who played a major role in forming me into the person I am today (so if you don't like me, it's definitely their fault...). To name a few:

Mike Hayes
Mike Dorris
Tucker Anderson
Molly Hayes
Mark Agee
Jeff Shouse
Alex Sylvis
James Anderson
Todd Lawson
Mac Hughes
Chad Hedgepath
Will Baxter
Henrietta "Metta" Vaughn and miss Julie
Jenny Hayes
Cindy Anderson
Pat Hughes
Keith Welch
Van Barendht
Mark and Nancy Barrett
Roger Chester
Mama Bear Hestle
Real Peloquin
James Lynn
Mark and Sonya Dupay
Tom and Debbie Willett

To almost everyone who reads this, these names mean absolutely nothing to you. I'm leaving a ton of people off but the people listed above have two things in common:
1. I am not related to any of them (My mom would disagree with that statement, but according to her, we are also related to Elvis. I would prefer to be "related" to a hall of fame athlete but I guess I'll settle).
2. They were/are all members of Berry's Chapel Church of Christ where I grew up.

I have realized on several different occasions that BC is the village that helped raise me the most. There have been plenty of other people who have played huge roles earlier in my life, but whenever I came to church, I knew that way more than just my own two parents were looking after me. Some of the people on that list were parents of friends my age in the church, some of them simply decided to take a vested interest in me, most of them were both of those things. The village that raised me was the church. Looking back, I think they played an enormous role in my decision to go into ministry. I got to see why God gave us the church and what the church does for so many of us and after seeing those things, I don't know why I wouldn't want to play a full time role in the church.

I could not have asked for better parents. They worked so hard to raise me and give me the very best life that they could offer, but now that I am a parent myself, I have learned something that I hope every current and future parent understands. Every parent has weaknesses. I know for a fact that I do. I think my parents had some and I think any parent has things that just aren't strongpoints. This doesn't make any of us bad parents. It simply means that we have to rely on the village to fill in the gaps, particularly the village that God has given us.

I learned more about taking action for the things you believe in from Mike Hayes than I did anyone else. I learned what it means to be family to people you aren't actually related to from Henrietta "Metta" Vaughn. I learned that there's no limit to creativity from Cindy Anderson. I learned that church camp never gets old from James Lynn. I think I am surviving being a crash course adult largely in part because of them.

These people truly are family to me. I spent more time with church friends than I did anyone else growing up. They really genuinely care for me. That's why when I come home, after reuniting with my family, I look forward to seeing them more than anyone else. I rarely track friends from high school, I have no idea whats going on with the guys I played basketball with, I only keep up with a small few of the people I went to college with. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy my time with them or that I don't care about them anymore. I wish them all the best. There's just something that cannot be fully explained with words when it comes to my relationship with my church family at BC.

Looking forward, I have two beautiful daughters that I am in co-charge of. I think they have the best mother this world has to offer, which is good cause you can't expect much out of me. However, as hard as we both try, we have areas where we are incomplete as parents. What has been wonderful is the village that has surrounded my new family since moving out to Huntsville when we were still learning how to be a family. We have already started to get Audrey involved with different women in the church that she looks up to. I know that so many people in our village are already playing a huge role in her life as well as Addison's. It's people like Dorothy Houchin, Karen Altom, Eugene Kelly, Matt and Danielle Springfield, Foy and Mitzi Mills, Toni Sikes, Sydney Andrus, Larry and LeeAnn Wells, and all of the Correas, to name a few, that will be a people whom our girls view as family during their time here and that one or both of them look up to and/or enjoy spending time with.

As a full time youth minister, I get to see the cause-and-effect of the village on a weekly basis. Whether it is something in worship, before or after worship, in a class or activity, or even out in the community during the day, I get to see the church in action. God gave us the church, not so that we have a place to show up to on Sunday, punch our Jesus card, and go home on a weekly basis, but so that we can be the church.

I love the youth ministry that I get to be a part of. One of the group's defining characteristics is that almost half of them are in families that do not go to our church and some don't go to church at all. A couple of weeks ago, the rest of our church family got to see how special this is. We honored our graduating senior class a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday night. Seven different seniors were honored and thanked for being a part of our youth ministry. Of those seven seniors, only two of them have families who are members of our church family. The other five seniors began coming to our ministry's activities because of the two who have been raised at the Huntsville church.

It's because of this village in Huntsville that I am confident in the rearing of my soon-to-be-born son, Gatlin, when he makes his grand appearance into this world, which we're expecting to witness in early August. It's because of guys like Nathan Spencer, Gonzalo Correa, Scooter Langley, Kelvin Riddler, Chris Kern, Jacob Chandler, Spencer Ehlert, and Brent Slott that I am confident in his rearing because I know that they are men who can help me be the dad that Gatlin and every other boy in this world need. I pray that maybe people can turn around and view me in that way to some degree one day.

I know that villages like the one I grew up in at Berry's Chapel and the one my family is a part of in Huntsville are by no means set apart from so many other church families. They don't exclusively exist in Huntsville, TX or Franklin, TN. They are all over this country and even this world. These villages raise some of the most amazing people currently living in our world today and my prayer is that this is a cycle that God continues to bless our world with.

One Shining Moment

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go back to Westbury Christian School and speak in chapel. WCS is where I had my very first full time job ever. I was a Campus Minister, Bible Teacher, and Basketball Coach. This job is one that I will always be grateful for for so many different reasons. Obviously, it was nice to have a full time job after going four months out of college with no job offers. I love my family and was very appreciative of my parents for taking me in, but it was pretty difficult to have worked so hard for four years in college and feel like it was all for nothing. I wasn't familiar with Houston at all but I was very excited to try a new place and experience a new life with a new job that I would wake up to every day. I was also excited to be going to a job everyday where I would get to do my two favorite things with students: Bible and Basketball However,  the best reason that I'm thankful for WCS the most is because it is there that I met the most amazing woman I have ever met and her two incredible children. Ashley was entering her second year as a middle school science teacher, Audrey was starting the 3rd grade and Addison was in her final year of Pre-K. I actually knew them for a year before Ashley and I began dating (fun side note: if someone is ever dumb enough to turn this blog into a book, then I just decided on its title: Bible, Babes, and Basketball)

I had the honor of speaking at both middle school and high school chapel and Ashley decided that she would take the day off from work and come with me. When we walked in and started saying to people and walked around the buiding, I was amazed at how so many things had changed so drastically and how so many things had stayed the same. The student body looked older, taller, more like the adults they are becoming that they weren't anywhere close to being when we were still there. Some of the faculty were still there and welcomed us with open arms while others had gone on to other various jobs. My old boss, Greg Glenn had moved to Nashville to become the new head of school at Lipscomb Academy, which happens to be my alma mater. The guidance counselor, Mike White, has since moved up and filled the position. 

I got to see so many students and how so many of them had grown and matured. I got to see Galen Robinson from a ways off. G will be playing for the University of Houston basketball team next year. He's one of the high school players whom I enjoyed coaching and watching play the most and one of the people I wanted so badly to teach. I got to see Armani Crosby and Micah Flowers, two sophomores who were a part of my first junior high basketball team I ever had the honor of coaching. I got to see Laura Nelson who is the only student to attend every spring break mission trip the school has ever done since I helped start it 4 years ago and the younger sister of MJ, one of the most impressive students I ever had. I got to see Rosaline Akwarandu (very likely misspelled) who is evidently a big fan of this blog (I didn't really know anyone besides my family actually reads this thing. I see the number of pageviews but I just assume that my mom looks at it and clicks the refresh button repeatedly to make me feel good about myself as a writer. That only worked the first time, then I found out she was doing that.) and she requested another post (you're welcome). I got to see Jennifer Zalud who runs the copies to everyone in our school and might be one of the more fun people to be around amongst the entire faculty. I got to see Jennifer's son Jon who will be a senior next year and is the real ladies man according to Jennifer. I got to see Trey Austin who is coming off a second straight boys high school state championship as the basketball coach. I got to see Lindsey Loxtercamp who has about 4 different jobs at the school and was always someone I respected and enjoyed being around. I got to see Coach O and Laren McCormack who were the other campus ministers and basically saved the spring break mission trip in so many different ways when I made a billion mistakes getting it started. I could spend the rest of this post giving more shout outs but I think you get the picture at this point. 

It is evident that so many things had to happen in so many different ways in order for these different teachers, faculty, students, and friends to arrive at the point that each of them are in their lives. Something that amazes me more and more are the intricate plans that God has in all of our lives. Things really can happen for a reason when they happen in the right place and time. If Trey Austin hadn't recruited Galen Robinson, I never would have met G. If it wasn't for my relationship with David Akwarandu, I probably never would have gotten to know his younger sister Rosaline. If not for MJ, I doubt Laura Nelson ever goes on any of the mission trips. Without my computer not cooperating with me and forcing me to print a different way from all the other teachers while at WCS, I doubt I would ever need to spend hardly any time in the copy room and never really get to know Jennifer Zalud. Without Coach O and Laren, the mission trip would no longer exist (and probably never would have happened!). 

God lines different people up in my life and the lives of all of us so that we can have so many different impacts on so many different people. Something that Jesus spent so much time doing was telling people that they were to be a fruit bearing kind of people. This only registered with certain people listening to him. Something that he talked to them about was that those who cannot bear fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire (fire is pretty self explanatory for what that means). For so much of my life, I translated the command of "bearing fruit" in my life for needing to make disciples of Jesus out of those I come in contact with. While this is something I believe to be admirable and important, I also think that I have been partially wrong about this. I recently heard at a youth conference a reference that Jesus made about bearing fruit and what it takes to do so. In John 15:5, Jesus said "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you abide in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

David Skidmore, the speaker, highlighted how Jesus said that we didn't have to run all over the world making disciples. We simply had to do what Jesus said and abide in him. This hit home with me in such a huge way. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that WCS is where I met Ashley and the girls. What I didn't completely mention is how we were able to meet in the first place. 

When I was just 16 years old, I went on my first foreign mission trip to Honduras. It was on the way down that I learned that a group from Houston, TX would be joining us. It was on this mission trip that I became good friends with several different people from the Houston group. Three of these men really stood out though. They were Steve Hawley, Greg Glenn, and Preston Hill. We would all go on future trips together and looked forward to seeing each other every chance we got. At the time, Greg was the athletic director and basketball coach at WCS. The summer that I met Preston was the summer that Ashley married her late husband, Michael. I did not even realize it while on these trips, but I had somehow made a decent impression on all three of those guys. It was because of that first trip when I was 16 years old that Steve Hawley remembered me and recommended me to his boss. It was because of that trip that I got a call from Greg Glenn, the head of WCS at the time, 8 years later offering me a job. It was because of that job that I met a tall, beautiful brunette wearing a black top and khaki pants on my second day of work named Ashley, who told me that she was the daughter-in-law of Preston Hill and lost her husband a little over a year and a half ago at the time. It was because of that trip that took place almost 12 years ago that gave me the opportunity to date Ashley and have the approval of her in-laws (Preston and his family)almost immediately. I thought going to Honduras 12 years ago was something that was supposed to change me and make me more humble, giving, thoughtful, and loving. I thought that I was going to make disciples of Christ and while that might have taken place in some ways, I think God might have viewed that as abiding the way he calls us to. People who have done mission work will tell you that you end up being more changed at the end of the mission work than the people who you went to help change, that you always get more out of it than you put in. With a wife, two daughters, and a son on the way (oh yea, it's a boy!)I have absolutely no idea how I could possibly get more out of abiding than I already have, but I won't be putting limits on God, I like to think he lol's when people do that. When Michael passed away, Ashley decided that the best move for her was to take a teaching job so that she could have summers off and spend as much time with the girls as possible while also being able to be close to them during the school year. She got in touch with a friend of hers named Casey Farris who was the middle school principal at WCS. He offered her a teaching job there where she assumed she could suck it up during the school year and be able to focus on Audrey and Addison as much as possible. That's all she wanted God to do for her. I think he might have lol'd there. (I apologize for the excessive use of lol. I think it's dumb too but I figured the WCS students who apparently read this might appreciate it. It won't happen again)

The NCAA men's basketball tournament ended a little over a month ago. One of the traditions that CBS, who broadcasts the tournament, has is when the winning team is crowned champion at the end, they play the song "One Shining Moment" by David Barrett while showing various clips of the entire season of the winning team. As ridiculously cheesy as it is, that is where I stole the title of this post from (don't judge me). The concept of the song is that the team put in so much work before and during the season with the dream and goal of the one shining moment when the team can stand on the pedestal and raise the national championship trophy with pride. I like to look at the message of this song in a different way. Most championship teams will tell you that there was a game or even moment in a game when everything changed and they took on a different attitude and you could feel something different about them. I think that seems to be how God prefers to do his work. Oftentimes we do not know it, but God has these moments where we meet people or say or do something that impacts us and those involved in a tremendous way. The moments may not be shining, oftentimes they are anything but that. However, God has a plan. All we simply have to do is abide.

The family at Easter 2015

When You're Expecting...

So we are expecting our third child this year. Originally, we thought that it would be late July for the arrival date but it's looking like it could be a little later than that. if you haven't seen the announcement video then click here. I am realizing that the closer we come to having this baby, them more things pop into my head about this baby.

Ashley and I started dating when Audrey was 10 and Addison was 5. That basically goes to say that I was invited to the party that is their lives until 5 and 10 years after they started (selfish). I have had several different guys whom I have known for a while notify me that they and their wives are expecting daughters and that they'll be contacting me about advice on what to do when raising daughters. My response is that I can't but that I will be happy to as soon as the daughter turns 5.

This goes to say that I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to this baby being born. We won't know the gender for another couple of months. Obviously, I will love this child unconditionally no matter what, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't pulling for a boy. Having 3 girls who are the opposite of tomboys tends to get kinda lonely on the testosterone end of things. The only other boy in the house besides me is our year old boxer puppy who is possibly the worst behaved dog ever. Addison just came in here 10 minutes ago to notify us that he had jump up on her bed and peed in it. Needless to say I'm the only appreciated male in this house and we could use one more. However, a healthy girl would be a total blessing beyond my wildest dreams. There will be a lot of estrogen in the house if this happens, but I am already preparing for it. I have been watching a lot of the tv show "Last Man Standing" starring Tim Allen to help prep for what could be to come. The show is about a manly man who lives with his wife and three daughters. I'm not exactly like Allen's character but some of the scenarios in the show do happen in my house. It's fun to watch and relate to on some level.

I am setting a lot of expectations for this kid and even more expectations for myself. This is very likely going to be the only child that Ashley and me have together. Something that I am making it a point to do is to gratify the girls through this. It is imperative to me that they do not think that I am partial to this child in any way. I love them just as much as this baby and that will never change. I also want to do all of the things that a good dad should do. I want to always be there for the kid. I want to help pick him/her up when he/she falls, I want to teach and discipline him/her. I want to teach the child how to ride a bike, tie a shoe, a dribble a basketball. I need to also convince myself that this isn't entirely realistic. Something that I have learned in being a dad to Audrey and Addison is that I will fail in parenting this child at times, just like I have with them. This doesn't make me a bad father or a bad person. It simply proves that I am human and make mistakes and this leads me to the biggest expectation that I have for myself: I want to admit my faults to this child. I think that this is something that parents can sometimes miss. It's something that can cause a kid to be very stubborn down the road if this becomes something that the kid never sees.

James the brother of Jesus said to confess our sins to one another and I think that this includes our kids. Now don't read this as me telling you or anyone else how to parent. Hopefully it's something that I look back at and use for myself in trying to parent and raise kids. My goal is to raise a child in Christ and when I fail at that, which will inevitably happen, I plan on admitting the fault and making it a point to do better.