I don't know how time goes by so fast, well I do, but it still it never ceases to surprise me. Today I have a few minutes between all the things going on to write. I suspect that what will actually happen is that I'll start this, there will be some crisis for one of the kids and I'll get drawn away, then it'll be dinner time, then Awana time, then bedtime, etc.
Since I last checked in lots of things have happened. Claire did get baptized, my in-laws came and left, Claire and Daniel started piano lessons, Claire had her 9th birthday, and the Seahawks inexplicably opted to pass from the two yard line instead of pound the rock with Beastmode! That was the most unbelievable and baffling play call in SuperBowl history! Sorry friends.
We have had incredibly warm weather for several weeks now, temps in the 50's and mostly sunny. I'm sure that's only temporary, but we can't complain. There were a couple of days that were totally reminiscent of the liquid sunshine that we loved in Anacortes and it only made us long for our friends in the true PNW.
As for the BCF, we've been walking through the Lord's prayer on Sunday mornings for many weeks now. The breakdown has been something like this: Wk 1 "Our Father," Wk 2 "Hallowed be your name," Wk 3 "Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done," and this week is "Daily Bread." On SuperBowl Sunday we did something special dealing with football and testimonies from current and former NFL players. It was good and we had a lot of visitors. It seems like weekly we've had people making professions of faith.
Last week I connected with a local youth group run by one of the ladies from our church and I got to spend time with them. One thing led to another and in about a month Daniel and I will be taking a group of teenagers in our church van to Boise for a concert and staying over night in another church. Fun times!
I've finally connected with several other Christian pastors in town and we are meeting weekly to pray for one another. One good thing that's coming fro this is that we are going to join together to do an Easter Sunrise service at a local park. The coolest part of it is that currently one and hopefully soon two of the churches that will join us are Spanish speaking churches! We'll do the service and music in both english and Spanish!!! Remember the Bible speaks of "every tribe, every tongue, and every nation," being together in heaven and we thought we'd get an early start with the people groups that we have here in Blackfoot.
In January I started a prayer group for the church to "pray the scriptures." While there are only a few people who have come and that are consistent, it has been tremendous for my heart and faith. This morning we prayed through Romans 8. Let me remind you pf a couple of promises that are in that chapter: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (v1). Setting your mind on the Spirit is life and peace (v6). You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption...by whom we cry, “Daddy!” (v14). Those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (v30). If God is for us, who can be against us? (v31). Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (v35). No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (v37-39).
As I figured, it is now several hours since I started this post. Away is over and I just went back by the hospital to visit a family whose wife/mother just went home to be with the Lord this evening. I am again reminded how quickly things change and how short life is. Just about a month ago Dawn asked to be baptized, however, she got sick, which eventually ended tonight with her crossing over into glory. She was a wonderful woman who drove a bus for special needs people. She had a great smile and a sparkle in her eye. Dawn leaves behind a husband, Bill, two daughters, Mickey and Rebecca (her husband and son), and two sons that I do not know. She will be missed. If you think about it, please pray for her grieving family, and remember that she is no longer in pain, no tears, and all the sad things have come untrue for her. Praise be to her God.
Well, its late and I need to get some sleep as I'm sure tomorrow holds adventures yet to be told and challenges that will sharpen us all. Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We love and miss you all. Give our love to the Kitchen Table folks and hug each other for all of us.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Saturday, January 24, 2015
One month later...
Here we are again, one month later. I'm glad I didn't make a New Year's resolution to post blogs more often or I would have already broken it : ) . Time truly flies when you are in over your head.
Blackfoot Christian Fellowship Updates
Things are moving right along, we continue to see new faces and have repeat visitors. I'm still trying to figure out how to make sure that we can retain and disciple the ones that are here.
We will be starting small groups in the month of February and we'll start with a series that I know y'all are familiar with - North Point Community Church's - Christian. It's an exciting new venture for the church and a great way to get our melting pot connected.
I mentioned in my last post that Claire is getting baptized tomorrow, which means that Papa and Gram are here. I thought that she might be the only one who was going to get baptized, but we have a one more tomorrow and perhaps another two in a couple of weeks! This is exciting because its more proof that God is doing something great here. As a church we have "required" people getting baptized to record a video telling their story. It's an extra step and it can be uncomfortable for some people, but the impact on the church is incredible. It's amazing how much some people's stories resonate with other's in the church.
Tomorrow the other person getting baptized is a young lady named Shanea (Shay-na), whose story is incredible. Honestly she should be dead in a gutter somewhere. She was abandoned here in Blackfoot by her "boyfriend" at a gas station as they were passing through town. The gas station just happens to be owned by a family from the church and they helped here get connected to the Crisis Center and Angela brought her to church the next Sunday. That day she accepted the Lord as her Savior and two weeks later she is getting baptized. Please pray for her because she has a long road ahead, but God is good.
We now have 90 kids enrolled at AWANA and more come almost every week. It's going really well, we just need more volunteers to make it happen. Same story different church right, we all need volunteers. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest because he will provide them for both of us.
Last Sunday I started a series on prayer using the Lord's Prayer out of the book of Matthew as our guide. A while back I felt very that I needed to spend more time in prayer and I started reading more about it in the Bible and I in my morning devo time. It's been really good and I know Satan doesn't like it because there are lots of trials that have been coming this way.
I also started an early morning prayer group that simply "prays the scriptures." Did you know that there are somewhere around 3000 +/- promises in the scriptures and when we "remind" God what he promised like Moses and David and approach the throne of grace with confidence we will receive mercy and find grace in our times of need (Heb 4:16). Don't worry I'm not going off the rails with the prosperity gospel : ), it's simply an effort to know the scriptures better.
On The Homefront
Claire is getting baptized and I need to say thank you to many of you who have been praying with us for her for years, and to those of you helped teach her specifically (Doug Elliot, Lesley Sander and Kathy Ruckdaschel) we are so grateful to your faithfulness to the Lord for loving our family. Just in case you're wondering, Claire prayed to receive Christ several years ago, but we wanted her to ask to be baptized, we wanted it to be her decision and so this is so exciting for us. I know it's got Daniel asking questions now! I think that you'll be able to watch the baptism on the website www.blackfootfellowship.org
Homeschool is going well. The kids are very smart, what else would I say, and I'm sure they have the normal challenges of sometimes not wanting to do certain subjects, but they seem to be heading in the right direction. Please pray for Kate as she teaches them and ask God on her behalf for wisdom, patience, and discipline as mommy and teacher.
Please pray for Kate and I, as there are so many things going on with the church that I'm stretched pretty thin right now and I need to make sure I'm not giving Kate and the kids my left-overs. We will celebrate our 14 anniversary in about a month (hard to believe) and of course I'd do it all over again, but I'm not sure I ever guessed this is where we'd be or what life would look like.
Finally, we're excited to again cheer for the Seahawks in the Super Bowl and we'll miss the incredible Barney party and all the craziness that goes along with it. Wish we could be there for that, but I guess we'll have to start a new tradition in Blackfoot.
Again and as always, sorry it's so long in between posts. We love and miss y'all.
Blackfoot Christian Fellowship Updates
Things are moving right along, we continue to see new faces and have repeat visitors. I'm still trying to figure out how to make sure that we can retain and disciple the ones that are here.
We will be starting small groups in the month of February and we'll start with a series that I know y'all are familiar with - North Point Community Church's - Christian. It's an exciting new venture for the church and a great way to get our melting pot connected.
I mentioned in my last post that Claire is getting baptized tomorrow, which means that Papa and Gram are here. I thought that she might be the only one who was going to get baptized, but we have a one more tomorrow and perhaps another two in a couple of weeks! This is exciting because its more proof that God is doing something great here. As a church we have "required" people getting baptized to record a video telling their story. It's an extra step and it can be uncomfortable for some people, but the impact on the church is incredible. It's amazing how much some people's stories resonate with other's in the church.
Tomorrow the other person getting baptized is a young lady named Shanea (Shay-na), whose story is incredible. Honestly she should be dead in a gutter somewhere. She was abandoned here in Blackfoot by her "boyfriend" at a gas station as they were passing through town. The gas station just happens to be owned by a family from the church and they helped here get connected to the Crisis Center and Angela brought her to church the next Sunday. That day she accepted the Lord as her Savior and two weeks later she is getting baptized. Please pray for her because she has a long road ahead, but God is good.
We now have 90 kids enrolled at AWANA and more come almost every week. It's going really well, we just need more volunteers to make it happen. Same story different church right, we all need volunteers. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest because he will provide them for both of us.
Last Sunday I started a series on prayer using the Lord's Prayer out of the book of Matthew as our guide. A while back I felt very that I needed to spend more time in prayer and I started reading more about it in the Bible and I in my morning devo time. It's been really good and I know Satan doesn't like it because there are lots of trials that have been coming this way.
I also started an early morning prayer group that simply "prays the scriptures." Did you know that there are somewhere around 3000 +/- promises in the scriptures and when we "remind" God what he promised like Moses and David and approach the throne of grace with confidence we will receive mercy and find grace in our times of need (Heb 4:16). Don't worry I'm not going off the rails with the prosperity gospel : ), it's simply an effort to know the scriptures better.
On The Homefront
Claire is getting baptized and I need to say thank you to many of you who have been praying with us for her for years, and to those of you helped teach her specifically (Doug Elliot, Lesley Sander and Kathy Ruckdaschel) we are so grateful to your faithfulness to the Lord for loving our family. Just in case you're wondering, Claire prayed to receive Christ several years ago, but we wanted her to ask to be baptized, we wanted it to be her decision and so this is so exciting for us. I know it's got Daniel asking questions now! I think that you'll be able to watch the baptism on the website www.blackfootfellowship.org
Homeschool is going well. The kids are very smart, what else would I say, and I'm sure they have the normal challenges of sometimes not wanting to do certain subjects, but they seem to be heading in the right direction. Please pray for Kate as she teaches them and ask God on her behalf for wisdom, patience, and discipline as mommy and teacher.
Please pray for Kate and I, as there are so many things going on with the church that I'm stretched pretty thin right now and I need to make sure I'm not giving Kate and the kids my left-overs. We will celebrate our 14 anniversary in about a month (hard to believe) and of course I'd do it all over again, but I'm not sure I ever guessed this is where we'd be or what life would look like.
Finally, we're excited to again cheer for the Seahawks in the Super Bowl and we'll miss the incredible Barney party and all the craziness that goes along with it. Wish we could be there for that, but I guess we'll have to start a new tradition in Blackfoot.
Again and as always, sorry it's so long in between posts. We love and miss y'all.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Some promised pics
I'll do a little explaining for each one...
First, this is Allister, Claire's new BFF (best friend forever).
This is a Horse nativity scene that the girls worked on one night. Take note of the winged horse angel, and the robes on the shepherd horses and wool on the sheep horses... They had so much fun quietly together while the boys tore the house up down stairs!
This is the team after our last game (including Coach C). We lost but it was a good season.
These are the pics that Lynn did for the church. Each week we unveiled a new one until the scene was set. Aren't they incredible?
Monday, December 22, 2014
Merry Christmas
Hello Friends! I'm sorry it's been a month since I posted anything, I don't really understand how time gets away from me. Okay thats not true, I know where all my time goes. Let's get right to some updates.
Blackfoot Christian Fellowship - things are going very well. We continue to have steady attendance around the mid 80's and it seems like there are always new people in attendance. I'd like to say we've settled into a sort of rhythm at church on Sundays that seems to be working pretty well.
Since my last post we've completed our Christmas series and are awaiting Christmas Eve with great anticipation. I'm not sure if I mentioned that there is a woman at church who is an incredible artist. I asked her to paint some pictures for our Christmas series and they came out incredible. I'll post some picture tomorrow b/c I'm at home tonight and I haven't taken pictures of them yet. There are a total of 8 canvases, 4 on each wall, like a mirror image. Each week unveiled two more canvases and by the end they show a beautiful midnight scene looking towards Bethlehem. They are incredible!
BIG NEWS - The Southern Baptist Church building sold to another local church! We were able to make them a screaming deal and to keep the building in Christian ministry. Next we nee dot unload the parsonage and we'll really be in business. Of course it's a little more complicated than that, but things are moving forward as we officially and legally bring these two congregations together. Part of the monies will help us to do a few more of the things that we believe are necessary to finish updating the building and the rest will help us to do ministry.
Answered Prayer - We have some people from the church who have taken over the music leading and now FBC Pocatello doesn't have to send musicians to us every week. It's a bittersweet situation because the people that they have sent to us have become good friends to the church and will be missed, but it's awesome to have people step up and lead in ministry.
On the Homefront - Kate and the kids have finished up the first semester of homeschooling and I'm happy to say that everyone not only survived, but they learned a lot too. Daniel is beginning to read really well on his own. Of course Claire goes through books like nobodies business, but whats new there. Jolee loves to color, paint, and annoy her brother and sister. She is a really good three year old, and when I say that I mean a two year old with a year of practice. If you don't get what I'm saying, she has definitely come into her own and lets her little opinion be known, man can she be stubborn, I think she gets that from her mothers side of the family : ). It's good thing she's cute.
We finished basketball last Saturday and for that I'm thankful. Now that it's over, I can say it was a good thing. Daniel made a couple of friends, I got to know some non-churched and Mormon families, and we'll keep in touch with some of them for sure. I may have mentioned this before, but Daniel is a natural athlete (I know I'm his dad and his coach and yes I am biased). He had so much fun and he's really good. Unfortunately we ended our season 2-3-1, blame it all on the coach.
BIG NEWS - Claire has asked to be baptized! Kate and I are really excited about this step for her because she hasn't wanted to be baptized because she doesn't want to be in front of everyone, but we've talked about it and she's ready. We're gonna wait until Kate's parents come in January so that they can be here for the big event. I can't wait to baptize my baby girl, who's getting so big and really doing so much on her own these days.
Answered Prayer - God gave us some Christian friends who are pretty new to the area, who homeschool, and whose kids are about the same ages as our kids. It's pretty uncanny the similarities that our families have. I can't tell you how huge this is for our family, specifically for Claire. Their daughter, Allister, is the same age as Claire and they are cut out of the same cloth. It's so good for her to have a friend her own age.
I'm sure there is so much more I could tell y'all but I'm running out of steam. I think my bed, Kate, and a Christmas movie are calling me. I promise to be better at posting updates. I will also try post some Christmas pics too.
Until next time, May you be filled with the HOPE of God in Jesus Christ, which gives you PEACE that passes understanding, JOY despite sorrows, and the ability to LOVE all people, even the Grinches.
Merry Christmas and as always we miss you all!
Blackfoot Christian Fellowship - things are going very well. We continue to have steady attendance around the mid 80's and it seems like there are always new people in attendance. I'd like to say we've settled into a sort of rhythm at church on Sundays that seems to be working pretty well.
Since my last post we've completed our Christmas series and are awaiting Christmas Eve with great anticipation. I'm not sure if I mentioned that there is a woman at church who is an incredible artist. I asked her to paint some pictures for our Christmas series and they came out incredible. I'll post some picture tomorrow b/c I'm at home tonight and I haven't taken pictures of them yet. There are a total of 8 canvases, 4 on each wall, like a mirror image. Each week unveiled two more canvases and by the end they show a beautiful midnight scene looking towards Bethlehem. They are incredible!
BIG NEWS - The Southern Baptist Church building sold to another local church! We were able to make them a screaming deal and to keep the building in Christian ministry. Next we nee dot unload the parsonage and we'll really be in business. Of course it's a little more complicated than that, but things are moving forward as we officially and legally bring these two congregations together. Part of the monies will help us to do a few more of the things that we believe are necessary to finish updating the building and the rest will help us to do ministry.
Answered Prayer - We have some people from the church who have taken over the music leading and now FBC Pocatello doesn't have to send musicians to us every week. It's a bittersweet situation because the people that they have sent to us have become good friends to the church and will be missed, but it's awesome to have people step up and lead in ministry.
We finished basketball last Saturday and for that I'm thankful. Now that it's over, I can say it was a good thing. Daniel made a couple of friends, I got to know some non-churched and Mormon families, and we'll keep in touch with some of them for sure. I may have mentioned this before, but Daniel is a natural athlete (I know I'm his dad and his coach and yes I am biased). He had so much fun and he's really good. Unfortunately we ended our season 2-3-1, blame it all on the coach.
BIG NEWS - Claire has asked to be baptized! Kate and I are really excited about this step for her because she hasn't wanted to be baptized because she doesn't want to be in front of everyone, but we've talked about it and she's ready. We're gonna wait until Kate's parents come in January so that they can be here for the big event. I can't wait to baptize my baby girl, who's getting so big and really doing so much on her own these days.
Answered Prayer - God gave us some Christian friends who are pretty new to the area, who homeschool, and whose kids are about the same ages as our kids. It's pretty uncanny the similarities that our families have. I can't tell you how huge this is for our family, specifically for Claire. Their daughter, Allister, is the same age as Claire and they are cut out of the same cloth. It's so good for her to have a friend her own age.
I'm sure there is so much more I could tell y'all but I'm running out of steam. I think my bed, Kate, and a Christmas movie are calling me. I promise to be better at posting updates. I will also try post some Christmas pics too.
Until next time, May you be filled with the HOPE of God in Jesus Christ, which gives you PEACE that passes understanding, JOY despite sorrows, and the ability to LOVE all people, even the Grinches.
Merry Christmas and as always we miss you all!
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Happy Thanksgiving
It's Thanksgiving week -- hard to believe I know. Where to start?
It was so good to see as many of you as we did last week on our trip to Anacortes. It was a great time for us to take a break from the craziness that has been our lives for the past 3-1/2 months. We've definitely missed being with y'all, but we've been blessed by God's goodness and what he's allowing us to be part of here. So on to our trip experience...
We set off for Anacortes a 1/2 day earlier than we expected to because of the super cold weather. School was canceled here so our evening activities were canceled at church and we (five Team O members and our dog/mascot Hunter) set out to beat the snow, which we did. The trip was as smooth as can be except for a couple of traffic delays and one car sickness incident.
While in Anacortes I (Kevin) got to take part in Eyran Richards "Change of Command" ceremony. It was an incredible honor and a great experience. If you've never been to one of these ceremonies, its quite an event, the Navy is so full of tradition and cool ceremony. My job was to offer the opening invocation and the closing benediction. I got to sit on the stage and look out at all the people there to send off the old Skipper, Eyran, and welcome the new Skipper, Dan Johnson. The cast on stage was impressive, Commanders, Captains, an Admiral, and a Master Chief. These guys were in their dress uniforms complete with medals, ribbons, and swords! I felt really out of place, but it was awesome. I only messed up once in my prayer for the soldier. Did you catch that? In the Navy they are sailors, not soldiers. I corrected myself in the prayer and I know that God heard and knew who I was talking about. Thanks again Eyran for the honor.
Another highlight of the trip was attending church with y'all on on Sunday. The chance to hug people, see smiling faces, and of course to hear a great message preached by Todd was wonderful. BTW, Todd is going to be a great Associate Pastor! Especially after listening to him, I know that he will do a great job of connecting with teenagers and young families and because I know that he loves God, he will serve all the people of FBC, young and old alike. I'm super excited for this new chapter for FBC! Do me a favor and love on Todd and his family as they come in to serve.
Here are the few final things about the trip... My beautiful bride was diagnosed with Strep Throat while we were in Anacortes, thankfully, none of the Pruiett's got it! Daniel got to celebrate his 7th birthday with many good friends, oh and he got initiated into the boy world of stitches! Our final day in town, Kate was resting because of the Strep, so I took Daniel, Claire, and Cassidy P. out for a hike to Flagstaff Island. It was great, the day was beautiful, the skies were clear, we took some great pictures and were enjoying God's beautiful creation until... We were headed out and took one last side trip to the beach to climb on stumps and throw rock into the water. I took pics of each kid on a stump when the girls decided to go somewhere else so I left Daniel to climb down by himself. This was not a big stump, Daniel climbs things like this in his sleep, but that day he slipped and fell backwards! When I heard his scream -- parents, you know the "I'm not hurt but I want your attention" scream, this was NOT that. I knew immediately that he was hurt. I ran back and saw him on a rock crying/screaming and a little bit of blood on the ground. I freaked out and broke all the hurt person protocols, I immediately picked him up, check to see where he was bleeding from. I expected to see a busted mouth, but then I noticed the stream coming from the back of his head. Sorry if I'm giving too much detail. I yelled to the girls to get up the trail, wrapped Daniels head in my jacket, picked him up and began to run back to the car with him. Claire was crying because she was scared for him and poor Cassidy was probably just freaked out and shell shocked by everything. Long story short, poor Daniel had to get two small stitches above and behind his right ear, and a couple of hours later you wouldn't have known that anything was wrong! I totally over reacted, but hey thats the way it goes.
Back in Blackfoot... We arrived home super late on Tuesday night to a cool house and a lot of snow on the ground. Everything and everyone survived the early season "ice age" and in just the last couple of days things have thawed out and the snow is disappearing.
While we were away, the chairs we ordered came in were set up for church. It was a beautiful sight to see when I came in on Wednesday. They are comfy, I'm going to have to work really hard to keep people awake on Sundays : )
Another crazy thing happened while we were gone. We got parking lot lights. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal but the way it happened is another one of those "God" happenings. The short story is that our parking lot was really dark and one night after Awana was over we noticed that kids and parents were trying to navigate the dark parking lot and it seems really unsafe. One of our people stopped by an electrical company that he had done work with in the past to check on something and he mentioned the situation. The owner GAVE us four lights and we just happened to have men in the church who did all the work of trenching, running the cable, pouring the concrete footers, and installing the lights. Did I mention that they did all the work in below freezing temperatures? Pretty awesome huh?
While we haven't had over 100 people in a couple of weeks, we still had a really good crowd including more new faces. In fact today was really awesome because we had seven people raise hands to receive Christ and to rededicate their lives to him. The message was out of Acts 9, the story of Paul's conversion, the Damascus Road experience. The big idea is that we are never to far gone for God's grace to reach us and our past doesn't disqualify us from serving God in the future. In fact God is in the business of transforming monsters like Paul, like you and me, into children of God who are his chosen instruments to...bless all people. You and God get to figure out how specifically you'll do that. Four of the people who prayed this morning were high school boys, it was pretty cool to have them here. I'm praying for more baptisms in the near future!
Next week we step out of Acts and into our Christmas series called Christmas Presence: Hope - Peace - Love - Joy. I love Christmas and I can't wait to decorate my house and the church. But before that I can't wait to eat some yummy Thanksgiving turkey.
Here's what we need prayer for:
Family - Patience as we continue to learn how to homeschool our kids.
Balance - we've been doing too many things and we need to be still and know that God is God.
Wisdom - for leading our family and the church.
To find godly leaders who can run with ministries.
Health.
As always, we love y'all and wish we could have spent more time with you. May God give you the realization that you have an overabundance of things to be thankful for and may you love and serve the people he puts in your sphere of influence.
It was so good to see as many of you as we did last week on our trip to Anacortes. It was a great time for us to take a break from the craziness that has been our lives for the past 3-1/2 months. We've definitely missed being with y'all, but we've been blessed by God's goodness and what he's allowing us to be part of here. So on to our trip experience...
We set off for Anacortes a 1/2 day earlier than we expected to because of the super cold weather. School was canceled here so our evening activities were canceled at church and we (five Team O members and our dog/mascot Hunter) set out to beat the snow, which we did. The trip was as smooth as can be except for a couple of traffic delays and one car sickness incident.
While in Anacortes I (Kevin) got to take part in Eyran Richards "Change of Command" ceremony. It was an incredible honor and a great experience. If you've never been to one of these ceremonies, its quite an event, the Navy is so full of tradition and cool ceremony. My job was to offer the opening invocation and the closing benediction. I got to sit on the stage and look out at all the people there to send off the old Skipper, Eyran, and welcome the new Skipper, Dan Johnson. The cast on stage was impressive, Commanders, Captains, an Admiral, and a Master Chief. These guys were in their dress uniforms complete with medals, ribbons, and swords! I felt really out of place, but it was awesome. I only messed up once in my prayer for the soldier. Did you catch that? In the Navy they are sailors, not soldiers. I corrected myself in the prayer and I know that God heard and knew who I was talking about. Thanks again Eyran for the honor.
Another highlight of the trip was attending church with y'all on on Sunday. The chance to hug people, see smiling faces, and of course to hear a great message preached by Todd was wonderful. BTW, Todd is going to be a great Associate Pastor! Especially after listening to him, I know that he will do a great job of connecting with teenagers and young families and because I know that he loves God, he will serve all the people of FBC, young and old alike. I'm super excited for this new chapter for FBC! Do me a favor and love on Todd and his family as they come in to serve.
Here are the few final things about the trip... My beautiful bride was diagnosed with Strep Throat while we were in Anacortes, thankfully, none of the Pruiett's got it! Daniel got to celebrate his 7th birthday with many good friends, oh and he got initiated into the boy world of stitches! Our final day in town, Kate was resting because of the Strep, so I took Daniel, Claire, and Cassidy P. out for a hike to Flagstaff Island. It was great, the day was beautiful, the skies were clear, we took some great pictures and were enjoying God's beautiful creation until... We were headed out and took one last side trip to the beach to climb on stumps and throw rock into the water. I took pics of each kid on a stump when the girls decided to go somewhere else so I left Daniel to climb down by himself. This was not a big stump, Daniel climbs things like this in his sleep, but that day he slipped and fell backwards! When I heard his scream -- parents, you know the "I'm not hurt but I want your attention" scream, this was NOT that. I knew immediately that he was hurt. I ran back and saw him on a rock crying/screaming and a little bit of blood on the ground. I freaked out and broke all the hurt person protocols, I immediately picked him up, check to see where he was bleeding from. I expected to see a busted mouth, but then I noticed the stream coming from the back of his head. Sorry if I'm giving too much detail. I yelled to the girls to get up the trail, wrapped Daniels head in my jacket, picked him up and began to run back to the car with him. Claire was crying because she was scared for him and poor Cassidy was probably just freaked out and shell shocked by everything. Long story short, poor Daniel had to get two small stitches above and behind his right ear, and a couple of hours later you wouldn't have known that anything was wrong! I totally over reacted, but hey thats the way it goes.
Back in Blackfoot... We arrived home super late on Tuesday night to a cool house and a lot of snow on the ground. Everything and everyone survived the early season "ice age" and in just the last couple of days things have thawed out and the snow is disappearing.
While we were away, the chairs we ordered came in were set up for church. It was a beautiful sight to see when I came in on Wednesday. They are comfy, I'm going to have to work really hard to keep people awake on Sundays : )
Another crazy thing happened while we were gone. We got parking lot lights. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal but the way it happened is another one of those "God" happenings. The short story is that our parking lot was really dark and one night after Awana was over we noticed that kids and parents were trying to navigate the dark parking lot and it seems really unsafe. One of our people stopped by an electrical company that he had done work with in the past to check on something and he mentioned the situation. The owner GAVE us four lights and we just happened to have men in the church who did all the work of trenching, running the cable, pouring the concrete footers, and installing the lights. Did I mention that they did all the work in below freezing temperatures? Pretty awesome huh?
While we haven't had over 100 people in a couple of weeks, we still had a really good crowd including more new faces. In fact today was really awesome because we had seven people raise hands to receive Christ and to rededicate their lives to him. The message was out of Acts 9, the story of Paul's conversion, the Damascus Road experience. The big idea is that we are never to far gone for God's grace to reach us and our past doesn't disqualify us from serving God in the future. In fact God is in the business of transforming monsters like Paul, like you and me, into children of God who are his chosen instruments to...bless all people. You and God get to figure out how specifically you'll do that. Four of the people who prayed this morning were high school boys, it was pretty cool to have them here. I'm praying for more baptisms in the near future!
Next week we step out of Acts and into our Christmas series called Christmas Presence: Hope - Peace - Love - Joy. I love Christmas and I can't wait to decorate my house and the church. But before that I can't wait to eat some yummy Thanksgiving turkey.
Here's what we need prayer for:
Family - Patience as we continue to learn how to homeschool our kids.
Balance - we've been doing too many things and we need to be still and know that God is God.
Wisdom - for leading our family and the church.
To find godly leaders who can run with ministries.
Health.
As always, we love y'all and wish we could have spent more time with you. May God give you the realization that you have an overabundance of things to be thankful for and may you love and serve the people he puts in your sphere of influence.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Two Consecutive Weeks
Well as the title suggests something happened two weeks in a row. Just so you know, it wasn't that my football team won again, in fact, they barely held on to win and break a three game loosing streak. No, today we had over 100 people in church again and there were a ton of faces that were new! It was truly incredible.
Last week I got to write an article for the local newspaper, its something that the newspaper recently started doing for whatever reason. What it allowed me to do was to share what we believe as a church, in fact, I shared something similar to Anacortes FBC a couple of years ago. As the kids and I went trick or treating on Friday, a couple of my Mormon neighbors commented on my article and all throughout the day I got texts and messages about the article from people at church. I also think it's why we had some more new faces at church today. I've been here three months and I've had my picture in the paper three times now. Here's what I wrote:
Last week I got to write an article for the local newspaper, its something that the newspaper recently started doing for whatever reason. What it allowed me to do was to share what we believe as a church, in fact, I shared something similar to Anacortes FBC a couple of years ago. As the kids and I went trick or treating on Friday, a couple of my Mormon neighbors commented on my article and all throughout the day I got texts and messages about the article from people at church. I also think it's why we had some more new faces at church today. I've been here three months and I've had my picture in the paper three times now. Here's what I wrote:
Did you know that God wants you to have an out of the box, over the top, are you kidding me kind of confidence in Him? At times in my life I feel like I have lived that way, I’ve jumped when it didn’t make sense, I’ve moved when I didn’t want to, I’ve talked to someone because I felt God asked me to, and amazing things happened. Then there are the other and probably more frequent times when I didn’t jump, move, or talk. These are the times when I feel like I’ve fallen way short of the kind of life that God wants for me. How did I go from walking with confidence to a life of worry and fear?
Jesus tells us in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” When I no longer walked with confidence it was because I allowed the thief to steal my perspective, destroy my hope, and kill my purpose. I was no longer living by faith. I was living in fear; but fear of what? Fear that I’ll look stupid, fear that I’ll get hurt, fear that I’ll be laughed at, and the list goes on… You know what the common denominator in all of those statements is, I (me). As long as I put me as the center of my world I will always slip back into a life that is less than what God has planned for me.
It is not until I remember that there was one who whose perspective was not stolen, whose hope was realized, and whose purpose was to give his life as a ransom for many. Only when we see what Jesus did for us will our hearts be melted and freed from the paralyzing fear that keeps us from experiencing an out of the box, over the top, are you kidding me kind of confidence in God. Only when you receive and embrace his life, death, and resurrection will you be freed to pursue the abundant life; the life that you’ve always wanted.
Pastor Kevin Olivarez
Blackfoot Christian Fellowship
I got paid a really great compliment today, by a lady who has been coming to church and whose son is the starting QB for the Blackfoot Broncos, who are undefeated and who are the favorite to win state in their division this year. Her son has been to church for several weeks now and she told me that he really likes me and in fact, he invited two of his football buddies to church this morning. It was pretty cool to see four HS boys all well over six feet tall in church and engaged in the service. After church I told the boys that Daniel and I will head out to their territory this Friday to watch them play.
As for our family, things are going pretty well, just really busy. A couple of weeks ago I started coaching 1st and 2nd grade basketball for Daniel. Just so we're clear, I know nothing about basketball, but as I learned on Saturday, our first game, I don't have to know anything about it. It mainly running down the court hollering at kids to dribble, pass, shoot, and rebound. It was pretty crazy! As you can imagine, Daniel is a natural; what else would I say? It seems like anything with a ball this kids excels at. He played hard, scored couple of goals, and came home really sweaty. Did I mention that Claire is my self proclaimed assistant coach? She blows the whistle for me at practice and is mostly helpful. It's fun to have her around and involved in it. It funny to hear the kids that are younger than her, but taller than her, call her Coach C.
There are many more things I"m sure I could tell you, but I think I'm just going to post a few pics and call it a night. Oh yeah, I should mention this... We're headed back to Anacortes for a few days to participate in Eyran Richards "Change of Command" ceremony. I was honored to be asked to offer the Opening prayer and closing Benediction for the ceremony. We're planning on being at church on Sunday, Nov 16.
As always thanks for the prayers and support. We love and miss y'all, and see you soon!
Enjoy the pics:
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Growing Pains
A long time ago in a church far away, I was blessed to be part of a church where the Senior Pastor led us through a series called the Five Things God Uses To Grow Your Faith. Those Five things are: Practical Teaching, Providential Relationships, Private Disciplines, Personal Ministry, Pivotal Circumstances. Today I want to focus on the providential relationships and pivotal circumstances.
Just about four and a half years ago God moved our family of four to a small community called Anacortes, WA. It was exciting, an adventure if you will. Now this move was not without it's challenges. If we are being honest, and I hope we are, it took our family a couple of years to really feel like Anacortes was home. God provided some really incredible friends for our family (providential relationships). These friends helped us grow in our faith, loved us, challenged us, and made realize how good God is. In the second two years in Anacortes, God provided me (Kevin) with some real pivotal circumstances in ministry, in which, I was able to learn and grow. I experienced good and hard things that would shape me as a pastor and follower of Christ.
Fast forward to this weekend. Yesterday we had a harvest party that I challenged the church to put together just two weeks ago. They rallied together and last night was amazing. People stepped up and ran carnival games, took family pictures, painted faces, told Bible stories, and made everyone who walked through our doors feel like they belonged there. This morning several families who came to the Harvest party showed up at church!
But that wasn't the coolest part. We got here almost three months ago and went from a small congregation of 30ish, with only three kids, all three came with me when we move here, to this morning when we had over 100 grown up types and somewhere between 15-20 kiddos!
But wait there's more, today we had our first baptism! Today Melody went public with her commitment to the Lord. She is a picture of a transformed life. Before Christ her life that was shrouded in darkness because she was living to please people and often using alcohol to cope with bad decisions and social anxiety. These days Melody is an Awana helper and so much more at Blackfoot Christian Fellowship.
I stand amazed at what God is doing here and what he has allowed us to be a part of.
If you're wondering why I titled this growing pains, well it's because before this incredible weekend, we had a really rough week. I won't go into detail, but as a family let's just say that we miss our providential relationships from Anacortes and we're wondering how long it'll be before we experience some of that here. They say that the darkest hour is before the dawn and that proved to be true last week and hopefully we're coming out on the other side. I know it'll be a long while before we have deep friends like we did in Anacortes, but we trust that God is moving here and in us.
Thanks for reading and for praying for us. Keep Kate in your hearts and minds as she is working so hard to educate our kids and dealing with me, a full-time job on it's own.
I would write more, but its late and I'm bushed, so I try to do better next time to tell you about the family, what the kids are up to and I'll even post pics of them playing in a mountain of leaves.
We love an miss y'all!
Just about four and a half years ago God moved our family of four to a small community called Anacortes, WA. It was exciting, an adventure if you will. Now this move was not without it's challenges. If we are being honest, and I hope we are, it took our family a couple of years to really feel like Anacortes was home. God provided some really incredible friends for our family (providential relationships). These friends helped us grow in our faith, loved us, challenged us, and made realize how good God is. In the second two years in Anacortes, God provided me (Kevin) with some real pivotal circumstances in ministry, in which, I was able to learn and grow. I experienced good and hard things that would shape me as a pastor and follower of Christ.
Fast forward to this weekend. Yesterday we had a harvest party that I challenged the church to put together just two weeks ago. They rallied together and last night was amazing. People stepped up and ran carnival games, took family pictures, painted faces, told Bible stories, and made everyone who walked through our doors feel like they belonged there. This morning several families who came to the Harvest party showed up at church!
But that wasn't the coolest part. We got here almost three months ago and went from a small congregation of 30ish, with only three kids, all three came with me when we move here, to this morning when we had over 100 grown up types and somewhere between 15-20 kiddos!
But wait there's more, today we had our first baptism! Today Melody went public with her commitment to the Lord. She is a picture of a transformed life. Before Christ her life that was shrouded in darkness because she was living to please people and often using alcohol to cope with bad decisions and social anxiety. These days Melody is an Awana helper and so much more at Blackfoot Christian Fellowship.
I stand amazed at what God is doing here and what he has allowed us to be a part of.
If you're wondering why I titled this growing pains, well it's because before this incredible weekend, we had a really rough week. I won't go into detail, but as a family let's just say that we miss our providential relationships from Anacortes and we're wondering how long it'll be before we experience some of that here. They say that the darkest hour is before the dawn and that proved to be true last week and hopefully we're coming out on the other side. I know it'll be a long while before we have deep friends like we did in Anacortes, but we trust that God is moving here and in us.
Thanks for reading and for praying for us. Keep Kate in your hearts and minds as she is working so hard to educate our kids and dealing with me, a full-time job on it's own.
I would write more, but its late and I'm bushed, so I try to do better next time to tell you about the family, what the kids are up to and I'll even post pics of them playing in a mountain of leaves.
We love an miss y'all!
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