Playing Catch-up...

I've been neglecting my regular updates on this page and instead sending updates to people through email and such.  That being said I just wanted to take a few moments and update the rest of you in what has been going on with us the last few months.

In the second week of January, I went with Tim Schmidt and his wife Megan to a music conference at a church that was about an hour or so away.  Tim Fisher and Mac Lynch taught the music conference.  It was a good time of hearing good and godly music and learning much of what the Bible teaches on music.

At the end of January Tracy and I drove down to L.A. for an overnight stay.  There was a strike going on in one of the local hospitals, for one day, and she was there to take care of the patients.  From there we drove up the coast on CA1 to revisit Monterey Bay.  If you've never driven the California coast it is both breathtaking and terrifying at the same time.  The two single lanes wind around the sides of mountains and have cliff like drops falling hundreds of feet below into the ocean.  Surprisingly there weren't that many guard rails either.  If you do drive it I would suggest an early start because you wouldn't want to be stuck out on those roads after dark like we were.  Once we arrived in Monterey Bay we bought an "I survived CA1" magnet to commemorate our survival.  We stayed in Monterey for a couple of days and then headed home.

In February we attended a two-day seminar at our church on "Leading the Lost to Christ."  A man that had been a member of this church years ago returned, from his home in Arizona, to teach us some of the methods that he had learned over the years being a Christian Counselor and Youth Pastor.  His name is Mark Maxwell and he did a great job showing all of us a clear way to present the gospel without us tripping over our words or having a "canned" message memorized.  Both Tracy and I really appreciated the time with him and learned quite a bit.  If anyone is interested in receiving some of this information, please let me know and I will pass it on.

Now that it's March Tracy is constantly busy at work.  The hospital is short staffed which is one of the reasons that a position was offered to her.  She is currently working a lot of extra overtime and filling in the gaps wherever she can.  We are thankful again, that God has provided this job and that Tracy is able to use her gifts to help others where we know God would want her to be.  I have been busy working on different projects around our church.  I am excited that they've been able to use me as God has given me the talents and experience to fill some of these needs.  I also have had the opportunity to go out twice a week soul-winning with the Assistant Pastor and am using what I have learned from the Scripture, Mark Maxwell, and other resources to accurately give the gospel message to any that are willing to hear.  I don't know if I have had any impact on anyone yet, but I will continue to plant seeds as God continues to give me opportunities.