Monday, January 31, 2011

Snow Day 2011

VFCC students making a snow fort.

4 Kids
We had a snow day!  Last Wednesday, Darlene and I were scheduled to fly to Detroit to see the Quinones family (Our daughter Rachel, her husband Felix and the kids), and to speak at the Michigan Winter Blast.  It snowed several inches in the morning. As we left campus at 3:00 that afternoon students were playing in the snow.  We parked our car, checked in for our 8:40 pm flight and began to wait.  A storm blew in that ended up dumping over 15 inches of snow at the airport.  We were snowed in.  All flights were cancelled and we got to have a sleep-over at the airport.
That's me sleeping at the airport.

The news stations reported that over 1500 people slept in the airport Wednesday night.  Many were given space blankets in the middle of the night by airline helpers.  I woke up to see dozens of people wrapped in these silver aluminum foil-looking blankets.  As I looked down the rows of seats, I was reminded of a church potluck just before the ladies unveil the food.  It also kind of looked like foil wrapped dinners at a Royal Rangers camp out.  I must have been hungry.  Darlene and I slept as well as we could.  We people watched, read, crocheted, and watched video on my Mac.  I wrote part of a paper and we ate scrumptious airport food.  God is good.  In the morning, the sun came out and the airport was buried.  we didn't get to fly out until about 4:00 that afternoon.  Huge machines were set up that melted snow super fast.  Front end loaders would dump in the snow and water was gushing out of the bottom and going down storm drains.
A front loader dumping snow in a big melting machine.

We finally made it to the Rachel and Felix's house in Royal Oak, Michigan on Thursday evening.  Felix was speaking at a youth event so we never got to see him because of our late arrival.  We missed him, but had fun with Rachel and the grandkids.
Elijah and grandma playing.

The Winter Blast went great!  Winter Blast is the Michigan Assemblies of God kids retreat.  Over 700 boys and girls were there to have fun and attend our services.  We did puppets, lessons, and prayed with the kids.  God is so good. Oh, by the way, it snowed four inches the night we were in Lansing for this event.
One of our students, Shannen, leading worship.

There was no problem coming home.  Our snow day (weekend) was over.  We learned that God always provides for you even when you get to stay over night at the airport.  We also tried to treat everybody kindly as many people were tired and frustrated.  We had a fabulous time with Manny and the other leaders at Winter Blast.  We get to se them all at camp this summer.  The best part of the weekend was hanging out with Joaquin, Isabella, Elijah and Rachel.  We played, ate at Mickey Ds, and went to Real Church.  God is good.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Re-Birthday


This is me back in 1975.

4 Kids

I just celebrated my re-birthday.  What's my re-birthday?  That is the day I gave my life to Jesus.  That is the day that I prayed and trusted Jesus to forgive me, save me, and be my Lord and Friend.  I became reborn on January 19, 1975.  Jesus talks about this in John 3 in the Bible.  He tells Nicodemus that a man must be born again.  That means being born both physically and spiritually.

My brother, Greg took me to a Bible study.  At the conclusion of the study everybody was singing songs and hugging.  I stepped into the kitchen and suddenly knew that I needed Jesus.  I prayed for His forgiveness and He came into my life.  I have never been the same.  My life was radically changed.  As a result of that one great decision, generations of kids, grandkids and more are, and will be, affected.

God is so good.  If you have never been reborn, do it now.  Just pray.  Admit that you have sinned.  Ask Jesus to forgive your sin and accept Him as your Savior.  Then you can celebrate your re-birthday.