Second and foremost I need to give credit where credit is due

Jesus always gets the first credit because he put you wonderful people in my life but I do need to give you the credit for your heart to serve Jesus! So here is my list and if I forgot someone it wasn’t intentional, I love you!

Thank you! Deb, Ed and Juanita, Kristine, and my mom, thank you so much for all of your hard work in setting up for the rummage sale. I think I would have gone bat poop crazy if it were not for you.

Thank you Andrew, Anthony, Matt, Ruben, Zach, Junior, Jay and the boyz! You guys made it very easy to tear everything down and get it to the Salvation Army. Hokey Smokes! I turned around and it was all done, I never expected the amount of help and it was really nice.

You are all amazing brothers and sisters in Christ and I wish everyone could be as lucky as myself, just sayin’

With all of that said, Saturday I ran a rummage sale to make some money for youth missions. We brought in a little over $500, which I think is really good. Everything we sold was donated by people in our church and I made it by “donation only.” So people paid exactly what they wanted too. I never told anyone what they had to pay for anything, which was a really hard concept for people to understand.  A lot of people struggled with my answer of “you tell me what you want to pay” when they asked me how much for everything on the counter.

We received some really nice donations, one of which was a propane grill that had been used maybe once. Someone suggested that we put a “suggested donation” on the grill. At first I was ok with this idea; we do need money for the mission trip.

But as Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17). I don’t remember if I said anything about the suggested donation or not but while we were setting up on Friday someone made a mention about the widow in Mark 12 and how we need to bless others. What happens if someone only has $2. So I went to sleep Friday night thinking about that particular concept.

When I woke up on Saturday morning I was convinced that I needed to sell the grill for whatever price someone was willing to give me, if they were ripping me off them it was completely on them and had nothing to do with me. They were the ones that are going to have to answers to Jesus.

We did sell the grill for $3. A gentleman came up to me and asked me if it was really all by donations and I said “yes.” He asked if I would take $3 for the grill and I said yes and offered to load it up for him. He came back with a friend and loaded it up.

So maybe that $3 wasn’t the last money in his pocket, I don’t care. It’s not my deal. I feel I did my part. Thank you!

What is your Favorite View?

I was asked this for one of my classes so I thought I would post my response.

My favorite view is from front windshield of my car. First, I find that this is the only time I can sit still and enjoy the beautiful surroundings in Michigan. I tend to be moving and going place to place.  

But the thing that makes this particular view my favorite is I’m always looking forward and seeing what is to come all the while having the opportunity to keep an eye on where I have been.  That is something I have had to work on in my life. In my normal tendencies I will focus on my past. I will look at the things I have done and wonder how I could do them better or different.  So I have to work to focus on what is in front of me and only glancing what is behind me to reminding me of where I have been.

What is your Favorite View?

I have returned!

Instead of making a ton of excuses on why it has been so long since I have written I’m just going to start writing again. In my option those would be a waste of word.  

I will start with what is going on in my life. I know it’s pretty exciting.

I start to embark on the summer; I have two classes, one Bible study, I’m leading a mission trip to Flint for the last time, find a job and whatever else Jesus brings into my life, namely Caty.

Caty is moving back to Traverse City in a couple of days, her mom bought a house. Which is really good for Caty, she can now put down roots.

Since I watch Caty 3-5 days a week we have patterns that we follow, one of our favorite patterns is that we read together. There is nothing really significant to what we read; the only qualification is that Caty wants me to read it. Reading should be fun, let her grudge through books later on in high school. It is really needless to say that I end up reading books that I don’t really want to read. I have read through the first 3 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and half way through the 4^th one.  The reason I don’t really like the book is because I think Greg (the main character) is a really bad friend to Rowley. So it does give Caty and I something to talk about and how to be a better friend.

With Caty moving to TC, I was wondering how I was going to keep doing this. My thought was to use Skype and read to her. Caty asked how she was going to look at the pictures. This is a really good point so I asked my mom and she came up with a great idea. Her idea was to have 2 books. One for me to read and one for Caty to look at; that was her idea! Which I really liked.

More Later!