Sabbatical.

Billings, Montana

We left Sayre Wednesday afternoon, sent off by the prayers and the love of our Family there and headed for Washington.  The Family in Sayre have been so good for us and to us.  I cannot imagine what would have happened to us if we had not been Divinely found and rescued by the Trinity Family.  We will miss you all. We will be away for about 10 weeks or so visiting family and friends in Washington and I will be going to school (more on that later).  How fortunate we are to have such a wonderful Family in Washington too.

For the next 10 days we will be “off-line”.  Other then sending a forest ranger to find us, we will be totally cut off from the rest of the world.  No phone, no internet.  Obviously I can’t blog without the internet so I am officially on sabbatical from writing the Juniper Tree.  We will be 5 days at Powell Campground in Idaho and then at Wilderness Gateway further down Highway 12 toward Lewiston.  If the Lochsa River is not blown out, I hope to do some fly fishing for the beautiful West Slope Cutthroat that are plentiful in the river.

We should be back in Washington on or before July 3.  Till then and perhaps longer, the View from the Juniper Tree is out!

Monday morning meanderings. Vol.48

Sayre, Oklahoma

This will be the last meanderings that originates from Sayre for a couple of months.  We are leaving in a couple of days to make the 2000 mile drive to Washington.  Probably won’t have much internet service along the way so posts may be few and far between.  I think the break will be good for me, probably you too!

Item one.  Traci, Brandon and the boys decided to stay an extra day so they are still here.  It has been a really good time for all of us.  A really nice place to stay, here on the Trinity ranch, some really good times of conversation, playing with the boys and watching them play.  You can check out Traci’s blog to get the details and some pictures here.  They will leave early in the morning to head back to Utah.  They are anticipating a move back “home” to Washington by the first of July and so there is much happening in their lives.

Item two. June is one of the better months, from my perspective. Our 36th wedding anniversary is on the 9th, I made it to my 58th birthday on the 10thand then yesterday was Father’s Day.  With the kids here an anniversarycelebration was put on hold but we did celebrate the birthday with friends and then it was really special to have my girl with me for Father’s Day.  Brad called and we had a good conversation and I felt blessed to have two really great adult children, two of the very best in-law adult children and 4 special grandsons with the fifth grandchild on the way.  Being a father is maybe only exceeded in joy, by being a grand-father.

Item three. Something really good from Kamp Krusty, right here.  This is one of, if not my favorite blog.  This guy gets it, related to the institutional church, pastors, relationships and honesty, especially honesty.  He writes wth humor, sensitivity and sometimes some well placed anger.  If you haven’t wandered over to the Kamp, take a few minutes and read this.

Item four. Don’t care much for golf and almost never watch it, but while I have been writing this I have had the tv on with no sound and watched Tiger Woods win again in extraordinary fashion.  If there is another athlete alive today with more courage, grit, determination, skill, gifting and whatever else it takes to be great, than Tiger Woods, please let me know who it is.

Item five. Andy was cleaning his desk this morning while we were having a visit and handed me a six year old copy of a Jon Wimber PowerPoints he had some where on his desk.  I am not sure the website is still active but it is still up and you can find it here.  Since I can’t find the link I thought I would just type the devo in here so you can read it: I love the little anecdote concerning David found in 2Samuel 16:5-12 when he is travelling with his army.  There’s a man on the side of the hill kicking dirt and throwing rocks at him.  The soldiers want to go up and kill the guy.  “Shall we go get him?” they ask.  David answers them (and I paraphrase) “Oh no, better not. It’s probably the Lord.”  I just love that because it probably was.

The Lord is allowing this fellow to vent his wrath, for whatever reason, but David saw the hand of God in it.  David saw that all this indignity was something that God had willed for him to bring him into a better, more harmonious place with God.

Perhaps he was learning a thing or two about mercy; the text doesn’t say.  Certainly he had the right, authority and a power to kill that man.  He was the king.  You don’t kick dirt on the king.  But he accepted it as the hand of God and perhaps learned something from the Lord as well.  It’s in that kind of acceptance that we get some of the greatest understanding. 

I wasn’t in the stream that carried John Wimber to such extraordinary impact on the Kingdom, but no one influenced contemporary worship in the church more than John Wimber and no one understood what it is to walk in the pure supernatural reality that is our destiny, quite like he did.  I just read his autobiography a few weeks ago called The Way it Was (by his wife Carol) and I felt a sense of loss for what I missed, but also felt a strong sense that the anointing that was on John Wimber is now there for all of us who will not fear man but will be free to see the things that are not as though they were and say “…it’s probably the Lord”.

Have a great week.

Family visit.

Traci, Brandon and the boys are here in Oklahoma visiting us and we are having so much fun so I wanted to share it with you.  I am linking a couple of Traci’s latest posts which are about their visit that will tell you about some of what we have been doing.

Here and here.  Lots of pictures on both posts. 

Friday Funny. Guest jokesters.

Here are a few “jokes” that were sent to me by others.  If they are funny I will take credit for recognizing such quality humor, if they are lame or cute, blame the person who sent them in.

First, one from my father: A faucet, lettuce and a tomato were in a race. The faucet was running, the lettuce was ahead and the tomato was trying to ketchup.

From my friend Paul Zachary: A lady was walking past a pet store when a parrot said,
“Hey, lady! You’re really ugly!” The lady was furious and
continued on her way.

On the way home, she passed by the pet store again and the
parrot once more said “Hey, lady! You’re really ugly!” She
was incredibly upset now, so she went into the store and
said that she would sue the store and kill the bird. The
store manager apologized profusely and promised he would
make sure the parrot didn’t say it again.

The next day, she deliberately passed by the store to test
the parrot. “Hey, lady!” it said.

“Yes?”

“You know.”

My friend Cody Custer gave this to me a few weeks ago before the democrats finished up trashing themselves but it still works:

There are less than eight months until the election,
an election that will decide the next President of the
United States. The person elected will be the
president of all Americans, not just the Democrats or
the Republicans. To show our solidarity as Americans,
let’s all get together and show each other our support
for the candidate of our choice. It’s time that we
all came together, Democrats and Republicans alike.

If you support the policies and character of John
McCain, please drive with your headlights on during
the day.

If you support Obama or Hillary, please drive with
your headlights off at night.

Here are three some kids told me last night.

Confusius say,”Man who stands on toilet is high on pot.”

Q: What do you call cheese that’s not yours?
A: Nacho cheese!

“Will you love me when I’m old and ugly?”
“Darling, of course I do.”

Don’t like these?  Send me some good ones! Hope you all enjoy your weekend.

 

 

Monday morning meanderings. Vol.47

Sayre, OK

With temps breaking the 100 mark several times last week, we finally broke down and had a second air conditioner installed in our 5th wheel.  They told us when we bought it, we would need it but we said “we live in the NW, it doesn’t get that hot for very long.”  Who knew we would be in the Midwest for several months of the year.  Fortunately we did take their advice and have the trailer wired for a second air conditioner so the install was relatively easy.  It is nice to have and Jake has found the bedroom, where the new unit is, to be his new favorite place.

Item one. The kids are coming, the kids are coming!  By the time you read this, Traci, Brandon, Sloan, Sean and Eyob will be here!!!!  They spent Saturday night in Gallup, NM and will drive the 540 miles to Sayre today (Sunday).  They will be with us for a full week.  We are looking forward to them seeing where we are, meeting the friends who have been so kind to us and seeing why it is we love the Trinity Family.  Their lives are going through a shaking, but they are learning well, what it means to walk in faith.  If you want to check up on their lives and plans you can read Traci’s latest here.

Item two.  What is your price point?  That’s the price gas has to get to before you start to drive less.  Apparently for many, if not most Americans, their price point is $4.00.  Syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer has been espousing for years, what he calls a foolproof plan to end our oil habit that makes a lot of sense to me, but apparently the people in charge (politicians) don’t think they could get elected if they put it in place, so the plan, while foolproof is futile.  Read what he says here.

Item three. We can finally start to look carefully at who it is we think can best lead our nation.  Several months ago I called it an Obama/Huckabee and I was half right.  Now it gets serious.  It has been a long time since a presidential election in this country had the kind of importance this one does.  I am really no fan of either man and ask myself why, in this great country we cannot do two things: First, have more than two choices and two, barring that, have two people who are the very best we can put out there, not the two who are willing to cut off a limb to get the job.  Any thoughts on running mates for these two?

Item four.  More from Stuff Christians Like.  In a world where we all must begin, no its past time to begin, it’s time to get after adjusting our financial lives, it is time to stop with the spend anyway we want, charge it to our card and expect God to provide.  That is the gist of this excellent blog on money.  Read it here.  I mean it, go read it here.  Seriously, right…here.

Item five. Heading back to Washington in a couple of weeks has me thinking about fly fishing. I haven’t taken the time to go after the abundant warm water fishing there is out here so I am really anticipating getting some trout on the fly real soon.  Here is a website by a friend of Brad’s that has me thinking about it.  Wilderness Angler in Gig Harbor.  Find it here.

Item six. My brother MIke and my sis-in-law, Vicky are leaving for Africa this week for about a month.  They are headed out on their first mission trip and will spend 10 days or so without running water and flush toilets helping to build something (don’t have the details) in Kenya.  My bro will have his 61st birthday while in Africa and I am really proud of them for doing something “uncomfortable” when they have the means and the opportunity to just be about themselves.  Have a great trip guys!

 

Monday morning meanderings. Vol.46

Sayre, Oklahoma

Just haven’t felt like writing lately.  Keeping the blog up was/is feeling more like a chore rather than something fun to do, so I kind of blew off the meanderings yesterday and it will be rather short today.  Maybe I will get the “flow” later in the week.  Starting to think about a sabbatical…

Item one. For the first time since we have been on this journey we decided not to do something because of the price of diesel.  We were going to go southeast of Dallas to another rodeo bible camp with the Kingsburys, but the enjoyment of going and the opportunity and desire, to help Charlie and Lorissa, was out weighed by the $7-800.00 it would have cost to pull the trailer down there.  I knew the day was coming but it was kind of sad when it did.  We will be headed to Washington in a few weeks for a couple of months and felt like we needed to save the resources for that. 

Item two. More Camp of Champions photos.  The boys camp is much bigger than the girls I wrote about last week, mostly because there are more boys events and so it brings more guys.  Bull/steer/calf riding is so big these days that guys are getting on calves at a younger and younger age.  Bull riding along with roping is a growing sport for boys in this part of the world.  Here are the pics. Click the link, then look for the slideshow icon in the top right and check out the boys week at Camp of Champions.  In the center of the first pic there is a lower case i, if you click it, the pics will have some explantion attached to them.  Make sense?  Linda took most of the pictures and is the one who builds the slide shows.

Item three. Our daughter, Traci has been doing some blogging again and it is pretty good stuff.  She is introspective to a fault, I am afraid she got that from me, but she always seems to bring herself around to the positive which is how she is able to be so productive.  With prices sky rocketing for everything, her decision to not be a “waster” will put her ahead of the curve.  Read her blog here.

Item four. As long as I am plugging the family bloggers, our daughter-in-law (never liked that title), Summer has some great pics of #3 grandson Canyon Paul, up on her blog.  Find them here.

Item five.  Linda’s recent post on not letting expectations for ourselves and others has had wide readership.  Read it here.  She has some follow up comments that are worth reading.  Here they are: After writing my conversation with God, lots of judgmental thoughts crossed my mind. I recognized them as such, and I asked God what I should do with them - He said, “Turn them into prayer requests.” As I prayed, three things happened: one, the enemy’s plans for me to speak death over someone were thwarted; two, my heart was softened towards people and situations; and three, as I pray God’s will be done, He answers in His timing and His way. I am a conduit for His will to be done, bringing light and healing to His kingdom.

It is clear to me and Linda points it out well, that as soon as you speak out (or write out) some decision about change that the Spirit has called you to, there will be multiple attempts by the enemy to dissuade you of your decision.  He does not want us to change, to grow, to mature and will take our attempts to follow the Spirit as a challenge and will attack in the area of the Spirits call.  Resist the enemy and he will run!

Thanks for reading and for your encouragement.  Have a great week.

 

Weeds (by Linda)

From time to time Linda, my wife, has something she wants to write and publish but it isn’t often enough to warrant getting her own blog, though she is the creator, photographer and writer for our dog’s blog My name is Jake (don’t tell our grandboys that Jake doesn’t write it).  So, when she has something I love to post it here because she has good things to say and you really seem to like reading it.  What follows is something she wrote.  I know it will bless you.

Sunday I was walking around the church property, thinking about what needed to be done before the Camp of Champions started. I saw all kinds of things that needed doing, from fencing on the ground needing to be put away to little bits of trash needing to be picked up, but my eyes lit on the weeds. I was reminded of how, when we lived in our house (now we live in a fifth wheel) and we were about to have people over, I would weed my little heart out - thinking I had to get all of those weeds pulled - what kind of gardener would people think I was, after all? God said to me, there are always going to be weeds in a garden/yard, just as there will always be “weeds” in your life - things that need to be pulled- taken out…your garden was never perfect - your life won’t be either… AND that’s okay! Remember, just as you had to let perfection in your garden go, you have to let perfection in your life go. You are loved and accepted just the way you are.

That was Sunday, this morning Jake was outside playing with another dog. He jumped up on the dog’s owner and started to bark. Many of the dogs here on the property during the Camp of Champions run next to their masters without a leash - Jake cannot do that. They don’t jump on people or bark, but Jake does more than I like. Get the picture? As I was comparing Jake to other dogs, I was reminded of how we judge and are judged on how our dogs act. If they act appropriately, then we are judged to be good owners. God said to me, you are unique, so is Jake. No one knows his personality or the relationship you have with him. It isn’t up to anyone else to evaluate the job you are doing with your dog. That led me to quickly remember the pressure that we felt as parents for how are kids acted - especially in public. Good behavior = good parents (the goal). God said, be gentle with parents; each child is unique, just as each parent is. Raising a child is difficult work in this world - perfection isn’t the goal, relationship is. Pray, don’t judge. Encourage, support, love. That’s what I do with you; you can’t do anything less for others.

I believe that these two illustrations came from my Father out of my working to memorize Psalm 103. I’m thankful for the truth of verses 8-14. “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens are above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.”

God knows me - I deserve to be treated harshly: I make mistakes, I’m weak, broken. But God loves me anyway; He is for me, He is my Father, and I am His child. It’s really easy to assess how others are doing, trying to hold them to a standard that makes me feel better about myself. Living in the truth of those verses allows me to be gentle with myself and, thus, others. Judging others, for any reason, can’t be part of who I am. What about you?

 

Camp of Champions.

Sayre, Oklahoma

This week is Camp of Champions (CoC) week on the Trinity “Ranch”.  Our little preserve is now full up with horse trailers, horses, girls of all ages, parents and dozens of volunteers.  There are people camped all over the property, in horse trailers with little apartments in the front, about 50 girls under 16 in the bunkhouse, their horses in the barn or in small pens all around the barn, and another 30 horses or so that belong to the approxamately 20 professional rodeo instructors that come each year to teach the various girls rodeo events, including goat tying, breakaway calf roping, and barrel racing.  What is usually a quiet, 100 acre retreat is alive with action as girls, horses, calves, goats and instructors fill up the arena, roping pen and area around the barn with, practice, one on one and group instruction while parents, volunteers and others watch the action.

There are a number of famous rodeo people here this week many of whom I have gotten to know, but since rodeo is not something I have much history in, I am more impressed with their character and spiritual commitments than I am their rodeo accomplishments, though those are impressive.  These people, at the top of what is a very competitive sport, take time away to come and pass on what they know and who they are to the next generation of rodeo athletes.  Cody Custer, Charlie and Lorissa Kingsbury, Paul and Robin Tierney, Corey and Melissa Navarre, Tamera Reinhardt, Stran Smith, DJ Domangue, Allen Bach, Royd and Tracie Doyal, Stacie LaFluer, Frank Newsom, Rope Myers, Sarah Zybach, Cole Taylor, and many others teach from their knowlege and experience the ins and outs of their specialties.  Lee and Mary Akin and Jada are camped next to us.  Lee isn’t instructing this year but he is here and taking part as he continues to improve.

Rodeo for kids is big out here.  Linda and I went to a junior bull riding Saturday held at the Flying W Guest Ranch just north of us.  It was fun to watch the littlest cowboys ride sheep, called mutton bustin, the next age ride calves, then steers and finally the oldest boys riding serious bulls.  Information here. Our friends Cody and Stacey’s son Brett, won a first and a second during the day, and took home about $150.00.  Youth rodeo is the only sport I know where you can make a little money if you win or place.  Imagine a professional at 10!  The type of event is real different than the sports our children were involved in, but everything else is the same.  Parents bringing their children to the game, sitting in their lawn chairs watching and many involved in running the events, just like it was for us with soccer, baseball, football and basketball, 10-15 years ago.

Camp of Champions is one of, if not the largest, rodeo Bible camps anywhere.  I think it is in its 8th year and continues to grow each year in reaching girls and boys through great event instruction and mentoring youth in the Kingdom.  Small Bible study groups are held twice a day and a large group service with testimonies from the professionals closes out the day.  There have been hundreds of young people impacted with the Good News during the years CoC has been running and the camp continues to be the biggest outreach for Trinity each year.

The weather is hot, humid and tornado sightings, watches and warnings were all around us last night, the girls were even herded into the basement for a time last night, but the enthusiasm is high for everyone.  The girls camp finishes up tomorrow afternoon and the boys come in Thursday morning.  Even though our quiet little place is disturbed, big time, it is really a fun time here on the ranch!

Click HERE for a slide show of the camp and junior rodeo.  Look for the little “movie screen” in the upper right corner and click on it to view the pics as a slide show.

 

Tornadic activity.

Welcome to Tornado Alley! Yesterday afternoon we had our first tornadic activity  that was close to us.  Not only was it close it was along a line we have travelled several times, as we have gotten to know the area.  You can watch a related video HERE.  The video starts with a commercial but quickly gets to the storm which built up in the Texas Panhandle and quickly moved in a northeast direction, just brushing past Sayre, but hitting full force in the town of Cheyenne, about 30 miles north of us.  Tornadic activity gets the TV stations here hopping like any kind of severe weather does in other areas. 

They have storm chasers, literally chasing after the storm, watching for circulation, funnel clouds, rapidly rotating wall clouds, wind shear, appendages coming down and other things that indicated tornados are forming.  They put helicopters in the sky and broadcast the activity pretty much non stop until the danger passes.  We heard them say as the storm moved on, one little town after another ”people in Berlin, Cheyenne, Strong City… you need to go right now to your safe place, storm cellar or basement.  Move away from windows…” We have watched these broadcasts before but they were originating on the other side of the state so it wasn’t a big deal to us but these broadcasts were coming from an area just a few miles north of us. 

Tornadic activity has spawned a whole vocabulary of its own, like tornadic activity.  Meso cylcones, super cells, wall clouds, rain wrapped ( means the tornado is wrapped in rain and so dark you can’t see it spinning-very dangerous since you don’t know its there).  They say things like “could tornado at any time” and “surface winds don’t look right” and “that one looks more tightly wrapped”.  If you would like to know more about these violent storms just type “tornado” into your search engine and you will find plenty.  Here is a place to start.

We have a little weather radio that comes on automatically, and makes some ominous noises before telling us the National Weather Service has issued some type of warning for the fairly large area that we are in.  Sometimes it begins with a warning of severe thunderstorm activity, because these storms have the potential to spawn tornadoes.  Then comes a tornado watch, which means that tornadoes are possible followed by a tornado warning, which means there has been a tornado sighted and you need to get to shelter. 

These storms carry heavy rain and a variety of sizes of hail.  Sometimes they speak of the size using coins to show the diameter, dime, nickel, quarter.  Then it graduates to golf ball size, baseball and my favorite, grapefruit size. Think of it, grapefruit size hail!  I guess there is even softball size. There actually was hail the size of grapefruit in the storm that came though yesterday.  Our trailer would be ripped to shreds by hail that size.  These storms also produce lightning that causes grass fires and there were wind speeds of over 125mph yesterday.  That combination of fire and wind isn’t a good thing.

As I understand it, this time of year the jet stream begins to push these violent storms farther to the north but, you they can spawn anytime, when it is hot and humid so we “outsiders” stay on alert while the “natives” watch the sky and go about their business.

We watch Jake the Dog pretty carefully so he doesn’t end up in the Land of OZ.

It’s a great time to visit, we can go chase a tornado!

 

Kingdom.16 Called out ones.

One of the biggest problems we have understanding what the Kingdom is and what the Father’s intention is related to it, is confusing Kingdom with the church.  The church and the Kingdom are not synonymous.  The Kingdom is not a religious system, an institution or something that can be organized into committees or study groups.  If we are to capture this culture with true Kingdom values and invite people into relationships with Kingdom people that mirror in their lives what it is to relate to God as Father, we are going to need to start using terms that are unique and don’t carry the baggage that the word “church” does.  You mention church to most people in this country today and they will have a picture in their mind of something that doesn’t bear much resemblance to what Jesus had in mind for the people who would take His name and advance His Kingdom.  Once they have that picture in their heads it is very hard to try and explain that Jesus had a plan for His followers and for those who are seeking truth, quite different than “church”.

When the New Testament writers referred to this group of people who were passionate about Jesus, steadily advancing the Kingdom through a radical lifestyle of relationships, servant hood, sacrifice and living out the values of the Kingdom that Jesus taught, they chose the word Ekklesia.  Like most Greek nouns ekklesia is a combination of two words,  a preposition, ek-meaning “out of” and a form of the verb kaleo-meaning “to call”.  In a literal sense the word means “people who are called out”.

The word was commonly used to refer to any group of people who were ouside the mainstream of the culture but were having some kind of effect on the culture, good and/or bad.  Three times in the Scripture, ekklesia was used to refer to a group of people gathered into a mob or gang.  It often was used in reference to any group of people, called out from a larger group, to form another group for some purpose, whether to riot, lead a city, or even to be part of the Roman senate.

But when the followers of Jesus began to refer to themselves as the Ekklesia they were describing the bond they had together in Christ.  The word took on special meaning when Jesus said “I will build my ekklesia” referring to the spiritual gathering together of those who He had called out. 

Called out of what?  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. a special people; that you should show forth the praises of Him, who has called you out of (koleo humas ek) darkness into His marvelous light. (1Peter 2:9)

The word translated church has nothing to do with a building.  The writers of the New Testament had a perfectly good word available to them that they could have used, had they wanted to communicate a place where people gathered, or a religious institution (kuriokos-house of the Lord).  But they never chose that word, instead they chose a word, more than 115 times, that communicated something much different than we think of, when we hear the word church today.  Ekklesia is a spiritual fellowship of all those whom Jesus has called out of spiritual darkness to walk together in union with Him.  This relationship of called out people transcends time, place, gender, race, age, culture, and includes all true followers of Jesus, Who, has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.” (Ephesians 1:4)

I don’t know that the word Ekklesia will catch on as the descriptive word for the Family that is serving together to advance the Kingdom, around the world, but it more defines something that the word “church” no longer does.  Words matter, because they communicate meaning, and meaning is what defines what and who we are. 

I for one do not want what I am investing my life in, to be thought of as a building or a gathering place for uptight, bigoted people, religious institution or a group of religious men sitting around building hoops for others to jump through.  But isn’t that what most people think of when they think of “church”?  It sounds similar to what the “church” was in Jesus day, doesn’t it?  No wonder He created something else.

More on the Ekklesia in future posts.