Tomorrow is the new beginning for Sonya and  I, as well as a new start for Rogers First Assembly.  We are excited about what God has for us, this church and Northwest Arkansas.  God allows new beginnings to move us from where we are to the place He has for us.  There are seasons in life and in ministry and we must follow God wherever He leads.

For us, a new beginning in Rogers means that we are seeking the heart of God for His desire and vision for our new church.  I believe with all of my heart that God is up to something big and that He has plans for us and RFA.  A big part of any new beginning is looking forward.  Forgetting those things that are behind and pressing onward.

In times past, I have always tried to duplicate what has worked before or what I have done in previous ministries.  In this new start, I am asking God what He wants.  Not just something that has worked before but rather something for such a time as this.  God has a vision and a purpose for Northwest Arkansas and I want to discover how we can benefit His kingdom the most and gather the harvest.

Tomorrow is my inaugural message here at RFA.  I will begin a 2 part series on what I believe the role of the church is in the world and its responsibility to make disciples.

When I was a teenager I was a trouble-maker.  We egged a house with a dozen eggs one night.  We got caught and I was grounded from life for 7 weeks.  When I saw this cartoon today, I thought about my teenage years and wondered if I would have chosen the greener path had I been a teenager now:)

While we have been in the process of moving in, I have been putting things together, hanging stuff up, fixing door knobs, setting up our appliances and more.  Hannah has been watching everything I do.  She watches me use the tools and fix the different things.  Tonight, as I was working on a door knob, she picked up the screw driver and said, “Daddy fix it!”  She has confidence that I can fix things.

In our lives there are often things that are broken.  Marriages, relationship with our kids, sickness, finances, emotional wounds, loneliness and much more  that is broken in our lives.  We go through the motions in our lives and put band-aids on our broken hearts and never seem to get them fixed.  But as Hannah would say, “Daddy fix it.”

We have a Daddy that can fix everything.  Our Heavenly Father is our source of strength.  He is our mender, our healer, our stronghold, our help.  He is the El-Shaddai; the All-Sufficient One.  Whatever is broken in your life, Daddy Will Fix It!

We finally made it Rogers late Tuesday evening.  It was a rough trip in the U-Haul, it only broke down three times:)  In two days we counted 10 hours in the car waiting for the truck to be fixed.  That is 10 hours without driving, just sitting.  I will say, U-Haul was very gracious to us and gave us a good discount for the trouble.

As of yesterday, we have everything in the house and now we are busy unpacking.  I do not like this part of it.  Sonya is better at unpacking and I feel bad watching her do all the work.  So, I decided to help her:)  It is amazing how much is to be done when you move. 

We are also in unfamiliar land. Northwest Arkansas is beautiful to say the least but we still have a lot to learn about the area.  We still do not know where everything is.  We have managed to become regulars here at the Lowes, Wal-Mart, Braum’s (I love Braum’s), Chili’s (my all time favorite) and Taco Bell.  We haven’t had much time to sight see but we look forward to doing that when we get unpacked.

This has been an interesting experience for Hannah.  She is in a new house and has lots of new things to explore (get into).  I saw a garter snake in the shed and she looked at me and said, “Nake, it bite you!” A snake in the shed means we have an unusable shed:)

Josh is having a good time, the library is across the street. Need I say more!

Josh and I will be flying back Sunday evening to load up the rest of our stuff.  We will be in Nederland for a few more days.  Pray for our safe travel and strength for our family.

We left this morning to carry our first load to Rogers, Arkansas where we will begin our new ministry this Sunday.  We decided to break the trip up into two parts so we were headed to Sherman, Texas to stay the night.  By the time we reached Woodville (70 miles from home) the truck died and took a while to get going again.  I talked with the UHAUL folks and they seemed to think it would be alright to drive.  We left Woodville and were making good time until we got to Longview.  It happened again! 

Now, we were in Longview only because I missed my exit and we were driving to another road to get back on track.  While we were driving, the truck died again.  I pulled into a shopping center and called UHAUL again and this time they dispatched a service truck.  It took a couple hours to get the service truck to us but now the truck is fixed (hopefully).  It was a minor problem…a disconnected spark plug wire.  We had only been running on 7 cylinders.  I noticed there wasn’t enough power for the truck but that was because something was unplugged.  The mechanic put the spark plug wire back on and things worked great.

In our spiritual lives we often go on, “not firing on all cylinders”.  We have access to spiritual power through the Holy Spirit but too many times we disconnect ourselves from Him.  We will lose power when we unplug from His power.  We need to get to the mechanic (prayer and the Word) to get us back in touch with the power source.  If you feel like you are not walking in full power, call on the Holy Spirit.  He will empower you.

Yesterday, we held our last service in Nederland.  It was a solemn day knowing that we were leaving friends.   I had intended on preaching “Living In Uncertain Times” but at the last minute decided to share a farewell message.  A message from my heart.  I used Paul’s writing to the Corinthian church, II Corinthians 13:11.  I shared how we sometimes have to say farewell to follow God’s will and it is not easy but it is necessary.  From Paul’s writing, he shared a simple farewell outline. 

1. Become complete – continue to grow in faith.  It depends on you as much as it depends on the minister.

2.  Be of good comfort – be comforted by thinking on happier things.  The things that have been accomplished, as well as thinking on eternity.  Our friendships that are formed here will continue in Heaven.

3. Be of one mind – stick together and focus on the Kingdom of God. 

4.  Live in peace – cultivate peace.  Do everything you can to keep the atmosphere of unity alive in the church.

These were Paul’s words to the Corinthians and they seemed to fit our service Sunday.

Last night, the church gave us a farewell party and blessed us.  It was a great time of fellowship and saying good-byes.  I am so thankful for the friendships that have been formed and the love that we have for one another.  Click here for some pictures taken by Kenneth Miguez. 

We know that God has something in store for Nederland First Assembly as well as our new church, Rogers First Assembly.  We are excited about our new assignment and we are looking forward to the future in Rogers.

Can I be honest this morning?  I despise having garage sales.  They have never seemed to generate enough money to make it worth my while.  Some people seem to be good at having garage sales.  Most of the garage sales I have been to have been over-priced.  So over-priced you might as well buy it new. 

Sonya talked me into having one and I am glad we did.  Now, when we discussed it, I told let’s try to price cheap and go for getting more sales.  It worked!  In fact, one lady told me we were selling to cheap:)  We had most of the stuff sold within 2 hours. We shut it down at 11:00am and I gave the remaining stuff away to our last customer.  This is the first garage sale that we have had that we made decent money and yet did not have to haul a bunch of things to Good-Will. 

Thank God for Garage Sales and a willing party to take the left-overs.

There are some highlights to having to pack all of your stuff and move it 550 miles away.  The main highlight/fun is packing with a 2 year old.  Sonya packs it, Hannah unpacks it.  Sonya packs it, Hannah unpacks it.  Sonya takes it away from Hannah, Hannah cries.  We considered packing Hannah in a box but we felt that was a bad idea, even though I would punch holes in the top so she could breathe:)  That was just a joke, I would never do that to Hannah:)  

There are also a lot of things for a two year old to do when the family is moving.  Climbing on the boxes is one of her favorite or as you can see in the picture, climbing into the toy box and relax.  All in all, the packing is coming along fairly well. We load up Saturday at 2:00pm and will leave on Monday morning for our journey north.