Our God alone gives grace to live;
For sinners dead, His Son did give;
While darkness deep and wide did blind us;
His light, brilliant in might did find us;
A cross of violence, brought new life;
Overcoming once, bondage and strife;
With kindness, love and power divine;
My sins are cleansed and He is mine;
When pause gives way to thoughts anew;
His heavenly beauty I may view;
And focusing finally on all He’s done;
A heart of praise and thanks is won;
Words from unclean lips then flow;
Made holy speech, as white as snow;
Honor, glory and much thanksgiving;
For only Christ makes life worth living!
Many of you will know that our daughters were born on the same day one year apart. Elisabeth turned four and Hannah three on Monday night. In celebration, we enjoyed an evening of cake, opening presents and playing games. Here are a few of the pictures we captured:
Be sure to check our Photo Blog for some follow-up photos later in the week.
This blog used to be a place to find daily devotions. Those days seem to be long gone now, as an infrequent post is usually all I can muster on such a demanding schedule. Well…the schedule is not going away, so I have decided to try another, easier method. While I don’t know how long it will last either, I can at least give it a go and see where we end up.
I have written several hundred devotions over the past several years during the course of my regular studies. Some of them have been published on previous blogs, others have even appeared here in one format or another. Since most have not been read by current visitors, I thought it might be good to go back into the archives and re-publish a few.
This evening I will be posting the first in a previous 12-part series from James. As I read them now I realize my thought and writing patterns have changed a bit, but I think most are still profitable. If nothing else, they each contain a short passage of scripture and some thoughts that will hopefully point us to the Savior. Let me know what you think after we’ve walked down memory lane for a few days. I would appreciate it.
Most of you know that our family has been praying that God will open an opportunity for me to serve in Pastoral ministry. Recently our hearts have been moved to pursue work in a church of significant need. To be specific, a congregation that is small, just starting out, or would perhaps even have difficulty supporting a pastor and his family full-time. Typically these churches have trouble finding men willing to consider them. Our desire is to place ourselves in a position to undertake any work of ministry around the country, without regard to the financial constraints that may discourage others.
With this in mind we have considered which avenues of business God would allow us to pursue that could provide freedom to enter such circumstances. After many careful hours of deliberation we believe He has lead us to begin Abounding Media, a freelance internet and media services effort that will focus on assisting churches, christian ministries and wholesome business projects worldwide. Sounds big doesn’t it? Well, it’s really little more than the expansion of a freelance career I have been urged to undertake by friends and colleagues for years.
As the burden to help a truly needy church has grown, so too has my level of knowledge and skill in the field internet technology. Factor in a decade of experience in professional and ministry broadcasting, missionary service and photography, and I believe it is now possible for me to credibly offer these services without hesitation.
It’s awkward now to think that during a time in which I so eagerly anticipated being in full-time ministry, the Lord was actually equipping me for a future I didn’t imangine. God is wonderful in this way, as He sees the big picture, leading us by the hand into paths we know not!
We also want to be clear on a few additional points in this regard: first, we would not continue this effort in any way unless it was both permissible and beneficial to a future church family. Second, we do not intend Abounding Media to be a part of our lives forever. While we are certain my previously-mentioned skills will be put to good use in future ministry, our primary desire is to serve a church, not advance a freelance internet media career.
While the final launch of alwaysabounding.org, the Abounding Media homepage is not ready yet, we would encourage you to visit and see what we have done so far. We’d also like you to read about the philosophies that lead us to think this was a worthy effort. There will be many more details upcoming on how we plan to organize and undertake this work. Suffice it to say we are excited about some of the ideas God has given us for getting it off the ground.
We were able to take another trip to Denali National Park this year and had an enjoyable time as usual. The girls had fun hiking the entire Horseshoe Lake trail, which is a mile and a half to the lake and back. They had a lot of fun just walking and enjoying the birds and squirrels and snowshoe hare we saw along the way. Here are a few of the photos we captured.
One of the great things about our location seven miles north of Fairbanks is the opportunity we have to see moose in our yard. They are common all over town, but it seems we see them more here than anywhere else in our previous experience. A couple of days ago the girls and I were able to observe a young bull from our porch, just about 30 feet away.
It’s interesting that he walked by the car, which gives you a sense of his actual size. This male is young and small. Full grown, Alaskan bull moose are the largest in the world and can be as tall as seven feet at the shoulder.
We had another “only in Alaska” experience today we thought you might appreciate. This moose cow and calf show up at our house periodically, but this is the first time we have captured them on video.
Cold air has settled over the Fairbanks area in the past several days, sending temperatures near 50 below zero in outlying areas. Lows at our house only reached 35 below due to our elevation above average terrain. However, my drive to work is mostly down hill and the closer I get to town the colder it becomes. Journey with me into the ice fog on this morning’s commute.
I’m am planning to use a portion of this video on Inside Alaska, a site I maintain for work, which is why I mention it near the end. If you are interested in other things about our area, head over there and take a look.
This site was long-overdue for a design upgrade, which we succeeded in bringing to it late Christmas evening. Those who follow us on Twitter will know that I am a big supporter of WordPress, and with the recent release of version 2.7 most older themes became, not obsolete, but definitely less useful. I had customized a theme called fSpring back when I was on WordPress 2.1-something and hadn’t done an upgrade since. These months of neglect opened a few security holes that I have been eager to fix.
Thanks to the folks at CodeScheme for the original layout, which I am continuing to modify. Next I will be working on some new photo functionality, reformatting of a few past articles and minor alignment changes. Other than that, the redesign is finished and the security issues are resolved. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. — Isaiah 53:5
November 26, 2009 3:45 pm | 
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