I'm getting worse and worse about posting on here. Time is just flying by. It seems like I just have less and less time for The Whited News. By the time we get the boys to bed every night, Kim and I are both just completely exhausted and all we want to do it just grab our blankies and fall alseep on the couch with Dancing With The Stars or The SuperNanny on the TV.

We have been more involved with stuff though. We have been doing "small groups" through church with the Hubers and the Teipens and have enjoyed that very much. I have been going to Praise and Worhip band rehearsals on Thursday nights at the church and Jackson has been going with me lately. It looks like I will be alternating on the drums every other week with DeeDee. This past Sunday was the second time I have played for the service. It was great. I'm getting alot of comments about it and it has been something I have really enjoyed. For years I have wanted to play drums again, but it is completely different this time around. In high school, I just thought I was the bomb - to be honest. As conceited as that is, it's the truth. It was all about me and I just tried to overpower the band with my drumming. The Cloverdale High School band was not very good, we had poor direction , and I was just looking after me, basically. I will admit it. Now, it's a totally different story. This is for God. I'm playing with some extremely talented musicians. Brice told me that I would probably never play with a better band and I think he is right. I am basically trying not to screw things up. I want feedback. I want direction. It's a total 180.

Halloween was a fun night. Jackson was a Star Wars Stormtrooper and Carson was a little doggie. We went to the church for games and treats and then to Sheila Brinkman's, then to the American Legion to see Ma'am and Pap, then to Marie's, and finally to Kogers. I snapped some pictures. Here they are.

Many of you know the about the great things that have been happening to Kim and I and the boys through the glory of God. In the past month, we have rededicated our lives to Christ, gotten baptized, and joined the church. A number of things that we have been searching for and hoping for over the course of the last few years have happened very quickly for us, and it has been wonderful. Overall, I think I can speak for Kim when I say that we feel rejuvenated, more focused, less stressed, and it’s just as though we have a comforting assurance from the Lord. I may have mentioned in a previous post that we were baptized on October 1, and the service was just a wonderful experience from beginning to end. We had family members there to support us, the church was embracing us with love and excitement…..it was great.

Then the wheels came off at church 3 days later. Real bad.

Without going into much detail, I guess I’ll just say that there was a huge division in the church that was proposed by the senior pastor, in which 2 wonderful Christian people who both have a huge (and I mean gigantic here) role in the church, would be dismissed for reasons, as described to us directly by these two people, were unwarranted reasons. Niether of these two people had done anything morally wrong or unbiblical to warrant their dismissal. It was all about, it seems, personality differences with the senior pastor. I have since done a significant amount of research on church conflict and divisions, and numerous accounts support the following concept:

The true shepherd of the church will be the one who seeks to keep the church together. He will not initiate a split as a solution. He will seek to settle the legitimate issues, while maintaining his focus on the higher issue of Christ-centered unity.

So this helps clear up what is really a complex situation – for me. We attended an emergency church informational meeting on 10/10, in which one person after another stood up and voiced their emotional displeasure with the senior pastor in regards to direct encounters that they had had with him. The deacons of the church each spoke about a meeting that recently took place in which the senior pastor and elders asked the deacons to sign a form authorizing the termination of these two employees. It was clear that most of the deacons were very opposed to signing such a form and did not agree with it or how this was being handled. I could go one and on, but the bottom line is that right now, nobody knows what is going to happen. The senior pastor has cleared out his office and as a result the church thought that he had resigned, but apparently that is not the case.

This has just been tough on us for several reasons. For this to happen immediately after we made this strong commitment to the church is rough. And we have very strong opinions about one of the staff members who was to be fired. This guy is a great Christian. He leads the Praise and Worship music team, and invited me to come in and play some drums for the group. I have wanted to play the drums again for the longest time, and to have a chance to do it for the glory of God was just an opportunity that I felt very blessed to have. He is very inspiring just by being himself, and we find it outrageous to think of terminating him. His wife also is a teacher at the church, and was actually Jackson’s preschool teacher last year. She really did a good job with Jackson and the rest of the class. The kids love her. Jackson would come home and talk about what she taught him about Jesus that day was very influential on us going to the church in the first place.

Anyhow, it is a long story. And it is a real mess right now. But we are just praying for God’s will to happen, and we have faith in that.

What a great weekend...Really does it get much better than this last weekend? Friday night: new members banquet for the church. It was really neat to get together for this and meet with the oter members of the church and the new members. Then Saturday was we had Mom and Dad and Tom and Alex down to our place to celebrate Tom and Mom's birthday. It was great weather, a nice Fall day, and we just had a nice day. Then Sunday, Mom & Dad, The Hubers, Sheri, Larry Suz and Payne came to second church service to see Kim and I get baptized (or as Jackson says "babatized"). What an experience. What a service or worship/prayer and Pastor Steve delivery a wonderful message from God. I just cannot say enough about this weekend. We are so blessed.

The following are pictures taken in our backyard on Saturday afternoon September 30, 2006.

Man, two weeks since a post...

I have really been busy at work. This week things have slowed down a little. But I went through a 2-week stretch there where it was pretty rough. Pretty much every minute of every day was spent trying to get something done. I interviewed several, hired 2 new people, then did their orientation and initial training, as well as taught a CPR class, and First Aid class, you get the picture....so not much time for TWN.

So it's not that nothing is happening. Actually, there are some big things happening with our family. No - we are not having baby #3. Kim and I have been doing some spiritual searching for quite some time now. We have said for a long time that we would like to find a good church for our family to attend regularly and perhaps join. One that is kid friendly and vibrant. We think we have found what we have been looking for since back when we lived in Ellettsville. New Providence Baptist Church. There is quite a bit to the story of how we got to this point, but we have finished three weeks of membership classes, met with the Pastor and some Elders and Deacons, and we have recommitted our lives to Jesus Christ. We will be going to a New Members banquet tomorrow evening. Kim and I are going to baptised on Sunday. Hey, this past Sunday I sat down at a drum set for the first time in probably 14-15 years on the stage of the church and started jamming. It was like riding a bike. Man, it felt good. I am going to the Praise and Worship rehearsal tonight at 7pm. Now, I think they have at least 2 other drummers, so there really may not be much of a need for me, but I want to be involved and I believe this is one of the ways that God is working to get me to engage and meet other church members and be involved in what is going on there. So God is doing some cool things. We are praying everyday, we are reading our bibles. Heck, I downloaded some Contemporary Christian music off Wal-Mart.com yesterday! We just feel that God has been speaking to us for some time now, and He is doing so in a way that is compassionate and patient. If we are not responding to Him then He may find it necessary to capture our attention in a more drastic manner. We are not interested in waiting for that to happen. We have tried to do things "our way" a long time now, and it has been a definite struggle with all of the demands of our lives and giving ourselves more credit than we should about who is in control. The time is now to begin our spiritual walk with Jesus. So far it has been great.

There really have not been many significant events to share with people, thus the lack of recent postings…..I guess I’ll do the next best thing then….Random thoughts on a Wednesday morning – Straight from the mind of the Publisher:

Why did our President have to talk so much about Iraq when he addressed the nation on the 5th year anniversary of 9/11? Why couldn’t he just honor the victims and celebrate the courage and pride our country showed after the terrible tragedy? Nope – he had to sit there and tell us AGAIN why we invaded Iraq.

That hit that Trent Green took on Sunday was one of the worst I have ever seen in a football game. It made me sick to see hit head snap directly into the ground with that kind of force.

Jackson is obsessed with the new Star Wars Lego 2 video game.

Why is it that every single time that we have a non-routine doctor event/procedure, that we have to go through all sorts of problems with the doctor’s office and the insurance company? They always just point the finger at each other and hope that you run out of energy to either investigate or raise hell about something. I’m not kidding, every single time I have to call and be a jerk to 3 or 4 people just to get the stuff taken care of.

What new items has Roscoe destroyed this week? Another window screen, more glider damage, two small limbs off of our silver maple tree, and he has dug a moat around the boys’ turtle sandbox.

Will the Colts be able to run the ball this year without Edge?

Why do people sit in a job interview with me and say that that want a part-time job where they can work 30 hours a week, and then when they start working it’s like pulling teeth to get them to work 10?

Google Earth is pretty cool.

Positive reinforcement is supposed to be positive. Read this rediculous story.

After a flurry of postings in early to mid-August, I took a little unplanned hiatus from the Blogging world. No particular reason beyong just beyng bust (like every one else, I guess). I remember reading on someone else's blog one time that it is funny how when nothing is going on in your life, you have all this time to blog, but nothing interesting to say, but then you are busy, there is alot to say but no time to actually post it. This past couple of weeks have been that way.

So here are my ramdom thoughts on a Saturday afternoon as Kim, Carson, Cosmo and Rosco nap - while Jackson plays Ultimate Spiderman video game and I blog:

I'm pissed at one of my two credit card companies: Citi. They suddenly reduced my cash bask rewards for gas, grocery, and drug stores from a nice 5% for a lousy 2%. Almost no point in keeping the card now. I noticed that Citi actually doesn't even offer the divended card anymore - bastards!

For what reason would Cosmo chew all the bark off of our beautiful Bradford Pear tree in the backyard? Whatever that reason is, it is probably the same reason why he has destroyed the screen door from the sliding-glass door and chewed up out brand new beatiful cedar glider on the patio.

How the hell am I going to cover the schedule for three consecutive weeks of overnights in the shelter? Have they approved cloning, yet? If anyone knows, please let me know.

Am I ever going to beat the computer on "All-Madden" level in Madden 2007?

I wonder what Dean Biasucci is doing? Maybe he can come back and kick for the Colts since Adam Vinatieri mangaed to beak his foot in training camp doing conditioning drills.

I can remember a time when I needed the weekend for rest, relaxation and entertainment to get rejuvenated for the work week. It used to be that way. Now it seems like the only way to get my blood pressure down is to go back to work.

We have about five 4-leaf-clovers taped to the inside of one of Jackson's hardcover bible books. It seems like he finds one every 2 or 3 weeks. I don't think I have every found one in my whole life.