Bishop-log (formerly Anecdotes from a hick)

Devotional from Leviticus Chapter 18

2011-07-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Devotional from Leviticus Chapter 18

Prohibitions* against sexual relations with...

Mother (verse 7)
Step-mother [father's wife] (verse 8)
Sister and half-sister (verse 9)
Granddaughter (verse 10)
Step-sister (verse 11)
Aunt [father's sister] (verse 12)
Aunt [mother's sister] (verse 13)
Aunt by marriage [father's brother's wife] (verse 14)
Daughter-in-law (verse 15)
Sister-in-law [brother's wife] (verse 16)
A woman and her daughter (verse 17a)
A woman and her granddaughter (verse 17b)
Wife and her sister [wife must be dead before sister can become wife] (verse 18)
A woman menstruating (verse 19)
Another man's wife (verse 20)**
Against child sacrifice (verse 21)***
A man (verse 22)
An animal (verse 23a)
A woman with an animal(verse 23b)
Pagans of the land did these things but God's people were not to--they were to be holy (verses 24-30)****

* Prohibitions are from the perspective of a man. Women are addressed in verse 23. However, it can be inferred that women should also not willingly participate in these sexual unions which are prohibited for men.

** This whole section could be summarized as "Do not have sex with anyone or anything other than your wife." Sadly, because of our own wicked hearts, God has to get specific to show us there are no exceptions.

*** Not a sexual prohibition since it is against child sacrifice but much of idol worship was tied to fertility, prosperity, and immoral acts.

**** God's people are to still be holy. If you are practicing any of these then repent, turn to God before it is too late. There is hope for those who put their trust in Jesus. 1Cor. 6:9-11 "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Moving to Washington

2011-07-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

I (Barry) was born in Gatesville, TX and lived in Gatesville, TX until I graduated highschool and attended college in Austin. Years later, I began pastoring a church in Gatesville, TX. I have relatives buried in the cemetary in Gatesville, TX where I assumed I would be buried as well. But now, I am moving to Washington state.

As you can imagine, it will be hard for me to move 2000 miles away from family, life-long friends, and some new ones I have made along the way. As a pastor I wonder if I have completed the work that God had me here for. I think of all the sweet people of Hay Valley Baptist church--how loving, patient, and hard-working they are. I have been praying for my replacement there ever since it became clear I would be moving to serve as a pastor of a church near Spokane, Washington.

So why am I moving? The short answer is that God calls the shots in my life and it is clear to me that He is leading me to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in an area of the U.S. that is desperate for it.

"But," you may say, "isn't there a need for people to hear about Jesus in Texas and in Gatesville?" Yes, of course there is. In fact, looks can be deceiving because Gatesville has a church on every corner in town but there are still so many people who are not Christians. Many of these go to church regularly but it evident by the way they live Mon. through Sat. that there has been no new birth in their heart like Jesus talks about in John 3:3. In other words, they are as lost as a ball in high weeds. I should know because I was one of them.

Let me explain. I grew up going to church and was by all outward appearances a "good kid." I got baptized. I knew a lot about the Bible and called myself a Christian (in other words, a follower of Jesus Christ.) But I, and everyone else I knew lived a double life. Church and Christianity were simply a cultural thing we did on Sundays. This was part of growing up in Gatesville. I am sure there were true Christians that I knew then but at the time everyone I met called themselves a Christian and the waters got so muddy. Ironically, it wasn't until I was in college in the morally decadent town of Austin, that I became a true, born-again, follower of Jesus Christ. You see, in college, everyone my age just stopped pretending to be something they were not and gave up outward appearances of Christianity. People dove into sex, drink, drugs, etc. It became clear what their "god" was. As for me, I realized during this time that my heart was wicked. While I may have fooled others into thinking I was good, I knew who I was. And worse than that God knew who I was, too. I began to fear that God would judge me (and rightly so) for my sins and that I would perish in Hell when I die and that there was no hope for me. I came to a point where I was so desperate to be forgiven for my sins that I cried out to God, "If you don't save me then no one can. Please, if you will save me I will follow you." This all sounds dramatic but if it's happened to you then you understand that I am not exaggerating. In fact, this is a short summary of a lot of difficult things that God used in my college years to bring me to the point of surrender to Him.

Well, what happened was this: I knew from the Bible that Jesus was God's Son and that He died on the cross for sinners. I knew that if I trusted in Jesus, His sacrifice on the cross would make me right with God. Jesus' goodness would cover my badness. It all finally made sense, I was a sinner and I needed a savior, Jesus. Instead of God being my judge, by faith in Jesus, God became my savior (Ephesians 2:8-9). I would be saved from His judgment. What a loving God!

I can tell you that God radically changed my heart in college. I began reading the Bible and understanding it. I had new desires, like wanting to follow God and do what He says. I said earlier that God calls the shots in my life and I meant it--He is my boss. I want to tell others the Good news of Jesus Christ. I want to tell them that they can be saved too from the judgment of God for breaking His laws and instead given a new life.

This has been a long explanation for why I am going to Washington: to tell others the Good News about Jesus and because I want to obey God, my boss (Matthew 28:19-20).

I am excited about Washington state but I still am praying for Gatesville. It is a town that I think is especially in spiritual darkness. The people have a hard time listening to the truth because they have a "been there, done that" attitude towards anything Christian. But sometimes, when things are the darkest, is when the light shines the brightest. God is alive and giving life to those who turn to Him. Where do you stand?

Alcohol & Money

2010-09-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Recently, a couple of members from our church asked some good questions during a Weds. night meeting--"What does the Bible say about alcohol" and "Is it wrong to pray for financial gain?"
I like the challenge of questions like these because it gives us Christians an opportunity to go to God's Word, the only authority, and see what it says about very real issues we face today. Here are the verses I shared with them and I hope it will be helpful to you as well. Acts 17:11 -Barry

ALCOHOL & DRINKING CONSIDERED FROM SCRIPTURE

It is not wise.
Proverbs 20:1
1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

Warnings against
Proverbs 23:29-35
29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?
30 Those who tarry long over wine; those who go to try mixed wine.
31 Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.
32 In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.
33 Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things.
34 You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast.
35 They struck me," you will say, "but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I must have another drink."

Clouds judgment
Proverbs 31:4-5
4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, or for rulers to take strong drink,
5 lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of all the afflicted.

Medicinal use
Proverbs 31:6
6 Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress;

1 Timothy 5:23
23 (No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.) [this was a note from Paul to Timothy]

It is better to be filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit
Ephesians 5:18
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,

IS IT WRONG TO PRAY FOR FINANCIAL GAIN?
Consider these Scriptures.

It is wrong to love money but money itself is not evil.
1 Timothy 6:10
10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Are we asking for selfish reasons or for God’s purposes?
James 4:3
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Jesus answers every prayer according to His will
John 15:7
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Seek God first and He will honor you.
Matthew 6:33
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

We are to pray for daily provision.
Matthew 6:11
11 Give us this day our daily bread,

We are to invest what God gives us for His kingdom. Whoever is faithful with little will be given more
Matthew 25:14-30
Parable of the Talents

God provides for His children, in general.
Psalm 37:25
25 I have been young, and now am old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for bread.

Spring 2010

2010-04-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

Everything is beautiful this time of year here in Gatesville, TX! The first picture was taken in our backyard and the rest were taken by our church. We have been enjoying much fresh air and outdoor playtime. John Dalton is now 9 months old. Abigail will be 5 on May 4th and Reuben will be 3 a few weeks later.

Thoughts from the Bible

2010-03-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

For some time now I have been wanting to put my thoughts down in writing on my beliefs from the Bible. I finally had a chance to sketch out some of them and I thought I would share them with others through this blog. Hopefully, these issues will help you think through what you believe and search the Bible for yourself (whether you agree with me or not.) In the future I hope to expand on these topics and others. If this already sounds too boring then check out this link or this one. --Barry

THE TRINITY
I believe that the God of the Bible is a triune God. Although the word “trinity” is not contained in the Bible, it is an accurate description of how God reveals Himself in His Word. There is only one God (see Deut. 6:4) but there are three distinct, separate persons in the Godhead: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each of these persons are fully God but not each other. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God BUT the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Spirit is not the Son, etc. In short there is one “What” and three “Whos,” that is, one God and three persons. This is unique to Christianity and difficult to grasp but it is what the Bible teaches and what Christians have always believed. If someone does not believe in the Trinity, whether they claim to be a Christian or not, then they have the nature of God wrong and therefore the wrong god. For this reason, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Oneness Pentecostals should not be considered Christians. Examples of the Trinity are throughout the Bible but one quick example is in the creation. The Father created everything (Gen. 1:1), yet through the Son everything was created (John 1:3, Col. 1:16), and the Spirit took an active role in creation as well (Gen. 1:2).

THE VIRGIN BIRTH
I believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary as scripture clearly indicates (see Lk 1:34-35, Matthew 1:18, 25 and the prophecy in Isa. 7:14.) The fact that Mary was a virgin attests to the supernatural power of God.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES
I do not believe in speaking in tongues, as it is popularly understood today. When the Bible talks about speaking in tongues it indicates a spiritual gift for speaking KNOWN languages (see Acts 2:7, 1Cor 14:10). Furthermore, if someone speaks in a “tongue” it must be interpreted for the edification of the church or else not used at all AND only 1 person at a time may speak in a tongue (1Cor 14:27-28).

For this reason, most of what is considered “speaking in tongues” today is unbiblical because it is unintelligible gibberish. Neither do many of those who practice them follow the biblical guidelines of having an interpretation when there are tongues or speaking 1 at a time. Furthermore, some denominations and movements try to use speaking in tongues as an evidence of a second blessing or baptism by the Holy Spirit. This is simply wrong. The Holy Spirit is received at the time of conversion by the believer. (Acts 10:47)

BAPTISM
I affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and I can not summarize my thoughts on baptism any better than it states in Article VII:
“Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.”

CALVINISM/ REFORMED THEOLOGY
Although I know many wonderful Christians who are Calvinists and I appreciate many of the emphases of Reformed theology, I am not a Calvinist. Based on 1Jn 2:2, I believe that Jesus died for all people and not just the elect. I believe that God is all loving and loves all people based on John 3:16. However, I do not believe that all people will be saved but only those who believe (receive, trust, have faith) in Jesus. John 3:18 says, “...but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Also, Acts 4:12 and John 14:6 make it clear that Jesus is the only way of salvation. God alone saves but we must receive this gift of salvation through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). For non-believers there is a real and eternal Hell at death (Lk 12:5, 16:19ff, Isa. 66:24, Mk 9:47-49). This sobering fact is one of the motivations for Christians to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with non-believers before it is too late for them.

CREATION
I believe that evolution is completely incompatible with the Bible. Furthermore, based on Gen. 1-11 (specifically chapter 1) and Exodus 20:11, I believe that God created the earth thousands of years ago rather than millions or billions.

END TIMES
I believe the Bible clearly states that Jesus will return visibly and bodily one day soon and judge the living and the dead. He will establish His kingdom forever where righteousness will dwell. Beyond this, I am still studying out the details from scripture but would describe my current view as premillenial.

WOMEN IN THE MINISTRY
Men and women are both made in the image of God and therefore are equal in value (Gen 1:27). Furthermore, the Bible reaffirms all Christians equal status in Christ (Gal 3:28). Women have figured prominently in Jesus’ ministry from the beginning (Luke 8:2-3) and women still should serve in the church. However, the roles for men and women in the church and in the home are distinct. Specifically, women are not allowed to be pastors/overseers/elders. This is based on 1Tim 2:12 and the requirements for an overseer found in 1Tim 3 and other places. The reason for this is not because a lack of ability, status, or desire on the part of a woman but because of God’s order in creation (Gen 1-2). Likewise, husbands are to be the head of their house, a spiritual leader, who love their wives unconditionally as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (see Gal 5:23ff.) My view would be described as complementarian.

Greetings and Happy New Year from the Bishop family!

2009-12-31T16:30:00.001-08:00

Greetings and Happy New Year from the Bishop family!

We did not get a chance to send out Christmas cards or pictures this year so we are sending an update letter for the New Year about our family. Thank you so much, as our friends and family, for all the love and support you have given to us!

2009: A Year of Triumphs and Trials

In January, I (Barry) began the year by traveling to Monclova, Mexico as part of a team of seminary students, in order to share the Good News of Jesus Christ there. Once again, I was amazed at the awesome power of God to change lives for eternity, as many responded to the message and put their faith in Jesus. Our team distributed 15,000 gospel booklets, hundreds of Bibles, and proclaimed the Good News door-to-door, in special church services, through music, and children’s activities. God blessed the trip immensely. Here’s a link to a video from last year.

While I attended classes at seminary, Karen (a stay-at-home mom) held things down at home. In addition, she earned a certificate in Seminary Studies for Student Wives and was awarded it in April. This meant that she had to take seminary level classes at night over three semesters. For the last year of seminary, Karen, the kids, and I would travel every weekend 120 miles south in order for me to pastor at Hay Valley Baptist Church in Gatesville. My wife is truly an amazing woman!

In May, I graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity. After 3 years, 97 credit hours, (not to mention several part-time jobs and ministry positions) I finished! Seminary was one of the hardest things I have ever done but a wonderful time of spiritual growth. There were some low points where I thought we could not make it—the demanding schedule, turning in papers, finances—but God always brought us through.

One example of how God was good to me is that I won the 2009 LifeWay Pastoral Leadership Award in May. It was awarded to one graduating student who is going into pastoral ministry. But more than the award, I was happy to get a $500 gift certificate that went with it which allowed me to buy books for my ministry library.

In June our family took a much needed vacation to San Antonio to see Karen’s parents. Our good friends, the Kurths, joined us and we had a great time together at the Riverwalk and Alamo. Our kids played with their kids and ignored all the cultural things that the adults enjoyed.

By July I had almost forgotten that we had a baby on the way, but John Dalton Bishop came into the world on the 15th. He was a chubby little cherub (9 lbs. 1 oz., 18.5 in. long) that reminded us of what it was like to have a newborn.

Less than two weeks later, we bought a house and moved to Gatesville, Texas, my hometown. Once again, God worked out the details for us to get a newly remodeled house that we could afford. Also, the house is one street over from my mother and she has been an immense help to us with our kids! Best of all, we finally live in the same town as the church that I pastor.

In August, I started a rewarding (yet challenging) job as a high school Spanish teacher. I took this job to supplement my income as a pastor. However, the job has some great advantages such as allowing me to make a difference in young peoples’ lives and helping me identify better with those church members who are in education as well.

Karen joined a group called HOT Moms (Heart of Texas Moms). It is a group of Christian mothers that meets for a Bible devotional and fellowship while the kids play.

Abigail (4 1/2 yr) is in a Ballet/Tap Dance class. She likes it and is quite the comedienne. She pretends to fall down and dances to only the songs she likes. Karen has been homeschooling her with a preschool curriculum from My Father’s World. Abigail loves it and knows all sorts of stuff I never knew at her age, like all the names of the planets and that “Pluto is icy cold.”

Reuben (a.k.a. “Mr. Mess”) is a typical boy. He is 2 1/2 yr old and is into clobbering things with toys and playing with everything that is not a toy. He loves to tackle me and be tickled. I love his roughness too, except when he scores a solid hit against me.

John Dalton is 5 months old now and he is a very happy, chubby baby. He is at a fun age. Lately, he has started swiping at things like glasses and noses.

We always thought that after completing seminary the pace of life would slow down, but it seems to be just as busy as ever! Karen is a wonderful wife who keeps me and the kids going each day. She is a hard worker and a great encourager. On any given day in our household there is drama with the kids and laughter at ourselves.

One day recently Karen said, “I sometimes wonder why I worked so hard in the business school at UT only to be wiping bottoms now.” I told her that Moses probably felt the same way, because although Moses was schooled “in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” he spent 40 years in the desert tending sheep before God called him and used him in mighty ways (see Acts 7). Sounds like a pretty good answer, right? But I, too, have had similar moments.

And so, like Abraham, we walk by faith. “For he was looking forward to the city... whose designer and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:10.) I do not regret basing my life on Jesus Christ, I only regret times when I have been disobedient to Him. Jesus is my King and my Savior. He loves you and can be yours, too. Yet, you will never be reconciled to God until you confess that you have broken His laws and been an enemy to Him. Then put your faith in Jesus alone and trust that his payment on the cross can make you clean and forgiven before God the Father.

The Christian life is not easy, but there will be rewards in eternity. After all, there are only Two Ways to Live.

Happy New Year! I pray that you too might walk in the “newness of life” that is available through faith in Jesus Christ. And please keep our family in your prayers as well, that we will keep to our new year’s resolutions to lead more disciplined and godly lives.

Love,

The Bishops (Barry, Karen, Abigail, Reuben, and John Dalton)

Romans 6:4

We [believers in Jesus] were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

John at 2 months old

2009-09-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

Welcome John Dalton

The photos from the past 2 months are finally uploaded! check them out by clicking on the link directly above to take you to our web album.

Welcome John Dalton Bishop

2009-07-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

Our sweet son, John Dalton Bishop was born today (Wed., July 15th) at 4:46 pm. He weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. and was 18.5 inches long. God is so good to bless us with our 3rd child!

Pictures from first half of 2009 & Life Update

2009-06-16T00:37:00.000-07:00

OK, so seminary was really busy there toward the end, and now I'm in the ninth month of pregnancy, so I'm not going to feel too bad about not posting in so long. But since a picture is a worth a thousand words, here are the photos that tell the story, roughly, of our life for the past 6 months. Enjoy!

Jan to May 2009

BTW, our baby boy is due July 13th. Still deciding on a name. We are currently living in Fort Worth, but will move to Gatesville to be closer to the church that Barry pastors shortly after the baby is born. Barry just signed a contract today with Gatesville High School and will be their new Spanish teacher for the fall (as his second job -- he's a bivocational pastor). I'm proud of Barry and so thankful to God for providing for us in this way and answering our prayers. God is good!

Zacchaeus

2009-06-09T08:01:00.000-07:00

Barry Bishop

Truths as Found in the Story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-8

The account of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-8 is a beloved and well-known story. Some are familiar with it because of the children’s song “Zacchaeus was a wee little man.” There are many colorful details in the story, unfortunately this has caused some to miss the main points of the account, namely, that Jesus came to seek and save the lost and also the repentant response of Zacchaeus to Jesus. A short examination of this passage will show that its truths have significant application for Christians today. First, some minor details will be discussed, followed by the main themes and application.

The setting of the story is this: Jesus is resolutely traveling to Jerusalem and to his passion on the cross. On the way he enters Jericho and crowds flock to him. Zacchaeus, a short, rich, chief tax collector (ἀρχιτελώνης, only used once here), comes to see him. He climbs in a tree to see Jesus, which would have looked awkward for a man of wealth. These details make it easy to focus on Zacchaeus. However, Jesus is the one who looks to Zacchaeus and calls him by name (perhaps knowing his name supernaturally.) In other words, Jesus is the one seeking, for He tells Zacchaeus that He “must” go to his house. As typical of Jesus’ ministry, there are opponents who grumble when they hear that Jesus would eat with a notorious sinner like Zacchaeus. The response of Zacchaeus however, is the correct one. He receives Jesus “joyfully” (a theme in Luke), admits he has cheated others, and vows to give half of his possessions to the poor and four times to those he cheated. [1] This is repentance before the Lord that is evidence of faith. Jesus then declares Zacchaeus to be a son of Abraham. This is of course means a true, spiritual son by faith since Zacchaeus was already a Jew. Jesus then declares his mission, “to seek and save the lost” and shows that salvation is found in only Himself.

Unfortunately, one technical issue has to be discussed. Some like Evans believe that Zacchaeus was already a righteous man. This ignores the grumblings of the crowd. Based on the present tense of the Greek verbs used in v. 8, Evans believes that Zacchaeus was simply declaring what he already customarily did, that is, was giving half his goods to the poor, was paying back four times anything he (accidentally) took from others.[2] This is simply wrong for it ignores the context. Jesus said today salvation had come, not previously. Further, the Greek allows for Zacchaeus to have a change of heart which leads to a (near future) change of action.[3] Jesus also states that Zacchaeus was lost.

Two main themes from this passage are significant for Christians today. First, Jesus is the one who came to seek and to save the lost. If there is hope for a notorious sinner like Zacchaeus there is hope for others like him. Christians should realize that Jesus is able to save even the worst of sinners and that many times he seeks out such notable ones (like Paul). The application is that Christians should not write off a person simply because they have a messy, sinful life. Jesus is powerful to save them and change their lives just as He is able to save the moralistic sinner as well. Christians need to share the good news of Jesus Christ with all people, regardless of their backgrounds knowing that God is powerful to save (cf. Rom. 1:16).

Second, true repentance is necessary for true faith. This biblical understanding of repentance is necessary for Christians. Zacchaeus was a rich man who was about to become poor. He would give away half (!) his possessions and four times back to those he cheated which was probably many since he was rich. Unlike the rich ruler of Luke 18:18f, Zacchaeus was willing to leave money behind to follow Jesus. A biblical understanding of repentance is necessary or else cheap grace, Lordless “salvation”, and false conversions will be perpetuated in America. The Lordship of Jesus starts for a Christian at conversion and continues to death. Wherever Jesus leads, whatever He commands, the Christian must do. There has to be a true change of heart, like Zacchaeus.

One last thought is that Jesus is the hero of the Zacchaeus story. Anyone who would focus on Zacchaeus misses the point of the passage. Zacchaeus was the sinner, Jesus was the seeker. How beautiful of a picture it is that Jesus called him by name and declared him a son of Abraham. This too is the greatest joy of any Christian, to be known by Jesus and to be in the family of God.

[1]Robertson says the condition in the Greek assumes Zacchaeus has cheated others. A.T Robertson, Word Pictures in the NT (Nashville, TN: B & H, 2000), 167.

[2]Craig Evans, Luke: NIBC (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 280.

[3]Bock allows for “present future” use of the verbs. Darrell L. Bock, Luke: IVPNTC (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1994), 307.

Devotional

2009-04-26T19:42:00.000-07:00

Those who visit this blog know that I have a bad habit of letting months pass by (more like seasons) between blog posts. In an effort to change my ways, I am re-posting here some of the things I send out to the members of our church. I hope this short devotional and other material will be helpful to you. I do plan to post more personal stuff when I get time. -Barry

DEVOTIONAL
Luke 21:1-4 Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Jesus reminds us repeatedly in the Gospels that those who are most important in God’s eyes and God’s kingdom are not always those who are in prominent positions. God sees the heart of each one of us. The spotlight is often on those who speak in front of the church or lead in some way but that does not mean that those who don’t are of less value than them. In fact, they may be more valuable to God. Trust the Lord with all your heart, live for Him, He is the one who sees your hidden deeds. He is the one who loves His faithful servants.

EVEN SHORTER DEVOTIONAL
Jonah 2:9b “...Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

The Bible is clear that there is nothing we can do to be saved. We can not work our way to heaven with good deeds. We can not earn God’s favor because we have broken God's laws and rebelled against Him. Instead look to the Lord for salvation. Look to the Savior, Jesus Christ! Put your trust alone in Jesus and have your sins washed away by the bloody work of Jesus on the cross. If you do not turn to Him in this life, you will sink down, like Jonah, but to something worse than a watery grave. However, Jonah was given a second chance at life. There is no second chance after this life.

Good Friday

2009-04-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

[This is a copy of an email I sent out today to the church where I serve. I thought I would post it here as well for others. -Barry]

Today is Good Friday, a day on which Christians remember the tragic yet wonderful event of Jesus dying on the cross.

These days we often wear crosses as jewelry or as logos on clothing. But let us not forget that a very real, heavy piece of wood was laid upon the bloody shoulders of Jesus as he was marched to his death on a hill. He was nailed to that wood and hung up to die an agonizing death. Why? He was receiving the punishment that we as sinners deserve before a holy God. He was the perfect lamb, to be sacrificed in our place. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, love, and obedience to the Father, we can now be forgiven and right with God. Just like Isaac was spared from death when God provided the ram in the bush (Gen. 22), so we can escape death by faith in the Lamb of God who was sacrificed, Jesus Christ. This type of faith demands that you put your trust, your entire life in the hands of Jesus the King. We know that He is the King because he was raised from the dead Easter morning, and ascended to heaven forty days later to be at God's right hand. The Bible says that Jesus the King will come again to take his followers home to heaven (John 14) and to judge the wicked (Rev. 20:11).

Please, take a moment today to read the verses below and say a pray of thanks to Jesus for His love for you.

a sinner saved by God's grace,
Pastor Barry

Isaiah 53:4-12 (ESV)
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

The Bishop’s Christmas Letter

2008-12-17T14:33:00.001-08:00

Here is a copy of our Christmas letter, enjoy!

December 15, 2008

Merry Christmas! Since this has been such an amazing year for our family, we decided to write about it in our first Christmas letter. God has gotten us through the difficulties and given us multiple blessings.

Barry – God answered our prayers in a big way this year, as Barry has seen his dream of pastoring and preaching become a reality. The year started out with a mission trip to Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. Barry loved sharing the Gospel there so much that now he is helping his professor lead the 2009 trip. Over spring break, Barry had the opportunity to preach a revival near Spokane, Washington. He preached another revival in May when God sent us to Wamsutter, Wyoming. Shortly after returning from the trip, Barry was called to pastor at Hay Valley Baptist Church in his hometown of Gatesville, Texas. (We still live close to the seminary in Fort Worth and drive to his mom’s house on the weekends.) What a blessing the church has been to us! We have felt their love and have enjoyed being a part of the family. Barry had a lot on his plate this Fall: pastoring, assisting Dr. Carrigan, being ordained, and taking 16 hours of classes! But God has been gracious and good. Barry will likely graduate with his Masters of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in May.

Karen – The highlight of Karen’s year was vacationing in Estes Park, Colorado. On the way to Wyoming for Barry’s revival, our family spent a few days enjoying the awesome beauty of God’s creation at the Rocky Mountain National Park. Karen had fun this summer getting to know people from church and participating in Vacation Bible School. The Fall was very busy for Karen, too. As the Vice President of Metochai, the Seminary wives’ organization, she lined up the speakers for the year. As Publicity Chair for MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), she put together the monthly newsletter. She also took a night class designed for seminary wives. But mostly, Karen spends her time taking care of her husband, children, and home.

Abigail – Our little princess turned 3 this year, and what better way to celebrate than having a princess party! She came as Cinderella, one of her favorite characters. Her biggest hobby right now is building really elaborate towers with wooden blocks. She goes to a two-hour a week preschool at the Fort Worth Museum in which she learns about a different animal or nature topic every week. She is starting to learn how to sound out simple words. Here favorite things include Dora, Curious George, BOZ, Little People, and Veggie Tales. Funny quote: Pointing at a stained glass window in the middle of the children’s sermon at Hay Valley, she shouted, “Look Daddy, there’s a shepherd! It’s Jesus!”

Reuben – Mr. Reu celebrated his 1st birthday this year with a BOZ, the big green bear, cake. He’s a very active little boy now. His favorite activities include climbing, turning knobs, pushing buttons, shutting doors, eating and playing peek-a-boo. He’s very smiley and cuddly. He’s just now starting to say more words, like “row row row” and “poo poo.”

New Baby – That’s right! We’re expecting another one in July. We’re excited and thankful to God for this huge blessing!

May you have a wonderful Christmas as you remember the miracle of the Savior’s birth. "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). –Matthew 1:23

Love,
The Bishops

7th Heaven

2008-08-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here's us on our wedding day 7 years ago:

So happy and in love back then, and even more so now! We celebrated our 7th Anniversary last Monday, August 11th. Bet you didn't know that the 7th anniversary is the "Copper Anniversary." We stayed one night at the historic Inn at Salado. We'd never stayed at a bed and breakfast before -- very romantic! We also dined at the Stagecoach Inn and went to see "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 3D. Talk about an awesome date! (Big points for Barry!)

That was the longest time I'd ever been away from Reuben, and I missed him, but he did fine with Granny. He still nurses 2-3 times a day and he walks a little bit. I can't turn my back away from him for even a minute these days without him climbing up on the table or playing with the lamp or electrical cords. The two kids are making it quite impossible to keep a clean house, but I like that they are interacting more, even if it does cause some spats over toys. Abigail's imagination has really grown and it's fun to see her pretend to be a cat or an angel. Everybody always comments on how long her hair is now. My friend pointed out that we may have to cut it soon so that it doesn't get into the potty!

We're still enjoying getting to know everyone at Hay Valley Baptist Church. Barry is doing a great job preaching on Sundays. We had over 50 kids at the Vacation Bible School last month. It was a really fun and special time for our church. Barry had to kiss a pig at the end of it because the boys lost the fundraising war against the girls. We raised over $500 to give to the Texas Baptist Children's Home for school supplies.

Barry will start the Fall semester on Thursday. I'm sure it'll prove to be difficult since he's taking 16 hours, is still grading for an Evangelism professor, and is a part-time pastor. But, we feel like we're almost in the home stretch since graduation will hopefully be in May.

I'm going to be pretty busy myself this semester. Since Reuben's officially a toddler now, I volunteered to be an officer with Metochai (seminary wives organization) and MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). I may have bit off more than I can chew, though. I'm just praying that God will help me be faithful and efficient, and that the women in these organizations will feel encouraged and loved.

We plan to come into Austin on August 24th at 3 pm for the service at Liveoak Bible Church. We hope to see many of you old friends there! Also, Barry will be ordained soon and we'd love it if you would come to that service. It will be in Gatesville at our church on a Sunday afternoon -- possibly September 28th.

Barry Bishop, Pastor?

2008-06-30T10:10:00.000-07:00

Barry just began his first pastorate! Hay Valley Baptist Church near Gatesville, TX voted on June 1st. It's a small country church. Everyone has welcomed us with open arms and has been so sweet to us. Please pray that God will use us to love and minister to all the people there. Please also pray for safe travel there and back on the weekends, as we will continue to live in Fort Worth until Barry receives his degree in May, God willing. We wanted to share some pictures with you.

A Wowie BOZowee 1st Birthday!

2008-06-03T14:37:00.000-07:00

Reuben's 1st birthday was Friday, May 30th. We had a BOZ theme, complete with a birthday cake made by me and decorated by my good friend Christina. It turned out great! BOZ is a big green bear who is like a Christian version of Barney. We have all the DVDs and highly recommend them for preschoolers. Please don't be offended if you didn't get an invitation to his party -- we didn't have much time to send them out because of our vacation, so we just did a small get-together with our neighbors.

To update you on Reuben, he can crawl on his and hands and knees, walk behind a push toy and along furniture, and climb stairs. He weights 18 lbs. 11 oz. and has no teeth. He just started saying "da-da." Everybody always comments on how happy and good-natured he is. We just love him and his big sis to pieces!

Siblings Sharing

2008-06-03T14:07:00.000-07:00

Abigail loves to share a "big chip" with "Baby Reuben." It's actually a rice cracker (Baby Mum-Mums).

Oh yes, Wyoming!

2008-05-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

Trip to Colorado and Wyoming

Check out the web album I just uploaded (click above). We'll have to write more later, but as the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words anyway.

Our Princess Turns 3

2008-05-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

We had a blast at Abigail's 3rd birthday party! We had a princess/dress-up party -- so fun! Abigail loved being Cinderella. Here are the lyrics to a Steven Curtis Chapman song that will make you cry (it certainly made us tear up):

She spins and she sways to whatever song plays,
Without a care in the world.
And I'm sittin' here wearin' the weight of the world on my shoulders.
It's been a long day and there's still work to do,
She's pulling at me saying "Dad I need you!
There's a ball at the castle and I've been invited and I need to practice my dancin'"
"Oh please, daddy, please!"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms'
Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh I will dance with Cinderella
I don't wanna miss even one song,
Cuz all to soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

She says he's a nice guy and I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I'd approve of a dress
She says "Dad, the prom is just one week away,
And I need to practice my dancin'"
"Oh please, daddy, please!"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms'
Cause I know something the prince never knew
Ohh-oh ohh-oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't wanna miss even one song,
Cuz all to soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone
She will be gone.

Well, she came home today
With a ring on her hand
Just glowin' and tellin' us all they had planned
She says "Dad, the wedding's due six months away
And I need to practice my dancin'"
"Oh please, daddy please!"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms'
Cause I know something the prince never knew
Ohh-oh ohh-oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't wanna miss even one song,
(even one song)
Cuz all to soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

World's worst blog--What I ate today

2008-05-07T19:59:00.001-07:00

I have started using a website called the "daily plate dot com" to keep track of the calories I take in every day. It is a really cool site!

I have noticed for some time that I have been steadily gaining weight. Okay, I've been noticing for a few years now but I haven't done anything about it. =o) I mean, when I was in my teens and early 20's I could eat a ton of junk food and not gain an ounce!

However, I have been hoping for a while that somehow I would lose the weight despite the fact that I eat junk and don't work out.

For the last two days however (Tues. & Weds.) I have turned over a new leaf, as you can see in my food journal. I have kept under my daily allowance of calories and I have done a little bit of exercise. However, today I had a biscuit with gravy which was like a calorie/fat bombshell.

I hope I can keep this up. Honestly, I struggle with food because I really like to eat and usually eat more than I should. As a Christian I want to honor the Lord with my body. Also, I don't want to be addicted to something unhealthy. I have many times thought that my overeating is a spiritual problem. I am using food for pleasure or comfort when I am stressed rather than turning to the Lord in prayer. This would be a form of idolatry and gluttony. When it is put that way then it sounds really serious!

So I would appreciate your prayers for me. I am praying that Lord will help me to have self-control, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). Ultimately, the Christian life is daily yielding to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In following Him, with the help of the Spirit you will act more like Jesus.

PS The fruits of the Spirit are found in those who have been born again (John 3). This is because those who have been born again have the Holy Spirit (John 14 specifically verse 16). If you examine your life and find you do not have any of the fruits of the Spirit found in Gal. 5:22-23 then it very well could be that you have not been born again ("saved," "regenerated.") The good news is that there is hope. Click here.

Christmas 1993 - woah!

2008-05-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

My cousin Les (a.k.a "Gator") sent me this picture a few months ago and only now do I have the courage to post it.

From left to right are my Aunt Leslie, Dori (brother's girlfriend), my brother Ray, Aunt LaQuinta, Uncle Murl, my grandma Jewel, my mom Mary, Cousin Les, and (sigh) me.

Notice that I am the only one wearing shorts. I guess it was because I wanted to show off my chicken legs. However, I thought legs were supposed to be dark meat, not pasty white. I estimate that I was 14 at the time of this picture. You could say I was at that awkward stage but honestly I looked this way for the next 7 years after that.

Thank you, Les, for the picture. It brought back memories of the good times at Maw-maw Bishop's house.

Snow Day

2008-03-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

After losing all hope of seeing snow this year, God surprised us yesterday with the unexpected!

Please Pray for Me

2008-02-19T20:30:00.000-08:00

I have an opportunity through the seminary that is exciting and terrifying! March 16-19 I will be preaching during revival meetings in a church outside of Spokane, Washington.

Please pray that God will send revival in my life, among the people of that church, and their community.

However, you may be asking, "What is revival?" Good question, I'm glad you asked. Here's two quotes that help describe it:

"[Revival is] the strange and sovereign work of God in which He visits His own people, restoring, reanimating, and releasing them into the fullness of His blessings." --Stephen Olford

"The renewal of the first love of Christians, resulting in the awakening and conversion of sinners... It reclaims the backslidden church and awakens all classes." --Charles Finney

In others words, it is when God visits in a powerful way that results in the salvation of sinners and the renewal (revival) of the saved.**

Since it is a move of God we, as Christians, cannot generate revival by having special meetings, music, or guest preachers. All we can do is pray and ask the Lord to revive us and leave it in His hands to do so. However, we may not be able to control or predict the wind, but we can set our sails so that it catches the wind if it does blow. For this reason, we have revival meetings.

So what are revival meetings? In my case it will be four days of special meetings at the church, sharing the Gospel in the community and doing other visitations. I will be preaching evangelistic messages for the congregation and any guests they bring as well as sermons geared toward following Christ.

Again, please pray for me. I took this assignment on faith. I have preached about 5 times in my life and now I will be preaching 5 times in 4 days.

I have to admit that I am extremely weak and to accomplish something like this is beyond me. But I want you to know that God is God and He can do awesome things through weak people. I hope to report to you in a month or so all the awesome things He did during that week.

Please pray for me. Did I mention I would like you to pray? On your mark, get set, pray!

**To see if revival is biblical, check out the following places:

Gen. 35:1-15 - Jacob's household
2 Chron. 15:1-15 - Asa
2 Kings 11-12; 2 Chron. 23-24 - Joash
2 Kings 18:4-7 - Hezekiah
Nehemiah 9-12 - Nehemiah

Also, "the Lord calls the church to repent and return to an intimate love relationship (Rev. 2:2-4, 14-16; 3:1, 3, 15-16, 19)"

A lot of the ideas above were taken from the book Revival 101 by Dale Schlafer.

Mexico Mission Trip Report and More

2008-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a mission trip to Ciudad Acuna in Mexico (just across the border from Del Rio, Texas). Our mission was to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many as possible. It was an awesome time of seeing the amazing work of God! 30 of us seminary students, with limited resources, time, and language skills were able to share the gospel hundreds of times (maybe even thousands), and give out over 10,000 gospel tracts. There were hundreds that responded to hearing the gospel by repenting and professing faith for the first time in Christ alone.

Below is a travel journal that I kept. It is pretty long so if you plan to read it you may want to read it one travel day at a time. Enjoy!
---------------------------------

January 5, 2008

Today has been a day of travel. We left this morning at 6:30 and things went smoothly. Unfortunately, I have carried a lot more baggage coming into this trip than what I packed in a suitcase. What I mean is that I am still emotionally drained from the difficult semester I just finished, the hectic pace of my holiday travels, and the everyday worries of finances and future. Therefore, my prayers today have been to ask God to calm my heart. Also, I have asked for forgiveness for the bad attitudes I have been carrying and my ungodly worrying.

I really want to be used by God to share the Gospel in Ciudad Acuña because peoples’ souls are at stake. But first I have to get over my own selfishness.

As the day’s travel progressed my attitude improved. Also, I began to think more of the team and our mission in Acuña. I also got excited a little about the prospect of seeing God work firsthand in people’s lives.

By the end of the day I also felt less lonely as I got to know more people on the team and began to feel like I am a part of something bigger than myself.

The day ended at Acuña with a bright week ahead.

Prayer:

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me the privilege of sharing the Gospel. Please help me to love You enough to obey You and to love others enough to share your truth with them. Please give me clarity and boldness tomorrow. Amen.

January 6, 2008

The day began at 6:00 for me. Although this is a little early for me, I felt refreshed after getting some sleep since the previous day was so tiresome from traveling. I read my Bible and was challenged by Genesis 7-8. Noah is protected from God’s judgment by the ark and in the same way we are protected by being covered by Jesus. I vowed to take this point and share Christ with others today.

Next, at 8:00, I went to Dr. Calvert’s devotional meeting. It was great because he used the story of David and Goliath to encourage us to go forth in the strength of the Lord.

Next, my group traveled to La Iglesia de la Roca (Church of the Rock) where we were to assist with Sunday morning evangelistic visitations. When we arrived at the church our team of 6 broke into 3 and 3. I was one of the three who stayed behind to help with the children during the normal Sunday service. To be honest, I would have rather gone out to share the Gospel but our leaders decided the groups based on language proficiency.

However, it was good to serve the church in this capacity. There were a lot of children and I know that our help allowed their parents to worship God and listen without distraction. Actually, we helped the pastor’s wife with the kids and she was really good. We played games and colored and learned Bible verses through simple activities like having the kids write “Fe es un regalo de Dios –Eph 2:8” (“Faith is a gift of God.”) At the end of the Sunday morning service the rest of our group returned and reported that 6 people had prayed to ask the Lord to save them! That really excited me. We had a good lunch and got to know some of the local pastors better. When we returned to the hotel, I used the time we had before the evening service to pray and play worship songs on the guitar. I wanted to make sure my heart was right before God because I had to help lead worship at the church that evening.

Later, when we did lead worship it was a great experience because I heard the congregation praising God in their own language. At times while I was playing the guitar I would sing out in Spanish. During the song “Cuan Grande es El” (“How Great Thou Art”), I sung the chorus with all my heart but I am not sure others heard me above their own hearty singing. It did not matter though because I was truly praising God—even in another language!

I am usually not very charismatic or emotional but this time I found myself saying things spontaneously like “Thank you, Jesus!” during the song. I am thankful that the Holy Spirit pealed back the hardness of my heart tonight long enough for me to see, hear and praise Him.

After we sang, Chris preached the Gospel and Nelson translated. Nelson did such a wonderful job in translating that I can not help but wonder if he was spiritually gifted to do so. There were no salvations tonight that I know of but God was glorified all the same. I look forward to tomorrow and to hitting the streets to tell others about the saving love of Jesus Christ.

Prayer:

Lord, please humble me and let me rely only on You. Amen.

January 7, 2008

Today began with Bible reading and personal prayer. I read about God’s promise to Noah in Genesis to never again destroy the world by water. I thought about the rainbow in the sky that God said was a sign of that covenant and I thought about how many rainbows I have seen in my life. God is so faithful! He never forgets. He keeps His promises. And yet I was reminded by this passage that a day of judgment is coming when God will judge everyone according to what they have done. Those who did not trust Jesus alone and His death on the cross as the payment for their sins will spend an eternity in Hell. I wanted this to motivate me to share the Gospel with people for the day.

Dr. Calvert lead a devotional time again this morning at 8:30 and this time he talked about putting on the full armor of God as mentioned in Ephesians 6. Also, Dr. Calvert talked about there not being gloves in God’s armor and made an analogy that we need to touch people’s lives and not be afraid to get our hands dirty with people who have messy lives (drugs, mistresses, alcohol, etc.) This was an encouragement to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with everyone, including someone who we might consider a “moral leper”.

After the devotional time the group that I am a part of traveled to the church we are helping this week and we went door-to-door sharing the Gospel, handing out tracts, and talking with people. We walked around in some very poor and dirty neighborhoods near the church. Stray dogs roamed the bumpy, dirty streets.

However, from what I have seen of Ciudad Acuña, I am not sure that this neighborhood was any dirtier than others. To Americans like me, this kind of environment can evoke all sorts of emotions like sympathy, or even pride and disgust. More important than the environment though was that people—souls created in the image of God—lived there and needed the life-giving message of God.

I discovered that the people here in Acuña Mexico are friendly and transparent. They are all so easy to talk to and open to hearing about God. Of course some of who we talked to today wanted to hang on to their own good works and righteousness or put their trust in the Catholic Church for their salvation rather than Jesus. Many, however, listened to us patiently and 14 people today prayed to ask Jesus to forgive them and save them. That was just from our team of 6 people alone and there are 4 other teams!

I shared the Gospel with several people in broken Spanish. I shared the Gospel with one girl, who was about 14, and she said she agreed to all the facts that I had asked her about (“does she believe in God, Jesus, that she is a sinner, that Christ died for her sins...”)

However, when I asked her where she would go when she died (Heaven or Hell) she said “I don’t know”, then she timidly said “heaven?” I asked her why she thought she would go to heaven but she did not know a reason. So I shared with her again the Good News that although she was a sinner and therefore deserved hell from a righteous God, that God loved us so much He sent his Son to die on a cross and pay for her sins and if she trusted in Jesus alone she could be totally forgiven. I told her she needed to pray and ask for forgiveness and to trust Jesus alone.

At the beginning of our conversation she was a normal 14year old—bubbly, excited, and laughing. By this point she had changed enough to be quiet and misty-eyed. She said she understood now and wanted to pray. I was very touched and humbled that God would use me to share His Good News and change the life of this young girl.

We continued sharing with as many people in the neighborhood as we could. Later, I was rushed to a church (Nuevo Jerusalen) to help play worship songs. We were late and got lost on the way but arrived just as the service started and we were able to play. God is so awesome! One of our fellow missionaries preached and at the end of the service many in this small church came forward to pray and cry. I am not sure what each of them prayed for but it was evident that God was moving in people’s hearts. I am shocked to see how God is working here and I am hoping to have a revival in my heart as well so that my indifference and callousness towards the things of God is removed.

Prayer:

Lord, I am sorry that I have a let the trials and busyness of life close my eyes to loving others and You. Please forgive me. Amen.

January 8, 2008

Today is a great day! During the morning devotional time, Dr. Calvert talked about building up others with our speech (and tearing them down with negative speech). Our speech has such power in it. Ironically, with the same mouth that we praise God, we say curses.

At 10:00 this morning we returned to “la Roca” and went to the surrounding neighborhoods to share the Gospel. We broke up into groups to walk down the street and share with whoever was outside or whoever would answer their door. We would use a questionnaire that is in Spanish to share the Gospel and when we reached the end we would usually grab a translator (someone on our team who is proficient in Spanish) to clarify whether the person understood the Gospel and if they wanted to respond to it and be saved.

However, our little group got separated early from the others and I ended up being the translator for our group. I did not think I would be able to be a translator before coming on the trip but God helped me today. In fact, some of the first people we met were three guys leaning on a truck. All three understood the Gospel and prayed. ¡Gloria a Dios! All I can say is that God uses our meager gifts for His glory.

For lunch we went to Sorianos (a store very much like Super Wal-Mart) and after eating in the deli we went out in the parking lot to share the Gospel with people there and at the bus stop. One of the guys there said he would come to church the following day. That made me excited because I will be preaching during that service. Later in the afternoon we went to the neighborhood around a local church (Iglesia Bautista Bet-El). Again I was the translator for my small group. Basically, the more small groups the team can break up into, then the more ground we can cover.

This time I had a lot more confidence in translating since God had blessed us so much earlier in the day with communication and salvations. I do not quite remember how many people we talked to in a short time but something like 4 or 6 people prayed to be saved.

The amazing thing is that I have been a Christian for almost 10 years. I have shared the Gospel many times but today is the first time I have ever led someone in a prayer of repentance and is was about 6-8 people. All I can say is that God is awesome.

Later that night at a church service we played music again. At one point during the service everyone was praying and crying out to God while Jacob and I sang. I looked over at Jacob while we were playing “Open the Eyes of My Heart” and tears were streaming down his face. God is at work in Mexico and I am so encouraged by this because it made me realize that God is moving not just here but when I return home to Texas (if I will only trust Him).

January 9, 2008

What can I say? Today was an answer to many prayers. This morning after getting out of bed and getting ready for the day, I sang a song as a prayer:

Take my life and let it be

Consecrated, Lord, to Thee

Take my Hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love

I believe God answered this prayer. A group of about 8 of us went to share the Gospel in the neighborhoods near the church, Bet-El. I was struck by the contrast between the beauty of the landscape and the trash around the ramshackle, cinder block houses. Now that I think of it, it is an analogy for the beautiful, precious souls of the people who live here and the filthiness of their sins before a righteous God.

Today I did not have the privilege of leading someone in a prayer of repentance but I did have the privilege of sharing the Gospel many times. We would walk to houses, knock on doors, and engage people with the Gospel (at the very least we gave them tracts). We dodged a lot of dogs. Many people have guard dogs and not all of them are on chains! One man we spoke with was a solid Christian and that was encouraging. Two teenage boys listened carefully and intently to the Gospel but wanted to think further about it before surrendering to God. One man talked to us on the porch for a long time. He was very friendly and listened carefully to us. His wife is a Jehovah’s Witness but he is not. We have encountered quite a few Jehovah’s Witnesses here. It is sad to see so many people deceived by another Jesus (one who did not die on the cross but the archangel, Michael, did), and another gospel (of works). The sad reality is that no one is spiritually neutral. We are all created to worship but many have not turned to the true God, the God of the Bible.

We ate lunch and got some authentic Mexican food. The food here has been good but a little spicy and full of beans, which has been tough on my digestion.

After lunch my team went back to help La Roca and we put on a futbol (soccer) camp for the kids of the neighborhood. We played all sorts of games with them for hours in an empty lot. At one point we stopped all the games and had the kids sit down. Using a specially colored soccer ball we shared the Gospel (the black represented our heart, the red the blood of Christ, the white a pure heart cleaned in salvation, the green growth in Christ, the gold for riches in heaven.) The children listened and answered the questions about the colors after we repeated them a few times. We also shared with adults who were walking by the empty lot or hanging out at the corner store across the street. I have never spoken so much Spanish before in my life nor shared the Gospel so many times and so intently—thank you God! I feel like God has shown me it is possible to obey Him and tell the Good News to everyone everywhere you go. There have been times on this trip when I have handed a Gospel tract to someone in a truck, car, and on a bicycle and horse. At times, I have quickly run to people to catch them and give them a tract. The amazing thing is that not one person has responded with offense but rather they were thankful and friendly.

At 6:00 we returned to the church for the Wednesday service. We played music for the service again tonight. Chris shared his testimony and I preached. God is so good because he allowed me to share the Gospel clearly through an interpreter which is hard to do. I preached from Mark chapter 2 about the paralytic and how our biggest need is to be forgiven, not healed. Also, Jesus has the authority to forgive sins but he came not for the righteous but the unrighteous. We must realize our position before Him and cry out to God. Many came forward to pray while Pastor Juan prayed over them. I am not sure if anyone got saved but the people were touched and wanted to pray before God. We played some songs in Spanish that I did not know but Pastor Juan sang and the whole place was clapping, smiling, and shouting out things like “Glory to God!” It was easy at the end of the day to thank God for the joy that I have in Him.

January 10, 2008

In devotional time this morning, Dr. Calvert talked about the mountain-top experience of Elijah against the prophets of Baal and how his great victory was followed by despair. Dr. Calvert talked about how this week is a mountaintop experience of sharing our faith but when we return to Fort Worth we will be tempted not to continue to share our faith. Like Elijah, the Lord tells us to go back the way we came. In other words, before this week, we had expected God to do great things and we prayed that He would—and He has! Why don’t we do this every week? That is the key.

Today a group of 15 of us guys went to a local prison. There are about 150 prisoners in this Mexican jail. We guys had to prepare ourselves spiritually and emotionally before we went into the jail.

A local pastor, Fernando, goes to this prison every Thursday and ministers to the prisoners. We went along with Fernando. He brought food for all the prisoners.

God was so good to us because many prisoners came into the courtyard to see what we had to say. We shared the Gospel through our testimonies, through magic tricks, and one guy named Brent used his amazing strength to rip up phone books and roll up a frying pan. All of these things were amazing demonstrations of how God can save us from our sins when we trust in His Son alone. We shared the Gospel in at least 20 different ways. I think many of them understood it. After the presentation, Nelson challenged the prisoners to step forward, put their trust in Jesus and be saved. “Who wants to come and pray?” he asked them. Eight people came forward and in front of all the other prisoners they gave their life to God. It was an amazing testimony of God’s power and I am so glad I got to be a part of it.

After lunch we went door-to-door in the neighborhoods to present the Gospel orally to as many people as possible or at the very least to get it in their hands through our written testimonies and tracts. We have been keeping track of how many people we are contacting, sharing the Gospel with, and seeing the Lord save. We do this in order to judge our team’s effectiveness in sharing the Gospel. Of course, salvation is a work of God and the fact that we are seeing hundreds profess Christ is not our doing—we are just the messengers. Much more goes on than just the numbers alone though. Hundreds, thousands, and even ten thousand tracts have gone out and I can not help but wonder if we will see bigger results than we expected when we reach Heaven. I came to this trip a discouraged and preoccupied person. Also, I was somewhat apathetic in ministry but God has revived me in this short time. He has shown me that He is big and at work in the world and He can use me. I am full of joy that God is using me as a messenger of His grace and I want to continue burning for Him when I return.

Prayer:

Lord, continue the fire You kindled in me and let me be Yours alone everyday. Amen.

January 11, 2008

Today was the last day of the mission in Acuña. Tomorrow we travel home. As a final push, we wanted to distribute all the tracts that we had left which was around 4,000. So instead of our morning devotion we went to a plaza downtown to catch people in the morning. We worked in small teams on both sides of a busy street and we gave a Gospel tract to everything that moved! We did it with a smile and a “God bless you.”

I discovered that if you hand out hundreds of Gospel tracts there will be a few people who will ask you what it is and have questions about the Gospel. These are people who God has prepared because they are asking us about how to be saved instead of us having to chase them and convince them of their need. For this reason, we presented the Gospel many times today as a team even though we had only planned to hand out tracts as quickly as we could. I know of several more people today who God saved through these Gospel encounters.

I am overwhelmed by God’s power this week. He has done more than I ever thought possible in our mission here. Everyday I have been stretched to share and do more than I thought I could do in sharing the Gospel. I am so encouraged by God’s faithfulness and I realize I need to trust Him more everyday and not just on a mission trip.

At the end of the day our whole mission team, all 30 of us, gathered at a local church building. We had a special time of praying, singing, and testifying to what the Lord has done this week in Acuña.

Is anything too difficult for God? No. That is part of the testimony of this week.

Prayer:

Thank you Lord for opening my eyes to Your power and Your work in salvation. Help to realize each week that Your kingdom is advancing and to labor for You while I still have time. Amen.

January 12, 2008

Today we got up early and spent the day in travel back to Fort Worth, Texas. Things went smoothly again on the trip. We got through the border with only a slight delay. As we stopped along the way to eat or take a break we continued the mission by handing out Gospel tracts in English. The people here in Texas were different when we approached them. A few of them rejected the tracts. However, I was not discouraged. I realized that the culture in America is different than the Mexican border town we had just left. I knew that there was plenty of work to do in America and that the same God who had saved so many in Mexico could do the same thing here.

Furthermore, I am just a messenger. I am called to be faithful in sharing the Gospel. How people respond to the message is not in my hands.

I am thankful to God that He allowed me to see in a week what mighty things He can do to change lives. I vow to believe Him to be able to do more than I expect even in this cynical and jaded generation.

Merry Christmas from Mr. Reu!

2007-12-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-12-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

Reuben helps Daddy cut the turkey at his first Thanksgiving.

The Suire family on Thanksgiving.

The Bishop family on Thanksgiving.

Abigail playing at Nana and Paw-Paw's house.

We thank God for our family and friends. We hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving and are ready for Christmas!

Our Ladybug and Pumpkin

2007-11-04T22:03:00.000-08:00

Here are the pictures from Halloween night. We went to our church's "Cowtown Carnival" and had a blast! Of course, Abigail's costume pretty much fell apart by the end of the night, but she enjoyed pretending to be a ladybug. Reuben didn't quite fill out his costume as much as his big sister had when she wore it two years ago, but he still attracted a lot of attention for being so adorable.

Sibling Harmony

2007-10-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Together.

Both shirts were a gift from Derek and Kari, whose own daughter is about to be a big sister herself! Don't know if it will be a little brother or sister yet, but we'll probably find out in less than 3 weeks when he/she comes into the world!

Hop on Pop! By the way, we're loving our new love seat (pictured here) and couch (Thanks Deanna!).

Life with two kids

2007-10-10T23:11:00.000-07:00

Reuben's new favorite toy is a stationary entertainer. He can support weight on his legs now.

The whole family! It's the last picture on our old couch. Barry went to pick up my sister's couch and love seat last weekend. She just moved into a new house and got new furniture. We gave our old couch to some Burmese refugees. By the way, these refugees need lots of help, so if you have anything you'd like to donate, let us know!

The classic 4 month pose. He loves tummy time now, and can even do the airplane. In fact, I have a hard time keeping him on his back sometimes because he can roll over so well. I think he'll be crawling, or at least scooting, soon.

Daddy has been biking Abigail around campus. It's been fun for both!

In other news, Reuben and I had the stomach flu yesterday. We're doing better today, but I'm still feeling weak. Please pray that Barry and Abigail don't catch it. When we're not sick, I feel pretty adjusted to life with two kids. It's a little crazy sometimes trying to balance Abigail's potty training with Reuben's frequent nursings, and it takes us an hour to leave the house. I tried grocery shopping with both the kids and it was a disaster the first time, but the second time went a little better. I'm glad that Abigail has gotten used to having a baby around and I can leave them in the same room for a little bit without worrying that she's going to hurt him. Reuben has been sleeping about 8 to 9 hours the last few nights. Praise God for that answered prayer!

Here come... Abigail!

2007-09-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

At 2 years and 4 months old, Abigail is saying all sorts of funny stuff. Her vocabulary and imagination are exploding. As a doting father I wanted to share with you some of her favorite phrases:

Mait a mimute! ("Wait a minute!")
All-lll the animals. (she says this randomly, and it really cracks me up because she says it with such finality)
Here come... Abigail!
Beek-a-boo
Mink mamingo (pink flamingo)
hippopotamus
Here da church... here da [mumbling]... see da puh-eeple! (this is the old game played with the hands of saying, "here's the church, here's the steeple, open it up and see the people")
Ouch! hurt da booty (she got this from a Dr. Seuss book where someone is stung by a bee on the butt)
Wake up Tad, we got a big problem! (this is from a kid video)
::singing:: One misty, moisty morning, when poudy was da wedder (also from a kid video)

10 Years Ago: A Testimony of God's Changing Power

2007-09-09T23:19:00.000-07:00

A lot can change in 10 years. I graduated Leander High School in 1997 as Karen Suire -- the valedictorian and voted most academic (pretty nerdy, huh?). I would have told you back then that I was a Christian. I considered myself to be a good person. I even quoted Scripture in my commencement speech. But I didn't really know God or have a commitment to Him.

Having everyone think I was smart didn't make me as happy as I thought it would, so I decided to seek happiness elsewhere. My main goal my freshman year at UT was to date and have lots of fun, all the fun I thought I'd missed out on in high school. As my life spiraled down into rebellion and immorality, I felt empty and lost and lonely as ever. That year made me realize that I had a heart of darkness. I couldn't kid myself any longer -- I was a "sinner in the hands of an angry God," to quote Jonathan Edwards.

All the while, the Holy Spirit was drawing me into a Christian group on campus called Longhorn Life. A very special girl named Pei Lee befriended me and tirelessly ministered to me. (If you're reading this Pei, I want to thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone and investing in my life.) She and the others I met in Longhorn Life were unlike all the other "Christians" I knew -- they lived out their faith with high standards and they genuinely cared for others. What a stark contrast they were to myself! I remember singing "In the Secret" at a home group meeting and how the line hit me, "I want to know you. I want to see your face. I want to know you more." Because of Pei's love and encouragement, and my increasing hunger to know this God she worshipped, I agreed to go to a 10-week Christian camp that summer. It changed my life.

The summer of '98 is the first time I really understood the Gospel and responded in true repentance and faith. I asked Jesus into my heart at a young age, and I think that God had been working on me ever since then, but I don't think I was born again until that summer. My eyes were opened to my state as a lawbreaker before God who could offer nothing to save myself. Romans 6:23 says that my sins earned me death (i.e. eternal separation from God in Hell). A holy and perfect God cannot be around sinners. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8). That's the Good News, folks. Jesus Christ -- God in the flesh, the only one who lived the perfect, sinless life -- paid the penalty we deserved by dying on the cross. But not only that, He conquered death, rose again, and now offers us eternal life (see Romans 6:23 again) and we can be with Him in Heaven forevermore! Isn't that amazingly wonderful!? So, how should we respond? We need to repent (tell God we're sorry and turn from our ways to His ways) and put our faith and trust in Jesus alone to save us.

Well, that summer I learned that it's more than an intellectual assent to the facts. One of the speakers challenged us to count the cost of being a disciple (Luke 14:25-33). To follow Jesus, you must commit to let him lead. And the path will be narrow and difficult, but it is worth it for the reward. We're talking about eternity here -- our short lives are but a blip on the radar screen. "Only one life, 'twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." I'm not saying that our good works save us, but we are only saved by the kind of faith that produces good works (see James 2).

I'd like to say that after I made that commitment to follow Jesus that I never again wavered. No, I still had my struggles. But after that summer, something was different in my heart and life. When I fell into sin, He picked me up again and restored our fellowship. He has proven faithful and true, even when I haven't been. He continues to work on me, to chasten me, to sanctify me. He has poured out his goodness on me. He has satisfied me as with the richest of foods (Psalm 63 -- my favorite psalm!). He has blessed me with a wonderful husband and two precious children. After working for a Bible software company for 3 years, I have even had the opportunity to stay at home with my children while Barry attends seminary. All glory be to God!

Our Cute Kids

2007-09-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent photos of our beautiful children so you can see how much they've grown. Abigail is 2 and Reuben is 3 months old.

School Days and Books

2007-08-27T13:34:00.000-07:00

I want to be a life-long learner but not a life-long student!

As the fall semester of seminary begins for me I find myself excited and overwhelmed. I am excited by the wisdom and knowledge I am getting through my classes and through the mentoring of my professors. Also, I am excited about growing in character as I try to put into practice what the Lord is teaching me through the Bible. However, I am overwhelmed with the amount of reading and work that goes into my classes. This is why I said I do not want to be a life-long student.

In a couple of weeks I will turn 29 and in a couple of months I will attend my 10-year high school reunion. I feel a little sheepish about telling people that I am still in school. I guess I am worried that they think I am a loser since I don't have a successful, secure job or a big house or other things like that which I could drop casually into a conversation.

But I should really get over any feelings of embarrassment because I am happy about where Jesus is leading me in regards to full-time ministry. (Editorial note: my happiness it not really the determining factor though. Jesus is the leader of my life so I would follow Him anywhere even if it meant pain, sorrow, or death.)

I am hoping that my 10-yr reunion will be a good opportunity to share with my classmates about Jesus and what He has done in my life. I hope to give every one of my classmates a gospel tract and to share the gospel verbally with as many as possible. Those of you who are Christians and are reading this please pray that God will use me to do this on Oct. 12-13. (Those of you who are reading this and are not Christians probably think everything I have said up to this point is pretty strange. Check out THIS and maybe on down the road the type of things I have written above will make sense.)

On a different note, I've noticed that I am addicted to books! I've always liked books, but only recently have I discovered that they are the essential tools of a pastor. The number 1 book of the pastor is the Bible of course. But in studying the Bible it drives the pastor to other books as well: Greek books, Hebrew books, commentaries, background books, books about the Lord's Supper, the Trinity, Heaven, Hell, and so on. And the irony is that all the books that the Bible drives the reader to are then measured by the Bible.

For example, I find myself reading a commentary on the Bible to get insight to what a passage says and then sometimes I find myself disagreeing with the commentary because when I read the passage in the Bible again, it is clearly not saying what the commentator says it said!

In addition to the crazy amount of books that I have to read for this semester, I have created my own list of books that I want to buy and read. You can see it by clicking on my Amazon wish list on the right side of this blog. Check out some of these books for yourselves. Although, I haven't read any of these yet, they have come highly recommended from others. If you are feeling especially generous you can buy one of these for me through the same site.

PS. Time does not allow me to write out all the love and appreciation I have for my friends and family. We recently visited our old church in Austin and it was so good to see again the people we love--you know who you are! Thanks for being our friends.

Red, White, and Reu

2007-07-04T22:02:00.000-07:00

I never thought I would love another. After loving my wife and our sweet daughter Abigail, I thought I didn't have any more love to give, but my love for our son Reuben grows day by day as I get to know him better. He is just over a month old now.

Here's our little guy dressed for the 4th of July. Like many Americans, we celebrated Independence day by dressing up in red, white, and blue and having a cookout. In fact, Karen and I went to one set of neighbors for a cookout at lunchtime and then a different set for dinner. I am pretty full of meat today. It was a great day of food and friends and enjoying our family.

I feel like I should say something deep and meaningful about freedom since today is the 4th. Freedom is something we take for granted... soldiers have died... America is the best... You've heard all these sorts of things before, so I will take a different angle.

It is true that Americans (including myself) enjoy amazing freedom that was bought at a costly price that we often take for granted. But let's look beyond that and realize that anything that we have that is good comes from God.

Matthew 5:45 For he [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

All people on the earth are blessed by God in some way. We should first of all be thankful to God, the Creator. As the verse above shows, we are living in a time when good and evil people alike are enjoying living, breathing, eating, etc. Even people who don't acknowledge God and commit wicked crimes like rape are often not brought to justice and live relatively comfortable lives. However,

it is appointed for man to die once, and after
that comes judgment... (Hebrews 9:27)

Judgment? That's right all people will be judged by God and He will punish them justly for what they have done in this life because He is a holy and perfect God. No longer will the wicked person sin and flip God off and go on living in comfort. God will send them to Hell.

Woah, Barry, what does this have to do with freedom? Everything. People talk about freedom as being able to do what they want. But people already do whatever they want to everyday. If you don't believe me then watch the nightly news. So that is not where true freedom is found.

Many people turn to religion hoping to be free from drug addictions, poverty, divorce, and other problems in their lives. But no one can be completely insulated from these problems. How many people do you know who die rich, healthy, happily married, free from addictions, and pain? True freedom is not found in solving these problems.

What about guilt? Can you feel it piling up? You lie, steal, swear, hate, lust, and other things you don't want to admit and wish you could get rid of the guilt or those who make you feel guilty. Or perhaps you learn to justify it through lame, just-so, reasoning that always makes YOU the exception to the rule. I know, I have done the same thing.

What if we could be forgiven for our sins? What if we did not have to fear the judgment of a holy God when we die who demands nothing short of perfection? Would that be true freedom? Yes! To be free from the guilt of our sins... To know that a God who can throw you into what is described as an everlasting fire has pardoned you... That would be freedom. No country could take that away. No gunpoint, torture, disease, poverty, could erase that eternal freedom.

But how can this be? The way I described God above sounds like every person who ever lived would fall short of God's perfection and be condemned to Hell.

God himself is the answer. Only He is perfect and could pay the punishment for our sins. Because God is not only holy but also loving, He sent His son, Jesus, to earth to be a man and pay the punishment that scum like you and me deserve. Jesus, being fully God and fully man, could pay the infinite price that mankind owed. Jesus did this as a sacrifice for us by dying on a cross. He was a sinless man and the only one who could pay the penalty for the wrath of God that you deserve. On the third day after dying, Jesus rose from the dead which shows that death had no power over him.

What you need to do to be truly free is to cry out to God and admit that you have broken His laws, you have sinned against Him, your Creator. If you do not believe you have done wrong then you have made a mockery of Jesus. You are saying, "No thanks Jesus, I am perfectly fine without you doing anything for me." That is called self-righteousness. And might I remind you that if you stand before God in your own righteousness you would be justly condemned.

Again, you must cry out to God to ask forgiveness for you sins against Him, and turn from them (with His help) to show you are serious, and trust in Jesus alone for your forgiveness then you will forgiven and free. You will be saved by trusting in Jesus alone for your righteousness, for Jesus is the one who can save you from the God's wrath. Only God can save you from Himself.

Which would you rather have: God's wrath upon you, or God's undeserved mercy?

There is so much more I wish to say but I pray that the God will draw you to Himself even through these few clumsy words of mine. Post a comment if you have any questions for me.

Here are some lines from a patriotic song. Happy 4th of July!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord/
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored/
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword/
His truth is marching on.

Reuben's Labor Story

2007-06-15T21:29:00.000-07:00

My doctor had encouraged me to be especially aware of the baby's movements in the womb toward the end, so I tried to track his movement patterns on Monday the 28th of May. In so doing, I began to notice the uterus tightening periodically, which I initially wrote off as Braxton Hicks contractions. But later that evening, I began to time them and noticed that they were coming at somewhat regular intervals of 12 minutes apart.

I had a feeling that this was the beginning of the end. I told Barry as much, and we both agreed that it would be wise to go to bed and try to get as much sleep as possible. I knew that I would wake up eventually if this was the real deal. When I didn't wake up until 8 am, I figured that I had misjudged in typical drama queen fashion.

I went into the doctor's office for a scheduled appointment at 2 in the afternoon (on Tuesday). I had to get a biophysical profile, which means a sonogram, nonstress test, and exam. The sonogram showed that the amniotic fluid was back to an acceptable level, so that was a relief. But it also showed the baby had gained quite a bit of weight. The nonstress test showed something very interesting: my contractions were 8 minutes apart. Then the doctor came in and we discovered I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced.

My doctor advised me to eat a good dinner, as she expected to see me at the hospital soon. She said if the contractions continued at 15 minutes apart or less for more than an hour, I should head up to the hospital.

Barry and Abigail picked me up at about 5 pm, and taking the doctor's advice, we went to Cousin's BBQ for dinner. All the while in the car, I was timing my contractions. Keep in mind that these contractions were completely painless -- I could only feel a tightening sensation. They were still coming about every 8 minutes. On the way to Cousin's, we called Barry's mom and asked her to come to Fort Worth, just in case.

After we got home, we started rushing around to gather our things for the hospital. Barry encouraged me to sit and relax, and we put in a Veggie Tales tape for Abigail. I noticed that the contractions were now 5 minutes apart, and there was a slight crampy feeling. This made me very nervous, so we called our neighbors, Keith and Amy, and sent Abigail over. Then we headed for the hospital. The ride to the hospital was so very different from when I was in labor with Abigail -- I was excited and pain-free!

We arrived at the hospital at about 7:30 pm. I felt ridiculous showing up at the hospital without being in any sort of pain. I told the nurses at the check-in station, "I may not look like I'm in labor, but I think I am." They took me to the triage room to monitor me before admitting me. I was pretty sure at this point that I would be sent home. I was 4 cm when they checked me. An hour later, I was 5 cm, so they gave me a real room. I still wasn't convinced that I was really in labor, though, because I just didn't feel much pain. I walked around the room for hours, thinking that it would help get things moving. It didn't. The contractions were still coming 4 to 5 minutes apart and without much pain. Barry's mom stopped by the hospital at about 11 and we chatted. I was happy to have something to take my mind off the clock. I never understood before why the books recommend bringing playing cards or magazines to the hospital, but now I do.

We decided to get some rest, so we laid down and tried to sleep. I think my body being relaxed made the contractions start to come on stronger. There was no doubt I was in labor now. I tried to do my relaxation breathing. It was amazing how fast the contractions went from being completely painless to very painful. My contractions tend to double peak, too, so after an especially painful contraction, I thought, "I remember this, and it's only the beginning -- I'm not going through this again!" I called for the epidural.

I couldn't believe how fast the anesthesiologist arrived (it was about 2 am now). Before I had another painful contraction, the epidural was inserted and I was going numb from the waist down. By the way, I had been so nervous about that needle and it ended up being no big deal at all -- all I could feel was the bee sting of the numbing shot.

When I was pregnant, I had asked two different women who had had both natural and epidural deliveries, and both had said the same thing: "Wow, what can I say?" My sentiments exactly. No comparison really. After I had the epidural, I slept off and on all night.

At 6 am or so, my doctor came in and examined me. I was between 5 and 6 cm. Time to break the water to get things moving. That really did the trick. Though I couldn't feel it, I could see that my contractions on the fetal monitor were now coming close together. At about 8 am I was fully dilated, but I could only feel a very slight pressure. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to feel to push. However, they propped my legs up and told me when to hunker down and push. Having pushed out Abigail, I already knew what to do. Reuben came out in about 3 contractions, or 6 pushes or so -- very fast!

I couldn't believe my eyes: there he was all blue and crying and perfectly healthy (he quickly became a nice red color), and all without feeling any pain. And his face looked boyish right from the start. He was born at 8:21 am on Wednesday, May 30th, weighing in at 8 lbs. 10 ou. and 20.5 in. long. We sure do love our Reuben Ellis Bishop (or Mr. Ru, as we like to call him)!

REUBEN ELLIS BISHOP is here

2007-06-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

We have a new baby! Reuben Ellis Bishop was born on Wednesday, May 30th, at 8:21 am. He weighed 8 lb. 10 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long. I'm sure Karen will post soon with more details and pictures. Here are just the basic facts (the dad version.)

Thanks to so many of you who prayed for us. The Lord answered your prayers for us and He gave us a smooth delivery and a healthy baby. And now for a Bible verse.

Psalm 127:3-5

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth.
5 Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

June 6th Birthday?

2007-05-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

Looks like Reuben's birthday will be June 6th, unless I go into labor before then. We have an induction scheduled for 7 am on that day, which is my original due date. The baby is measuring pretty normal, but the amniotic fluid is a bit low, so please keep that in your prayers. I had a non-stress test (fetal monitoring) today, and the baby is doing great. Please also pray that I'll go into labor early so that I don't have to be induced. However, June 6th happens to be my parents' anniversary, so it would be a really neat anniversary gift for Nana and Paw-Paw!

For those of you who know about these things, the baby has dropped to -2 station. A week and a half ago I was 50% effaced and less than a centimeter dilated.

Pregnancy Update

2007-04-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post an update on the pregnancy. First of all, we think we're going to go with "Reuben" instead of "Ruben." It's the Biblical spelling, more traditional, and looks better with "Ellis Bishop." Abigail has already given Reuben his first nickname: "Ru Ru!"

I have gestational diabetes again. It's not as hard emotionally as it was last pregnancy because I already know what to expect. However, it's still tough to keep to the diet and the rigid eating schedule when I'm hungry and busy. It's especially hard around holidays or special events. I didn't get to eat any Easter candy this year. Cheese and peanut butter have been my staples the last few weeks. My latest pregnancy craving: crunchy peanut butter and bananas -- mmmm. Also delicious and fewer carbs: peanut butter and whipped cream on high fiber toast.

Anyway, the diabetes appears to be under control. The only time my blood sugar levels have been too high is after lunch. I began to suspect that my high fiber-low carb tortillas were lying on the package. Since cutting back on my quesadillas, it's been better. I'm really motivated to keep the levels low because my doctor is threatening an early induction if the baby gets too big. Abigail broke her collar bone coming out, so that is a concern with this one and further reason why my doctor wants to induce. I'd much rather go into labor naturally.

Please pray that labor and delivery will go smoothly, that the baby will be healthy, and that God would give me a peace about the situation. May His will be done.

Have you heard that Lincoln Brewster song "Everlasting God"? It talks about strength rising as we wait upon the Lord, a la Isaiah 40:31. That's been encouraging to me lately as my body has been more tired, and as I've been doubting whether I'll be able to handle labor, postpartum recovery, and adjustment to life with two kids.

Please pray for Barry, too, as he'll be registering for classes this week. Pray for the Lord's guidance in how many and which classes to sign up for. He'll probably be taking a 3 hour class this summer that should end before the baby is born, and 13-16 hours of classes in the fall.

Praise God for getting Barry through last week, which was the most difficult one of the semester. He had two papers and a Greek test. He is relieved to have that behind him, and now can relax a bit more until finals, which are May 4th through the 9th. Barry has been working so hard this semester, and has been faithful in all the things God has put on his plate. He naturally gets tired and discouraged every now and then, so please drop him an encouraging word if you get a chance.

Praise God also for giving us such a special little toddler. She has a real passion for life; she's always running and jumping and dancing. We're working on the alphabet song and learning how to count (I often hear her say "3, 4, 8, 9, 10!"). She's done great in her toddler bed, which is a huge blessing, since we'll need the crib before you know it. She's even gone poo poo and pee pee on the potty a few times! We were going to wait until after her baby brother arrived to start potty training, but she was showing an interest and started telling us before she had to go (sometimes), so we figured we'd just go with the flow (no pun intended, hee hee). But we aren't doing any intensive training yet.

Eggcelent Easter Pictures

2007-04-08T20:48:00.000-07:00

Here is Abigail petting a bunny at her first Easter Egg Hunt. It was on the seminary campus a couple of weeks ago.

They had a little train for the kiddos. I can't tell you how happy she was to be riding this train. In this picture she's gleefully waving bye-bye. She bawled when the ride was over.

Later that day, we went to Gatesville, where the bluebonnets were beautiful.

Here's us this morning at Southcliff Baptist Church. It was a cold Easter here in Fort Worth (we even had snow flurries yesterday!), but we enjoyed the church service, which reminded us that the point of Easter is not the ushering in of spring, but the fact that Jesus lives, and through his conquering of death, we too can have eternal life if we repent and put our trust in Him. Happy Easter!

Alphabet Fun

2007-02-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

Here's our smart little girl showing off her knowledge of letters. She's amazing! This video was taken about a week ago at 21 months old. Also, she said her first three word sentence yesterday: "Da-Da bring juice."

Confession and time to go fishing

2007-02-15T22:21:00.000-08:00

And [Jesus] said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."—Matt. 4:19

I have a confession—I have been a follower of Jesus and I have not been a fisher of men. What gives? This doesn't really make sense in the light of the verse above. Jesus says if you follow Him then he will make you a fisher of men. However, I have not been actively, consistently sharing my faith for many years. This is a problem.

Perhaps you may think that Jesus was only talking to His disciples about the time during His earthly ministry. But I don't think so because the last thing that Jesus said to His disciples before he ascended into heaven was "to go and make disciples of all nations..." (Mt. 28:19) Perhaps you may think that the disciples and the early Christians took the gospel into the whole world and fulfilled this Great Commission of Jesus. This interpretation would mean that Christians today would not have to go and share the gospel and make disciples. In fact, this was the interpretation of the church during the Middle Ages and evangelism almost ceased. The church during this time lost the gospel and fell into ritualism and mysticism. Abuses were rampant in the church. The gospel was "rediscovered" by the Protestant reformers who found it by reading the Bible.

No, it is evidently clear that there are many, many people in the world who still who have not heard the gospel. The Great Commission still applies to Christians today. So if you are following Jesus you better be a fisher of men. I can think of two reasons you would not be a fisher of men.

Either you are not truly a follower of Jesus, or
you are a follower and you are sinning in disobedience.

I have been the second one. But something that saddens me more than my own sin is that I have the feeling that I am not alone—that many other Christians are in the same boat.

However, I want to share some hope for all of us as well as ways to get out of this problem.

First off, God is faithful and He will give us strength to do what He commands. Indeed, the Lord has woken me up lately to the reality of Hell and the urgency to share the good news of forgiveness of sins by trusting in Jesus. Pray for forgiveness and ask for strength to be obedient to Him.

some helpful steps
But step #1 should actually be this: make sure you are a truly born-again, Christian first. Jesus said that unless you are born again you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. It would be foolish to share the gospel with others if you yourself are not a follower of Christ or you don't know that for sure you will go to heaven or how to even get there. Have you ever noticed that on airplanes they tell parents that in the case of an emergency to put on their oxygen mask first and then help their children. In the same way, you will be no help to others (most likely) if you yourself are perishing. I must at this point tell you the gospel in a nutshell but click on the link afterwards for more information.

The Bible, God's word tells us that man is sinful. That means YOU. You cannot do enough good works to please Him. He is the Judge of the Universe and He will and must punish all evil. The Bible says that if you keep the whole Law (lets say a number like 600 laws) but you are guilty of breaking 1, then you are guilty of breaking all. (James 2:10) Jesus said to be perfect as the Father in heaven. Have you ever told a lie, used God's name as a cuss-word? Have you ever not put God before all other things in life? Then you have broken some of the 10 commandments. Jesus says that if you look at someone with lust in your heart then you have committed adultery. These would make you a liar, a blasphemer, an idolater, and adulteror. If God gave you justice then He would send you and me and everyone to Hell.

However, the good news is that God is not only just, but He is loving. He sent his own son, Jesus, born of a virgin and who lived a sinless life to die on a cross to pay for all your sins. The punishments that you deserve in Hell he paid with his own life. He arose from death showing that he was not only man but fully God and ascended to the right hand of God. The good news is that people like me and you can be forgiven and saved from the wrath of God when we trust in the salvation and payment of God, Jesus. We must repent, (turn from our sins and ask forgiveness) and put our faith in Jesus to save us. Our good works will not save us. If we try to stand in our own merits (good or bad) before God he will damn us to Hell. When we stand covered in the righteousness of Christ through faith then we are spotless. Here is more.

Step #2, Christian, make sure you know what the gospel is. How can you share it if you don't know it? It is truly a testament to God's grace how many people get saved in spite of muddy explanations of what the gospel is. Go to the Bible first and read, read, read! Also, read as much evangelism materials as you can. However, all of these materials are not created equal. Some gospel tracts are nothing more than a magic prayer formula to ask Jesus into your heart without any sort of mention of sin or repentence. How can Jesus become the Lord of your life if there is no change in the way you live? If you think you can pray a prayer but keep doing all the fun sins you want to hold on to, then your true god is yourself. You worship you. You are the boss.

Step #3, Do you have a testimony? Is there a clear period in your life where you asked God for forgiveness and trusted in Jesus alone (not yourself) to save you? There should have been some sort of change. Suddenly, you should have different desires, like the desire to follow God. I don't mean that you don't sin anymore. But you should struggle with sin rather than diving happily into it.

Step #4, Get out of your comfort zone and tell people about your testimony. Or you can tell them the gospel. Or you can give them a gospel tract. I have been doing this lately and it is always difficult. Most likely we will all struggle with the fear of rejection. However, we must fear and love God more.

But we must be motivated by love! It is so loving to tell someone about their dire situation and then to share the forgiveness and hope we have in Jesus. Not everyone will be happy with you but just plant a seed of the gospel and pray for them. Move on to someone else if you are rejected and lovingly share the gospel with them.

Build up slowly to share more and more. I have been giving out tracts lately and I am working towards longer conversations of sharing the gospel with strangers.

You can do it! The Bible says the righteous are as bold as lions. Throw yourself fully on God and get out there and share your faith. I am trying to do the same.

My Story has Changed

2007-02-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised at the amount of feedback I receive from people who read my blog, especially since I post on it so rarely. However, I can't tell you the amount of times I have started to post something and then had to leave it unfinished because I had to do something else more urgent.

There are a lot of things I could talk about in this post—my recent trip to Turkey, how seminary classes are going, our new church, my new ministry internship, etc., etc. All of these are good things! Since this is one of my rare posts, I want to use it to tell you about the BEST thing that has ever happened to me. In the process you will learn a little about me and why I titled this post MY STORY HAS CHANGED.

ME
As most of you know I grew up in a small town in Texas called Gatesville. My parents were Christians and every time the door of the church was open we were there—Sunday morning & evening, Wednesday nights and special events as well. Church was a way of life for me. Every Sunday I heard the message that I had sinned against God and because of that I was going to Hell. But I also heard that if I believed in Jesus then God would forgive me and I could go to heaven. I greatly feared Hell. By the age of 7 I walked down an aisle during church, prayed "to receive Jesus" (as we often say in church), and then I was baptized a few weeks later. I was now officially a Christian in everyone's eyes, including my own.

As I grew up I read the Bible occasionally and I prayed most nights. I didn't really understand the Bible though and when I prayed I always asked God to do something for me. By the time I was in Jr. High and High School I would beg God and bargain with Him to answer my prayers for some particular girl to like me and go out with me. In fact, during this time the most important thing to me was girls and popularity. I had moderate success in these areas. I always had a steady girlfriend and lots of people liked me.

Sounds like a Christian, right? Let's see, The only time I prayed was to get God to do what I wanted to do and I cared more about girls and what other people thought of me than about God. Also, I should mention that I fell into (or intentionally slid into) immorality with my girlfriend in highschool. I was a legalist though. In fact, I thought as long as I didn't sleep with my girlfriend then I wouldn't be damned to Hell because if there was one bad sin then that was probably it. I thought of myself as a good person. I might not have told you that because of having a false humility but deep down I thought I was a great person. I thought, "sure I sin, but not as much as so-and-so. I don't do what they do. I am better than most people I know. If there is someone going to heaven, it is me." In other words I thought good people (like me) go to heaven and bad people go to Hell.

Fast forward to college. My highschool girlfriend dumped me my freshman year. I tried to get other girlfriends, hoping to fill my needs, but they saw through my shallow desperateness. I was alone in a new town and depressed and angry at God. After a short time in a Christian cult I stopped going to churches all together. I didn't know what I believed anymore. I was burnt out on life and beginning to believe I wasn't a good person because I was doing some stuff I knew that was wrong.

Some other college Christians invited me to a church and I eventually went. These people were different because I could tell that they really wanted to follow Christ. They didn't date, they read the Bible and prayed. They were excited about God. There was something they had that I wanted. Through this church I went to a program that lasted all summer in Myrtle Beach, SC. One night there I remember lying on my face alone at the beach and praying something like this:

"Oh God, please forgive me! I have ruined my life. I try to stop lusting and sinning but I can't. I am so sick of me. Please forgive me. Jesus wash me clean by your blood. Take my sin away. Please God, I am so tired of running my life. I want to follow you. I want you to be the leader of my life. I will do anything you want me to do, just don't leave me to myself."

This is merely a paraphrase of probably an hour long prayer of crying out to God asking for His mercy. After years of sinning I knew I was no longer a good person and that I deserved Hell. My only hope was to throw myself on God's mercy and beg forgiveness. After all, I knew John 3:16 from childhood—that God had sent His son Jesus to die on a cross and pay for the sins of the world, for even a dirtbag and adulterer like me. However, up until this point I had trusted my own goodness—not in Jesus. My true attitude had been, "No thanks Jesus, I don't need you, I'm just fine."

That night was the BEST night of my life because the Creator and Judge of the Universe forgave me and made me a new creation. I was now born again. I had truly REPENTED of my sins—I was sorry for what I had done and I wanted to change but realized I could not without God. And I put my FAITH in JESUS—the only one to come down and die and rise again and ascend to majesty in heaven. Buddha didn't die to pay for my sins, Mohammed didn't rise from the dead. It was Jesus, God himself, alone who suffered on my behalf. In His righteousness alone could I stand before the Father and not be torn to pieces and damned to Hell. In my own good works, I would be shown for what I was—a false convert, one who had claimed the name of Christian but I had followed my own god of ME and what I wanted to do. I had drunk from the idol of lust and worshipped at the temple of popularity.

My life has been changed radically. God has given me new desires to follow Him. I read the Bible and it makes sense because I realize it applies to me. Now I pray and I realize that I am dependent on God for everything—my life, and my eternity. The Lord helped me to overcome the lust I had been enslaved to before. Life is not easy because it is hard to follow God. I am not perfect or sinless but God is growing me in holiness and gradually showing me new areas He wants to change. But I am FORGIVEN!

WHY in the world would I tell you all this stuff about me? Because I fear that many people, especially in America have grown up in or gone to church at some point. They have prayed a prayer, raised a hand, been baptized, been confirmed, etc. and they say they are a Christian. But they are FALSE CONVERTS like I was. God will send them to Hell because they are trying to earn their way to heaven. No one can stand before a perfect God and say anything. For example, if you have told 1 lie in your life, just 1, then you have broken God's law (Exodus 20:16) and God says all liars will have their part in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8)

PLEASE, I beg you for your own sake to get right with the Creator of the universe tonight! You may die at any moment and you will stand before God in judgement (Hebrews 9:27). You're very soul and eternity is at stake. Remember you must REPENT (confess and turn away) from your sins and put your FAITH in Jesus Christ and His righteousness to save you. Jesus must become the Lord of all your life or He will not be your Lord at all.

Still think you are a good person? Take this test."
Check here to learn about false conversion. Listen to the audio file on that page.

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey!

2007-01-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

Barry (above: second from the left kneeling down) has been in Turkey since Dec. 27th, and he's having a wonderful time. He's with a group of SWBTS seminary students and 2 professors. It's part of the Traveling Scholars program. They're following one of Paul's missionary journeys and also seeing the 7 churches of Asia from Revelation. Sounds like he's loving every minute of it!

I'm sure he'll post an entry all about it when he gets back on the 12th. In the meantime, check out the school photographer's blog, who happens to be Barry's roommate on the trip, to see some of the awesome sights he's been enjoying.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

From Fall to Chris...

2007 -- now that's a cool year. It just sounds good. Good things are bound to happen this year. Like the birth of our baby boy, and the marriage of my brother Gary, who just got engaged last night!

I've uploaded our Fall to Christmas pictures, and one video of Christmas morning, at http://picasaweb.google.com/karenallison/FallToChristmas06. You can even view a slideshow. Check them out!

Oh Boy!

2006-12-27T21:03:00.000-08:00

It's a boy!!! We are very excited to find out what it's like to parent a boy. Barry is glad the balance in the house is now even again. He was afraid of being overrun by a house full of girls. I am happy, too, and can't wait to meet our first son, Ruben Ellis Bishop (Ruben in Biblical Hebrew means "Look, a son!" and was the name of Jacob and Leah's first son; Ellis was the name of Barry's much-beloved maternal grandfather; REB were the initials of Barry's father, who went to be with the Lord just over a year ago).

Great Expectation

2006-12-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

Abigail is going to be a big sister!!! That's right -- we're expecting a little addition to the Bishop family. Above is a picture of the pregnancy test I took on September 30th. I am now 15 weeks along. It's wonderful being out of the first trimester. I feel great now -- no more morning sickness and lots more energy. I'm just starting to be able to feel the baby move, too.

The baby is due in early to mid June. Abigail will be 2 years and a month at that time. We still can't believe it sometimes -- it is an unexpected blessing! Praise God! He also stopped what seemed like an impending miscarriage at one point -- I'm convinced that God intervened somehow. Let's thank Him for that, too. And pray for a continued healthy pregnancy, without gestational diabetes or anything else, an easy enough labor, and for a smooth adjustment for everyone involved.

My doctor is a little sonogram happy, so I got to have another one at my appointment on Thursday. And guess what? They can already tell the sex of the baby! And it's a ...
(to be continued in the next blog entry... )

In the mean time, go ahead and post your guess.

More Movie Madness

2006-12-10T23:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, well, I guess "madness" is not really the right word, but I wanted to alliterate. Here's a review of the movies I've gotten to see recently:

One Night with the King -- YES, I finally got to see this movie after months of anticipation. And NO, it did not live up to my expectations. I did really enjoy the costumes and the sets, and even the actors were pretty good. My main beef with it is that it deviated from the Bible. I realize that there is artistic license, but in my opinion, they went too far with changing some of the facts. And it doesn't make sense to me because the story as it is written in the Bible is exciting and beautiful. I knew going into it that romance would be added in, but it seems to me that it became the main point of the story. We are left glorying in the love between two people, rather than glorying in the God of the universe who's hand was behind all the "coincidences," and who saved His people from annihilation, thereby preserving the line of the Messiah (Jesus). The book is always better than the movie, so read the book of Esther for yourself, in lieu of or before seeing the movie.
The Nativity Story -- Go see this movie right away and be reminded of the real reason we celebrate Christmas. Plus, I heard this movie has had low turn-out at the box office and might be pulled from major theaters. Let us Christians show Hollywood that we'd rather see a movie about the real Christmas rather than "Santa Claus III" or "Unaccompanied Minors" (aka, Home Alone 2 Rip Off). The Nativity Story is a well-done, moving, and awe-inspiring film. I think the major facts are correct, and it's very close to the Bible story. The only part it deviates is that the three kings were likely not to have been there the night Jesus was born. But this is necessary in order to achieve the dramatic effect of the full nativity.
The Village -- We just saw this one on DVD last night, and it was really good. There's nothing "Christian" about this movie, but it did have an intriguing plot and a point that fits in with a Christian world-view. It showed that it's impossible to have a true utopia, "heaven on earth" if you will, because there is pain and suffering and evil everywhere. Now here's where I go beyond the movie: You can't get away from pain, but you can give it to the Man of Sorrows, who took upon the sins of the world and suffered and died for them. And He is coming back, at an unknown hour, and will establish a new heaven and a new earth, where there will be no pain, suffering, death, or unrighteousness. But for those who do not know Christ, there will be judgment and eternal separation from God in Hell, because it is only through the blood of Christ (who lived the perfect life we could never live and is "God in the flesh") that our sins could be atoned for before a holy God. So please, 1) confess that you are a sinner, that you need Christ's sacrifice to pay the penalty you deserve, and 2) repent (turn from sin and follow God), and 3) trust in Christ alone for salvation (Rom. 10:9-10, Eph. 2:8-9). Ok, sorry to get preachy on you, but you never know who could be reading this and making that life-changing decision right now.

Stood-up at the Theater

2006-11-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

My MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group was supposed to have a movie night tonight. We were to meet at the ticket window at 7:15 pm to see "One Night with the King," a movie about the biblical book of Esther. Esther is my absolute favorite Old Testament book. I've always thought the plot is so riveting that it could be a great movie. I saw the trailer for "One Night with the King" in March, and ever since then I've been excitedly anticipating it's release. As soon as I knew it was in theaters, I started to think of ways I could go see it. You see, when you have a child, you can't just skip off and go see a movie with your husband whenever you want to, especially if you can't afford to hire a babysitter and are too new in town to have friends you could ask to watch your child. When I found out about the MOPS movie night I thought, "This is perfect! An answer to prayer!"

So I got dressed up tonight, or what I now consider dressed up. As a mom, my normal wardrobe is pretty casual: T-shirts and shorts/sweat pants. But tonight I wore jeans and a nice black shirt, my best blue jean jacket, and black dangling earrings. I even put on a dab of perfume!

So here I am lookin' good and feelin' good, about to see a movie I'm most excited about. I really don't want to be late for this one, so I arrived shortly before 7:00 pm. I wasn't too surprised to not see anyone from MOPS there yet. I know how people, especially moms, are about time (it's so hard to get out the door sometimes), so I bought my ticket, leaned against the wall near the ticket booth, and patiently waited. 7:15 rolled around, still no familiar faces. "That's kind of odd, but people tend to be late," I thought. "There's at least 50 ladies in my MOPS group; surely someone will show up soon." So I waited, and waited, and waited. I was getting nervous now. I started praying, "Please God, let at least one person show up." I started pacing and looking at my watch every few seconds. All this time I'm watching people come up to the booth. Happy people. People with friends or family. No one looking my way. 7:30. "This is ridiculous. No one is coming. I've been stood-up!" I was sad and depressed, then angry and indignant, then sad again. I returned my ticket and got a refund. So disappointed! I know it's only a movie, but you understand the build-up and the complete let-down. And what a waste of my time and Barry's time. He even has a major research paper due next week, and he took time out to watch Abigail. All for nothing! Well, not just nothing; rather, a disappointing, humiliating experience.

And now I'm writing this as therapy. I do feel kind of better now. You know what else made me feel better? Barry's profuse expressions of sympathy when I got home, and some chocolate chip cookies a neighbor had dropped off while I was gone. How did God know I needed some cookies? Oh yeah, that's right—He knows everything! I'll end on that positive note.

Happy Reformation Day from Our Little Flower

2006-10-31T20:35:00.000-08:00

Isn't Abigail's flower costume the cutest thing you've ever seen? (Thank you, Martha, for lending it to us). That picture was taken before Southwestern's fall festival last Friday night. She didn't play any of the games really; mainly, she just meandered around and we chased after her. We got tons of candy, so if you know anyone who is suffering from a candy deficiency, please let us know.

Well on this day in 1517, Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses and sparked the Protestant Reformation. In honor of this day, I have two suggestions:

Listen to Southwestern's chapel sermon from today. Go to http://www.swbts.edu/events/chapel_schedule.cfm and click on the chapel video for Dr. Blasing. (Other interesting chapel sermons include those by William Dembski and Kirk Cameron). You may want to fast forward through the music section.

Watch the movie "Luther" (2003). It's out on DVD. We own a copy, so we can even lend it to you.

Road Blocks

2006-10-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

We had to cancel our trip to Austin this weekend due to the bad weather. We are very sad to miss out on Kaeta's party and on hanging out with friends. But, we are hoping to come for a visit this coming weekend or the next weekend to make up for it.

In addition to the bad weather being a hindrance, our car needs the fender repaired. That's right; I got into a fender-bender. It was my fault, too. I just didn't see the other car until it was too late. Thankfully, it was very low impact and the other lady and I were both unharmed. Every time I'm tempted to be mad at God for letting this happen, I'm reminded that He protected us and it could have been a lot worse. Plus, I'm sure this fits into God's plan for my life somehow. Like maybe He's teaching me to be more careful when I drive ;)

Please pray that our car insurance won't go up too much, and that the weather permits a road trip later this month.

Whut I've Done Learnt

2006-10-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

So, you haven't heard from me in a while--sorry. I've either been in class, or reading, writing, and studying for my classes here at SWBTS. I really enjoy them but they are tough work! Weds. night I stayed up the whole night writing a paper that was due Thurs. morning. It really came down to the wire writing that paper because earlier in the week I had a Greek test and another paper due that took up a lot of my time.

I tell you this to give you a slice of my life, but I am not complaining. I may feel tired but not bitter. More than that the Lord has been really good to me. So far my time at seminary has been a time of spiritual renewal and growth and I am very excited to be here. Oh yeah, and I have also been learning some amazing things in classes. So let me tell you about my classes and I'll also throw in a few comments here and there about my comments.

CHURCH HISTORY I (destruction of Jerusalem to Pre-Reformation)
This class is taught by a really smart professor. I am afraid to say something in class because I might sound stupid. But I am so extraverted that I just can't contain myself so I go ahead and answer questions in class and sound stupid anyway. Every week we research and write a brief paper over a different Early Church Father. It is pretty cool to read the original writings of the early Christians. They (shockingly) defended the scriptures, the deity of Jesus, the Trinity and stood against heretics such as the Gnostics. Oh yeah, and let's not forget they willingly died as martyrs for their faith. Unlike the "martyrs" of Islam who kill themselves and others, all these martyrs had to do was renounce Christ and the Christian name and sacrifice to the emperor and they would be spared. Instead, they refused and were tortued to death or fed to lions and gored by bulls.

BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS (Bible Interpretation)
I like this class a lot! It is an essential issue for a pastor to study since pastors should properly interpret what the Bible says before teaching it. All Christians should study this though, so that they actually get some real meaning from the Bible and not some sort of mystical drop your finger on a random page sort of thing. A lot of the rules for good interpretation are common sense. For example, if you were looking at a Bible verse and trying to understand it then ask what genre it is (poetry, narrative, gospel, etc.). Also, look at the context of the verses around it for the meaning. Two common errors in interpreting the Bible are proof-texting and reader-response. Proof-texting is when you take a verse out of its context to prove a thought you have. Such as when an atheist says, "the Bible says, 'There is no God.'" However, if you read the whole verse, it says, "The fool in his heart says, 'There is no God.'" Unfortunately, not just atheists but Christians take verses out of context to prove all sorts of things the author was not trying to say. Reader-response is an error when you say, "what does this scripture mean to you?" In other words, whatever the reader thinks it means suddenly becomes the real meaning rather than what the author intended. By the way, every passage of scripture in the Bible has two authors, a human one and God.

GREEK
I have learned that a noun in the genitive case can not only function as description but apposition to another noun. Huh? Ok, ok, this is a tough and sometimes not fun class. It is your typical, memorize-paradigms, language class. But I will say this about it--I opened up my Greek NT last night to the book of John and I could read some of the simpler sentences! This is really invaluable because people are all the time trying to argue about what the original Greek says to justify some sort of doctrinal stance. So it will be helpful to me to know what it actually says (although most modern Bible translations have good scholarship.)

OLD TESTAMENT I
We have a young professor for this class who has strong opinions about things in the OT that I have never even heard or considered. But I like this class a lot. The more I read and learn about the OT, the more I like it. I am convinced that all the OT points to Jesus Christ--that's right--you heard me fellow Christian, so don't be scared of it. Jesus even said that it pointed to him (Luke 24:27, 44). Here's a shocker, the Bible... is about... JESUS!

CHAPEL
For one of my classes, I go to chapel 3 times a week on campus and we sing songs, read scripture, and a guest speaker preaches. I have enjoyed it. Most of the speakers are really good. The good speakers teach us seminary students about life in the real world of ministry or encourage us to be true to God through hardships. Two speakers, so far, have not been good. If you ever get the chance to speak on a prominent platform do not use it to advance your own agenda on an in-house issue. Use it to build up the listeners or commmunicate truth.

I hope you have found this post interesting.

Bath Buds

2006-09-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

"Splish splash, I was taking a bath
Long about a [Sunday] night
A rub dub, just relaxing in the tub
Thinking everything was alright"

Kaeta (left) and Abigail (right) took a bath together when the Kurths came to visit over Labor Day weekend. Too Cute! We had a great visit, and are really looking forward to seeing them, and hopefully you other Austinites, too, when we come to town on October 15th. We plan to attend Kaeta's first birthday party.

Karen's Korner: Life in Cow Town

2006-09-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of us before our "Keep Austin Weird" going away party. Good times.

Anyway, what I really want to talk about is, well, me! Some of you out there are wondering how I am doing in Cow Town (Fort Worth), and since my last post was all about Abigail, I'll make this post more personal.

Let's see... I feel at home in my townhouse; it's cozy and comfortable and convenient. We have less space now, but all our furniture still fits, and it's made life simpler. Time is a precious commodity for us right now, so we really like that there is less to clean and maintain. I also think it's better arranged than our old house. And the yard is the best part! There's grassy areas and sidewalks where kids leave out toys that everyone shares. Abigail LOVES it. All our neighbors are seminary students, of course, and most have kids. The only drawback is the train that's 20 ft away, but we got used to that pretty quick.

I'm getting to know the area pretty well. We are right across the street from the Southwestern campus, which is beautiful. I go to the recreation center a lot for exercise, and for free food on Tuesdays. The rest of the Fort Worth landscape is, well... I'll just say it ain't Austin. I'm bummed that there are no HEB's here. I go to Kroger a lot, which always reminds me of the Kroger I worked at in Myrtle Beach, SC (LT '99 and 2000).

In some ways I feel like I'm at another LT. (For those of you who don't know, LT stands for Leadership Training and is a summer Christian program run by Great Commission Ministries.) We are learning and growing a lot, but it's intensive and difficult. Only thing is, LT was only ten weeks long. It was a sprint. We're at the beginning of what feels like a 100 mile race. You probably thought I was going to say marathon, but that wouldn't do. I'm thinking more along the lines of the kind of races Dalton Pulsipher would run. We started out thinking this would last 3 years, but it might take longer; who knows how much longer. Classes are very demanding, so Barry may not be able to take a full load and work at the same time. This semester he has 13 hours and is maxed out.

So, the bad news is we'll be here for a while. But, the good news is that we'll be here for a while. That's right. God has been showing me that being in seminary is not such a bad place to be. I want to just jump on ahead into the next phase of our life (full-time ministry), but God is saying "Wait, you're not ready. Let me prepare you. Let me teach you how to persevere." And I say, "But God, what if we have another child, or two! And what if our budget gets too tight, and what if we run through all our savings, and what if I'm too tired, and what if Barry is overloaded ... what if?" And He says, "Trust in me with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding." (Prov. 3:5) I have to keep reminding myself that God has called us here, and though I am weak, He is strong.

And I know he has blessings in store for us along the way. The townhouse is a big blessing. Both of us being able to work from home is wonderful, too. I'm working 15 hours a week now, and Barry's doing 25. I try to do 3 hours per day 5 days a week. That's tough sometimes. I don't get as much sleep as I'd like. The last sermon I heard Mark Hagen preach has stuck with me -- the one about Jacob working so hard that his body hurt. Indeed, my whole back is hurting.

God has also provided friends and kind neighbors for us. I've seen God's hand in bringing certain people in my path over and over again; it's really kind of weird, and cool. The only hard part is that there is not much time for hanging out and really getting to know people. Also, we haven't joined a church yet. Please pray that God will make it clear which one we belong.

I think the hardest thing of all about being here is having almost no free time. I mean, I'm writing this at midnight on Saturday. I miss watching a movie once in a while, and reading a good book. I read so many books last year while I was nursing. Abigail is weaned now, and the only reading I'm doing is during my quiet time with the Lord, and I confess, I've been falling asleep lately before I finish.

To sum it up, I'm anxious, exhausted, maxed out, frazzled; and yet, happy we're here following this dream, and becoming more and more passionate about serving God and spreading the Good News.

So enough about me. What do you think about me? Just kidding. Barry loves that joke.

Calling all Christians...

2006-09-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

...And non-Christians as well. You must go to the website for wayofthemaster.com. This ministry practices and stresses effective evangelism that is modeled after the style Jesus used and will show you how to do it too. If you are a Christian, the videos there will change the way you present the gospel. If you are NOT a Christian, then you can find out very easily on the website what happens after you die, and if you are good enough to go to heaven. Simply click on the link above, then watch or skip the intro and then click on #3 "Hell's Best Kept Secret" if you are a Christian and #1 if not.

I found out about this ministry from Kirk Cameron of all people. That's right, the actor that played Mike Seever on the tv show "Growing Pains." He was the guest speaker during our chapel service at Southwestern Baptist seminary today and believe it or not, he is a genuine, committed Christian.

I must warn you, if you watch the videos on the website it may change your life and mind (for the better of course.)

PERSONAL NOTE
I don't have much time to elaborate how Karen, Abigail, and I are doing. I've got a test and homework due tomorrow so I will have to be brief.

Karen has joined MOPS (mothers of pre-schoolers) here in Ft. Worth. She is meeting some great women through that program as well as some others that live in our neighborhood.

Abigail is obsessed with babies. She plays with baby dolls, points at pictures of babies, and says "baby" only slightly fewer times than she says, "da-da" or "juice".

As far as how I am doing, my mind is changing rapidly. This seminary is a mental boot camp. The course load is heavy. However, it is really good for me and I am happy to be here. I can't imagine what the future holds since I have already learned so much in the short time I have been here at seminary. I will try to keep you updated as often as I can. Now, go check out this link!

Snack Time or Nap Time?

2006-09-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of our sweet girl, Abigail, asleep in her high chair! She was so tired at lunch, and her eating got slower and slower until she just gave up and let sleep overtake her. I gently lifted her out of the chair and carried her up to her crib so she could continue her nap in a more comfy position. This is actually not the first time this has happened -- it's maybe the 4th or 5th.

Well, this is my (Karen's) first post to Barry's blog. I'm sure all my posts will start with "Abigail did the cutest thing!" It's only natural. Let me go ahead and share some of the other cute things she's been doing before I burst with maternal pride: she hugs baby dolls and can say "ba-by"; she points to the train out the window and says "chu chu"; she tries to put on her own shoes and can say "shu"; she wakes up sometimes asking for "juice"; she likes to point to balloons and balls in books; she picks out her own books off the shelf and brings them to us to read; she moos like a cow; she is obsessed with belly buttons; she prances and runs, especially outside which is her favorite place to be. What an amazing little toddler! We love her to pieces, and can't thank God enough for putting her in our lives.

--Karen

The Week that Was

2006-08-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

This past week was exciting and exhausting! The Bishop family was very busy with work, orientation, school, and chasing Abigail. I'll review these things for you from how I experienced it.

WORK
I am thankful that I am able to keep working for the same company as I did in Austin. In fact, my morning commute is turning on the computer at the kitchen table. I've met a lot of seminary students so far and I have ascertained that everyone is broke. People are working side jobs, scrapping for scholarships and jumping on any free stuff. Things are a little tight for us too but I'm so glad that God has provided for us the way He has. However, I am still working 40 hours a week though and I'm taking a full load of classes so I don't have a lot of time and won't for a while. My free time will be spent studying or working.

ORIENTATION
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I went to orientation here at the seminary since I am a new student. The administrators pumped us full of information about schools, callings, rules, free stuff, how to write a paper, etc. However, they did serve desserts on Tuesday night to sort of kick things off while all us new students wandered among these booths they had set up for different programs and clubs we could join. By the time I got to the booth that had the dean of my school my hands were embarrasingly sticky from eating sweets so I couldn't shake his hand. The chocalate truffle I had to eat there was totally worth it though. Ask Karen to tell you about it sometime. She has a real discerning palate and she gave it two (sticky) thumbs up!

SCHOOL
It's official--I am a seminary student. My first day of class was on Thursday. For months we have been busy and there has been so much to do that I thought this day would never, ever come. By God's grace though, I am here and I am excited! The campus is beautiful, the classes are interesting, and the people are super nice. We were promised during Orientation that school would be "a BOOTCAMP but a lot of fun". I chuckled a weird, nervous, little sound when I heard this. Now that I have been to classes and have gotten the assignments and the the syllabus-es (yes, I know it is 'sposed to be "syllabi" but this is the way I talk (like saying "'sposed" instead of "supposed")) I know that seminary will be difficult. That's ok though, because God is going to get the glory for bringing me through this since I CANnot do this in my own strength. I am hoping to come out of seminary smaller, purer, and shinier than the big dull lump of ore that I currently am. Of course this involves fire to get there. For those of you who are thinking, "what in the world is Barry trying to say through convoluted metaphors?" I will put it more directly:

I want to be changed by the Holy Spirit to be more like Jesus
I want to grow in wisdom and character to be used by God to reach a lost and hurting world with His love and Truth.

CHASING ABIGAIL
We are so blessed to have an adorable 16 month old daughter named Abigail. I titled this section "Chasing Abigail" because we do a lot of that. She has a large bag of tricks. She can run and climb up stairs lickety-split. For a parent this is a little disconcerting because it means that your child can get away from you quickly and in a dangerous position easily. Of course we allow her to play a lot but I feel like I could use a third eye and a few more arms (with extra hands attached, of course). Sometimes we leave the bathroom door open by accident and the toilet lid up (uh-hum, that would be me) and then we hear "splish-splash splish-splash" and Abigail is gleefully playing in the toilet water. Another trick of hers is to climb on top of anything she can--even something as thin as a book lying on the floor and then she will stand on top of it beaming like she is the queen of the world. She is fascinated with belly-buttons; hers and ours. She will lift up our shirt if she can reach to see our belly button. She stopped saying "Mama" some time ago but she says "button" all the time and points to our belly buttons. However, "button" in her language sounds like "Bauww". We love her so much and we thank God for sending her to us. He teaches us so much about His love and our sinfulness through her which are both great reminders.

To close, I want to say that I am a mix of emotions. There is so much more I could write but it will have to wait for another day. The emotions come from being excited about the future, anxious about juggling priorities, sad about missing friends, happy about God's blessings. As you can see, it's a good idea for me to write more when things settle a little bit. Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with a verse. It is popular for people, even those who come from a Christian backgrounds (like Willie Nelson) to say that all religions lead to the same place. Acts 4:11-12 in the Bible says,

"This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Books, Books, Books

2006-08-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I bought my textbooks for my seminary classes today (note: all good Texans start stories with "Well"). With my student discount applied, the total came out to just over 200 bucks. Two of the books I needed were not on the shelf though, so I have to return to the LifeWay store on campus in a few days when the shipment comes in and throw down some more cashola. Actually, the price wasn't as high as I thought it would be and the Lord has provided us with some extra dough lately so I am really pleased. Also, all these books look interesting and look like real keepers--unlike some of my textbooks I had while going to UT in Austin.

In case you're curious, I have a list below of the books I'll be using this semester. I plan to publish a booklist like this each semester so that you can read along with me at home, if you like. Seriously, a lot of the books I saw in the store for the classes were really good, Christian living/application stuff. Most, I think can be bought on Amazon for not much moola. By the way, Mark Hagen, I saw that Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology and Bible Doctrine are used for a lot of the classes. I also saw Church History In Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE
I want to...

Look at the booklist, because I like books and don't find this post the least bit boring
Look below
Forget it, because books are for squares!
Look above and count the number of slang words I used for money. Bonus points are given if you can think of other slang words for money that I didn't use. For those who are competitive, post your list in the comments and see who can think of the most.

Ye Olde Bookliste

An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics by Kaiser & Silva
An Introduction to the Old Testament by Dillard & Longman
Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture by Graeme Goldsworthy
Saint Augustine on Christian Teaching Oxford Press
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney
Topical Memory System: Hide God's Word in Your Heart NavPress
Church History Volume I: from Christ to Pre-Reformation by Everett Ferguson
Readings in Christian Thought edited by Hugh T. Kerr
Basics of Biblical Greek (grammar & workbook) by William D. Mounce
Life and Practice in the Early Church by Steven McKinion
The Pentateuch as Narrative by John H. Sailhamer

So, it looks like I have 4 months to read 11 books.

Austin in the Rearview Mirror

2006-08-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

We did it! We are now in Ft. Worth, Texas. Actually, we moved here on Saturday but it took until now (Monday night) to open enough boxes to find the things I needed and make space to set up the Internet. I know, I know, most people in this day and age would have set it up first but, believe me, there was not room enough to sit down unless you wanted to sit on a box. Let me catch you up on how the move went. However, I will spoil the surprise by telling you that God is wonderful and he really blessed us.

U-HAUL
I reserved a 17-foot U-Haul truck for our move on Saturday but due to some sort of mix up we ended up getting a 24-foot truck, which is really huge! The funny thing is that Karen had to drive it to our house in Round Rock and she was nervous and going 10 mph. When I saw the truck I thought it was way bigger than we needed to move all our stuff, but at least we would have plenty of room.

I jumped in the truck that night and tried to back it into our driveway so that we could easily load things from the garage the next morning. Several things went wrong. First, I had to circle the block a few times to get the angle right. Then, when I got the angle right, I couldn't back into the driveway without tearing up the concrete. The back of the truck was so long it couldn't go up the gentle slope of my driveway. As I was driving around the block I kept hitting tree branches that hung into the road and rolled over a curb when I didn't take a wide enough turn. This thing really was a beast! And I had to drive it 200 miles the next day. But God relieved me because my Mom happened to be staying with us so that she could help us move. For those of you who don't know, my Mom is a retired teacher who also happens to be an active bus-driver. In fact, she's been driving buses almost as long as I've been alive. So I let her drive the U-haul the next day and she was happy and I was happy. Karen was also happy that I wouldn't be using the insurance on the truck.

MOVING
Saturday morning arrived and some friends that I had worked with and some friends from church arrived at my house. All of them were strong men. And it turns out that we needed every foot of that huge truck to move our stuff--I'm so glad we got a bigger truck--but where in the world did we get all that stuff? Halfway through loading the truck David, one of the guys helping me, says, "Do you have anybody to help you move on the other end in Ft. Worth?" I tell him that maybe one other person or a neighbor might help. Then he tells me that he and his family are thinking about taking a spontaneous trip to Ft. Worth, and that he can help me unload. I was really taken aback by his generosity. However, it was a win-win situation though because David's brother lives in the same building we were moving to and David had been planning to visit him soon. So of course I thanked David and told him I would like his help.

ARRIVING
After we loaded up the truck, Mom, Karen and I cleaned up the house and locked it up. David and his family drove ahead to Fort Worth to visit his brother. I locked the front door for the final time and we left in a caravan made up of the U-Haul, my mom's car, and our Toyota Corolla driven by Karen and carrying the precious cargo of our 15 month old daughter. The drive to Ft Worth was smooth. When we got close there were storm clouds and rain seemed imminent. However, it never rained that night. The storm clouds only shielded us from the blazing sun while we moved.

When I drove up to our new apartment I saw David and his brother outside. They had also also recruited neighbors to help us move in. Not only did they help us move in but they asked that they move the stuff while we direct where it goes. You're probably thinking that this story doesn't get any better. WRONG! I was starving after a long tiring day, but before I said anything, Daniel, David's brother announces that he's ordering pizza for everyone. We ended up having an impromptu party at his apartment. Some old friends we knew even came over to join us. Not only would they let us not pay our share of the pizza but at the end of the night they insisted that we take some extra pizza home. To say the least, I was blown away--blown away by the generosity of friends but mostly blown away by the goodness of God.

If you would have asked me how I thought our move would have went I would have predicted something pretty dismal, even though I prayed that it would go well (and so did others for us.) This shows me how much I need to grow in my trust in God. He is awesome!

Barry Bishop, spider-slayer, poop-elf

2006-07-31T22:09:00.000-07:00

Life gets better all the time. I used to dream about being a hero and people counting on me to come through for them. Now, with marriage and parenthood my call to duty has come.

For instance, tonight there was a menacing spider in the house. Karen called my name from the other room and something in her voice immediately told me it was spider, the only question in my mind was how big. I sprinted to the other room, sized up the spider, grabbed a paper towel and smote it. And just like that I was an instant hero. I felt good about myself. Maybe I deserve an extra nap on the couch while my wife cleans up the kitchen (although I usually do this anyway--thanks sweetie).

But some responsibilities I have now are just funny. I have a 15-month-old daughter named Abigail. She is a cute bundle of energy and noise. Most of the day is spent chasing her and keeping her away from electrical outlets and toilets so a lot of things don't get done until she is asleep in her crib. As soon as she is down for the night, the magic happens. Karen and I quickly do as many things as we can and so we are like elves that work all night and in the morning everything is magically different. I fancy myself as some sort of poop-elf that sneaks into the toddler's room, ever so quiet as to not wake her and gently, so gently take the bag of poopy diapers from the trashcan to dispose of them. Then voila! Abigail wakes up to a less stinky room and a full diaper pail she can fill for the day. (If you're not a parent, I want to apologize at this point. I realize that poop is gross and crude to talk about but after you have a child and change diapers it suddenly becomes very interesting and funny.)

My life is funny and enjoyable in a way I never expected. I'm growing into the role of father and husband because there are certain things to be done and they are obviously my responsibility but I am having to learn as I go. Pretty much every day I think, "I don't know what I am doing?". I've found this is a good thing, though. God stretches me, molds me, tries me, disciplines me and then I realize how weak I really am and turn to him. Thanks God, I need you.

Honored, Embarrassed

2006-07-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well, you know that you are getting close to moving when people throw you a going-away party. Some friends of ours (the Kurths and the Lopez-is-iz-is) gave us a party last Saturday. I was surprised how many people showed up to the party. I was also delightfully surprised at the abundance of tasty delictables there so I pretended I wasn't on a diet that night. (Yes, I am on a diet. Yes, this is embarrassing. I admit that I can no longer eat as much of whatever the heck I want because I've been gaining about 5 pounds a year so I am on track to weigh 265 pounds in 20 years if I don't diet. Back to the party.)

Most of the people there were friends from church and work. They talked with us, said good things about us and even prayed outloud and individually for us. I felt honored and embarrassed. Only embarrassed because it was such a royal treatment for me and my wife. I hope to treat others the same in the future and love them in this way. As a Christian, for me to hear others thank God for me and my wife and ask Him to help us on our journey to seminary, it is pretty humbling. I think to myself, "really? you actually care about us?"

It is easy for me to pray for myself. Having others pray for me is awesome though, and a good reminder that I should do the same for them.

Anyways, I would like to give a big thanks to whoever might be reading this because most likely you are someone who cares for us. And if our upcoming move to Ft. Worth takes us farther away from you then know that you will be missed.

Have You Read Adam's Autobiography?

2006-06-24T13:26:00.000-07:00

I just read an interesting article about the tablet theory of Genesis authorship. I had heard of this theory before but never heard it explained in such detail. I have encountered ideas before that have changed my perspective or paradigm but usually it is a gradual process and not an immediate "Wow". This one was a "wow".

Has that ever occurred to you? You have a notion about something--a belief or opinion--and then one day you see evidence that shows that you were mistaken? There is a feeling that follows of bewilderment. As if you suddenly discovered that water isn't wet or you let go of something from your hand and it doesn't fall. With this particular incident I feel like something in my mind has been set free, like I can dream about scenarios and possibilities that I hadn't thought of before. It's like discovering a new room in your house that you have lived in for years--only this room has other secret rooms.

The amazing thing is that this has happened to me more and more as I have read the Bible.

Seminary

2006-05-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

So to catch you up on what's going on in my life, I am attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas in the Fall. My application and acceptance to the seminary are answered prayers. In fact, they are a dream come true.

You see, 6 years ago I laid face down in the sand one night by the ocean and asked God what I should do with my life. It was the summer before my senior year in college and I was living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina as part of a Christian summer program. I was at a real crossroads since I was facing graduation and didn't know what the future held. The one thing I did know was that I wanted Jesus to be the leader of my life. Too many times I had done what I wanted to do in life and then just hoped God would bless it. That summer I prayed many times for God to give me direction in life. I don't know how or when He spoke to me. I didn't hear an audible voice or anything like that but by the end of the summer I definitely knew He wanted me to be a pastor.

Since then, there have been many wonderful things and trying events in my life. Of the good things that have happened, I think of marrying my wife, and having a baby. Of the difficult things, I think about the death of my father, and the growing up I have had to do. Who would have known that the daily grind and responsibilities that come with being an adult would be so testing of your character and emotions? But I am thankful for both the trials and blessings that have shaped me thus far.

I have had several jobs since graduating college and although each of them were good in their own way, I didn't really see how they brought me closer to being a pastor. So I asked the Lord again what I should do. I planned to be a pastor when I retired someday but there wasn't any certain plan that I could make that transition since I haven't been saving for retirement and my future income would probably be modest as well.

Then I realized (or God opened my eyes) that "if I know the Lord wants me to be a pastor then what am I waiting for?" There is no guarantee that I will live to be retirement age.

So going to seminary seemed like a good idea. I know that God can grow me in the character I need to be a pastor but I also need knowledge and application, such as how to study the Bible for all it's worth, how to preach faithfully from the Bible, how to disciple others and apply the Bible to our lives, etc. Going to seminary seems like it would give a good foundation for me to preach for the rest of my life which is what I want to do and how God has shaped me.

So I decided to step out in faith and apply to a seminary. If I was accepted, it would involve moving, selling my house, taking a pay cut, and working and studying hard for 3 years. But I trusted God with the details and applied anyway.

Now, as you already know, I have been accepted to SWBTS and I am so excited! Indeed, this blog will probably become a series of updates on what's happening with me and Karen while I am studying in seminary.

Well, there is so much more I could say but attention spans of readers are only so long. So I will say that God is good. He knows what He is doing. Already our house has sold for our asking price, after only being on the market for 2 days, and we get to stay in it until the end of the summer until we transition to Fort Worth. I didn't know how the situation with our house was going to work out but we prayed and BAM! God answered our prayers. Wow.

My Last Name

2006-05-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was reading the Bible and I happened to be in the little book of 1 Peter which is tucked in the back of the New Testament. Now, I am not surprised when I see the word "bishop" in the Bible, since there were leaders in the early church that filled that role. Since, my last name is "Bishop" I also happened to know that the word in the Bible is sometimes translated as "overseer". I was surprised to read in the following verse that the word can refer to God himself.

1 Peter 2:25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

How do you like that? That sort of blows away the modern image of guys in robes in the Anglican and Roman Catholic church!

FURTHER INFO FOR POCKET-PROTECTOR TYPES

[Middle English, from Old English bisceope, from Vulgar Latin *ebiscopus, from Late Latin episcopus, from Late Greek episkopos, from Greek, overseer : epi-, epi- + skopos, watcher.]

The etymology of the word bishop comes from the Greek word episkopos (επισκοπος), which can be generally translated as bishop, overseer, superintendent, supervisor, or foreman. From the word episkopos are derived the English words episcopacy, episcopate and episcopal.

Dis and Dat

2006-04-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I wonder if all blogs devolve into a hodge-podge of personal thoughts, recipes, links, photos, and who-knows-what-else? I say this because my goal for this blog was to share anecdotes from me (a hick) but I find that it has become just random stuff. So tonight, I thought I would talk about theology.
As a Christian I am very concerned with what the Bible says because I believe it's the truth and I want to live my life accordingly. However, from time to time the question comes up whether or not Christians like me follow all of the commands of the Bible. For example, the vast majority of Christians do not follow the dietary laws or Sabbath laws found in the first five books of the Bible. I have thought about this for many years and additionally it's a common question that people ask me. Especially troubling is a verse from Matthew 5:17 and following:

"Do not think that I [Jesus] have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven..."

Since I bounced this question off of Karen she emailed Probe ministries a few years ago and got a response from a guy named Michael Gleghorn. Of course the only real authority on this matter is the Bible, but I thought Gleghorn addressed the question very well from the Bible. So below is a link to an interesting article followed by the email he sent to Karen. Both of them deal with this question.

What is the Value of the Old Testament for New Testament Christians?
Hello Karen,
Thank you for writing Probe Ministries. You ask a very good question about a controversial and emotionally charged issue. Here's my own view:

1. The Mosaic Law of the Old Covenant (Old Testament) is obsolete. Indeed, the writer to the Hebrews says this very thing (see Heb. 8:7-13). Today, it is the New Covenant which is in effect, not the Old. This does not mean that believers are without rules, or moral principles, to live by. It's very important to understand this. But whatever principles we are to conform ourselves to are given under the terms of the New Covenant in the New Testament. For example, nine of the original Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament. The only one that's not repeated is the Sabbath commandment (see Rom. 14 and Colossians 2, etc.) Additionally, New Covenant believers have the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit to help them fulfill God's righteous requirements (Rom. 8, 2 Cor. 3, Galatians 5, etc.). Indeed, in many of his epistles (e.g. Romans and Galatians in particular), Paul is concerned to drive this home repeatedly. It seems to me that Paul discouraged believers from putting themselves under the law of Moses (carefully read Rom. 7; Gal. 3; etc.). Besides all this, the law was never given to Gentiles in the first place. It was given only to Israel, and it was only in effect for a limited time. Finally, we must consider the purpose of the Law. Paul writes very clearly about this in Gal. 3:19-25 (as well as other places). In verses 24-25 he concludes that "the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."

2. Some good verses to share with your friend include those mentioned above. I would especially encourage him to read passages like Rom. 7, Galatians 3, Colossians 2 and Hebrews 8. However, reading these entire books carefully would be even better.

3. Matthew 5:17-20 = I take it that Jesus did fulfill the requirements of the Law through perfect obedience to it. Through His perfect obedience to it, substitutionary atonement and resurrection, He has provided a way for sinners who trust in Him to be made just before God (Rom. 3:21-26). This ties in with what Paul says in Galatians 3:19-25. The Law reveals our sin, but is powerless to make righteous. By revealing to us our sin, however, it performs a valuable service. It helps us understand God's holy standards and the fact that we fall short of these standards. Thus, by making us aware of our sin and helplessness to please God through our works, the Law should cause us to turn to Christ that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, our relationship with God is no longer governed by law; it is governed by grace (John 1:17; Romans 6:14; etc.). As the New Covenant believer faithfully relies on the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, he will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, but will manifest the fruit of God's Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-25). In this way, "the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:4).

Shalom,

Michael Gleghorn
Probe Ministries

Patriotic Baby

2006-04-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Lady Liberty herself couldn't do better.

Remember the Alamo

2006-04-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here's our little Texan, reflecting on the men who gave their lives to make this the best state!

New Year, New Apologies

2006-01-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since I last posted to this blog. The year changed on the calendar, Christmas, my Dad died, and I fell off the wagon on my diet. I guess a lot things happen between postings when you only update your blog on a semi-annual basis. So like the title says I would like to apologize to all the people who checked daily for the last 2 months for a word from me.

2006
I don't have much to say about a new calendar year. I never planned to live this long. I am only 27 but somehow when I was growing up I couldn't imagine beyond the year 2000 (which of course, I pictured would have flying cars like the end of Back to the Future.) So now I feel like I am out in no-man's land in the middle of this decade. Will I live to see 2020? I don't know. Will Jesus come back soon? Well, we are certainly closer than we have ever been before to the end of the world (and tomorrow we will be even closer and the day after that...)

CHRISTMAS
This Christmas was the first year with our baby. Technically, Karen was pregnant with our daughter, Abigail, last Christmas but she was probably the size of a pear at the time and really only cared about hanging out in the womb. Now that she is 7 months old, Abigail is cuter than ever. Everybody fawned over her and bought her a truckload of presents. Abigail enjoyed playing with the paper and bows though and she also seemed to enjoy tipping a bowl of fruit.

MY DAD (Dec. 14, 1946--Dec. 14, 2005)
One of my worst fears came true. One morning the phone rang and I answered it. "Barry..." my mom said in a voice that I could hardly understand. "Yes?" I said urgently.
"Your dad... is dead."
"NO!" I cried in a voice that didn't sound like mine, "NO!" and I sobbed uncontrollable.
"I found him in bed... just now, " my Mom managed to say.
"Are you sure?" I asked, but I knew it was true if she was calling me. At that point my mom couldn't continue the conversation she was so broken up and she tried to hand the phone to my uncle (her brother) but he just hung up on me.
Sometime between 5 and 7 am on his 59th birthday my Dad, who had already gotten up and made some tea and turned off the alarm, laid back down and died.

Dad had had heart trouble 5 years ago and had a quadruple bypass and nearly died then. But then he made an amazing recovery and a year later his Dr. told him that the x-ray of his heart didn't even look like that same heart from a year before. The last 5 years have been worry free for him. So his passing away was a complete shock. I think it even surprised Dad who had a look of serenity on his face when my mom found him.

There is so much I could write about my Dad: that he was spontaneous, funny, fun, kind, humble, a good Samaritan--but most important of all, he was a Christian. He had a simple faith in Jesus Christ to save him from his sins and he let Jesus lead his life while he lived. The only thing that has given me comfort during this time is to know what the Bible says about death and it's antidote. And I know that my dad is alive and with Jesus now and one day I will join him.

DIET
With my father's death, I have once again realized that I should eat healthier so I can avoid things I am probably predisposed to like heart disease and diabetes. However, I pigged out on chocolate over Christmas which is something I had given up. Well, I guess the New Year is a good time to get back on a diet. Now where did I put that bag of chocolate? What? you're still here? I am going to give this bag away...

Why I Lie

2005-11-04T12:56:00.000-08:00

I've got to be honest--I've done a lot of lying in my life!

Even after years of being a Christian and a follower of the one who said "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life." I find that many times I have more in common with the one who is called "The Father of lies". Sometimes I don't mean to lie. Like when I said a few days ago that I would start updating my blog more frequently. I really meant it, but did it happen? NooOOoo.

Why is it so easy to lie? I am sure there are many theological reasons about sin, the falliness of man, etc. that explain this but I can easily speculate why it is easy for ME to. I want to make a disclaimer though, that I am not proud of lying and in fact I am ashamed and want to change.

LAZINESS
First off, I have a problem of just telling people what they want to hear because it would take more work to confront them with the truth or something I perceive as a problem. In fact, I may not even be doing nothing more than just nodding in a conversation and keeping silent. But this often leads to problems because if I don't raise any objections when someone is talking then they may be led to believe that I am in agreement with them when I, in fact, am not. Then the next time they bring up the subject they start where they left off and assume I am in agreement. So how far do I let this go before I say something? Or do I just hedge my responses to be ambiguous? Sometimes I have just given in and lied.

FEAR
My laziness is also mixed with fear. What will the other person think of me if I disagree with them? What if I have to tell somebody something they don't want to hear (even if it is the right thing to do)? Sadly, I have let fear goad me into lying many times.

I remember when I was in 6th grade and as part of an English class, I was supposed to keep a daily journal. I didn't care for homework and I thought the journal was stupid so I didn't do it. My English teacher noticed that I had done poorly on the journal the first time around and mentioned something to my Mom who was also a teacher. So for the next semester, my Mom would frequently ask me if I was doing my journal for English class. I told her, "YES" but in reality I was not doing it at all. I justified telling her I was doing it because I PLANNED to do it, but I just hadn't done it yet. My plan was to stay up the night before it was due and write a bunch of entries using different pens, etc. and back-date it. However, the day came when it was due and I hadn't finished it, so I turned it in mostly incomplete. When my Mom found out that I hadn't done the journal she was incensed! In fact, there is not a word to describe how mad she was at me.

"What's the big deal?" I said to her, "I still have an A/B average in the class."

"Because you LIED to me!" she said. She could care less about the grade but she was hurt that she didn't know if she could trust me or anything I said anymore.

It was then that I began to realize the extent of hurt you can cause by lying and breaking someone's trust.

So why should you believe me now that I have told you this? Well, I use this blog as a tool to vent my honest thoughts and once they're public then I can be held accountable by my friends. So the next time you're talking with me you can ask me about my weight and how my diet is going or if you notice me nodding a lot and giving ambiguous responses you can say to me, "Tell me honestly what you really think, Barry."

Weight Update

2005-10-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

Those of you who faithfully read every entry of this blog until I dropped off the face of the earth and stopped posting will remember that I mentioned that I was going on a diet and I predicted I would lose 5-7 lbs. by Halloween. Well today is October 31st and when I stepped on the scale this morning I weighed 156 lb.--the exact same amount as a month ago when I started my diet. That's ok, though, I am glad that I didn't GAIN any weight. Besides my diet was pretty minimal anyway. I simply cut out drinking soft drinks since they are basically liquid sugar and I don't want to wake up one day in a diabetic coma (or maybe I wouldn't wake up).

I can't tell you how difficult even this is. I love the delicious refreshing taste of a Dr. Pepper or Coke followed by another one. And then later another one. And then later I wonder why they make the cans so small. So you see why it was a good idea to cut-back/eliminate it from my diet.

So how did I do this month? Well, I mentioned that my weight stayed the same. I did drink a few soft drinks like Diet caffeine-free Coke, and Diet A&W Rootbeer but these taste so crappy (I don't like Diet) it wasn't really worth it. The only exercise I did was 25 push-ups to impress my wife.

So my goals for this month are to continue to not drink ANY soft drinks, to avoid caffeine, and additionally not have ANY chocolate--starting tomorrow. Today, after all, is Halloween and I plan to gorge myself on mounds of chocolate.

You may ask why I would want to avoid caffeine. The explanation of this gets kind of personal but, what the heck, that's what blogs are for. Caffeine is bad for my digestion. I have a really sensitive stomach and time and time again I have discovered that caffeine will give me really horrible stomach aches the following day after gorging on sodas. Of course, you would think that I would have given up drinking sodas a long time ago but that's not the case. I have had this monkey on my back for as long as I can remember. People who smoke know that it is bad for them but that's not enough to make them stop, usually.

With God's help, I going to start eating healthier, and taking better care of my body because it's the right thing to do. That reminds me of a joke. I'll share it and sign off for the day. Don't be a stranger, now. I'll start posting again so come back and see me.

JOKE
Dave got down on his knees one day and prayed to God. "God," said Dave, "Please let me win the lottery!"

Well, they drew the numbers for the lottery that week and Dave didn't win and he got pretty mad. He hopped down on his knees and said, "God, I'm begging you! Please let me win the lottery. I won't ask for anything else."

Again, they drew the numbers and Dave didn't win that week.

This time when Dave prayed he said, "God, I am mad at you. Why won't you let me win the lottery?"
Then God replied and said, "Dave, meet me halfway--buy a lottery ticket!"

Fairy Tale

2005-10-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading a book called "God of the Fairy Tale" by Jim Ware. I really enjoyed it because it would tell well-known fairy tales in a delightful way and then use them to point to some truth about life. As I was drifting to sleep last night I made up my own. I guess this is only appropriate since my first and middle name rhyme with fairy tale (Barry Dale). Anyways, for your bedtime enjoyment here is the story of...

JACK, THE GIANT, AND THE DRAGON

Once there lived in a small hut, in a small village, a small boy named Jack. He was very skinny and did not eat much. Jack loved to eat tasty morsels like any other boy but there was nothing to eat except a few small potatoes from a meager garden by the hut. At dinner his step-father would eat most of the potatoes and even the bread. Then Step-father would leave the rest on his plate for Jack's mother. "Here," he said rudely, "I am finished with this tasteless slop". Jack's mother would take the scraps and try to secretly hand them to Jack.

"No, Mother!" said Jack. "You must eat."

"Nonsense," said Mother. "I ate yesterday. And besides you are growing. You need to eat to grow tall like your father."

Ah, Father. Father had been dead for two winters but Jack still remembered his smiling face and tickly beard. Father was a tall, skinny woodcutter who worked long days to make sure Jack and his mother had wood to keep the fire going during the cold winter. Father sold extra wood to feed the family and there was always plenty to eat. Then one night as Father was cutting, a tall tree fell on him and pressed him against the ground. Father was then attacked by wolves and he never came home.

Jack remembered seeing his mother cry and saying "With your father gone I do not know what we will eat." But then Thomas came to the door and said to Mother "I need a wife to cook and clean. I have a hut and food, but only enough food for you and me, not that little runt!" he said scowling at Jack. Then Mother told Jack they would have a new home and she would share food with him. Jack was scared of Thomas and only said, "Yes, Step-father." when Thomas addressed him.

"What are you whispering about?" thundered Step-father. "Runt, leave your mother's food alone and go to bed!"

"Yes, Step-father." said Jack. As Jack walked toward his bed Step-father slapped him on the back of the head. "If you do not go to sleep soon I will knock you out myself!"

Little Jack cried quietly and fell asleep.

The next morning when Jack awoke there were loud booming sounds outside and people talking excitedly. Jack rubbed his eyes and looked around. "What is happening, Mother?" Jack said.

"Do not go outside, Jack, it is too dangerous!" said Mother. "Your step-father has gone to grab food from burning houses."

"Burning houses!" cried Jack and he jumped up and ran outside. Then Jack saw a giant--a large, huge man who was taller than any of the village huts. The giant had dark eyes and blood running from the corner of his mouth.

Jack could not believe his eyes for he also saw a dragon. A huge green, dragon with a long curved neck and fire coming out of his mouth. The giant punched the dragon with his big hand and the dragon bit the giant's arm.

The giant yelled, "Go away dragon! This is MY village. I am going to eat these people."

The dragon hissed back, "Stupid giant, I will eat these people and then eat YOU!"

Jack had heard about the giant and the dragon before from travelers who came to town. The giant would go from village to village scooping up people and eating them. The dragon also roamed the countryside killing people with his fire and eating their hearts out. Both of them would turn the earth brown and kill crops with their evil magic. Now both of them had come to Jack's village and were fighting.

All the villagers watched as the dragon and the giant fought. "Oh well," said Sam the Butcher "they will kill each other." Then Sam walked back to his hut. "Perhaps we should go to another village." said a farmer calmly. "I will pretend I did not see this." said John the Baker.

"Wait," cried little Jack, "someone must stop the giant and dragon!" But no one listened. All the people muttered to themselves and walked off. Glenda the old maid grabbed Jack by the wrist and said, "If you have any sense you will go hide yourself or they will find you. If you do not you will die. The taylor's family has already been burned alive in their hut."

Jack rubbed his wrist and walked toward the giant and dragon who were still fighting. He walked past the blackened, smoking taylor's hut. He saw a burned body on the ground outside the hut. It was Step-father. He had a large hole in his chest where the dragon had eaten his heart.

Jack shuddered and almost burst into tears. "Someone must stop the giant and dragon!" he thought. Jack pictured his mother frightened inside their hut waiting to be burned and eaten. Jack pictured his father pinned helplessly beneath a tree and being attacked by wolves.

Jack ran toward the giant and dragon. He got so close he could feel the wind from the giants' punches and feel the heat from the dragon's fire.

Jack squeaked with all his might, "Go AWAY you wicked beasts! LEAVE!"

Jack trembled as the giant and dragon turned to look at him and Jack braced himself to be eaten.

"ANT!" thundered the giant "I will crush you."
"How DARE you speak to me, boy!" hissed the dragon "I will turn you to ashes."

Jack sobbed and fell to his knees.

Suddenly, the elf-king on his large white stallion appeared. His crown was shining gold, his beard was the darkest red and he carried a lance so long and straight it looked like the trunk of the tallest tree. Without a word, the elf-king charged his horse at the dragon with blinding speed. The magical lance sunk deep into the body of the dragon burning away all flesh it touched and turning the tough hide to smoke. The dragon wriggled and collasped into burning ash.

Then giant seeing that the dragon was dead smiled with a wicked grin and swung his huge fist at the elf-king. From his hip the elf-king drew a sword that shone like the sun and in a flash cut the giant's fist off in mid-swing.

The giant howled in pain and raised his bloody arm which now had no hand. "I have killed a thousand lesser men than you, Elf, and you will die too!" cried the giant.

Then the giant lept at the elf-king with all his weight and with a loud crack landed belly first on the ground trying to crush the elf-king with his giant form. But the elf king atop his stallion was quicker than the wind and was not under the giant when he landed. Instead, the elf-king appeared by the giant's head.

Leaping from the saddle the elf-king again struck with the brilliant sword like a woodcutter splitting wood. The giant's enormous head rolled off like the wheel of a cart and rested near Jack who stared into the whites of the giants rolled-back eyes.

Jack dared not rise from his knees in the prescense of one so great as the elf-king but suddenly the elf-king stood in front of him and raised his tiny chin with his strong hand. "Jack, you may be small, but you spoke the truth. Well done."

Then the elf-king smiled and leaped upon his stallion. As he rode, the ground beneath the horses hooves turned lush green.

Jack ran home to his hut. He could not believe his eyes. Their meager garden was now a beautiful orchard with full fruit trees. In fact, everywhere Jack looked, there was beautiful flowers and greenery. The land was healed. The door opened and Jack's mother ran to him and kissed him and hugged him.

"Oh, Jack," she said while crying with joy, "you are alive."
"I AM alive, Mother." said Jack. "And we will never have to worry about food again."

THE END
copyright © Barry Bishop 2005

My weight

2005-10-02T22:06:00.000-07:00

So I mentioned before that I was 130 lbs in highschool. Even though I am only 5'7" that was still pretty slim. Since then the years have been good to me and now I find that my pants are getting tighter and tighter. For instance, I used to wear jeans that were 29" in the waist but now I'm up to 32"--a snug 32".

Part of the problem is that I love to eat and by "eat" I mean junk food. You ought to see my trash can at work. It's pretty embarrassing how the bags of chips and cans of coke and such piles up in it so fast. To be honest though, I have always eaten a lot of junk food. My age [and inactivity] are catching up on me, though. For years, I have lived in ignorance by avoiding scales. Three days ago I bought a scale hoping to change my gluttonous ways.

So to see what the damage was I stepped on the scale first thing in the morning while I was in my underwear. 156 lbs.

Hey, not bad! Especially since I had weighed the day before and it said 166. Believe it or not, my boots, wallet, jeans, car keys, cell phone, pocket knife, space pen, and shirt weigh about 10 pounds. This is a really great way to start a diet--lose 10 pounds by disrobing. I have a feeling that the rest of the pounds won't come off as easy.

So what is my diet? Well, I don't want to push myself too hard so I am cutting out all sodas from my diet and trying to eat a little less junk and if I feel like it do a few push ups and situps. That's it. My goal is that by Halloween I will have lost 5-7 lbs by simply doing this.

So far the progress has been the wrong way. The second day I weighed I was 158. This was probably due to the fact that I hit a Chinese buffet the night before and ate about a million California rolls.

I am confident that I can lose weight over the long haul if I just follow this diet for the rest of my life. The hardest part is giving up sodas. I really love sodas! Even typing this makes me wish I had a cold Dr. Pepper to sting my throat or a Coke to eat the lining of my stomach. I know I'm a sick puppy--that's why I'm trying to change.

Honestly, if I had drank beer like I do sodas I would be considered an out-of-control alcoholic.

Alright, I'll update you on my weight from time to time and you can guess at how much I'll lose or gain. Or if I'll fall off the wagon.

Freshman Follies

2005-09-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

As a mentioned before, when I came to college in the summer of '97 I was pretty naive. Austin seemed so BIG to me (pop. 700,000). Everything there was different. Driving and parking was a nightmare. In my hometown (pop. 10,000) you could drive anywhere within 5 minutes. If you drove longer than 5 minutes then you were outside the town. In Austin, you would spend 15 minutes alone driving in a circle looking for parking. Sometimes, I would be on UT campus and someone would drive me to some part and we would circle looking for parking and then finding none we would have to go back to the dorm, park there and then walk to where we were trying to go, only now we were late.

However, my freshman year, I tried not to drive as much as possible since I was terrified of it. I had so much anxiety about driving that I simply would not go some place if I had to drive. People tail-gate in Austin and run red lights like it's nobody's business and each road has 2 or 3 different names so every time I drove I was not only freaked-out but lost.

But driving was the least of my problems. I arrived in August and by September my highschool sweetheart of 2 years broke up with me. This was a good thing since our relationship was really shallow, but at the time I thought it was the end of the world. I responded by immediately trying to get another girlfriend. I did this because I now realize that I was trying to get my self-worth by dating girls or feeling like I am really somebody if an attractive girl likes me. The unlucky victim was a girl who sat by me in one of my classes. Her name was Melissa.

In short, I spent the next year walking her to class, giving her poems and flowers and basically being a pathetic loser waiting by the phone. I think she was flattered but I could always sense a kind of anxiousness she had when I talked to her which I now think was her trying to find a way to lose me somehow as nicely as possible. But I was so infatiuted! I thought that if I could somehow win her heart then I would be happy. I overlooked the fact that we didn't have a lot in common, and I didn't really know her, oh yeah, and she didn't like me.

One time when I was talking to my Mom I mentioned that there was this girl that I really digged and her name was Melissa. My mom was very excited that I was meeting girls at college (since she wanted me to marry and give her grandkids) but then she started asking me questions.

"Is she a Christian?" she asked.

"Uh no, she's Muslim." I said. "Her family is from Egypt."

"What! Oh, Barry, can't you find a good Baptist girl? I am sure that UT has a Baptist Student Union there where you can meet a nice Christian girl."

"Mom, we talk about God."

"Oh Barry, they believe in Allah, and besides her family would probably kill her if they found out she was dating a Christian."

"Well, we're not dating yet..."

"Just go on down to the BSU and I'm sure there's a [I tuned out at this point]."

In addition to pursuing this girl I also grew out my hair and joined a Christian cult. The two are not related, I just decided to grow out my hair. The only requirement to join the cult was to be gullible enough to accept an invitation to a Bible Study by some really zealous people on campus. Of course I wouldn't have joined had I known it was a cult. I thought it was legit. But first, the...

HAIR
One morning I looked in the mirror and I was disappointed. I always had an image in my mind of what I would look like when I was 18 and in college. I expected myself to look older, cooler. But what I saw was that I looked exactly the same as I had in 6th grade. So I grew out my hair and some side-burns. I went for the Beatles look.

This worried my parents who thought I had started doing drugs. I would say something about a Beatles' song I liked and my mom would say, "You know they did a lot of drugs..." and then she would just trail off in a serious tone. My dad would say, "When are you gonna get a haircut?" I could tell he was seriously irked because he had been in the military and had since then kept his hair short with trips to the barbershop every 2 weeks. When I came home for Christmas the first thing my mom said as she greeted me was, "Get a haircut, Santa Claus." I still don't know what this means, but I swear she said it. Then there's the...

CULT
I had attended a college orientation for a week in the summer before I started classes in the fall. While I was on campus, a person who was handing out flyers jumped in front of me as I was walking and handed me a card. It said "Christians On Campus" and had a spot on it to fill in your information if you were interested in a Bible study. I thought, "I'm a Christian, I'm on campus, why not?" So I filled it out and dropped it in the mail and promptly forgot about it. On the day that I moved into the dorm, as soon as I plugged in my telephone it rang. "Hello?" I said, thinking that the phone was broken. "Hi, this is Neil with Christians on Campus, we're having a Bible study downstairs if you want to come." And that's how I joined.

When you first join a cult they "love bomb" you, telling you how great you are and what not. I didn't mind this at all. Also, cults tend to isolate you and monopolize your time. Christians on Campus met everyday and for long hours. Once, when I went to a meeting I was there for 2 and half pretty boring hours. We were meeting in an empty classroom and the bell rang to show that classes are changing. I had an afternoon class I had to go to so I got up and tried to quietly leave. The guy who was speaking stopped and turned to me and said, "Hey brother, where are you going?"

"I've got CLASS, I've got to get to." I said it this way because I had kept thinking, "when is this thing gonna end?".

"Oh are you sure you can't stay?" he said, with 40 other people looking at me. "No, I have to go to class now." I was, after all, a college student unlike some of the 30- to 40-year- olds I saw in the meetings. I later found out that this group was part of the Boston Church, (aka International Church of Christ) who believe there is only one true church per city, which of course would be theirs. Because of this, everybody in that local church had to attend meetings, college student or not. They also have a misreading of Matthew 28:19-20 where they believe you must make disciples first before you can be baptized yourself and thereby saved. All I knew at the time was I got some weird vibes.

PUNCHLINE
My freshman year was a very difficult time with lots of soul-searching. But I wouldn't trade it for anything because a lot of important questions came out of it.
* Would I let fear [of driving] rule my life?
* Did I need someone [Melissa] to make me valuable?
* Did I care too much what people thought of how I looked [hair]?
* Did I really know what I believed [cult]?

In case your wondering, I did learn to drive fearlessly, Melissa lost me over the summer, I cut my hair eventually, and I left the cult after a couple of months and one shakedown from the leader. Since I was shaped by these things I will probably talk about them in more detail later. Or just drop me a comment if you are interested in a certain part and I will talk more about it.

Football Season

2005-09-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Fall always reminds me of my days of playing football in school. When the first waft of cool air blows in the Fall it's like there's magic in the air. We have really long summers here in Central Texas. I mean, days of 100 degrees can happen anywhere from late April till September. Just yesterday it hit 100 degrees in Austin. After months of 90 and 100 degree days when you have a day where a cool wind blows in and it is 78 degrees it makes you feel giddy. Usually, the change in the weather here happens gradually. A cool day here or there and then a return to unbearable heat. Then right around Halloween a cold front blows through that drops the temperature to 30 or 40 degrees and finally it's Fall and the vicious Summer is dead.

We would start training for football during the heat of August. With helmets, pads, and jerseys on and intensive running we felt like just laying down and succumbing to the heat. I swear that buzzards were circling us as we practiced, just waiting for one of us to stumble and not get up.

But then on some magical day in Sept. or Oct. we would have a game to play and a cool wind blew into town. Us football players would be so excited we would start smacking our helmets together and yelling at each other, "It's FOOTBALL weather, baby! Yeah! Let's go kick some tail!"

From 7th grade through 12th grade I was a strapping lad of 5'7" and 130 lb. What this meant was in 7th grade I was one of the biggest guys on the team. In 12th grade I was the smallest. My senior year our coach had a clipboard and was asking everybodys' weight to put on the roster for the official program. Most of the guys were 200 lb. When I said I was 130 the coach said, "That's embarrassing! We're not gonna put that on the roster. Other teams will think we're small. I'll put you down for 145 lb."

Despite my small size I played fullback on offense. For those of you who don't know anything about football, the fullback is usually a really big guy you hand the ball to who runs straight up the middle through both teams to advance the ball 2 yards on a critical play. However, most of the time the fullback is mowing down people and clearing a path for the real running back who has the ball and is right behind him. Either way, you take a big pounding.

So in Jr. High I played fullback because I was big and fast compared to my peers. In High School I was the third-string fullback behind 2 bigger and beefier guys. But year after year when the season started the other 2 guys who would start in front of me couldn't play for some reason or another. One broke a bone, another couldn't pass a drug test, another failed some classes and so on. Suddenly, I was the starting fullback again.

It was like the story of the little Engine Who Could. Seconds before the ball was snapped I would be looking at the Behemoth on the other team that I would have to block and be saying in my head, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can..."

Then the ball was snapped and I would run as hard as I could at him and dive at his knees with my shoulder leading and go into a full log roll.

No one ever expects you to roll. This move if executed properly will fell the largest of giants and I can't tell you how satisfying it is. However, if you don't time it right you just ending up rolling on the ground and looking like an idiot while the giant lumbers past you and smashes into your team mate who has the ball. Then your team mate gets up and gives you a look like, "Way to go, Jerk." or if he's in serious pain, "How could you?" And you hear the hometeam crowd turn violent.

Honestly, playing football was difficult and painful--in my short career I had 2 concussions, stitches 4 times, blood poisoning, knee surgery, tendonitus, jammed vertebrae, and countless cuts and bruises--but it taught me some important things about life. I learned to push myself physically. I learned to be a part of a team--something bigger than myself. I learned to enjoy winning as well as accept that failures happen in life. And I had fun!

My wife has mentioned that if we have a son she doesn't want him to play football. I always agree with her that it is a dangerous sport. But I am secretly hoping that a son of mine will want to play football, so he can push himself and be tough like his dad. More than that I want him to know the joy that I had. Maybe I'll just have to switch his rattle with a toy football.

Smokeless Tobacco

2005-09-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up in Gatesville I saw a lot of the men dip snuff or chew tobacco. Usually, you could tell because you would see them spitting and the spit would be brown. Your next indication would be the large bulge in their mouth that looked like a jawbreaker. But that was candy of a different sort--a wad of chewing tobacco. It was a little harder to see if someone was dipping. But there it was, a little pinch of fine, black, pepper-looking stuff just in front of the bottom teeth.

Most people are grossed out when they hear me describe this. When you see it a lot though you think it's normal. So naturally when I was 13 I wanted to try some. At first I stole a little tobacco from a pouch my Dad kept hidden from my Mom. He used to chew tobacco but my Mom hated the fact that he did. Whenever she would find a pouch of tobacco she would throw it away and chide him. Dad would flaunt it in other ways though. He cut the proofs of purchase squares off the back of the packages and sent them in for a Beechnut T-shirt (one of his favorite brands). Then Dad would proudly wear this shirt around my mom who would make a sour face at him.

I wonder if Dad would have let me try chewing tobacco if I just asked? Well, I didn't. I took some and went outside to walk around the neighborhood nonchalantly. It was great! I felt like such a man with some tobacco in my cheek. I knew it could kill me but I didn't care. I was enjoying the tingling, light-headed feeling it gave me, not to mention the bad taste. Soon I was bragging to my friends at school and they all thought I was a bad-boy tobacco user. My buddy Jason, who was also 13, got me a pack of Levi-Garrett chewing tobacco for my birthday. How he acquired it I don't know but it was a brand new package and the kind I liked. (My older brother and his friends chewed tobacco and they used Levi-Garrett so I assumed that was the best brand.)

I continued to dabble in tobacco through my 8th grade year. This meant that I would take a tiny pinch from my hidden package which I was rationing ever so often. Those pinches would make my mouth tingle and salivate, generally a good feeling.

One night, Jimmy, who was one of my brother's older friends, stopped by our house looking for my brother. My brother wasn't home and Jimmy, being restless, invited me along to ride with him while we cruised the Drag (see entry for Mon. Sept 12th for explanation). Jimmy was always restless, it seemed like every week he had a different beat-up old car or a different job. We would ask him, "What happened to your car?"

"Oh, I wrecked it." he would say, or "I just got tired of that piece of junk."

"What happened to your job?"

"Oh, I quit," he would say, "I got tired of their crap and walked out."

Jimmy was incredibly funny too. He didn't cuss often but when he did it was in a way that would have you rolling on the floor with laughter. He would be emotionally elaborating about something and his tone would be building and building and then suddenly, there it was, like a star on a Christmas tree, the most obscene word you ever heard.

I have never met anyone wittier either. If someone jokingly insulted him he would immediately reply with an even better cut-down. If they were foolish enough to up the ante and say something again, Jimmy would reply just as quick, this time getting funnier and more crass. I have seen many cut-down fights started this way with Jimmy and they always ended the same way--Jimmy calmly staring at the other person who stood there red, flustered, and stuttering.

So I was riding with Jimmy who was somewhat of a hero to me down Main St. and he reached down under his seat and grabbed a pack of chewing tobacco and put some in his mouth. Then he offered me some. I wanted to look like a real man so I not only took some but I took a handful and crammed it in my cheek. Jimmy noticed and warned that I might want to be careful. "This stuff is cheap and strong." he said. But I assured him I could handle it.

Five minutes later I started feeling incredibly hot and slightly nauseous. At first I rolled down the car window to get some air. Then I stuck my head out the window to get even more air. I tried to pretend that everything was fine, but Jimmy could tell that I had gotten a little too much. He could probably tell because by this time I was pale, with a slight green tinge. Then there was no more pretending. I spit the tobacco out and my head was incredibly woozy. Suddenly, I didn't like riding in a car anymore. I never realized there was so much motion involved.

"Jimmy, take me home." I moaned with my head between my knees. He was sympathetic and told me if I ate some bread it would help me get better. Walking up to my house my head was floating 5 feet higher and 2 feet behind my body. I stumbled through the door and laid on the floor and watched the room spin. That was the last time I ever chewed tobacco.

Lessons learned: I have done stupid things to impress my friends. Also I shouldn't bite off more than I can chew.

Fun with throwing things

2005-09-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

Although you wouldn't realize it by looking at me now, I can throw things pretty hard and accurate. Like any other boy growing up I liked to chunk rocks, sticks, dirt clods, eggs, balls, or anything else I felt like throwing. But I threw better than most boys. I know this because I would play catch with them and some of them would look like they were using their wrong hand. I would say, "Why are you throwing left-handed?" and the other boy would say, "Because I AM left-handed."

"Are you sure?" I would say, because it looked so clumsy and awkward. I wasn't cruel enough to say, "you throw like a girl" but usually one of the other guys said it. Most of these awkward-throwers didn't have a Dad to play catch with them so I cut them some slack in that category. I didn't have a Dad to play catch with me either. I had a Dad but he just usually didn't play catch with me--my Mom did.

My Mom is by far the most athletic person in our family. She was a Jr. High girls' coach for 30 years and she's tough as nails. At the age of 57 she is still playing in the most competitive league of summer softball for our hometown--something she has done since I was 2. In Highschool my mom lettered in 5 sports (basketball, volleyball, softball, track, tennis) all 4 years. Naturally, when she got to college she played some sports there too, like basketball. So my Mom and I would be throwing a baseball out in the yard and she would yell at me, "Throw it harder, you're not gonna hurt me." and then she would zing the ball back to me with a perfect overhand throw. I learned from the best.

So today, I thought I would share a few anecdotes of me throwing different things. Here we go:

DIRT CLODS/BOTTLES
One of the summers when I was hanging out at the baseball fields while my mom was playing softball, me and some other kids were playing on some dirt mounds by the fields. There were some really good clods there so we started launching them at each other and ducking behind the mounds.

I was doing pretty good until a rock hit me in the forehead and I started bleeding. The other boy got tired of throwing dirt and he threw a rock instead. I was in a lot of pain but I was embarrassed to have to walk up to my mom and tell her I was hurt. Some eyewitnesses told her we were throwing rocks. "DIRT!" I protested, but still I got in trouble.

Then there was another time when some kids were throwing glass bottles in an old equipment closet at the baseball fields. It looked fun! I grabbed a bottle and threw it and watched it shatter. No sooner had I done it, than I noticed my Mom charging out of the dugout straight for me. She had eyes in the back of her head. I quickly protested that the other kids were doing it as well. "I'm not their mother.", she said, and quickly administered justice.

EGGS
When I was in highschool I liked to sneak eggs out of the fridge and go out into the street in front of my house and throw them as high as I possibly could and watch them SPLAT! Or sometimes I would mix it up and throw them as far as I could. Once, when I was doing this, a pair of Mormon missionaries were on bikes at the end of the street. Without thinking I threw an egg towards them that flew impossibly far and landed just behind their back tires. Lord, forgive me, I now know that people are only won to You through Your love and truth, not eggs.

COW PATTIES
My best friend, my brother, and I were walking through a field by my friend's house. It was obvious that cows had been there before because there was a lot of dried cow patties. For those of you who don't know, when cow poop dries it looks something like a greenish-brown, flattened cinnamon roll. They also make good frisbees. So one of us grabbed the edge of one off the ground and quickly flicked it at the other. "Eww, you've got cow crap on you now!" Soon it was an all out war and all three of us were hurling cow patties as fast as we could at each other.

Then in a scene that is all too familiar, my friend grabbed a huge rock and threw it at me. It landed on my ankle and I was instantly crippled. I can't repeat what I yelled at him but it was the dirtiest words I could think of. He and my brother just laughed and I eventually could walk again.

What have I learned? When life throws crap at you, there are worst things you could be hit with.

Barry vs. the Tree

2005-09-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't post anything on Saturday or Sunday because 1) it was the weekend and 2) I travelled to my hometown of Gatesville where internet is still a new and mysterious thing. After trying to connect to the Web on my parent's computer (Windows Me, Pentium III, AOL, 56K modem) I almost gave up after 10 minutes and still not being connected. Finally, I connected and went to a website, clicked a link and promptly got a blue screen of death.

As much as I talk about Gatesville I don't go there much. Since getting married 4 years ago the pace of life has really sped up and months pass before I realize I haven't seen my parents in a while. Let's face it, I started a new family. In the frontier days of America, some young man would marry a woman and they would travel west to the prairie or mountains or desert and that's the last they ever saw of their family. Marriage is still an adventure. Have you ever tried to pack up a vehicle with a ton of baby stuff and a few bags of your own for a one-night stay?

Not much had changed in Gatesville since I lived there 8 years ago, although the town is abuzz because there is a Super Wal-Mart now. I went to it to pick up a few items while I was there and it was really nice for a Wal-Mart.

My parents' home still looks the same--so many memories. I looked up at the tree in the front yard and remembered how much I loved to climb it. It's a pretty big tree--an ashleaf maple I think. I used to climb up the tree and just hang out and watch people walk by or occasionally see some truck go down the road. I was practically invisible because no one ever looks up. I spent many enjoyable hours in the tree but it wasn't always good to me.

One day I got a great idea. I took an old belt and climbed up as high as I could in the tree. When I could get no higher I strapped myself to the underside of a branch with the belt. Then I let go with my arms and legs. It worked! I hung there triumpantly and began to flail my arms and legs freely. It was exhilarating to hang high up and suspended in the air. Suddenly, the old belt broke at the worn-out notch. Slap slap slap slap slap... THUD! The slaps were branches hitting me in the back on the way down followed by a brief pause and then, "THUD", the ground.

I laid there for a long time looking up at the tree which had betrayed me. Or was it the belt? Or had it just been a stupid idea? I was in so much pain I couldn't even groan. 15 minutes passed by. Finally, I got up and hoped my kidneys were still intact. Luckily, the branches did sort of break my fall. All told my trip down was probably about 20-30 feet.

Believe it or not, I kind of miss adventures like this. Nowadays, the only way I could get hurt is by carpal tunnel syndrome or wrecking my car during my commute to work. This is not as exciting as falling out of a tree. However, I did mention earlier that marriage is an adventure and recently I added parenthood to that too. Perhaps, many more interesting stories will come about. The years will tell.

The day I almost died

2005-09-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

When I was 16 through 18 I was dating a girl who lived on a farm. Her dad had three daughters and no sons so he ran the small farm practically by himself. However, he employed a farm hand from time to time. So once he asked me if I wanted to work on the farm and I thought it would be a great way to earn his daughter and a little extra money too.

I worked on the farm every summer, winter, and spring break and I loved it! In fact, my working relationship with him was better and lasted longer than my relationship with his daughter but that is a story for another time. Anyways, the Farmer would always have some new task for me each day. It was quite an adventure. He would ask me something like, "Have you ever driven a stick shift before?" and I would say "no" and he would say, "Ok, it's not that hard. You just push this on the left and shift over here on the right. You can see the gears by the drawing on top of the ball. Now deliver this fruit to the store in Waco." And then off I would go, trying to learn how to drive stickshift without wrecking the truck or spilling the watermelons and canteloupes stacked in the back.

He taught me how to drive a tractor the same way. I think that there was so much work to do that he thought on-the-job training was the best.

So one time it was pecan season and me and another farmhand named Jarrel had to move two tractors from a field to another one 20 miles across town. These tractors were your typical red tractor--the ones that a little kid would draw with big tires in the back and little skinny wheels in the front. Both these tractors were pulling pecan harvesters behind them. Pecan harvesters are trailers that have a conveyor belt of rubber fingers on the bottom that snatches up everything off the ground such as rocks, sticks, leaves and pecans. Then it grinds up everything that isn't pecan shaped and blows it out the side like a mower while the pecans roll down into a hopper. Essentially, you would drag these things behind a tractor underneath a pecan tree and it picks up all the pecans. They weighed just as much as a tractor so if you wanted to stop you had to start braking early and lowering the throttle and eventially you would roll to a stop. Even without a trailer, tractor brakes are something of a joke--a lever to push to make you feel like you are doing something.

The farmer gave me and Jarrel instructions: Take the following backroads to the field 20 miles away. No racing, no horseplay, put some space between you and, Barry, you follow Jarrel. I'm
going ahead in the truck and I will meet you in a couple of hours. Then the Farmer drove off. Jarrel immediately challenged me to a race.

Jarrel was a country boy to the core. He lived just down the road from the farmer and he had a bit of a wild side due to drinking. After Jarrel spent time in jail for drunk driving no one would give him a job. The Farmer felt sorry for him since he had always been a wonderful neighbor and he gave Jarrel some work on his farm. So when I saw a bit of a wild gleam in Jarrel's eye I emphatically stressed that I would not race him.

So off we go. The trip was pretty uneventful for the first 19 miles. Those of you who have ever driven behind a tractor on a major road know that the top speed is about 20mph. Right before we reached our destination we were going down a narrow dirt road. There was a large hill we had to go up and then down and then up and over a little hill and then we were there. The Farmer had warned us about the big hill (to get enough momentum to go up it).

I sped the tractor up as fast as I could and then started climbing the big hill. I reached the top and I decided to downshift the tractor to a lower gear so that the tractor would go at a measured pace down the hill.

However, by the time I put the tractor in neutral and tried to shift to a lower gear, I had already crested the hill and was on the way down. I began to gain a little momentum and I was going too fast to put it in a lower gear. Then I panicked and tried to grind the tractor back into high gear but it was too late for that too. Suddenly, I was still in neutral on a tractor that took off like a bobsled!

Down the hill I flew at an unprecedented speed. I was going so fast that the tractor was bouncing, and skimming down the road. The skinny front wheels were rattling. The steering wheel was shaking in my hands. I knew that if I applied the brakes or turned the wheel ever so slightly I would throw the tractor into a log roll that would end up where I would be thrown and crushed like so much goo under heavy machinery. However, I had to make a decision quick because I was fastly approaching Jarrel on his tractor and was about to slam into the back of it like a train.

"JARREL! JARREL!" I yelled, hoping to get his attention and get him to swerve off the road out of my way. However, I forgot that we were both on loud tractors so he kept on poking along.

There was a narrow gap on the left side of the road between his tractor and the ditch. At the last impossible second angels guided my hands to turn the wheel 2 degrees and I threaded the needle flying past him on the left. As I was passing him he looked over at me with a face I can only describe as reverence. Or perhaps utter disbelief.

I shot halfway up the next hill and when I managed to jam the tractor into high gear it lurched and immediately slowed down. "I'm going to live!" I thought, whereas seconds before I was thinking, "this is it, this is how I die."

I crested the second hill and saw the Farmer waiting at the gate to the field. He had an angry look when he saw me first instead of Jarrel. I pulled into the field and jumped off the tractor still rabbit scared and the farmer said, "It always means trouble when you arrive in a different order than when you left." Before I could explain, Jarrel jumped down and was whooping and hollering about how I made a last minute gutsy move to beat him in a race.

All I can say is that Jesus saved my life that day, and I don't mean in any eternal sense, but a real and physical sense. He still takes care of fools. I'm living proof.

What happened one night

2005-09-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I explained a little about how there was nothing to do my hometown of Gatesville. This just sets the stage for all sorts of things to get into when you're a kid and you're bored. For example:

I went to a birthday party when I was in 8th grade one night. None of us kids could drive but we were too old to want to have our parents around so everybody got dropped off at the birthday girl's house. Her parents were gone too.

It was a pretty low turnout. I think there were only 8 of us in all with half girls and half boys. We were all friends though, because the town only had one school system and unless you failed a grade you saw the same kids year after year.

After standing around in her garage drinking punch off a card table and listening to music on a cassette player we decided en masse to blow the joint and go wandering around the neighborhood. No sooner than we had gotten to the end of the block when a truck with highschool guys pulls up right beside us and someone yells something from the window at us.

Then one of the girls in our group started shouting choice words back at them. What did the guys say? Memory fails me. Perhaps they called us "grooders" which was an insulting term we used in our hometown for underclassmen (kind of like "n00b"). Maybe they yelled out something about one of the girl's physical attributes. Whatever the case the conversation got ugly real fast with threats and cut-downs increasing from both sides.

Finally, C.W., one of the 8th grade boys, picked the girl up who was yelling and carried her on his shoulder away from the truck with her still kicking and screaming. Luckily, the highschoolers peeled out in their truck and the skirmish was over. C.W. wisely knew that the fight that the girls had started would probably end with us 8th grade boys taking a whooping from some rednecks in a truck.

Of course, this incident was not enough to deter us from continuing to wander the neighborhood. Soon we found a construction site with a 6 foot tall chainlink fence around it and a sign that said "Keep Out". So naturally we all clambered over the fence. I knew this was wrong and a bad idea but all self-control was gone since I was with peers and there was pressure. Yes, Mom, I would jump off a bridge if everyone else was doing it.

To our delight there were huge mounds of fine dirt at the construction site. They were kind of like sand dunes that you would see in a desert movie and they were about 15 feet high. All the guys clambered up them as well. The girls were too ladylike to get dirty by climbing them (although they had just climbed over a 6 foot fence) and they watched us from the ground. Us guys climbed to the top of the mounds where the rain had packed down the dirt (although the sides were crumbling and pretty tough to scale). Once on top we did what any 8th grade boy would do to impress a girl--we immediately began jumping off and landing knee deep in a pile of dirt 15 feet below. It was pretty scary but amazingly fun. You would think we were riding a slide at a waterpark because as soon as we would land at the bottom we would run around and climb up the side to get to the top again.

By this time the girls were bored and chatting to themselves when suddenly, Carl shouted from the top of the mound, "Hey, look everybody!" Carl then took a short run to the edge and did sort of an awkward trip at the end. It was clear that he was attempting a flip but he didn't make it all the way over and he landed 15 feet below flat on his back with a sickening thud.

"CARL!!!" one of the girls shrieked, which was just as disturbing. He laid so still I knew he was dead. In the next agonizing seconds we stood there, each on the edge of bolting. Then, a truly pathetic sound came from Carl. "oooooooooh" he said, and my heart started beating again. He just had the breath knocked out of him. We helped him up and slung his arms across our shoulders. Then we somehow managed to get our fallen comrade over the fence and we headed back to the house.

Usually, at this point I mention some kind of moral to the story. However, the only point I can think of is that we were stupid kids. Or perhaps that is redundant. Perhaps all kids lack good decision making skills. However, I knew at several times during that night that things were a bad idea, but then I chose to ignore my conscience.

Accent in the Oasis

2005-09-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I told you about moving into my dorm during my freshman year at UT in Austin. Well, it didn't take long for me to figure out that Austin was different than my podunk town of Gatesville.

For one thing as I was introducing myself to other college students they would smile as I was talking and I could tell they weren't really listening to what I was saying and then they would ask where I was from. Then say something like, "you sound like you're from the country." or "you have a strong, Texas accent."

"Where are you from?" I would ask. And 95% of the time they would mention some suburb of Dallas or Houston or maybe just El Paso. Why they didn't have a "Texas accent" either I didn't know, but something was obviously different. One guy asked me, "Where are you from--Georgia?" "I'm from TEXAS!", I retorted. I didn't even know what a Georgian accent sounded like since I had hardly ever been outside the state. So many people said things like this that I began to wonder if Dallas was below the Mason-Dixon line.

Apparently, I was truly a novelty. At a big state college like UT you have mostly students from large urban areas and big schools. I had to face the fact that most hicks like me would graduate high school and then go to a Jr. college if any college at all or a trade school and then get married and start their life in a small town while urban kids were still pursuing their doctorate or medical school and marriage was still years away. So there was a difference in culture. I am not sure which is better. I think it's great to pursue higher education but I also think it is good to marry early if you find the right person (I got married a month before I turned 22). Also, I know lots of people that work blue collar jobs that are not only good at it but they enjoy it.

Another thing about Austin is that it is an Oasis of "not-Texas" in the middle of Texas. Most of Texas is staunch Republican, conservative, traditional, rural. In contrast, "Keep Austin Weird" is a local motto and many would proudly wear the label Vegan, Bleeding-Heart Liberal, homosexual, etc. Also, Austin's main industry is hi-tech (Dell, IBM, Nvidia, Intel, National Instruments, Samsung, etc) whereas when you drive outside of the city in any direction you will see cattle on the side of the road. Many people move from California or Colorado or all over Texas to Austin just because it is a "cool" place to live ("cool" is in quotes to show that I don't mean temperature-wise). In fact, I have lived here for about 8 years now and it is rare to meet someone who actually grew up in Austin. Most people moved here like me. They will say, "Yeah, I'm an Austinite." "REALLY?", I say. "Well, I've lived here for 15 years after moving from LA..."

I can't tell you how frustrating, embarrassing, and painful it was for people to point out my accent. I mean, no one had ever pointed it out before when I lived in Gatesville. But then I realized that everybody there sounded pretty similar to me. The funny thing is when I would meet other students with a "Texas accent" I would be immediately put at ease. As if to say, "finally, I can be myself and don't have to worry about how I talk". I could usually count on all the students from the Piney woods area of East Texas. They had a twang and a drawl that was music to my ears. I also enjoyed speaking to those who spoke what would be political correct to call Ebonics. They made me feel at ease to be myself as well.

By the end of college I had lost most of my accent. At least all of the rough edges were smoothed off through negative reinforcement from frustrating conversations. It was so gradual that I didn't realize it at the time until I saw an old home video and heard myself talking. Also, when I would go home to see my parents I noticed that the town folk sounded markedly different from my professors and classmates.

I wonder if I will ever get my accent back. I hear it slip out sometimes when I am angry or if I am talking to family. In some ways I feel like a sell-out and that I am not true to my roots since I lost it. Whatever the case may be, I vow to be kind to strangers who are new to a place and to not point out their accent.

Austin or Bust

2005-09-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, (see below) I mentioned that I left my small town for Austin when I went to college in the fall of '97. One hot day in August me and my roommate, Tommy, who was a highschool friend, packed up our vehicles and drove the 100 mile trip to Austin.

I was really green and naive. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it is bad to be naive but I didn't even know how to get to Austin even though it was fairly close, the capital of the state, and on a major highway. I didn't really even know which direction it was either. I just followed my buddy Tommy in my truck the whole way there.

We were directed into a parking lot on UT campus since it was moving day and what seemed like all 50,000 students were there with their mom, dad, siblings, and pets moving into the dorms. My own parents would have gladly helped me move in but I insisted that I could handle it on my own. So did Tommy. I think we were both itching to get out on our own and experience the freedom that so many college movies promised us. "Yes! I can finally do what I want." I thought, although in reality I could have before.

Well, UT has a serious parking problem even when people are not moving into the dorms. So we were waved into parking spots that were about 1/2 mile from the dorm that we would be staying in. As we started walking with a few bags towards the dorm it might as well have been 5 miles away. The sun was baking us and you could almost feel the heat from the concrete through your shoes. Also, UT is several square miles of hills that are paved over with buildings so the gentle grade of the hills would sap away any remaining energy the heat hadn't gotten.

We checked into the dorm and were given a key and a tote bag of promotional stuff. It seemed that every business in town wanted a piece of our money. After we threw our bags in our 8 x 8 dorm room we realized that it would be a couple of more trips to our vehicles before everything would be moved in. So we got the bright idea of checking out some moving dollies that the dorms had available.

Now, using a dolly is a good idea. I mean if you placed a box on a skateboard and rolled it then it would be a lot easier than carrying the box. However, these things were smooth, slick square boards with 4 shopping cart wheels--only the wheels were smaller and one of the wheels would make a vibrating, squeaking sound so loud that you could not have even a yelling conversation with a person 2 feet from you. I know, because I would say something to Tommy like, "Which way?" and he would yell, "What?" and the board would have to grind to a halt before we could continue talking. You would pull the board by a loop of nylon string that I swear was specially woven to cut into you hand.

So we walked a half mile to our vehicles and loaded these boards down with boxes and stuff. I had a guitar in a case on my back, two bags in my left hand and my right hand pulling a dolly. Tommy put everything on his dolly so it was stacked pretty high. Then we began to trudge toward the dorm still in good spirits because, hey, we were college students now.

There is a steep hill right behind the dorm. We waited at the corner of an intersection until it was clear to cross the street and continue up the hill. In the middle of the street I heard all of Tommy's boxes come sliding off his board. I looked back and sure enough there they were making a successful blockade of the road. Cars continued to drive by through the clear side. I began to laugh hysterically while Tommy was cussing and stooping to pick up boxes. I never felt so helpless in my life. My hands were absolutely full and I was tired and the cord was cutting me and my own dolly was trying to roll backwards. Already I felt like such an out-of-place rube in a big city.

Well, we did manage to get all that stuff into the dorm and we promptly returned the dollys and just pack-muled the rest of the stuff to our room (we were the mules). I remember Tommy bear-hugging his computer tower and carrying it from the car and collapsing in the middle of our dorm room floor.

A few weeks later we found out by talking to other people that temporary parking was available right by the dorm during move-in.

Alas, sometimes you are alone because of circumstance and sometimes because of your own choosing, but either way it is tough being alone. Many times I should not be so self-reliant or independent.

Growing up in Gatesville TX

2005-09-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

So I grew up in a small town called Gatesville. The people there have hearts of gold but by golly nothing ever really happens. I mean, us kids had to drive 30 miles to Waco in order to go bowling or watch a movie or do anything remotely interesting. So most of my anecdotes happen in that setting when me and my friends were just killing time trying to figure out what to do in a small town. Heck, for all I know kids in Houston or NYC are just as restless but somehow I think not.

I used to ride with some of my buddies in their trucks up and down Main St. We would come to a little restaurant called Grants and turn around in the parking lot and go West down Main St. Then we would come to the Square and circle the courthouse then go East on Main St. About 5 minutes later we would be back at Grants and turn around and go West again.

We would do this about 20 times I think. And this was a night of entertainment. If you were really lucky you would see other highschool friends doing this and you would wave them down or try to beat them off the line at the stoplight or pull over and chat from your windows in some parking lot until a policeman rolled up and flashed his lights to say "No loitering!".

Some of the people doing this liked to add alcohol (or "alki-hol" is probably how we said it). This always made for interesting conversation whenever a truck would pull up next to you with their window down and someone would yell something unintelligible at you. "Who's that?" we'd say. "Aw, that's just Kelly and I think he's drunk."

I never drank. Not that I was better than anyone else (though some may have thought I was a goody-goody) but I was scared that I would get caught. I don't believe there is anything wrong with consuming alcohol. Of course, if I would have drank it then I would have been underage and breaking the law. Also, I do believe it is morally wrong to get drunk but I'm getting off topic here. So at the time I also felt that I would be sinning by drinking.

As fun as it was to drive up and down "the Drag" as we called it, it was also a little discomforting. I mean, we were not just looking for fun we were also looking for meaning in life. Was it found in spending time with friends, or agitating the police, or drinking? The scary thing that I realized at the time were there were not just high schoolers cruising the Drag but there were people in there 20s and 30s that were still doing it which seemed ancient to me at the time (I am 27 now). There they were still driving up and down and up and down slowing down only to give an inebriated shout at highschoolers who were scared of them. It made me wonder if I would ever leave the town.

Well, I did leave the town when I went to college at UT in Austin. I sure do miss my friends from Gatesville. However, I regret a lot of the stupid things I did there.

There's more stories to come about some of my mistakes and what happened after I left Gatesville. Tune in next time for more anecdotes from a hick.

2005-09-12T20:11:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. I am figuring out how to send pictures.

2005-09-12T19:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo of me and my daughter, Abigail Luann, who is currently 4 months.

My first blog, ta-dah!

2005-09-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome, one and all to my blog. You will get endless stories (some of which have a point) and other odd snippets from my noodle.