Life's choices

I have my first appointment today with a local church to discuss how Storm Guides can help them - I'm nervous, excited, and scared to death.  It is one of the largest churches in Denver, and I'll be meeting with the Missions Pastor.  I've felt for some time that I just need to get a foot in the door somewhere, and get some training seminars under my belt before word of mouth will begin working for me.  It's not what you know, but who you know - boy, have I found that to be the case.

We're getting more and more settled in our new home every day.  I spent the whole morning on Saturday installing a new garage door opener, as the two existing openers are ancient and worn out.  Now that I've done it the hard way on the first installation, I'm hoping the second one will be easier.  Kind of like most lessons in life - you have to learn something the hard way at least once before you gain some wisdom from the experience.  I remember a story someone once told me: 

      "After a long hard climb up the mountain, the spiritual seekers finally found themselves in front of the great teacher.  Bowing deeply, they asked the question burning inside them for so long: How do we become wise?  There was a long pause until the teacher emerged from meditation.  Finally the reply came, “Good choices.”  “But teacher, how do we make good choices?”  “From experience,” responded the wise one.“And how do we get experience?”  “Bad choices,” smiled the teacher."

Life is full of choices, and full of risks.  Some people are more willing to take risks than others, which sets some leaders apart.  Leadership is risky, and failure is part of life.  Our church here in Conifer is trying to start a new restaurant and youth center, and we're struggling almost daily with issues related to inspections, funding, interpersonal strife, etc.  I love Mike's attitude that failure is a great teacher, and if we're afraid to fail we'll never attempt anything in life.  This move to Conifer and our attempt to start a new company are the most frightening decisions we've ever made, and yet as I look back on the past five months since we moved back to the States, I am amazed by all that has transpired.  We sold our home in France and we're now settled in our own home on 6.5 acres of land; our girls are happy in their new schools with a whole group of new friends; we have a new church and a whole new "family" who've been instrumental in our adjustment here, and we're in the final stages of establishing a new company.  All in five months.  Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed or uncertain for the future, it's good to pause and take a look back to see how far we've come.  It puts everything into perspective.

God has a way of changing our plans

     The last few days have been interesting.  We worked hard to finish painting and furnishing our new guest room for our first "official" guest - Eliane, who we worked with for all ten years we were in France.  This was to be Eliane's first trip to America as an adult, and we were so much looking forward to her spending 8 days with us in our "mountain hideaway".  The day before she was to come we got the most snow yet - about 15 inches in one night.  The roads in our neighborhood are always cleared, but the problem is our 200 yard driveway.  We can usually push through the thick snow in the truck, if it's too deep for me to plow with the four-wheeler.  Anyway, we couldn't wait for her to come.

     The day before her flight, her eldest son Sebastien had surgery and everything seemed to go well.  Eliane left as planned, but after she was already in the air we got a call from France to tell us that
there had been some complications; Sebastien had been put into a medically induced coma to help his

 body to fight off a very serious lung infection.  The doctors were encouraging the family to prepare themselves for the worst.  You can imagine having to break this news to Eliane as soon as she arrived!  We ended up spending only one day together, before we put her on another flight back home to be with her son and daughter-in-law.  When we asked her what she would like to do in the short time she had, her reply was, "Go to a shopping mall, a supermarket and shoot Jim's gun!"  Well, we hit (no pun intended) two out of three, which ain't bad.  She doesn't think she'll be "shooting" for a new job as Calamity Jane, but she enjoyed the experience nonetheless.  We're praying for a miracle healing for Sebastien.
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 Saturday morning.  It snowed again all night last night.  We still enjoy it!  Everyone predicts that we'll start to moan every time it snows; maybe, but for now we're enjoying the novelty, and I still have fun driving the four-wheeler.  Karine went to watch a movie at a friend's house last night with a group of friends, and when the parents saw how much it was snowing they decided to keep them all overnight, rather than have them drive in the snow.  Of course, Karine wasn't complaining!

I spoke to Eliane this morning and she arrived home safely and was about to go visit Sebastien.  He is still in the coma, although the doctors have identified the specific bacteria that is causing the infection.  The problem is that he still can't breath on his own, so they have to keep him on a respirator in a state of coma.  What an ordeal for Eliane and the whole family.

Daphne and I spent some time praying this morning, because we both identified that we've been under spiritual attack lately.  I do not use that term lightly, because the enemy gets blamed for a lot that has nothing to do with him (and everything to do with our own heart condition).  However, Daphne has felt like she's under oppression a great deal, and I am continually feeling blocked in my efforts to make any progress on preparing the documents I'll need to register as a non-profit corporation.  I know I have the training and experience to be of significant help to churches and mission groups, but I've never felt as fearful or incompetent as I do now.  Daph and I agreed with each other that fear, oppression and discouragement are not the tools the Lord uses to communicate His heart - so it's coming from down below.  Strange how long it takes us to finally identify the source of our feelings: I guess that's part of the enemy's plan, to keep us looking in the wrong places.

Mike, the Pastor of The Journey Church we're attending, continues to challenge me to take on leadership in the church.  He doesn't want to push me, and he's very aware of the burnout we've come through in the past year - so he just keeps gently stating his desires.  I guess our 20+ years of experience in ministry (in the good and the bad) makes us a safe source of help and encouragement for him.  He's looking for a friend he can turn to, lean on, and be "real" with - and that is something that draws my heart towards him.  Don't know how this is all going to work out (between the church and building Storm Guides) - I guess we'll just have to rest in God's leadership day by day. 

I've finally settled on a logo design for Storm Guides.  I wanted it to be something simple, that can be applied equally to business cards and stationary, as well as on a hat or T-shirt.  Here it is:

Here we go again

We're bracing for the second winter storm warning in the past week.  Between today and tomorrow, we should get another 12-16 inches of snow. This picture is of our driveway the morning after the last snow; I ended up plowing the driveway three times just to stay ahead of the snowfall - complete in my red ski suit, goggles and a cowboy hat.  I wish I had a picture of myself!  Our friend Eliane is due to arrive from France tomorrow night, just after the storm warning is lifted.  I hope the airport will remain open here in Denver.

The work on the house is slowing down now; I could easily spend 10 hours a day for another week working on renovations, but life must go on.  From this point on we'll have to work on the rest over the weekends.  I am trying hard to get my business website up and running this week, as well as finishing all the paperwork to set up Storm Guides as a non-profit organization.  I made several phone calls to local churches and mission agencies yesterday, just trying to get my foot in the door.  I'm learning that just because you leave a phone message doesn't mean you'll ever get a return call.  I find this to be a strange part of American culture, that we don't reply to phone calls or emails.  How does anyone do business here?

I've been reading an interesting book called "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality".  The main idea of the book is that it is impossible to be truly mature spiritually, while at the same time remaining emotionally immature.  The two go hand-in-hand.  As we "grow up" spiritually we have to experience a corresponding emotional development.  Many Christians consider themselves to be deeply spiritual, while at the same time being full of bitterness, unforgiveness and anger.  It just doesn't make sense.  One of the principles that I really appreciate in the book is that of "Contemplative Spirituality" - meaning that we learn the blessings of slowing down enough in life to hear the Lord, and to enjoy Him in the midst of life's busyness.  Here is what he says about our pace of life:
     "Another way to discover how much we need to slow down relates to how attentive we are to God during our activity.  God speaks to each one of us every day - through Scripture, creation, dreams, silence, traffic jams, boring workdays, interruptions, conflicts, job losses, relationship breakdowns, successes, failures, and betrayals.  Jesus described this as his "sowing of seeds." Our problem is that many of these seeds are "snatched away immediately" or die prematurely due to external pressures or our absorption with other interests and concerns.  Most of these seeds are lost because we do not pay attention.  When I have sufficient "slowing-down time" alone, I find that my activity is marked by a deep, loving communion with God.  Then Christ's life, more often than not, flows through me to others."

     I believe that one of my greatest challenges, and weaknesses, is the lack of this "slowing-down time" during the week - time to rest, to listen, to reflect on the challenges that life is throwing my way.  This was a huge part of my own burnout, and one of the issues I continually tried to bring to the leadership table while I was in NAMESTAN.  And yet I can be so obsessive-compulsive about getting stuff done that I lose all perspective on life and the value of contemplation.  Maybe that's why I don't sleep well at night...??  There must be a way to accomplish all the necessary details of life, while still maintaining a healthy dose of rest, joy and contemplation. 

Too sore to move

It started snowing at around 2 am this morning; it is now 5:30 in the afternoon and it hasn't stopped - I guess there's about a foot of snow out there right now.  My brother John and his family stopped by for lunch on their way home from a ski trip... our first out of town guests!  Sure is nice to look out of the window at all that snow, and be in a nice, warm house.  This picture is the view outside of our basement door.


I am worn out!  We've been working almost non-stop for the past 9 days to get our house "in order", and we're almost there.  My nephew William Myers flew over from Birmingham, Alabama the day before we closed on the sale to help us with the renovations - and it's hard to believe what we've been able to accomplish in such a short time.  We've also had a bunch of guys from our church who gave a huge amount of time over three or four days to help us move, and one of them (who has experience in construction) told me that he's never seen anyone change so much on a home before they actually moved in - or right after they move in.  Just to give you an idea, in the past week we have:
1. Converted the laundry room into a new guest room
2. Built a new laundry room where the wet bar used to be
3. Carpeted the entire downstairs - a living room, and two bedrooms.
4. Removed the fake wood siding downstairs and replaced it with real aspen-wood paneling
5. Painted the kitchen, dining room, living room and Nicole's bedroom upstairs
6. Covered the red brick fireplace in the upstairs living room with new stone

All this probably doesn't seem like much unless you can see it for yourself - so here are some pictures: The picture to the right is how the bar and paneling used to look, and the picture below it is how it looks now.  The next picture is what the fireplace used to look like, and then how it looks now with the new stone facing. The last picture is how the basement looks with the new aspen paneling.  We are soooo grateful for the incredible church and friends God has given us since we moved here to Conifer.  It's hard to imagine what we felt like back in August as we were driving around this area, contemplating this move - and we didn't know a soul up here.  And now we're surrounded by friends who are willing to jump in and get their hands dirty (and their muscles tired) helping us to move into a new home.  God is so good to us.

"Talk to Me"

I'm in Norman, Oklahoma where I just finished the first two (of three) phases of training to become certified as a Hostage Negotiator with the International Association of Hostage Negotiators.  Our trainer was a retired NYPD cop and hostage negotiator named Dominick;  If I had a dollar for every time he used the word F____ or Sh___, I could retire now and live my life out on some island in the Bahamas.  At the end of the class this morning Dom asked me if I'd been offended by his language (he knew I work with churches and missionaries).  My answer was, "Dom, you are who you are.  It's no big deal".  The woman sitting next to me said, "Oo, way to answer without answering!" -- maybe I learned something this week after all!

There were 23 trainees, and I was the only one who was not a police detective or with military intelligence.  Several of the guys work here in Oklahoma with Native American Tribal Police forces (something I'd never heard of); apparently, each tribe has their own, internal police force that handles security within the tribal area.  The place where we met all week is called the Absentee Shawnee Tribe Resource Center... absentee Shawnee tribe??  Turns out that there are three or four different clans of the Shawnee tribe that split up, and each became their own "tribe".  Huh, sounds kind of like Muslims.  I will finish the certification process next month in Indianapolis, IN.  There are several more certifications I intend to do over the next few months - in Emergency Management, Risk Assessment etc.  I have quite a bit of experience - but it would help me to have some official certifications to back up the experience.

It has become clear that the original plan that I would work with Crisis Consulting International will not be possible - for a number of reasons.  I'm still hoping that I can partner with CCI down the road, as they have a great deal of experience in this field and I would love to learn from them.  In the meantime, I've begun working with my board members on setting up our own non-profit crisis management consulting organization.  I've mentioned before that I've chosen the name Storm Guides, and now begins the work of setting up a business plan and then registering the new organization.  The greatest challenge I face right now is just getting my foot in the door with a large church; once I can actually start doing training and consulting, I know that things will grow by word of mouth.  I'm hoping to have a rudimentary website up and running soon as a means of marketing Storm Guides and what I can offer.