Baptism

Our family was priviledged to be a part of our son-in-law's baptism yesterday. It always makes me feel so good to see another person say "YES" to Jesus and want to be baptized. Having my son-in-law say it makes it even more special.

In the biblical days, there were pools where people would go to wash and make themselves "clean" if they came in contact with anything that was ceremonially unclean. They went into the water defiled, and came out clean. That's the way I see baptism. We accept the water because we know we need cleansing and forgiveness. When we receive the water, we come out clean and pure. What a great gift that God has given us!!

After his baptism, he and Amanda joined the church (First UMC in Manhattan). My hope and prayer is that God will use them for service in their new church home, and they will continue to grow in God's love and grace.

De Colores

Hard Drive Crash

We experienced a hard drive crash of our main computer system here at the bank I work at. It is a very helpless feeling when the system shuts completely down, because it renders you totally incapable of helping customers with any type of banking transaction. It is funny how we have become so used to computers for our daily work and living. We take them for granted, always assuming that when you hit the power button to turn them on, they will fire up and let you do what you do every day. When it doesn't happen, we don't know what to do!!

Don't we kind of take our Chrisianity the same way? We wake up each morning assuming life will be pretty much the same as the previous day. God is conveniently stored away in the back of our minds, and life is good. All of a sudden, when our life "crashes" we throw up our hands and wonder what in the world happened, and what in the world are we going to do? If we could only learn to live with the same faith in our God every day, whether it is good or bad, we would be so much better off. If Christ had the power to conquer death and rise from it, surely He has the power to help us when we have our trials and problems in life!! Trust in God, rely on His goodness and grace every day, whether it is a good day or a bad one.

I know I've mentioned it before, but I try and remember to say this prayer to start each day. "Lord, you are in charge of everything that is going to happen to me today, both good and bad, positive or negative. Help me to be thankful for everything, for I know that you are with me."

I know that eventually our computer system will be fixed, and we will go on again. I also know that life's problems are only temporary, and I will get through them. My hope is that you will maintain that same faith and trust in God on the bad days as well as the good. God remains steadfastly faithful to us, let us do the same for Him!!

De Colores

Spring Break

Our family took a trip to Phoenix Arizona this past week to escape the Kansas winter. This was Brian's first trip on a big airliner, and he seemed to enjoy it. We spent two days watching some MLB spring training games. Got to see some big name players like Derrick Lee and Alfonso Soriano from the Cubs.

Erin and Brian had a good time watching them, although they were disappointed that none of the players made themselves very accessible for autographs. They played the KC Royals, and it was a very good game. Unfortunately, the Royals lost the game in the bottom of the ninth.

On Wednesday, we watched the Okland A's play the Anaheim Angels. We got to see Vlad Guerrero hit a grand slam home run.

After the game, we took a side trip up into the Superstition Mountains. It was a very interesting drive, as we were used to seeing lots of trees and snow when we have driven in the mountains of Colorado. Here in Arizona, they have forests, but they are forests of Saguaro cactuses.

Up in the mountains, we came across a hokey little saloon, who's walls were plastered full of $1 bills that were signed by the thousands of tourists who have visited the place over the years. Quite interesting!!

All in all, we had a great trip. It felt sooo good to get away from the cold and especially the wind for a few days!! As I am sitting here typing this, the wind is blowing a constant 20-30 mph. Oh well, at least I have the memories....

De Colores

St. Paddy's Day Run & More

Yesterday, our family went to Manhattan to help our oldest daughter Amanda celebrate her birthday. While we were there, I participated in a St. Patrick's Day 2 mile run. Amanda's husband Chad and his dad and step mom also ran. (Note the ambulance behind us. Gotta love it!!)

Besides us, about 300 - 400 others also line up at the start line. It was supposed to be a "fun run", but Chad and his family are really competitive, so of course it turned into a competition. At the sound of the gun, we were off. I had no idea how fast I was running, I only knew that I needed to keep up, or get overrun by the mob!! I finished the 2 mile course in 16 minutes 11 seconds. A personal record for me!! I took 5th place in my age category (45-49). I also smoked Chad and his parents. By winning the first ever "family" competition, I got to take home the coveted winner's medal!!!!

Gee, I hope someone else wins it next year!!

Lori and I are packing up Erin and Brian and taking them to Phoenix for a few days this week for spring break. We are going to take in a couple of days worth of MLB spring training ball games. I can't wait to bask in sunshine and 70-80 degree temperatures for a few days!! Should be fun!! I'll post a few pictures of our travels when we get back.

Have a good spring break!!

De Colores

Livestrong

In this world of high stress, it sometimes seems impossible to be able to be content and at peace with our lives. Financial pressures, work related pressures, family pressures, etc. can really take a toll on our ability to feel at peace.

Several years ago, after being downsized out of a job that I had, I felt pressure like I had never felt in my life. How could I be such a failure? How was I going to provide for my family? Thought after chilling thought poured through my mind, building up pressure like a kettle.

One day while we were in a Dick's Sporting Goods store, I noticed the little yellow wrist bands that the Lance Armstrong Foundation puts out through Nike for cancer awareness. On the wrist band is a simple word "Livestrong". The moment I saw them, I felt God was speaking to me saying "You don't need to worry about your situation, I'll take care of you. Just "livestrong" for me." Immediately, I felt relief from the stress and pressure of life. I knew that God would take care of me.

I wear one these wrist bands virtually every day to remind me that God is in control. Yes, I still have stress, yes I still feel pressures in life, but I know that I can feel contentment in my life because of God's promises. Paul says in Phillipians 4:12-13 "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."

Got stress? Give it to God and trust Him. He won't let you down. LIVESTRONG!!

De Colores

Bugs

What's up with all the bugs? I'm not talking about the ones that are creepy crawly, I'm talking about the ones that make us sick. People are dropping like flies (no pun intended) with various ailments. There is the garden variety stomach thing where you don't know whether to kneel beside or sit on the pot (I had that one last week), there is another one where you get a headache and fever and generally feel lousy. Also, there is the one where you get a terrible head cold and moves into your chest and feel like you have pneumonia. Strep throat is everywhere.

I am so ready to have warm weather where we can open windows and clear out the air!

Speaking of warm weather, Lori and I along with Erin and Brian are heading to Phoenix next week for spring break. We're going to catch several MLB spring training games. We're looking forward to 80 degree weather!! WOOHOO!!

Stay healthy!!

De Colores

Basketball Letter

Brian learned this week that he got enough varsity minutes in this past basketball season to letter. He was pleasantly surprised to hear that he played enough to get a letter (although I'm sure he was hoping all along that he would). He was one of 3 sophomores who played on the varsity this past season, and they are looking forward to next year and improving on their disappointing record.

They started baseball season this week, and are out at the ball field in heavy sweats, stocking caps, and whatever else they can find to put on to stay warm. Come on spring!!

De Colores

Happy Noah Day!

Today, March 4 is "Noah Day". What, you've never heard of it before? In the bible, today was the day that Noah opened the doors of the ark and told all the animals to "MARCH FORTH"!!

In Genesis 8, it says 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

Noah and the animals obeyed God's command to march forth from the ark. Happy Noah Day. I hope you have the boldness to "March Forth" for God today.

De Colores

Close, But Not Quite

The Cinderella story run of the MHS girls game to a close Saturday night, when they were defeated in the sub-state final against Southeast Saline. They were just a couple steps faster, and hit their shots, while our girls looked a little tight, and had too many turn overs and missed shots. Of sourse there were lots of tears, as they didn't quite make it to State, but they represented MHS well, battling all the way to the end.

It was a great run for the young Lady Warriors, as they finished the season with a winning record (the first one for the girls in many, many years). They will return 5 sophomores and a junior who saw a lot of playing time this year, so it should be exciting to watch them next year.

Congratulations Lady Warriors!!

De Colores

MHS Girls Still Going!

The MHS girls basketball team extended their season last night with a sub-state semi-final victory over Remington. The final score was 62 - 52. The girls played very well as a team, defeating the #1 seeded team with a stifling full court press, great ball movement, and lights out shooting.

They play for the sub-state championship and the right to move on to State tonight. Great job girls, keep it up!!

GO WARRIORS!!

De Colores

"Leap" Of Faith

Today is Leap Day. I went out and googled it to find out exactly why we do this every 4 years. I could go into a long and detailed story why it is done, but basically it is just to keep our seasons in line with the with the sun while we travel around and around it. A true year is exactly 365.24219 days. The .24219 doesn't seem like it would make much of a difference, but over the course of centuries, this would get so screwed up, we'd be observing Easter on Jan 1!! So, every 4 years, we make an adjustment to the calendar, adding Feb. 29.

Happy birthday to all you Leap Year folks. According to the US census, there are approx. 200,000 people who have birthdays on Leap Year. Party til you drop, you Leap Year babies, you won't get to celebrate again for another 4 years!!

How about taking a "Leap Of Faith" today. Do something for God that you wouldn't normally do. Go visit someone that you haven't seen for a long time. Call your elderly grandma or grandpa in the nursing home. Take someone out for lunch and have a good visit. Be creative. You'll be glad you did.

Happy Leap Day. We'll visit about it again in 4 years!!

De Colores

MHS Girls Basketball

Congratulations to the MHS girls basketball team for winning their first round substate game last night! To make it even sweeter, they beat their rivals to the west (Hillsboro Trojans) by a score of 67-55. Many times during the game, you would see 3 or 4 sophomores on the court for the Lady Warriors, so the future looks bright.

Last night's game was a landmark. It was the last home varsity basketball game for Marion High School in the old "Marion Square Garden" (by the way, I came up with that name several years ago doing broadcasts on MCTV, and it is commonly used in the community). Our new gymnasium and indoor swimming pool is slated ot be completed by the first of June. The volleyball and basketball games will all be played in the new facility this fall. How exciting!!

Keep up the good work girls!! You showed the boys last night how to play as a team. Good luck Friday!!

De Colores

Me vs We

Well, the basketball season for MHS mercifully came to an end last night with a first round substate loss to Sedgwick. All season long, the Warriors had a hard time coming together as a team. They just never seemed to gel. They had some real individual talent and potential, but they never could put it all together.

I'm not a real fan of basketball, and certainly I'm no expert, but it looked to me like there were too many individuals on the court, and not enough teammates. It looked like they had the "me vs we" syndrome.

Unfortunately, we as adults to often fall victim to the same syndrome. Our society is trying it's best to create a generation of "me first" people. Get ahead, no matter what the cost. Look after numero uno. I deserve it.

Jesus was our best example of how to avoid this. In Matthew 16:24 he says "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Deny myself? Yeah, right!! After all, it's all about ME!! Yet that's exactly what he asks us to do. Think of others first.

In the Emmaus community, one of the phrases that is used a lot is "It's not about me, it's about Christ". If we could only carry this attitude with us each day, what a better world we would live in!!

De Colores

Friday!!

In the immortal words of Paul Harvey, "IT'S FRIDAY!!"

And in the immortal words of Forrest Gump, "AND THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THAT..."

Have a great weekend.

De Colores

MHS JV Basketball

Last night Brian played in what is probably (hopefully) his last JV basketball game for MHS. Unfortunately, they lost quite badly to Hesston. Not a good way to end the season. All in all, they had a respectable 10 wins 9 loss season. They were in virtually every game, and had a chance to win almost every one of the games they lost. They played quite a few teams with several Juniors on them.

Brian's highlight of the season came two games ago when he scored a career high 26 points against Wichita Collegiate! He gained a lot of valuable experience on JV this year, and combined with some limited action with the varsity, he is looking forward to the next couple of years playing varsity basketball for MHS. They will be playing the inaugural games in the brand new gym this next fall, so that's exciting.

With the cold wet winter we've been having, it's hard to imagine that baseball season is only a couple of weeks away!!

De Colores

Honor

Today is Valentine's Day!! It's a day that we men try to show our special gal how much we love her and appreciate her. Some of us do a pretty good job, and others, well, good luck to you at the end of the day!!

If there is one word that I can think of to sum up how we men should treat our wives, it's got to be "HONOR". Webster uses terms like "a showing of respect" and "one whose worth brings respect". A synonym for honor is "REVERENCE". It is defined as "profound respect mingled with love, devotion or awe". Wow, I couldn't sum it up any better. If I could just treat my wife with love, devotion and awe all the time, what an unbelievable marriage we would have.

Romans 12:10 says "Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other". Lori and try try to do this each and every day. We try to be sensitive to each other's physical, spiritual and emotional needs. I try to make her my priority in my life. We have found that if we honor each other as not only husband and wife, but also as individuals, our love for each other can't help but grow. What a wonderful revelation it was when we realized this! In a sense, each day becomes "Valentine's Day"!!

Happy Valentine's Day honey, I love you very much!!

Shatter Cane and Weeds

I got to talking with one of my farmer friends a couple of days ago, and we were reminiscing on the subject of "the good old days" when I was growing up on the farm. One of the things we were talking about was the practice of sending us young boys out to the milo and soybean fields to clean out the shatter cane and weeds. The shatter cane in the milo was easy to get rid of, as all you had to do was take a machete' or a knife and lop off the head of it before it filled out with grain. As long as the head was gone, the plant was rendered useless, and it no longer posed a threat to the milo crop.

Weeds in a soybean field however, where a whole different deal. Yes, you could chop the weed up into pieces, but the chances were pretty good that with a little rain, it would sprout back up from the ground and grow again. Too many weeds significantly lowered the yield of the bean crop. The only way to totally eradicate the weed was to pull it out, roots and all.

It got me to thinking about the "weeds" and "shatter cane" in my life. There are some things that I find easy to lop off and clean up in my life, but there are other things that I find I have to work really hard to eradicate. Things like jealousy, anger, envy, forgiveness, etc. These are the "weeds" in my life. If I just try and chop them up a little and then go on with my life, they seem to keep coming back and choke me out from being the kind of Christian that God wants me to be.

I always wondered what the useful value of all that time I spent chopping and pulling weeds in the field was, now I know. You never know where life's lessons will come from!!

De Colores

Lent

Today is the first day of Lent. It is 40 days of fasting and prayer leading us up to Easter. It is a time for us to reflect on our lives, repent for our sins, and think of the unbelieveable gift of salvation that God offered through the sacrifice of His one and only son Jesus Christ.

I didn't realize this, but 40 is a significant time period in the bible. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert being tempted by Satan. He resisted Satan and his temptations, and after Satan left, Jesus began His ministry. Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sanai with God. Elijah spent 40 days and nights walking to Mount Horeb. God made it rain for 40 days and nights in the great flood of Noah's time. The people of Israel wandered the wilderness for 40 years while waiting to enter the promised land. Jonah gave the people of Nineveh 40 days in which to repent and save their City. There is also a traditional belief that Jesus lay in His tomb for 40 hours.

Tonight, we will use ashes to symbolize the destruction, brokenness, and desolation of our lives without God. The ashes will be placed in the form of a cross on our foreheads to remind us that Christ died to give us hope and restoration of our souls through our belief in Him.

Will I "give up" anything for Lent? I don't know. I do know that I want to try and spend a little time each day reflecting on the wonderful gift that was given to us in Jesus, His life, His death and His resurrection.

De Colores

Crazy Kansas Weather - Again!!

Let's see, how many seasons can occur in Kansas in a 48 hour period? Yesterday (Monday) afternoon, the sky was clear and the temperature was a balmy, spring-like 65 degrees. Early this morning, we had thunderstorms rumble through, producing rain, hail and some sleet. By this afternoon, we are supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow. How ridiculous is that???? Only in Kansas!!

Congrats to Brian's MHS Junior Varsity basketball team for reaching the championship game of the Hillsboro JV tournament. They are seeded 6th out of 8 teams, and beat the number 2 and 3 seed teams this past Saturday. They will play for the hardware this coming Saturday.

5 more games left in the regular season for MHS basketball, where did the time go? It is such a long season, beginning in November, and finishing up the end of February. I am a terrible basketball fan, I get so frustrated when shots don't fall, dumb turnovers are made, leads are lost, and officiating is terrible. I have made it my goal this year to work on keeping my mouth shut during games and not embarassing my son. Just when I think I've finally got my emotions under control, one of the above things happens, and I find myself jumping up out of my seat, eyes bulging, neck veins popping, and yelling at players/coaches/officials, etc. I am so pathetic....Maybe I should work on it during lent. After all, baseball season is just around the corner....SIGH.

De Colores

A Wildcat Victory!!

I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that K-State finally beat KU and ended it's 24 year drought at home. Wait a minute, it wasn't a dream, it's TRUE!!!!

Daughter Amanda and her husband Chad were there to witness history in Bramlage. She said she didn't storm the court, as she feared for her life. She said it was quite a sight though.

I know, one victory doesn't erase all the ears of frustration, but for at least one day, life is good in Wildcat land.

GO CATS (first place all alone in the Big 12)!!!!

De Colores