What in the world is a "Frolic"?

 Photo from AmishAmerica.com

I was talking with a couple of my brothers in Christ recently, when the subject turned (OK, I turned it :-) to the building plans for our home in the woods, beginning in the Spring/Summer/Fall of this year.  I told them that it became clear to me LONG ago that there was no way I could accomplish this endeavor with my pea-sized knowledge of construction (or lack thereof).  I then asked them, if I put a date on the calendar (say, over the course of some upcoming three-day weekend), would they come out and help us "raise the roof" and eat a bunch of food?  One of them, who's had extensive interaction with the Amish in both Montana and Maine, said, "Absolutely!  The Amish call it a 'frolic' or a 'work-bee' ".  They were both quite enthusiastic about the possibility of helping building our home, which came as no surprise to me, given the reality of the love and Spirit of Christ operating in their families' lives.  (Not to mention that they both have some serious labor forces in their families!  :-)

Then I got to thinking.

God has blessed me with such dear family-in-Christ in other locales as well, several hours' drive away, but reachable nonetheless.  I suspect there may be many who would like to visit Montana in the Summer (a gorgeous time to visit here; isn't it always?), and perhaps swing a hammer or heft a saw in productive fellowship on the outskirts of beautiful Whitefish, Montana.

So, here it is:

If you're interested in being a part of our family's biggest project to date, a labor of love that will represent the culmination of a lifetime of prayers and dreams, please consider joining our "Frolic" this Summer.  If you are seriously considering making the trip to join the effort and fellowship, please leave a comment on this post, or send me an email, letting me know when you might be available.  If you are unable to attend, please pray for the Lord's protection, provision and wisdom as we build.  This will undoubtedly be a very long project, overall, but we would be honored to enjoy your company for even a small part of it.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Spring is looming...

Photo from JDPayne.org

...Yes, Spring is looming in the near future, and today I am feeling like a deer in the headlights.  For starters, I have a monstrous head-/chest-cold, that makes my head feel like it's in a vise, and my torso is tired from cough spasms.

But more notably, there are a LOT of things heading my way this Spring:

• The home birth of our 6th child.  All of our other children were born in hospitals, so this is a bit of a leap out of our comfort zone.
• The beginning of construction of our home in the woods near Whitefish, MT.  I know virtually nothing about house-building.  I'm very nervous.
• Both of my jobs really tend to ramp up in the Spring, Summer and early Autumn months.

I know I should be extremely excited about all these things, and I truly am, but it does feel a bit overwhelming at times.  Your prayers for health, wisdom, provision and protection would be greatly appreciated.

Happy New Year!

Truth & Fiction

Photo courtesy www.authenticfx.com
 

Disclaimer:  This post is unapologetically aimed strictly at fully-devoted Christ followers.

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I saw a video recently, whose producers went to great lengths to make something false appear very real.  All of the bystanders (caught on multi-angled candid camera, of course) were visibly and understandably freaked out about the staged "outburst" of telekenesis.  However, having been made privy to the actual and elaborate staging procedure beforehand, we YouTube viewers were nothing more than amused and entertained.  It's all in fun, right?

Well, think about it, for a moment.

If something genuinely disturbing and unprecedented were to be caught on camera -- say, the "stoning"/persecution of Christians on American soil in Dearborn MI, for example -- wouldn't the public have a similar reaction?  That is, being virtually unaffected, lulled into complacency by all things two-dimensional?  In other words...

...is YouTube (and its ilk) a benefit or a detriment to our pursuit of dwelling on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute"? (Philippians 4:8)

Think before you watch:  Is that video clip before you, something about which you'd want have an uplifting spiritual conversation with Jesus -- if He were sitting in the seat next you?  Could you assert to Him, as King David did, "I will set no worthless thing before mine eyes"?  If I seem to be throwing stones here, just know that I'm aiming at my own glass house, first.

Have a fruitful day.

Ransacked!

Yesterday, I used the word "ransacked", and my 4-year-old daughter ("Little Miss") asked me,

"What's ram-sapped?"

I explained to her that it's when someone breaks into your house, and leaves a big mess, while looking for something to steal from you.  (One of my favorite little mental games is trying to break down complex words or ideas into a sentence that even a 4-year-old could accurately understand.  What can I say, it keeps me occupied.  ;-)

Well, that same afternoon, it became obvious that our garden had been "ram-sapped"!  You see, yesterday was, in the words of Winnie the Pooh, a "very blustery day".  Apparently our deer netting had blown down at some point in the last 24 hours, and our all of our kale, carrot tops and some of the outer leaves of our red cabbage were stripped bare by some wild and reckless herbivore. Even some of the parsely was gone... I guessed that devious creature wanted to have sweet breath after such a bountiful feast.  So, we pulled the carrots -- a fine lot of orange, yellow and purple specimens -- pulled the worst-hit cabbage and prayed that the kale plant, with its stalks intact, would continue to grow more leaves.  Yes, it is the end of the growing season, and the nights here are dropping below freezing, consistently, but the kale has been thriving in spite of the cold, and was producing some very dark, sweet leaves that we were thoroughly enjoying.  We'll see what comes of it all.

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Saturday, November 9th will be "hunting day" with my 14-year-old son (the "Man Cub").  I've read that the cattle on a thousand hills belong to our Great God... I'm hoping he'll bring one or two near to our muzzles, for a harvest.  Should we be blessed in such a way, I'll post pictures here.

Have a blessed day, and remember, "my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

Well Update

A couple of weeks ago, we had nothing but a 360' pipe in the ground.  As of last week, we have...  (drumroll, please):

Water!

Granted, we still need electricity to get it out of the ground, but we'll be working at that issue from all sides, as well...

Just thought you'd like an update.  Thank God for progress!

"Excuse Me."

"In the multitude of words sin is not lacking,
But he who restrains his lips is wise."
(Proverbs 10:19, NKJV)

You know, interrupting someone -- especially a peer -- in the middle of a sentence is, generally speaking, very rude.  A few days ago, listening to a gaggle of self-informed college students discuss the finer points of mobile hotspot (WiFi) connectivity, it occurred to me how often they would cut each other off with remarks like "I know, but...".  As a matter of fact, I've become irritatingly aware of how often I have been inclined to interrupt someone before they pause in their speech, even when my intentions are deemed (by me) to be noble.  So today, as though providentially reminded by the omniscient Spirit of God, I will endeavor to not interrupt anyone**.  I hope you will be challenged to do so, as well.

**(This does not include using parental authority to interrupt the occasional foolish/disrespectful talk exhibited by my children... Sorry, kids.)

"WELL" UPDATE

After drilling down deeper-than-a-football-field (!), U.D. was able to obtain a flow rate of 30gpm!  Woohoo!

Here are some pics of the process (Click the photos for full-screen):

The drilling begins...

Me & Little Miss, checking things out.

The view from Uncle Dave's house site

Looking Southwest

Looking Southeast

Checking out Uncle's site, ready for building the crawlspace

Standing "in" our future home!

 

Breaking Ground

Here are some photos I promised.  These were taken when we were first digging into our house building site, checking to see how far down we might be able to dig for a basement.  So far, what we were seeing looks promising.  Time, and a professional excavator, will tell how much earth we can move.

(Click any of the photos to see them full-screen.)

Enjoy!

 Taking down a tree inside the building site.  We decided not to build around it.

 Moving trees, the modern way.

 Levitating chains with my mind-powers...

...Levitating trees proved a little more difficult, so I called Uncle Dave for help.

 Everybody's diggin'!

 Little Miss "crosses the line"

 Building the fort...

Attack of the Killer BackHoe!!  AAaaaaggghh!!

Stay tuned!  The next photo album will feature pics of the water well digging.

See you then!

Well, well..

Summer hasn't quite left us yet, here in the Flathead Valley.  People are still hittin' the River: fishing, hiking, rafting.  The "Fresh Huckleberries" signs are still posted up en route to Glacier National Park, and there are still a few tourist RV's left in the motor park down the road.  And as long as the ground isn't frozen, some people are still making the most of the ever-shrinking window of opportunity to build.  That's where we find ourselves, now.  The word around here is, all bets are off after Halloween.  That's when the weather could turn foul at the drop of a hat.  Some daring folks, though, will build all the way up until Thanksgiving.

Photo from ga.water.usgs.gov

Tomorrow, the digging starts (!) for the water well we'll be sharing with U.D. (Uncle Dave) (see last post).  The local well logs in the area indicate an average depth of 267 ft. (standing water level average = 94 ft.), with an average flow rate of about 20gpm -- that should be plenty 'nuff for the foreseeable future, Deo Volente.  (I've been eyeing the "Simple Pump" as a reliable means of pumping the water up, with or without electricity.  The benefits of such a system would be enormous.)

We've consulted with an excavator, who believes that the ground on our plot may be "un-rocky" enough to dig down for a walk-out basement.  If this is accomplished soon enough, there may be time to build the basement, and perhaps live in it while we build up the rest of the house.  I've gathered that this is not the best of living arrangements, but it could save us some money in rent, for sure.  I hope it would be a beneficial trade-off, that wouldn't rob us of our sanity and family cohesion.  :-)

That's all for now.  I'll try to post more pictures soon.  I know you like pictures.

Moving Forward!

(Our Future Driveway.)

Good day, dear friends and family!  Many apologies for the lapse in time since my last post.  So much has been happening, that I have been admittedly intimidated by how much writing I've needed to do, just to bring you up to speed with what's new with our dreams and goals.  Let me start with a little background...

Since my dear bride and I were married, we have dreamed of having a home in an area full of what we like to call "Wide Open Spaces".  However, in the many years that we lived in Southern California (for a multitude of reasons that could be summed up, in hindsight, as Providence), that dream was never realized.
Then we moved to NW Montana.  And we started to get our bearings.  I found work (I now have employment in Kalispell and Martin City), and our family found encouraging relationships with genuine Christ-followers here, people of all different kinds, with wonderful histories.  During that time, my parents and my Uncle Dave had followed suit in relocating to the Flathead Valley.  After he had purchased 10+ acres of "raw land" just west of Whitefish, Uncle Dave invited us to consider purchasing a portion of his land (given some pretty amazing & unbeatable terms), and to build our future home there, adjacent to the one he was planning to build.  After seeing this beautifully-wooded place and dreaming a lot, we agreed to "partner" with Uncle Dave, who was repeatedly proving to be an instrument of God's grace and provision.

Now, he was waiting for his home in Oregon to sell, before he could "pave the way" in developing that land for use in construction (bringing in an electric line, digging a well, septic, etc) and beginning to build his "mountain house".  So, we waited too.  For over a year.
Then, suddenly, Uncle's house went into escrow!  So, for the last couple of weeks, my Bride and I have been putting our heads together -- and praying a LOT -- over plans to build our home in the woods.  We have staked out the dimensions of what will become our South-facing house...

 

(This is pretty much the exact spot where our home will be built.)

...and have found an amazing local draftsman/engineer/designer who is consulting with us over the continual floor plan revisions and "tweaking" necessary before we build.  He never complains about our barrage of questions and changes; and, he never charges us a penny.  "Who is this guy?", you ask.  Well, we like to call him:
"Uncle Dave".  That's right.

(Uncle Dave, on the left, with us -- visiting an Off-grid friend in Eureka last year.)

And now -- drum roll, please --  Uncle Dave's escrow on his former Oregon home closes tomorrow!  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!  We are planning to celebrate his "ground-breaking" this Saturday morning.  Of course, our home will probably not begin construction until next Spring, but lots of our prep-work (Septic system, electrical decisions, excavation, etc) will be going on this Summer and into Autumn.

Please continue to pray for us.  Here's what we need prayer for:

• God's divine protection, provision and direction.  (John 15:1-17; Philippians 4:4-13; Proverbs 3:5-6; Psalm 37:4)
• Friends to help us with the labor, when construction begins
• Cooperation from Ric's employers as we work out a harmony of schedules that will accommodate our home-building
• That we will keep Christ at the center of all we do.  (Psalm 24)

Keep this blog bookmarked in your browser, so we can keep you up-to-date on our progress.  May the Lord bless your efforts to serve Him.

--Ric

 

(Clockwise from Left: Chloe, Jenna, Ric, Emily, Caleb, Cassandra and Sophia)