Summer time!

Summer is finally here. I took the boys camping this last weekend. We went to Cove Palisades. It was a great trip. We had a lot of fun. We got back Sunday and 3 of my boys went to their mom's on Monday. Peter stayed behind to go to football camp this week.

I am always surprised by how much I miss them. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and I always moss them but when they go away for their  weeks stays with their mom during the summer I miss them even more than I expect. I have trouble sleeping and I can't eat normally. I miss my kids.

The job hunting is going slow. I have had a few phone interviews, one in person interview, and a second tomorrow. I am really hoping this one tomorrow works out. It is with a company I really want to work for and it pays better than any of the other jobs I've looked at. It's closer to home than most of the jobs I've been applying to. The benefits are top notch. It would be a great opportunity.

I guess I just need to have faith that God is in control and that the right job will come along when He wants it to. I will continue on faith to put myself out there and continue to look for work to provide for me and my boys.

14 The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Exodus 14:14 (ESV)

Two in a row...

My music: Souljahz - Souljahz - When Angels Cry

Today I went to a job fair here in Salem. I got dressed up in a suit and took 25 copies of my resume with me. There were only about 20 booths and I only handed out like 4 resumes. Most of the people told me that the job market in Salem for what I do is extremely tight right now. Ugh!! I really need to get back to work soon. I can't afford to be out of work much longer.

On the other hand I am considering a major surgery. I would be unable to work for about 3 weeks or so. My doctor and I talked about the possibility of a gastric by-pass surgery. I've started to look into it. I have a ton of paperwork to fill out to be considered. It turns out that my insurance will cover most of the costs. I will continue to try to find work but maybe the Lord is holding back so that I can get this operation. I'm not sure what to think.

Saturday there is going to be a movie in one of the local parks put on by the "Salem Surfers," a Christian surfing outreach group. I'm hoping to be able to take the kids. They are also having a soap box derby that day. I'm hoping that maybe I'll find a church I can connect with.

Updating again...

Yes it has been quite a long time since I last blogged. I guess I'll just start from scratch.

I am a divorced father of 4 wonderful boys. I take care of them full time. I am currently unemployed and looking for work in the computer support industry. Since moving from the Portland area to Salem it has been tough to find a job close to home. I did commute to Portland for awhile but I really need to find something closer to home.

I still haven't found a church that I can call home yet. That is my biggest need and yet the thing I find most difficult to do. I really don't have any friends here yet, either. I am an introvert and making new friends and meeting new people have always been difficult for me. I'm sure that's why finding a new church is so hard for me. I know I need to but the fear of going into a new place on my own is so overwhelming. I have only visited 1 church here since moving last September. A friend of one of my sons and his parents go there. It was okay. I felt it was too big and too charismatic for my tastes. I've researched churches on the web but I haven't found anything that looks promising to me.

My ex-wife is about to remarry. The guy is an admitted drug dealer. Not the kind of influence I want around my children. I'm not sure how I should respond. I know my kids need to have their mother active in their lives. I know that's best but I don't know how to balance that with the negative influences she has on them and that she brings around them.

When I moved to Salem it was to move in with my mom so my kids had a regular motherly figure around them. We bought a house that was big enough for me, my kids, and my mom. Unfortunately my sister and brother moved in as well and a second brother had a heart attach and ended up moving in as well. So now we have 3 extra people here and most of them are not contributing to the household. It has become a strain. If I knew then what I know now I would have stayed on my own in Hillsboro.

Well, that's it for now hopefully I'll be posting again in the next few days.

What is the point?

What is the point of drinking Caffeine Free Diet Coke? Isn’t that just like drinking water. I don’t know about you but I drink Diet Coke, and I drink it for the caffeine, not the taste. Actually diet coke has more caffeine than regular Coke. I can see drinking Caffeine Free Coke for the taste if someone was avoiding caffeine, but what reason would someone have to drink Caffeine Free Diet Coke? Can you think of any other pointless products?

We just moved into a new place about a month and a half ago. The place was completely redone from the studs out. New walls, windows carpet, everything! Last night it rained and poured. This morning as I was getting ready for work one of my boys noticed that the carpet was damp in their room. I did some checking and found that the carpet was soaked in their room. It seems that the down spout for the gutter was clogged and it overflowed right where the window well is for that room. The water came in under the window casing, down the interior side of the exterior wall and out into the carpet and pad at the floor. It seeped into the next bedroom and into the utility room on the other side. I quickly called my landlord and then called into work. I sent my younger boys off to school and the older boys helped me move everything out of their room before it was time for them to get ready for school. Just when they started to dress for school is when we discovered that the water had seeped into the adjacent bedroom belonging to the younger kids. I had the older 2 stay home from school and help me empty their brothers' room as well. I've only been here a month and a half and the living room looks worse than it did on moving day. The entire contents of both rooms are in a pile in the middle of our living room. I went out side and got down into the window well to bail out the water. It was almost 8 inches deep! It came up to the top of my ankle with sandals on. It took the 3 of us 20 minutes to bail out most of the water. I won't be able to move the beds back into the kids’ rooms until late Friday night at this point. I have big industrial fans blowing underneath the carpets in both of the kids’ bedrooms. It's a mess. The carpets are lifted up from the fans and look like big airbags. It's hard to see it in the pictures but if you look closely at the baseboard you can kinda tell. On a positive note I did finally get a curtain hung in my living room. You can see it in the background of one of the pictures above. Now, who doesn't love the Oregon rain?

Today at church...

Today at church during our worship service I came across a passage that had a big impact on me. I’ve been reading the book The GOD Chasers by Tommy Tenney. (There is some controversy over this book, but it does have some good material in it.) So, in church today I read Luke 5:4-8

4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch."

5Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."

6When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

8When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"

I started thinking about verse 5. How quite frequently I say “Master, I've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything.” Then I stop there. I lack the faith to go the rest of the way and drop my nets and allow God to fill them. I don’t know how many times I try using my own understanding and refuse to listen to God’s wisdom. Peter could easily have said “I am an expert fishermen, I’ve been doing this all my life. We are not going to catch anything.” And not put his nets down. I think I have this attitude all the time. “Lord I know better than you.” “Lord, there is no one at my work who wants to hear the gospel.”

Food for thought…

Dedicated to God...

I haven’t dedicated much to God lately. I don’t know what happened but I lost my focus. I want to get my focus back on God. It seems tough, though with so much to do and take care of. It’s hard for me to take any time for anything. I feel like I’m being pulled in so many directions. I don’t know which way is up.

In church we’re going through Judges. It keeps being brought up that Israel turned from God over and over again and He kept bringing them back to Himself over and over again. I think we see these examples in the Bible so that we know that He will always take us back. Even when we’ve forgotten him for several months or even years He’ll always be there for us when we turn around and seek after Him.

Raising 4 boys on my own isn’t easy. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I didn’t have God on my side. I hate the part of me that wants to forget God. That part of me that says “I can do it on my own!” But the more independent of God that I get the more obvious it becomes how much I need Him.