Deervalleydeacon’s Weblog

We had our 30th anniversary celebration for Deer Valley Lutheran church yesterday!  About 120 people attended the celebration  and joined in some awesome fellowship, food, and laughter.  Thanks to the teens who helped serve, all of the volunteers who shared their talents with us in song and chant and our guitarist and singers!!!  All were appreciated and enjoyed by many.

We went through tons of brisket and ham, potato salad, tossed salad, rolls and veggies!  And the cake, wow, you guys devoured two cakes!!

What a blessing we have from God!  Fellow Christians who come together to worship each week and proclaim the Gospel message!  Not only through the called workers but on your own.  I pray that God continues to bless the effort of our people as we reach out with the saving message of Jesus Christ!  One of the blessings that Pastor highlighted was that 40 % of our members weren’t at Deer Valley 5 years ago.  The message works, God blesses faithful service. 

For 30 years of Grace and more we thank God!

Well I have returned from the adventure of driving across the middle portion of our United States.  On the first day of driving my friend and I covered 9 states and 1900 miles; plenty of road construction and rain.  We dislike the color orange now.  The lovely town of Milwaukee awaited us and took us in with a glorious sunny morning.  Nice cool lake breeze and the smell of trees and grass everywhere!  We dropped off the college student and the fun began.  Car after car of people that I’ve known happened upon the scene.  We came down the elevator and my son’s best friend from Green Bay was waiting to go up!  Brett!  What are you doing I exclaimed?  (Duh, its a college)  And chatted for a few minutes.  Heading to the car to leave a Pastor from San Jose, California happened to be unloading a van of stuff for his daughter.  We talked with Pastor Kroenbusch for a bit and tried to leave again.  A lady drove by us and did the head turn so fast I thought it would snap off!  A friend from high school, Dona, recognized me and stopped her car right there and came out and we hugged and chatted! Then one of the college girls who came out to Phoenix to help with our VBS drove by.  She pulled over to the curb and we chatted…then her engine went, cough sputter, choke choke and she ran out of gas.  I told I had to go as we were heading to Minnesota but she called her mom and she was on her way so I didn’t leave her helpless!

Then we finally headed out and made our way to Minnesota to pick up some of our items we have left at Ted’s house.  A converted barn into a 4 bedroom 2 bath house!  It’s awesome.  Hank got to see his inlaws and I got to see some old friends and attempt a day of golf but it rained.  Funny how rain isn’t annoying when you don’t get any like out here in Phoenix, but there it really messes up a day.  We had a quick “layover” in MN and then hit the road to come home.  We took some awesome roads and saw great countryside with rolling hills and rock formations.  It was a fun part of Nebraska and Colorado.

We made it home safe and are back to it this week. Hank at school teaching and me here at church.  It was nice to get away and tour the midwest!  But it’s great to be back home!

Ah, isn’t it wonderful living in a desert!  40 days of 100 + temperatures; record heat for July; setting new highs for overnight lows of 92!  I love it!  Everything metal in your car is super hot and you may have even branded yourself with a seat belt buckle or two.  (I pray you haven’t)

It’s a great reminder as to who is in control of everything.  When God wants the furnace on it is on!  The intricacies of his awesomeness is amazing.  Take the clown fish for instance.  It has several layers of skin that allows it to transform itself into it’s surroundings.  It has dots of colors on the first layer; Yellow, Red and Blue that can be expanded by muscles that pull the color dot into a larger dot on the skin.  The second layer has blue, red, green and orange and is more iridescent than the first allowing it to create more depth or shine to the skin.  It can also produce bumps or spines on the skin to blend in with coral or other plants in the water.  Then to top it all off it can make itself glow, have pulsating colors with lights like a marquee to transfix their prey while they swoop in for dinner.  Amazing!!

How do you argue it’s evolution?  God is truly an amazing architect with the earth, his creatures, the sun, moon and stars, and our human bodies.  We have great reminders everyday.  It reminds me of Steven Curtis Chapman or Michael W Smiths song “the Finger Print of God”. 

Enjoy the rest of your summer break before school starts!  Take in the wonders of God’s creation each and every day!

Hey we are hanging out with Paul in the city of Rome this week!  The streets are full of shops that we can visit and we are even planning to visit Paul at his house.  He’s under house arrest and has Brutus staying with him.  We have been blessed with 35 plus kids each day and are sharing the gospel of Jesus with them! 

The kids are loving being in the cave with Paul’s friends.  Our scenery turned out really well and the kids have loved that as well.  The helpers showed up in droves this week!  Thank you to everyone that was here~  the kids and I appreciate it. 

The crafts have been a great hit, as have the drama’s and games.  Our college friends from Wisconsin have done a great job with all of those!  The skits were point on and the kids loved them!  All in all it was a great week.

In Christ

Deacon

Hey, I made it back from the land of pigs and corn!  We had our National WELS Youth rally in Ames, IA this past week and joined 1,431 people for the rally.  We had an awesome time!  The campus of Iowa State worked our really well for us!  We were able to use their recreation building, auditorium, cafeterias, dorms and of course the Memorial Union.  The kids and I were able to bowl, play pool, hang out, dance, eat, mingle and have awesome breakout groups and speakers.  We had a dance-drum line group from Des Moines entertain us and then lead us down the streat to the Union.  It was pretty neat having the road blocked off by police so we could follow the drums down the street.

The weather was very cooperative.  When we needed sunshine for outdoor activities it was gorgeous.  The group of us, 1431 headed to Adventureland on Thursday for a day of fun.  The kids enjoyed the rides and attractions and ate at the place.  Comedy Sportz provided the evenings entertainment along with Aneosis (band out of Milwaukee).  Friday we had our service projects throughout Ames and Des Moines.  All of us were assigned community service groups to help out with specific projects.  We were fortunate to have the news cover one of the groups at the Botanical Gardens.  500 youth were there pruning and grafting trees to restart the gardens.  If you think about it, ask the teens from Deer Valley what we did!

Friday when we got back to campus we had a pig roast and all these inflatables for the kids to run around on.  We then had the WELS Got Talent show followed by an awesome accepella group, CHAPTER 6.  They were phenomonal!!!  The kids weren’t sure about an acceplla group at first but were wowed by these guys!  Then we had fireworks outside and line dancing the rest of the night.

The speakers focused on life as Chrisitians in speech, love, actions and purity.  All covered the topics very well and we were blessed with great discussion groups afterwards.  The kids enjoyed sharing applications to their own faith lives and others around them.

As an adult I was very encouraged about the future of the WELS.  WE have some dedicated, intelligent teens waiting to take over the leadership roles in our church body.   Continue to encourage our own youth to stay strong in the WORD and share the love of Christ when ever they can.

Wow, what a week!  Have you ever looked at your electrical panel?  You are suppose to see circuit breakers and a nice calm environment under the cover.  Well, Wednesday afternoon we saw something complete different under our cover.  As we lifted it up we heard some snapping, crackling and popping.  Knowing it wasn’t Rice Krispies under the cover it was a bit unnerving.  As the cover was fully up we noticed the sparks going between several of the circuit breakers.  “dude, that’s not good.” is all I heard.   Well, we went from a nice project of putting up some outdoor lights to major electric work. 

What is neat about the whole thing is how God was in charge of it all.  A spur of the moment conversation at church with a member who is laid off about a small project we had at the house–asked if they could make it sometime this week to look at the place.  A stop in to my office on Wednesday at lunch and asked if today might be ok.  To going home and finding the 4th of July fireworks in my electric panel!!  Yet, the wires did not start a fire in the house like they should have.  We were able to rectify the situation by shutting of the power and fixing the panel.  A little bit of discomfort for a day but nothing like losing everything.  God is in control.  He protected my family and provided a fix for the situation.  He always does!  Thank you God!

As we come up to the celebration of Independance Day (July 4) remember to thank God for the country we get to live in, thank him for the blessings we have as a country.  But, also ask God to continue to be with us as a nation and allow us the freedom to worship him!

Whew, that was close!  The eye lids kept wanting to shut but I withstood the temptation of succumbing to sleep Friday night into Saturday morning.  I Survived the Lock IN!!  There’s no way I am falling prey to 11 teens with nothing better to do than pick on me while asleep. 

Overall, it was a good lock in!  We had plenty of food and drink!  Many laughs were had by all!  The games Murder and “Honey, if you Love me” were a lot of fun.  The teens were also challenged by strategy games and Team Building challenges.  One game was all the kids were on a rug and they had to turn the rug over without stepping off the rug.  Great problem solving skills were used to figure it out.   We ended up watching  movies early Saturday morning to veg out.  The Bible study was from Matt. 6: 19-21 where we talked about all the treasures we have here on earth and what is our true treasure.  The kids had some great thoughts on what heaven will be like and how will we react to it all.  It’s fun watching the kids mature, practically in front of our eyes.

Ryan P once again helped out during the lock in!  It’s always good to have another adult just in case you pass out!!!  Of course the kids want to do a lock in once a month…..umm..no way!!!!!  My biorhythm would be way out of whack then!

A week respite and then we are off to IOWA for the National Youth Rally!  Woohoo!  Get your rest while you can!  I have security duty again this year!