Month: July 2020

Hello friends and family!  We made it to Florida safe and sound, praise God!  It has been an adventurous, challenging, and blessed week, and we are very glad to be living here!  What a beautiful tropical paradise!  Thank You Jesus!

A lot has happened since we left Colorado on July 19th.  It took us 32 hours in 3 days to get down here, but we made it.  We actually arrived on my birthday, which was fun.  I turned 42 the day we made it to Florida.  Very memorable birthday!

I have a bit of a story to tell you about the very next day, which was our first full day here.  We were shopping at the local Walmart that morning and we were in the electronics section.  I set my wallet and phone down to pick up a TV and put it in the cart, but I forgot to pick my wallet and phone back up afterwards.  Some guy ended up stealing both and he went on a $2,800 shopping spree with my credit card.  Thankfully, I was able to cancel the card and I am not responsible for the fraudulent charges.  I worked with the police and they already have a photo of him and his vehicle from a pawn shop, where he bought a $420 gold watch.  Please pray for that man.  I forgive him.  He caused a lot of panic and trouble, but I forgive him and I pray for him to see the error of his ways and come to Jesus.

I also had my debit card and Colorado driver’s license in my wallet.  He wasn’t able to charge anything to the debit.  I actually got my phone back because the guy threw it in a Lowe’s parking lot.  A Lowe’s employee’s wife found my phone and they helped us when my wife called my phone.  That is where we also met the police to file a report.  It was awesome getting my phone back, praise God!

It was quite a day and very frustrating.  I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get my Florida driver’s license because my Colorado one was stolen, but God wasn’t going to let the evil one get away with that hit on me and my family.  The very next day we went to the DMV and they were so nice!  The people here are incredibly friendly and we love it.  The lady was able to look me up in the system and after showing her the requested personal documents, she issued me a Florida driver’s license!  We also got our license plate the same day (Florida only has a rear plate).  It was amazing after all we had been through the day before.  We are officially residents of Florida as of July 23rd, 2020!  Praise God!!!

God is truly amazing!  It has been a whirlwind of change, but through it all, He has guided us and been with us every step of the way.  Thank You Lord for your faithfulness, goodness, and love!  You truly are a God who works miracles and parts seas for your people!  You alone are God!!!

We absolutely love it here!  I love it more than I could have imagined!  The humidity isn’t bad at all.  It’s more of a temperate tropical moist air, and we get cool breezes from the Gulf of Mexico.  We are only 10 minutes from Venice beach!  It’s much different watching the weather channel now.  I have more in common weather wise with my brothers and sisters down in the Islands and South America, than I do with the majority of people in my country.  I’ve been listening to news this morning about Tropical Cyclone Nine in the Virgin Islands, and how it might hit Florida in a few days.  Praying for everyone in the path and that God would ease the storm.

We love the sunshine and rain, and the bugs aren’t too bad.  I had to do some damage control when we first moved in because it hadn’t been rented since April.  A bit of bug spray and a vacuum took care of it.  We did see our first palmetto bug, which was funny.  They are kind of cute and they sure are fast.  Our agent said they have wolf spiders the size of your hand here, so we hope to never see one of those.

The house and pool are beautiful.  We back right up to the edge of a canal right next to thick woods, so the privacy is great.  We have lizards and frogs everywhere, and the neighbors said they have seen alligators in the canal many times.  We won’t be spending too much time out there, but it sure is cool.  As most of you know, we are used to living with apex predators like mountain lions and bears, so gators are no big deal.

When we first got here, it was like landing on a different planet.  All the new sounds of bugs and animals and the wet tropical environment are fascinating.  Huge contrast from the dry mountainous region of Colorado.  We all love it and it’s great to see how happy my wife and kids are down here.  It truly shows me just how stressed out and over taxed we were in the Denver metro area.

We visited Venice beach a couple days ago and it was gorgeous.  The Gulf is so warm and calm and the people are friendly and chill.  The beaches are clean too.  It is such an amazing blessing to be so close to the ocean and beaches.  We are amazed that this is our home now and we are feeling more and more at home every day.

The Lord has already opened up doors to preach His Name, and we found out our neighbors are Christians too.  Nice older couple with grown kids and lots of grand kids.  We love how laid back everyone is here and we love the slower pace.  This place is very healing for our whole family.

We had some mover guys help us unload the pod yesterday, and the Lord opened a door to preach about the mark of the beast and how it all relates to what is going on in our time with mandatory vaccines leading to implantable microchips.  We also talked about guns and the great laws that support gun rights here.  It was an awesome conversation and after listening to me preach a bit, the one guy who knew the Word told me, “You are in the right place, man!”  I agree, perfect fit!  My heart is overjoyed to be here, praise God!

I am among people who love God, America, and freedom, and I love it!  There are still plenty of people here who don’t know the Lord and need to hear the Gospel (like the guy who robbed me), but it is very refreshing being in a community with a lot more believers.  Colorado will always be in my heart and it hurts to think about what the liberals have done to the state I love, grew up in, and spent 34 years of my life in, but it’s time to move forward into the new life God has for us and never look back.

I feel more free down here than I have in years, and the Lord’s plans for us are more than we could have asked or imagined.  We have our eyes fixed on Him as He leads us and we trust Him and His love for us.  God is good and His love endures forever, and don’t ever forget it!

Grace and peace to you all from sunny Florida!

“You are my God, and I will give you

thanks;

you are my God, and I will exalt you.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his love endures forever.”

Psalm 118:28-29

Hello friends and family, and God bless you all!  I finally have a chance to catch my breath from everything with the move and I wanted to share some more praise updates.  God continues to move in power as He makes the way for us to Florida!  We sold our home in only 3 days!  We had a total of only 8 showings and it ended up being the very first showing on Friday that made the offer.  We all signed the contract on Sunday, we already passed the inspection yesterday, and everything is moving forward covered in blessings!  God is so good!  Thank You Jesus!

Thank you to all of you who are praying for us!  It has been a challenging yet rewarding week with all the heavy lifting and cleaning, but we got it done in the power of the Holy Spirit, and except for some sore muscles, nobody got hurt.  The pod is almost totally packed and we have all the heavy stuff out of the house.  Just a few more days in Colorado, then we head southeast towards Oklahoma early Sunday morning.  We plan on driving through Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi, then travel along the gulf coast into Florida all the way down to Port Charlotte.

I’ll tell you what, even after all these years following the Lord, He never ceases to amaze me!  If something in your life is God’s will, absolutely nothing can stop God from accomplishing that purpose in your life.  If He makes a way for you, He will see it through to completion.  We still have to do our part and be ready to act and do what it takes to get there, but it will be God who blesses us with victory.

I am also amazed at how much strength and stamina the Lord gave me!  Even after 8 1/2 years of suffering Celiac, I was able to move way more than I thought I could.  Angels had to have been helping us because we moved some real heavy items without any trouble.  It still amazes me how we got our big couch out of the front doorway without breaking anything.  So glad that is done, praise God!

God also blessed selling and giving away a bunch of our stuff on Nextdoor, and we were able to clear out everything we wanted to part with.  I was even able to give my nice snowblower to one of the mover guys who helped us when we first started packing.  Many of you might remember that my snowblower broke a year or so ago.  It is only a few years old and everything is great with it, except the spark plug port needs to be drilled and tapped.  He is going to fix the spark plug port and use the snowblower for his snow shoveling business in the winter.  It was awesome to see how blessed he was by that.  The Lord also opened the door to share my faith with him and preach the Word a bit.  God is so good!  Always be ready to talk about Jesus and stand up for Him, even when you’re in the middle of a move!  You never know when God might use you!

It’s been such a busy week that I haven’t been keeping up with news or social media much, which actually has been kind of nice.  I’m sure everyone is still arguing about politics, Covid, masks, and social distancing, and I probably didn’t miss much.  It’s been refreshing to just focus on my family and spend time in God’s Word and prayer.  I recommend everyone turn off the news and stop listening to all the hatred, lies, and fear, and start loving each other like Jesus told us to.

Thank you all for your prayers!  We are excited for what God has planned for us and we know that He is in control of all of it.  I stand in awe of what God has done and I feel humbled and blessed to watch Him at work as He moves in power!  May His glorious will be done!

Grace and peace to you all!

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

Some of you may remember my post about possibly moving to Florida, and you might remember that I said I felt like God needed to part the sea for us to move there.  Well, God parted the sea and He made a way where there was no way!  Florida, here we come!

My wife was just offered a teaching position this morning and it was her top choice!  She starts in August, so we are moving to Florida this month!  I’m sitting here laughing just writing that!  It is truly amazing what has happened the last few days and I appreciate all of you who prayed for us.  God answered fast and everything fell into place so smoothly!

I had asked the Lord that if He wanted us to move to Florida, then please move in power and make a way because I didn’t see a way.  I asked Him to move in such a way that we would know it was from Him and it was His will.  So many things had to happen and they all happened one after another!  Praise God!

It started with my wife getting her permanent Colorado license renewal in just a couple weeks.  That was supposed to take months.  Then she was able to submit everything for her Florida license, and the Human Resource lady let her know she could apply for jobs even though they are still waiting on her college transcripts.  She applied for several jobs and within a day she got an interview for this morning.  One hour after the interview, they called back and offered her the job!  It’s so crazy fast and perfect that only God could do this!  I’m still in shock and just praising God!  He never ceases to amaze me, even after all He has shown me!

We will be living in Venice, which has won awards for being a happy seaside town and one of the best places to live in Florida.  The schools are great and the whole area is beautiful, and we are all excited.  Our kids are really excited that the rental home has a private backyard pool.  We will rent for 6 to 8 months while our new home is being built.  We decided against having a pool in our new home.  It’s too expensive, but our new neighborhood will have a pool just like here anyway.  We are all looking forward to hot sunny weather, beaches, and palm trees.

It’s looking like we will be moving around the end of July.  I probably won’t be on the blog as much because we have a ton of stuff to do.  The moving POD is being delivered tomorrow, piano movers are coming soon, and we have to get our house ready for showings.  If you’ve done it, then you know what’s ahead of us.  Prayers are appreciated!

I guess I’m writing this to clear my head a bit and make sense of everything too.  I am going to miss Colorado.  I’ve lived here almost all my life.  This is where I grew up and it will always be in my heart.  But it’s just too expensive to live here anymore.  We are definitely looking forward to a lower cost of living and no state income tax.  We recently read an article that said our county here in Colorado (Douglas County) is as expensive as San Diego now.  Yeah, don’t we know it!  It’s ridiculous and they just keep raising the taxes.

I will miss the mountains and our Rocky Mountain views, but I won’t miss the winters, especially shoveling snow and being cold for half the year.  Won’t miss the spring blizzards either.  My snowboarding days are behind me, and I suppose retiring on a beach with year round warm weather and sunshine sounds pretty good to me.  My wife and kids absolutely love the ocean and the beach and we have always wanted to live in a tropical vacation spot.  God makes dreams come true, and nothing is impossible for God!

Thank You Jesus for all you have done for us!  Guide us, Lord, and give us wisdom as we follow You on this new journey You have for us.  May Your will be done!

Thank you all for your prayers!

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land.  The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.”

Exodus 14:21-22

“For nothing is impossible with God.”

Luke 1:37

Grace and peace!