2025 Year in Review

 

2025 has come and gone. Compared to other recent years, 2025 was not “over the top” eventful. No one in our family got married. (We had two in 2024.) No new grandbabies were born in 2025. None of my daughters or daughters-in-law are expecting. Or if they are, they haven’t announced it! Samuel proposed to Kenlie, the girl he’s been dating for around 3 years. So next November I’ll have a new daughter-in-law.

We have been actively treating Melody’s Chron’s disease. I’m sure she’s tired of it. It’s been a challenge for the family, but particular Melody and Sheri. Sheri has been the primary one to take her to doctor’s appointments and infusion treatments.

Work is going well. We just found out that DNI was awarded a contract extension for another five years. So that’s good. I enjoy working for DNI and didn’t really want to have to go through the interview process once again. Since I’m a contractor, and not a federal employee, I have been exempted from President Trump’s mandate to federal workers to “return to the office.”  I’m glad about that. I’ve been working from home since March 2020 now.

Sarah moved out of the house and into an apartment this year. (I think, but that could have been 2024. Time flies.) Her roommate is the above-mentioned Kenlie, Samuel’s fiancée. So, Sarah has been talking to a girl who works with her about becoming roommates after their wedding.

During the last few months of 2025, I began preparing for David’s rite of passage ceremony that will happen in August, Lord willing. Things are progressing nicely. Look for an update on that in next years, 2026 Year in Review.

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you probably remember being able to go to mikesoutherland.com and it would reroute you to blog.mikesoutherland.com. Well, if you try that today, it’s no longer working. I think it’s because this blogger site is “not secure” (it doesn’t use secure socket layers). I haven’t been able to figure out how to turn that on, and I haven’t had the time or the motivation to try and switch to another platform. And I think mikesoutherland.com is refusing to reroute to it because of the unsecured status of the blog. I guess you get what you pay for. I pay to renew the url, primarily because of my email address, mike@mikesoutherland.com. But I do not pay any hosting. I just have the company that I pay for the url reroute it to blog.mikesoutherland.com. But, alas, that’s not working. I’ll work up the motivation to fix that one of these days.

Well, I really don’t have much else to say. So, I’m signing out, and I’ll update you again next year, Lord willing.

2018 Year in Review

2018 Year in Review

As I sit down to type out this year in review for 2018 I realize that this once a year blog post is about the only consistent time I update the blog. Also, if you are used to coming to this blog via https://www.mikesoutherland.com, then you may have trouble finding it. I created a website there advertising web site creating services. It’s not really exactly how I want it, so I haven’t advertised much. In last year’s blog entry you will recall my announcing of http://gallerypanels.com This is a site I put together for a local businessman who sells art display panels. That site went live in January of this year. Thus the reason for updating my website. I’d like to offer web development or creation services to other small businesses. Often small businesses only need a basic site. But one huge difference that has come about over the past several years is the growing abundance of smart phones and the number of people using smart phones to access websites. There are many small businesses out there using old technology. Their nice looking website doesn’t look so nice on the tiny display of the smart phone. Often you have to zoom into to see the text and pictures. It doesn’t make for a very good user experience all together. Though I need to update the content on my personal site, if you browse over to either https://mikesoutherland.com or http://gallerypanels.com you’ll see what a mobile ready site looks like. My personal site was fairly easy to put together. The Gallery Panels one wasn’t too tough, though there were several products to add to it. If you’d like an estimate for putting together a site for you, please drop me an email at mike@mikesoutherland.com.

For my “day job” I am still employed at Dolese Bros.

Back in March of this year I was installed as an elder at Northwest Bible Church (https://www.nwbcokc.org). It is such an honor to have the privilege to serve this congregation. My love for this group of people grows stronger each day. My love and respect for the other two elders at NWBC has grown tremendously as I get to meet with them on a weekly basis. During this meeting we discuss church business, and we also take the time to read the scripture and pray for members of the congregation. Our main teaching elder, Alan Conner, was diagnosed with cancer this year, but by God’s grace it appears that he has completely recovered. That was a huge answer to prayer. His diagnoses came the Thursday before I was installed as an elder in March. After much prayer and several sessions of chemo and radiation, they were unable to find remaining cancer in his body. All praise be to God for Alan’s healing. I was blessed with the privilege of representing Northwest Bible Church with Jeremy Malone at the FIRE Conference in Oxnard, CA this past May. (https://www.firefellowship.org) It was at that conference that I realized that I am in the same organization as Gunny Hartman, the longtime friend (and best man at his wedding) of my brother Jason. It was great to see him at the conference and catch up.

In April I gave away my second daughter, Brianna, to Matt Petty. Matt is a great guy, and a good husband for Brianna. He is in the Air Force, but plans to become a CPA. I love it that the Lord is blessing me with sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law whom I get along with very well and I feel are a good match for each of my children. I pray for them, along with my own children, every day. Brianna’s wedding was beautiful. We had it on the beach in Galveston, close to Matt’s parent’s home.

In October, my fourth grandchild was born. Andy Southerland was born to Michael and Heather. I’m gradually becoming accustomed to being a grandpa, though I already have four grandkids.

One little note on my health: In June I grew fed up with being labeled by my doctor as “obese.” To me, “obese” means barely able to move because you are so big, it is practically a disability. Apparently, the medical community has their own standard of measure for obesity, with a BMI of over 30 (I believe). So, in June I began a workout and diet regiment of losing weight. At the end of the year I had lost about 30 pounds, dropping from 199 to 169. I’ve got about 10 pounds more to go to be in “normal” range. I did drop out of the “obese” range, and am now classified as merely “overweight.” I still think they are a little harsh on their labels, and I think that my short height (5’ 7”) doesn’t help the BMI calculation, but whatever, I now have a New Year’s resolution to knock out that remaining 10 lbs. With all the fuss over weight loss and the obsession that it is in our country, I’m coming away with the impression that all it really boils down to is self-discipline. At one point my weight had been approaching 220. All it really took was a determined desire to shed the pounds, and the determination to follow it through. The “secret” (if it can really be called that) is simply to burn more calories than you consume. It’s not easy, because I like to eat lots of calories, and I like to not exert myself. But it is simple. About an hour on the treadmill each morning at a speed of about 4.5 miles/hour and eating around 1600 calories a day is what did it for me. The holidays have stagnated my progress, but I’m ready to get moving again and lose those last 10 pounds. When I get to 159, I can enter “maintenance” mode whereby I can slack off on the walking and/or relax the eating regiment slightly. But I can’t neglect it entirely or I will gain back everything I lost. The benefit to my health has been noticeable. I don’t lose my breath like I used to simply carrying a laundry basket full of clothes from our closet to the washroom. Plus, my heart rate hovers around 60 beats per minute, often lower, when at rest.

I will close for now. I won’t promise any further updates, until this time next year. I’ve found Facebook to be a suitable alternative to blogging. Even then, I’m more of a reader than a poster.

2017 Year in Review

I am writing this on the first day of 2018. Time continues to fly by.

On my job front, I am still at Dolese. I really like this company. In February, the company celebrated 115 years of service. The CEO, Mark Helm, has some great plans for IT expansion in 2018 and beyond. It’s great to be a part of this time of growth for Dolese.

This year I also begin my adventure into the world of landlording. We secured our first rental property in Guthrie in August. We found a great realtor, Brice Semrad, who helped us locate and buy it. Brice doubles as a realtor and a real estate investor. So he was a great help in knowing what to look for. I also found a good online resource in biggerpockets.com and the accompanying podcast. Some people really get into the real estate investing thing. So far, I’ve enjoyed it. But it doesn’t seem to hold the passion for me like it does with some. In any case, I think this will be a good investment over the long run. Real estate, by and large, tends to appreciate over time. It is already cash flowing. I’m sure it’ll have its own set of challenges over time. But so far it really hasn’t been that tough. We managed to get our first renters who started their lease on October 1. They seem to be very good renters and I hope that they continue to live there for the long term.

One interesting providence happened while I was showing the rental property to potential renters. A man walked in to talk to me about my experience in the rental process. He is also a new investor. It also turns out that he is a local business owner. He has operated Armstrong Products since 1974. He asked me what I did on my day job, and when I shared that I was a web developer he asked if I ever took on any side projects. We exchanged information, and he called me several weeks later. He manufactures and sells high quality art display panels used for showing fine art at events. He also manufactures and sells safety tread stair nosings. These are the non-slip surfaces on the edge of steps on a stair case most often seen on commercial properties. Their existing website is www.armstrongproducts.com. If you follow the link you will see their high quality products. However, the website is admittedly very dated. Mr. Armstrong needed me to create a new website that concentrates on his art panels. Gallerypanels.com is the solution we came up with. As of this writing, if you visit it, you will find an “under construction” message. We have not yet gone live with it, as we still need to nail down the details with shipping so that customers can order their art panels and supplies online. I expect that this site will be live in the next few weeks. I built it using Wordpress with a WooCommerce addin for shopping cart purposes. It is mobile ready. I’m hoping that it will really help their sales. If you have a need for an updated website, drop me an email at mike@mikesoutherland.com. I’d be happy to talk over what requirements you have and help you formulate a solution.

2017 was the year that I received my first surgery. I had a “clean out” scope procedure on my left shoulder in November. I have healed up nicely from that. There is still a little soreness, but it is doing a lot better. But that was a memorable experience having to wear a sling for several weeks and not being able to drive for about two weeks.

I’m enjoying being both a grandfather and a father. I’m watching my grandchildren grow older, while watching my younger children do the same. This year Paton had his “rite of passage” as he turned 13. This was the first year we were able to host it at our church, Northwest Bible Church. Two of our elders, Alan Conner and Alan Loeffler, gave excellent encouraging talks to Paton. My brother, Jason, and his son, Daniel also shared with him. I’ve now completed three of these for my sons. Two more to go.

I expect that this year Sheri and I will give another of our daughters away. Brianna’s boyfriend, Matt, asked me for my blessing for him to marry Brianna. I gave the blessing. As of now, he has not officially proposed. But regardless of that technicality they are busily planning for it and have given us an estimate of sometime this Spring.

Justin and I wrapped up the computer portion of driver’s ed. In the next few months we’ll work our way through the driving portion. He’s already 16. It’s been tough to have us both home at the same time to get this done.

Paton continues to excel with his violin playing. In addition to his normal recitals, he has played a couple of times at church this year, primarily during the Christmas program.

 Sarah has really blossomed in terms of keeping in touch with family. She’s been the best one of the kids in making sure to consistently email and facetime our extended family in Texas.

Samuel started Trail Life this year. He seems to really enjoy it. I just hope I’ll be able to survive the campouts with him. I’ll enjoy the time with him, though camping hasn’t always been my “thing.”

Melody is very close to finishing her “Teach Your Child to Read” book. She and I have been working on this for quite a while. I have a Bible with her name on it to present to her when we are done.

David is growing taller and has become quite a blessing in our family. He is certainly full of life.

In closing, I wanted to mention the passing of a mighty man of God. Since I came to a Reformed understanding of scripture I have enjoyed and profited from the teaching of Dr. R.C. Sproul. He left this world in December, leaving behind many books and teachings for the edification of the church. I never was able to meet him in person, but I have watched him several times on DVD and read a few of his books.

2016 Year in Review

The biggest news of 2016 is that I became a grandfather three times! Our first grandbaby, Clara, was born way back in January on 1/5. Then, at the end of January I inherited another granddaughter when my son, Michael, married Heather. Addalynn turned 8 this year. Finally, it wasn’t long after their marriage until Michael and Heather announced that they were expecting their first baby together. My first grandson, Levi, was born on 12/2. So, at the end of 2015 I had no grandchildren. Here, at the end of 2016 I have three! What a difference a year can make.

On the job front, I continued to contract with Dolese until August. In around June or July the management at Dolese offered me a full time position. At the same time, they let me know that if I did not accept it, then I would need to be moving on. After a few weeks of poking around to see what I could find, I realized that I had a pretty good thing going at Dolese in terms of the work I was doing and the people I was working with. So I wound up accepting their full time offer. The pay is a bit less than I was making as a contractor. But it’s nice to have health insurance and paid holidays and vacation again. Plus, I’ve been supplementing my income a bit on the side. Since about October I’ve been doing some Lyft driving. It doesn’t pay a lot, but it’s fun to see different parts of the city and to meet new people. Plus, the biggest advantage is that it is extremely flexible on when I can work or when I don’t have to. I just turn on the app when I want to give rides, and turn it off when I’m done. For supplementing income it gives a lot more freedom than a second job would. Lyft has a few perks that I’ve been able to take advantage of, like a fuel discount at Shell. The better “side job” I have found was through upwork.com. I’m doing some database programming for a company that does mortgage loan processing, titles, etc. It’s all about real estate loans and processing. This is working very well for me, though I’m hoping that as 2017 starts we can pick up the pace and start knocking 2 or 3 of these projects out a week. They pay on a “per project” basis rather than by the hour. I think this is a great way to do it. It sure gives me an incentive to work quickly and efficiently. For both of these “side jobs” I bought some new tools. For the programming job, I bought another laptop. My previous one was in sad shape. The power port had become disconnected so that I could no longer plug it in while working, or even when I wasn’t working in order to charge the battery. In most cases, that would have been a show stopper right there. But I did find a device on either Amazon, or eBay, can’t remember, that allowed me to charge a laptop battery outside of the laptop itself. So that kept me going for a while. However, in the middle of one of my SQL projects, my battery didn’t charge after leaving it on all night long. I had located a small computer shop that had a laptop that was compatible with my existing one. What that meant was that I was able to take the SSD hard drive and the 8 GB of memory out of my old one and use it directly in the new one. This was convenient as I didn’t have to reinstall any of my software, etc. I just popped my existing drive in and continued programming. Now, I have a laptop that I can actually plug in again. I’m writing this post on it now. Another nice thing is that the guy took $100 off the price of the new laptop since I didn’t use his hard drive. The new “tool” that I bought for the Lyft job is another car. Actually, I bought the car before I decided to do Lyft. So, it’s not exactly accurate that I bought it for that purpose. But the timing was pretty close. I bought the car and about two weeks later started doing Lyft with it. If you read the 2015 Year in Review, you’ll remember me describing Brianna’s Crown Vic Police Interceptor. Hers has worked out well. So I decided to get one myself! It’s a 2005, V-8, black and white, with a long police radio antenna on the trunk. I may eventually hook that up to a CB. I haven’t quite decided yet. I really like it. It’s got lots of power and even has keyless entry, which is rare for police vehicles. Doing Lyft with it has been fun as I get lots of comments.

Church has been going great. As time goes on it’s more and more clear that this is the best place for us. It’s another one of those situations where “if I had it to do over again” I would have attended here from the time we first moved to Oklahoma. The last time I experienced that was much more drastic in Tennessee. When we first moved out there we were involved in a charismatic, non-denominational church. By the time we left, we were attending at Reformed Baptist of Nashville. So, the situation here in Oklahoma is reminiscent of that, though quite a bit different in that all three churches we’ve attended here in Oklahoma have at least been much more Christ exalting and orthodox than the charismatic one in Nashville.

Updates on the kids –

I already mentioned Brittney and Landon having Clara. No second baby on the way yet (or at least they haven’t told anyone if there is!).

I also mentioned Michael and Heather already having Levi. His middle name is Malcolm, named after my grandfather.

Brianna has been dating an Air Force guy named Matt. He seems like a really nice guy and he gets along well with all of Brianna’s little brothers and sisters (and her older ones too).

Justin turned 15 and is counting the days until he can get his driver’s permit. Oh no, not that again. J

Paton is excelling at his violin playing. He also turns 13 in April. So I’m busy preparing for yet another Rite of Passage ceremony.

Sarah is doing very well at her piano playing. She’s also loving being an aunt to Clara and Levi.

Samuel is growing in the Lord. He’s got a great smile and is a joy to be around.

Melody turned five. She also loves being an aunt to Clara and Levi, but she has found a new really good friend in Addalynn. They love to play together.

David is David… He’s quite a handful. But he’s full of personality. He’s still attached to sucking his thumb. He turned three last August. He’s got a great vocabulary as he listens in on everything we’re saying.

I’m still learning on the “grandpa” thing. We’re trying to teach the grandkids to call me “Granddaddy.” I liked “Pepaw,” but my older kids vetoed that saying that Pepaw could never be replaced. (That was Malcolm that I mentioned earlier.) But in getting used to the Grandpa thing I’m not certain how much info my kids want me to share on their kids. So until I get a better feel for those expectations my updates on them will be pretty shallow, not that I gave you a lot of info on my own kids either! J But that’s mainly due to time over conviction. I began this post over the Christmas holiday and here it is January 4, and I’m just now posting it. Better late than never. No promises on posts between now and next year, but here’s hoping that I will.

Have a great 2017!

2015 Year in Review

2015 was quite an eventful year for all of us. In January we started attending Northwest Bible Church in Oklahoma City. I love this church. It is Reformed Baptist, with expositional teaching through the scriptures. The music is traditional with hymns. We are making many friends, and we love our new church. Northwest Bible Church believes in the biblical doctrine of plurality of eldership. Alexander Strauch covers this topic thoroughly in his book, Biblical Eldership. I was included in a group of men that read and studied this book this year over the course of about six months. We worked through the accompanying workbook and met together to discuss. The eldership at Northwest Bible Church currently consists of Alan Conner, Alan Loeffler, and Dwayne Bolin. I had met Alan Conner and Dwayne before we started attending. However, over the course of this year, I have gotten to know all three of these men better and have developed a deep respect for all of them. Alan Conner is the primary teaching elder. If you visit the church, most likely you will hear him preaching. He has been working his way through the Gospel of John ever since we started attending in January. We joined several months later.

When I started 2015 I was employed as a contractor at Chesapeake Energy. I really like working there. Their environment seems to be a good match for me. There was a Toastmasters club on the campus that I became actively involved in. “Chesaspeak” Toastmasters is a great club with a great group of individuals. I had been at Chesapeake since September 2014. When I left my government contracting position at Tinker Air Force Base the assurance was given that this was a “long term contract” with an expectation of lasting about two years. There were four contractors on our team. In January they renewed all our contracts for another six months. However, when June rolled around and it was getting close to time for them to renew the contracts they informed all four of us that due to budget constraints tied closely to the low energy prices Chesapeake had to let all their contractors go.  They gave us ample notice of several weeks. I believe it was about 4 weeks if I recall. So I began another job search. I ended up at Farmers Insurance. The appeal to this new position was two-fold. 1) Seeing the clock wind down on my time at Chesapeake I needed to find something in order to support my family and 2) this was an “IVR” position. Much of my career has been in the telecom industry programming IVR systems, phone switches, call centers, etc. So I saw this as an opportunity to renew my skill set in a niche where I already had a lot of experience. The only problem, and I did know this when I took the position, was that this was much more of an advisory role as opposed to a hands on programming position. Most of my days were spent on the phone in conference calls discussing issues that were to be fixed, or the new project that was going to begin shortly. However, after the talking had been done, it was a vendor, not our team that got to do the “fun part” of actually coding the changes. I am a programmer. Since I began my career I have been a programmer. I have never liked the thought or the duties involved in project management. Give me a technical problem to solve rather than an administrative one. One additional side note, and Farmers, if you are reading this please take notice, this is the only contracting position I have ever held where contractors were included in an “on call” rotation. Sure, they paid me if I spent extra time responding to a call. But I didn’t get any extra pay for the hassle of making sure I was “ready” if I received a call. I felt like I was being treated as a full time employee. Yet I didn’t receive any of the standard full time employee benefits. During my final two weeks there, I wasn’t “on call” but there was a mix up in the schedule where some thought that I was. So I received two calls on the weekend of my birthday. This was also a Friday night in which Paton was in a Christmas recital with his violin. I had to apologize to the guy who called me and let him know that I was not on call. Then, throughout the recital my mind was on whether I should have dropped everything to handle this call. Avoiding this type of personal interference is one of the benefits of contracting. I am simply expendable “paid help” brought in to help solve a problem. I take no ownership or loyalty to the company as a whole like I would if I were a full time employee. Chesapeake understood that and operated on those principles. I didn’t get invited to the company Christmas party, because I was a contractor. I didn’t get invited to company wide “town hall” meetings, because I was a contractor. But neither did I carry an on call responsibility, because I was a contractor. I was good with that. They were good with that. But at Farmers it seemed they were as inclusive as they could be with their employees and contractors. I regularly called into remote “town hall” discussions over the phone. I even took a business trip, as a contractor, with Farmers. I was scheduled for another trip the first week of January 2016 (next week) if I hadn’t have left. I am super glad to have avoided that trip for reasons I will cover when I talk about each of the kids in a moment. Long story short, after looking for another position for several weeks I received an offer for a contracting position at Dolese doing web programming in C#, ASP .NET. I started there on December 18. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. This is good for my career as I don’t want to be too far removed from hands on programming experience. I liked the people I worked with at Farmers, but this is an altogether better match for me. Lastly, news about Sheri and I include the fact that we have discovered a new “buying club” that is currently in its pre-launch stage. It’s a sort of a mix between Sam’s Club and Amazon, with a fabulous referral bonus business model rather than advertising. That’s all I’ll say for now. I’ll have more details later this month. If you’d like, drop me an email and I’ll tell you all I know.

OK, now for the part that everyone is waiting for, what’s going on with the children? Well, in my last “Year in Review” I talked about Brittney’s marriage to Landon Hastings. Early in the year they let us know that they are expecting our first grandbaby! Brittney’s due date is actually tomorrow, January 3. They are having a girl. They’ve already picked out a beautiful name; Clara Joy Hastings. Brittney’s middle name is Joy. So it’s a great name for their little girl.

Michael also surprised us this year by proposing to Heather Poencet. He met her when he worked at Kimray. That was several jobs ago. This year has been a year of constant transition for Michael. Things are looking hopeful for Michael landing at a fire station. Stay tuned for more information as that develops.

Brianna became the third graduate from our homeschool this year. She’s kept pretty busy after that including working at a Summer kids camp in Texas, working at a local honey farm (mainly helping the owner with construction projects), and continuing to further her photography skills. She also bought her first car this year. It’s awesome. It’s a 2000 Crown Victoria police cruiser. She doesn’t have emergency lights, as that would be illegal. But she does have the big black bumper guard thing on the front, a spotlight on each front door, and the original black and white color scheme. It’s fun riding with her on the freeway. People naturally get in the right lane and let her by. The specs on the car are pretty nice as well. It’s got a beefed up suspension system, engine, and transmission. We haven’t tried this yet, but the guy that sold it to us said that you can hit a curb doing 40 mph and it will handle it fine. He also said that you can take a 90 degree turn at 55 mph. That sounds a little daring, but if it can handle that, then surely it can handle “normal” driving. We bought it from a guy in a small town that is part of their emergency team. He bought three cars from Edmond PD and “fixed them up,” providing what he thought was the best of the three to the small town police dept. Then he finished the one for Brianna and thought it cleaned up nicer than the other two. The guy was asking $2000 and Brianna got it for $1900. It’s a great deal for an older car that runs great with cold AC. As an added bonus he left the two antennas on top of the car to give it that “police” look, though he took out the emergency radio.

Justin seems to keep growing taller and taller. He’s got an interesting “hair look” going on. He’s taken an interest in entrepreneurship. He’s currently reading The Richest Man in Babylon. He has a drive to excel and I expect that he will be very successful in whatever business attempts he tries.

Paton continues to get better and better at his violin playing. He finished “book 3” out of the Suzuki series.

Sarah has continued to improve in her piano playing. Sarah and Samuel were baptized in October. This was preceded by a six week study that I did with both of them. We worked through a book provided by Alan Conner speaking to the meaning of baptism. The title escapes me now, but it is also used at Bethlehem Baptist Church (the church where John Piper formerly pastored).

Samuel’s update is pretty much combined with Sarah’s above as his baptism was the biggest news for him last year.

Melody loves looking at books. She’s moved up to “preschool” in both her coop classes and in her Sunday School class. I’m planning to at least start teaching her to read this year.

David is two, and full of life. He loves to have books read to him. I think his favorite is The Adventures of Ping. Toddlers love repetition. So I think I just about have that book memorized.

OK. Well, this post seems longer than most, and I’m already late in getting it out. So I’ll end it for now. Hopefully I’ll put another post out before my 2016 Year in Review. But we’ll wait to see if that happens. Later.

2014 Year in Review

There were many reasons to celebrate in 2014. Plus there were a few reasons to mourn. Wanting to start this blog entry off on a positive note, I’ll talk about the celebration aspect first!

Easily grabbing the top spot in the “celebration” category is the marriage of my daughter, Brittney to Landon Hastings. This time last year I had no idea that this was in store. I believe it may have been June of 2014 when Landon approached me to let me know that he had an interest in my daughter. So we began to meet weekly to talk through things, get to know each other better, and to review a few theological resources that I wanted to give him. Brittney was “in on it” at this point, as she knew that Landon had asked and that we were starting this process. Everyone involved expected that if all went well the wedding would happen sometime in 2015, probably in the Fall. Things seem to be going well. Landon seemed like he was a good match for Brittney. We discussed several things from scripture. It was a good time to dig into the Word together. Then in October Brittney informed me that they would really like to get married this year. In fact, they’d like to get married in about 5 weeks from that point. What’s strange/funny is that Landon had not really “officially” asked me to marry my daughter. Of course, we knew that was the end goal of what we were preparing for. But both of us had an understanding  that that would need to happen before we moved forward with wedding plans. Being a protective dad I honestly would have liked a few more months of preparation and study with Landon first. But also knowing that the scripture blesses marriage and passages like I Corinthians 7:36 indicate that “if his passions are strong” we should “let them marry,” I prepared myself to accept Landon’s “official” request for the hand of my daughter in marriage. I planned an evening where Brianna watched the little ones, and I took Sheri, Landon, and Brittney to Red Lobster where we could visit. Landon could ask me right then and we could all share together in the moment. We sat down and ordered the food. We reminisced about times when Brittney was younger. We shared some of our times about Jamestown and the awesome trip we took there in 2007. But I kept waiting for Landon to “ask the question.” It never came! We finished the meal. And we awkwardly left the restaurant. We had all ridden in the same car. I was totally confused and wondered what just happened. I think there was a communication breakdown between Landon and Brittney. In the course of our meeting I had given Landon some questions that I had asked him to respond to in writing. After receiving them from him, there were a few points of clarification that I had really wanted him to respond to. So I found out later that while I was waiting for Landon to “ask the question” he was waiting for me to ask him questions about the answers he had given to my initial questions. He was seeing that as a necessary step before he asked the all important question of me. It is true that I would have liked a little more time to go over those answers and draw a few more details out of him. But I had just been informed that there were only five weeks to go before they wanted to “tie the knot.” I felt comfortable enough in giving my blessing, even without thoroughly hashing out the details in his answers to my questions. Plus, I knew that if we were going to get started planning the wedding, that critical step of his asking had to take place. Riding back to the house, we stopped off at Braum's. I can’t remember if the excuse was to get milk for our family (like we always do), or if we were going to get an ice cream. But in any case, after pulling into the parking lot Brittney spoke up and tried to clarify things. Unknown to me, she and Landon were texting each other in the back seat so that I couldn't hear their discussion. Bottom line is that he finally asked the question, I gave my blessing, and we began frantically planning the wedding for five weeks later. So here we are at the start of 2015 and I have a new son-in-law! He really is a great guy. I’m glad to have him in our family. I’m confident that he will lead my daughter and any children they have well. He is a solid believer in Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that they will be married for the rest of their lives until the Lord takes one or both of them home.

Since I started with my oldest this year, I’ll go through the list of updates starting with her. Besides the wedding, Brittney also bought a Mustang GT this year. It is an 2004 model. Five speed, red with tan leather seats. It’s in great shape. I’m really fighting the temptation for coveting my own daughter’s car as I head out to work each morning in my grandfather’s 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that I have a car that works for me. And it has a lot of room in it. But one of the mistakes I made in my lifetime was selling my 1997 Mustang when Brittney turned 16. I got antsy with insurance concerns and didn't research the financial realities the way I should have. It really wouldn't have been as bad as I had imagined. Brittney proved that by buying herself a GT, which would have been higher premiums than I would have had on my 6 cylinder. Oh well, live and learn. I’ll get another Mustang someday.

Michael turned 19 this year. He has had a full year. He graduated from high school. We had a graduation ceremony for homeschoolers in our co-op group back in May. He started working this year at Kimray. That has been a great opportunity for him. He’s really enjoying it. However, his biggest passion is firefighting. This year Michael volunteered for our local volunteer fire department: Woodcrest Vol. Fire Dept. He is loving it. He’ll get called in the middle of the night. When that happens the same son who I have a very hard time pulling out of bed in the morning when I need to wake him up, jumps out of bed, pulls on his clothes, and heads out of the door in a flash to “come to the rescue.” Michael has a heart to help people. So he’s living in his groove when he can rush out the door to help actually save someone’s life. He’s learning all about emergency medical care and firefighting. They are giving him some great training, for free, at the Fire Department. I expect that sometime in the next year or two Michael may be able to transition into a full time paid position at a fire station. When that happens he’ll be living his dream.

Brianna is in the middle of her senior year in high school. She’s doing awesome in her studies. She’s had a bit of a challenging year. Brittney has always been her best friend. So this was the year that her best friend moved out of the house when she was married. On the flip side, Brianna finally has her own room! Brianna has been a huge help with the little ones this year.

Justin turned 13 this year. So that means that we held his “rite of passage” ceremony. Very similar to what we did for Michael in 2008, Justin received a book that I wrote for him entitled “Charges for a Southerland Son.” This was an extensively revised edition based on the one I wrote for Michael.  Justin also received a Geneva Bible, Family Bible edition. Lastly he received a beautiful Claymore sword with a custom scabbard. Unfortunately Brittney somewhat “upstaged” Justin with her wedding. So out of town family, knowing that they would be in Oklahoma for a wedding in November weren't able to come twice so close together in October. But Landon and his family were in attendance. I was happy about that so that they could witness what we do with our sons. I’d love to work with Landon when the time comes to help him do the same for my grandsons. Justin is also excelling in his schoolwork. Justin is now taller than me. He has changed in looks quite a bit over the past year.

Paton is continuing to excel in his violin playing. He’s doing great in his homeschool co-op. Paton has started drawing very good pictures. He is quite talented.

Sarah Grace has started piano this year. She’s doing very well. She had a recital this year at Guthrie’s Victorian Walk in December. She has an ear for music and has caught on very fast. Just this past week Sarah got her ears pierced.

Samuel is growing. He’s becoming quite a helper around the house. He’s also very funny even when he doesn't mean to be! The biggest news with Samuel is that this is the year that he professed faith in Jesus Christ! This brings great joy to my heart.

Melody is growing too. She’s becoming quite the little mommy with her baby brother David. I’m amazed at the vocabulary she has developed. I guess when you are the 8^th child of a homeschool family you tend to pick up on a lot of words.

David has left behind any concerns we had about him with low weight. He has really grown. He’s walking all over the place now and saying several words. This year we were able to move him from our room into the office. We didn't think it was a great idea to try and squeeze him into the room with the other four boys. I think he’d wake them up, and they’d probably wake him up too.

For me, this has been an eventful year. In my job I began the year still employed with CSI at Tinker. But in September I returned to Chesapeake as a contractor. I really enjoy the private sector, and Chesapeake in particular. I can relate to the culture there. This year I closed AnswerSoft, but started a new opportunity. I bought my own business called Life Leadership. It is a leadership development business. There are a ton of high quality encouraging materials available.

This was a sad year for our good friends, Bruce and Connie Kessler. They lost one of their sons this year. Then later in the year, Connie lost her father. Bruce and Connie are some of the nicest and caring people you’ll ever meet. We love them and mourn their losses with them.

A former church member and colleague of our pastor, Brian Wilson, passed away this year. He was pretty young.

All in all, this was a great year. We look forward to what the Lord is going to do in our lives in the year to come.

Arrows to Archers

I wanted to let my readers know of something exciting that I have in the works. In January I started a new website called Arrows to Archers (http://www.arrowstoarchers.com). Right now, it's just a blog. But my plans are bigger than that. I want to start a podcast, as well as a youtube channel for it. Also, I am currently working on an ebook that I hope to make available in the next few months.

What is Arrows to Archers? I'm glad you asked. :-) You may have read on this blog some of what I've done in the past for my children when they turn 13. See http://blog.mikesoutherland.com/2008/12/rite-of-passage.html for a description of what I did for my oldest son. The purpose of Arrows to Archers is to help other parents do the same for their children. In my opinion the greatest need right now is for godly young men. So, for the time being anyway, I'm going to concentrate on what a father and mother can do in order to train their sons to be godly men, who will someday lead their own families. Thus the title of the blog/ministry/business (I'm not how to refer to it), "Arrows to Archers." Arrows to Archers comes from Psalm 127:3-5

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.” (Psalm 127:3–5, ESV)

The premise is that our sons are arrows in our quiver. These same arrows will be the archers of the next generation who will have their own arrows eventually, and so on until the Lord returns.

My vision for Arrows to Archers is to offer help and resources to other parents so that they can train their sons to lead their own households. I want to make help available in a variety of ways. Most of the resources will be free, but I will honestly tell you that would love to concentrate on this full time. So if I can shape this in such a way so that it can support my family then I will be living my passion by helping others. We will see what the Lord does with this. At the same time I never want lack of resources to prevent other parents from pouring into the life of their children.

I am just getting started, and I need to spruce up the website as I get time. But I invite you to join me in the journey and stop by http://www.arrowstoarchers.com and join in the conversation.

2012 Year in Review

2012 has come and gone like a whirlwind. I reviewed my “2011Year in Review” before sitting down to compose this one. One thing I noticed is that 2012 saw an all time low in the number of blog posts I wrote since beginning this blog in 2006. This post marks only the fourth post done all year. I attribute part of that to an increased use of Facebook. So that short comments are generally offered there. But I will admit that a big part of this is simply the busyness of life. I have an idea to begin going through my “Charges for a Southerland Son” and blogging each section. It’s not too early to start revising it for Justin’s 13^th birthday in just under two years. Every year I see Doug Phillips admonishment on “How to End the Year X and Begin Y” (where X is the current year and Y is the year that will be here in a few days). Doug has a grand vision with a lot of good ideas for chronically what the Lord has done over the past year. This blog entry is my feeble attempt to do something, even if I don’t take every suggestion Doug has made.

I’ll begin this year with what is happening on the job front. I ended 2011 excited about doing IVR contracting. If you review that post you’ll see that I had left TransCore and was working from home coding IVR systems. Well, unfortunately the six month contract I had came to an abrupt end during the first week of January. Though the contracting company was apologetic, a new CFO at the end client was hired and shook things up after the end of the year. Several programming jobs were offshored to India. So that left me looking for work for about a month. In February I hired on, still as a contractor, with Chesapeake Energy. I started out doing some C#, ASP .NET work with Silverlight and WPF. After knocking out several bugs over the course of the next three months, Chesapeake told me that was all the programming they had for me at the time, but that they had a real need for help in Reporting Services. I have had a lot of experience doing that at TransCore and other positions before that. Long story short, I began doing reporting for them in May, and my contract has been extended a few times since then. Currently I’m good through the end of January 2013. We’ll see what God has planned for me then, whether a contract extension with Chesapeake again, hiring on full time with them, or moving on to other opportunities. Contracting certainly causes me to look to God more frequently, and to place my trust in Him that He will provide. It can be a little unsettling to not know what the future holds more than a month or two in advance. But in reality, that’s true for all of us. None of us are even promised another day of life. God has always provided my needs. I have had a desire for quite some time to work for myself. I’m working toward that end with AnswerSoft, the company I founded in 2010. Though I began it as a reseller for IVR services through IfByPhone, I have shifted the concentration during 2012 to mobile app development. AnswerSoft still offers discounted rates on IfByPhone, and I still support customers who sign up through AnswerSoft. However, app development is something whereby I have a little more control over the decision making process. I am currently working on an iPhone app for a local non-profit ministry. My plans are to port the app over to an Android implementation when done and support both operating systems. If the Lord wills it I could perhaps start doing app programming full time. But for now I need to work another day job in order to support the family.

Much has been going on with the children over this past year. Here’s a quick update on them.

Brittney is still working to get her leather working business going. She made me a great pair of leather flip flops. Her goal right now is to try and earn enough money to take a class from Lisa Sorrell, a world famous bootmaker that has a shop right here in Guthrie. She is also stepping in to help teach the other children handwriting during their homeschooling. That’s a big help as handwriting is really a one on one type of activity. Brittney’s help on this really takes a load off of Sheri.

Michael has continued to work hard building airplane hangers. He saved his money and bought himself a Dodge pickup this year. He also finished up his drivers ed and got his regular license. So now he’s mobile! He is adding to his arsenal of tools that he can use on the job site. We got him a DeWalt cordless drill. He also received other tools as gifts this year. It’s good to see him invest his money in things that he can use to earn more. Even the truck will help him expand his territory past our little two street neighborhood. Michael is also joining Justin and I in a study of Joel Beeke’s A Puritan Theology. I’ll talk more about that in Justin’s section below.

Brianna has really made great strides in her pottery this year. She made me a coffee mug. She’s made several bowls and other dishes. Sheri’s cousin, Brandon Drew is a chef. She showed him some of her work last week in Texas. He was very impressed and thinks that many in the circles he is in would love to purchase Brianna’s work. If it makes financial sense Brianna may consider that. She still enjoys photography, though she has yet to monetize it. We tried to set her up with an istockphoto account this year, but ran into a snag when they wanted a photo ID. Brianna is scheduled to start Driver’s Ed in 2013. So maybe her learner’s permit will serve as the photo ID for istockphoto and she can start pulling in some income from that endeavor.

Justin is chomping at the bit trying to figure out how to make money. There’s one thing for sure in our household, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. But how is an eleven year old boy going to make some cash? He’s had a few ideas, but not too many have panned out yet. Michael still does most of the yard work for the neighborhood. Maybe Justin can help out in that area this Spring and Summer. I’ve tried to drop the bug in Justin’s ear that computer programming doesn’t discriminate against age and he could do really well if he learned to program early. So far he’s shown a little interest. We’ll see if he pursues it. As I mentioned earlier, Justin, Michael, and I began a study of Joel Beeke’s new book, A Puritan Theology. Our goal is to cover a chapter each week. It will take us a little over a year to accomplish it. It looks to be very good, covering what the Puritans had to say about various theological topics. It’s like a Systematic Theology comprised of many different outstanding authors woven together though the pen of Joel Beeke.

Paton began playing the violin this year. He was inspired by our friends, the Chatham family. Their three oldest girls play beautifully. It just so happens that though they live in Blanchard, their violin teacher lives right here in Guthrie. So Paton decided he wanted to learn. It seems like it has come very naturally for him. Paton’s teacher says that he is doing great. He played in his first recital a few weeks ago. He did a great job, and even won a medal for the number of minutes he spent practicing. Also, this year Paton was baptized at GracePointe Baptist Church!

Sarah is growing up to be quite a big helper with Melody. She is so excited to have a little sister and she does a great job playing with her. Sarah has continued to improve in her reading. Earlier this year Sarah began to experience very real conviction over sin. She became very concerned that she was a sinner. We explained to her that she is right, she has sinned and that she needs to call upon Christ for the salvation of her soul. She prayed on her own and cried out for the Lord to save her. We are rejoicing in the salvation of yet another one of our children.

Samuel is just about done with the book that Sarah finished last year, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. He’s doing extremely well. There are parts of the book where I’m supposed to tell him to “sound out the words.” Meanwhile he’s already figured it out in his mind and reads it “the fast way” before I’m able to tell him to sound it out. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve already got his Geneva Bible sitting on the shelf with his name on it waiting for him to finish the book. We did Lesson 90 last night. He’ll most likely finish up in January.

Melody learned to walk early. She walked at 10 months old, the youngest of any of the girls, and tied with Michael, who was our fastest “learn to walk” child prior to Melody. That means she’s been getting into everything. We bought new cabinet locks. She’s very inquisitive and smart. She also has quite the personality (and temper!). She is a blessing, and I thank God for trusting her into our care.

Things continue to go well at GracePointe Baptist Church. The Lord has added several new families and formed new friendships in our lives. I’m thankful for God’s blessings throughout 2012 and look forward to what he is going to do in 2013.

Paton is Baptised!

2011 Year in Review

This year has been a year of great blessing from the Lord. After several trials in 2009 and 2010 we received the joyful news in February that we were expecting once again. As hard as it was to do, I believe that the Lord taught me through my past experiences to trust Him to bring about His will, whatever that may be. We prayed, our children prayed, our church family prayed, and our extended family prayed for this little baby. There were times when we wondered if the Lord would take this one as well. But we passed each milestone with joy and thankfulness. We had all the rest of our children with us in the ultrasound room when we learned that we were having a girl! Everyone was excited. I think Sarah was the most excited that it was a girl. There's a nine year gap between her and Brianna, the next oldest girl in our family. Sarah was going to have a baby sister!

Sheri was amazing throughout the pregnancy and before. The Lord has given me an excellent wife and a wonderful mother to our children. When our little girl was born on October 18, Sheri was glowing. It was beautiful to see her with yet another newborn baby of our own. Sheri continues to faithfully teach our children each day in our homeschool. I like to tell my sons, "Marry a woman like your mother someday."

We named our eighth child and fourth daughter Melody Hope Southerland. We had pretty much decided on Hope for her middle name early on. We tossed around several name possibilities, including Charity, Geneva, Sophia, Daisy, and a few others. I'm very happy with her name and I know that we made the right choice.

There were many other happenings this year that are noteworthy.

Brittney became our first homeschool graduate. She did a great job on her research paper that I assigned her. She took on the challenging topic of whether the environmental movement has any legitmacy or whether it is simply a tool of oppression by tyrannical government. She chose the topic. I'm not sure I would have been as creative if I had assigned her one. Brittney is still determined to pursue leather working. I'm pleased with this direction. It is a skill that will be very useful. She will be able to earn money, and it is something that she will be able to bring into a new family when she eventually marries, but will not take her out of the home. It will be a family enterprise that can be continued regardless of what her future husband does for a living.

Michael worked for a man down the street from us constructing an airplane hanger. We live in an airport community with a shared runway and taxiways. Noone in our family flies...yet. Michael has expressed an interest in learning to fly. So another one of the neighbors has offered to teach him. He is a licensed instructor. After establishing his reputation in the neighborhood as a hard, diligent worker, Michael's help was solicited to work on building this hanger. Michael has braved extreme heat and cold in working on this hanger. He has learned valuable skills, such as welding. Michael likes the outdoors and does not envy me working inside with computers. He has shown an interest in possible being a firefighter. As his father, I'm proud that he is showing such diligence in his work. Another exciting event for Michael this year is his turning 16. That means...driving. As of now, he's still doing driver's ed. Because of his busy work schedule we got a little behind in getting his permit.

Brianna seems to be following in Brittney's footsteps in many ways. She is enjoying quilting, along with Brittney. Throughout this year, Brianna has enjoyed "sewing days" with Brittney, and their good friends, the Chathams. Brianna is showing diligence in her schooling. She is usually the first child up in the mornings. When I come in to make breakfast and coffee, she's usually sitting at the kitchen table working on her math. She's being a very big help in taking care of her baby sister, Melody. Brianna's favorite hobby seems to be photography. She's always walking around with the camera around her neck snapping pictures of just about any obscure object you can find around the house.

Justin turned 10 years old this year. He's at that age where he's in a transition from being a "little kid" into one of the "big kids." Add to that, the fact that until Melody was born this year, he was right in the middle of seven children. With Melody's birth, he has joined the "oldest four" while the youngest four are Paton, Sarah, Samuel, and Melody. Justin has a very analytical mind. He is good at problem solving. He asks me intelligent questions. I'm looking forward to how the Lord will be using him in the coming years.

Paton has recently expressed his desire to "be a chef." We'll see if he pursues that into adulthood. But for now, it means helping out in the kitchen and trying to learn what he can in there. His specialty is "Wacky Cake." It seems he wants to bring that to church every week for our weekly meal there.

Sarah Grace lost her first tooth this year. We also finished the book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She has been doing awesome in her reading! I credit in large part Sarah's participation in reading the scripture during family worship as a major reason why her reading is progressing so nicely. When she finished her reading book, we bought her a 1599 Geneva Bible. During our family worship time we go around the room and everyone who can read reads two scriptures. Sarah takes her turn along with all the other readers.

Samuel, at four years old, has entered the stage of asking a lot of questions. I've heard things like, "Did God make houses?" So I get to explain that God made all things, and I proceed to tell him how He made the resources needed to make a house, and He made people and gave them intelligence on how to build it. So, then a natural question..."How does God make people?" :-)

One little funny bit of news concerning Sarah and Samuel is the episode when they were trying to set up their own Google account. With Sarah's reading skills and Samuel's computer skills, they just about had it, until they were caught!

And...I've already mentioned Miss Melody. Her mere presence is such a blessing. Add to that her pretty smiles and its enough to melt a daddy's heart.

On the job front, there have been changes as well. AnswerSoft continues to grow slowly. But in November, after returning to work after being out a couple of weeks with Melody's birth, I left TransCore in order to work from home doing consulting work for IVR programming. This has been a huge blessing. I've been able to save money on gas and food. I can wear jeans (or even shorts if I want) every day if I want. I'm also doing more of what I enjoy doing, actual programming. I was a little concerned while working at TransCore that too much time was elapsing between my last IVR position and my current position there. IVR programming is somewhat of a niche. After being away from it for a time, I've realized the value in continuing to devlop my expertise in this specialized field.

This year I received a Kindle Fire for my birthday. I already had a Kindle DX. Additionally, Justin and Paton both have Kindle Keyboards Wifi. I'm enjoying the Fire. The best function that the Fire offers is that with the Logos app I am able to access my entire Logos library on my Kindle Fire. This is a great blessing, as I have many excellent resources in that library. Before the Fire if I wanted to read Logos books on my Kindle, I had to copy and paste them into a new document and convert it to a Kindle document. Now I can read them natively, with fully active scripture references while reading Logos books. All of my Kindle library that I've collected through Amazon also exists on my Kindle Fire. So I can read them there. All in all, I still prefer to read on my DX. First of all, the e-ink is easier on the eyes than a backlit screen. It's just like reading a book. Next, the screen size of the DX is larger. So more text can fit on the screen before I need to turn the page, given the same text size. Also, there's a feature I really enjoy with my DX (that's also available on the boys' Kindles). That is the ability to post my notes on various passages into my Facebook account in the middle of my reading. For some reason that functionality is not available on the Fire. So with all things considered, my determination is that if I want to read a book, I prefer my DX. If I want to do anything else (including accessing my Logos library), the Fire offers more options.

Lastly, I want to mention the blessing that GracePointe Baptist Church has been throughout 2011. The men of the church gather on Saturday mornings and do a doctrinal study of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology. I've made good friends with everyone in the church. That's a great advantage of a small church. You have a chance to really get to know everyone well. My family has really gotten to know our pastor, Jeff Brown, and his family. For a couple of months during the summer we geographically divided into home groups. Jeff and his family met with us at our house. Those were some good times and we discovered many similarities between myself and Jeff. The desire that God placed within me for eldership that began back in our home fellowship is coming to fruition within the confines of GracePointe. Jason Randall and I are in eldership training. We will be meeting with Jeff over the course of 2012. I look forward to serving the congregation at GracePointe and learning how to minister to God's people.

2011 has been a really good year with a lot of really good memories. Thank you Lord.

The Lord's Blessings

Much has happened this year for which I am very thankful. The two major things are:
1) The birth of our newest daughter, Melody Hope Southerland, on October 18. She is one month old today! This was certainly an answer to prayer.
2) Changing my job. I now have a work at home position doing IVR development. AnswerSoft is still going strong, and this new position complements it nicely.

I haven't had much time for blogging, but life is moving full speed ahead. God is good.

2010 Year in Review

“And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  (Job 1:21, ESV)

We continue to pray asking God to give us a baby who will live to be born; one that we can raise, like we are doing with the first seven He has blessed us with.  I’m another year older, and hopefully another year more mature in the Lord and learning to trust Him completely.  This year I’ve wondered what He’s doing many times.  Yet, what other choice do I have other than to trust Him?  I read a helpful book this year that God gave me just before facing another trial.  It is called Trusting God:  Even When Life Hurts by Jerry Bridges.

Probably the biggest news in our lives for 2010 is that God blessed us with a church.  But before I get to that, let me fill in the back story.  At the end of last year, great frustration had set in.  We longed to be back in Texas.  There was a small IVR company, owned by a former colleague of mine.  I spent two days on site looking at their systems.  I sat through several weeks of webcast training in the evenings.  I heard nothing but compliments on my past experience.  Although we never did discuss salary and benefits and such, I had several verbal promises that he was going to bring me onto the team “next month.”  The agreement was that I could work anywhere I wanted.  So the plan was that I would work from home in Oklahoma, put the house on the market, then when it sold we’d move out to some land in Texas, close enough to drive into Dallas on Sunday morning to attend Dallas Reformed Baptist Church, but far enough out to have some acreage and some animals.  To this day that company has not told me “no.”  I’m sure if I sent off another email to him, I'd receive the same response of, “We’re almost ready…probably next month…don’t worry, we’ll call you.”  Now, I don’t know my friend’s company’s financials.  Maybe they just don’t have the work for me right now (or all last year).  But for whatever reason I believe the Lord has intervened and kept us here in spite of a willing(?) employer and certainly a willing employee.  2009 had been extremely stressful in terms of church.  I don’t want to disparage any of the families with which we formerly worshiped, as we continue to see most of them today and I consider them to be brothers and sisters in the Lord.  Yet there were reasons that God was calling us out of that assembly and to a place where my family would be under the care of church elders.  In any case, as we ended 2009 we were visiting churches.  There are several good churches in the Oklahoma City area.  Yet we didn’t seem to “click” in the places we tried.  I still have a conviction on family integrated worship.  Many of the very good churches still had age segregated Sunday School.  Because my friend Robert had joined Stillwater Presbyterian, we visited there for several weeks.  I read several books on believer’s baptism and infant baptism.  I value that time of study as it opened my eyes as to some of the reasons why Reformed Presbyterians baptize their children.  Although I was not convinced to the point of changing the views I have held throughout my Christian life, I read some very convincing arguments with John Calvin’s views being perhaps the strongest out of his Institutes of the Christian Religion.  At the end of the day my believer’s baptism views had not changed, so I continued to seek a church for our family.  For several weeks we attended Classen Road Baptist Church in Norman.  This was quite a drive for us.  But the pastor there, Julian Horner, was one of the most humble guys I had ever met.  His preaching was very good.  Like the other churches in the area they had an age segregated Sunday School.  However, we were never made to feel bad for keeping our children with us in the adult class.  We made several friendships there, including a dear brother named Rick Cortez.  He led the music there and would often sing directly from the scripture.  Though I don’t get to be with either of these brothers much anymore, I still hold them in high esteem.  Unfortunately as I was considering joining this church, the church crumbled from within and disbanded.  So our search continued.  In all our searching, the church that I kept considering was Northwest Bible Church.  Again, this is another strong, doctrinally sound church in the Oklahoma City area.  Pastor Alan Conner is an excellent teacher and he became a friend as well.  However, I just never quite felt like this was the place God wanted us.  They did have a strong youth program with Sunday School classes for all the children.  That very well could have been part of my uneasiness.  Family integrated worship is a strong conviction of mine.  If you do not share this conviction, please don’t let these comments dissuade you in any way from visiting Northwest Bible.  I have great regard for Pastor Conner, and I pray the Lord’s blessing upon Northwest Bible Church.

One day at work, Robert Graham leaned over from the next cube and asked me, “Have you seen this church?”  He had GracePointe Baptist Church’s website up on his computer.  Robert was still very much involved at Stillwater, but he knew I was looking for a Reformed Baptist church.  I brought the website up on my computer (http://www.gracepointeonline.com/), downloaded a couple of sermons, and read over the beliefs and some of Pastor Jeff Brown’s blog articles.  Everything looked good, so we decided to visit the following Sunday.  Paton was sick that morning so Sheri stayed home with him.  We got there in time for Sunday School.  The pastor’s wife, Cendy, greeted us in the parking lot.  At that point they still had children’s classes.  However, I think there were fewer children in the church than we had in our family.  So I came in with my six (who were with me) children and sat down at the tables in the fellowship hall.  One thing that I thought was a bit strange was that several people had laptops.  I would find out later that most of the families use Logos Bible Software.  Everyone was very friendly.  The teaching was good.  This was in May.  We visited for five months before joining in October.  During that time, and even since then, we’ve witnessed the church grow with more families.  So that now the children outnumber the adults, I believe.  I found out that the pastor was beginning to have a conviction for family integrated worship as well.  So the presence of our family only helped him to move the church in that direction.  What I see at GracePointe is a family of believers who are serious about their faith.  There are men who discuss the things of God.  There are a couple of guys who go out and do street preaching down at Bricktown and sometimes at Oklahoma University.  And yes, there’s a large contingent of Logos users, of which I have “joined the club.”  I bought Logos in June and have really enjoyed it ever since.  When we first came, GracePointe had pews in the sanctuary.  Those have since been replaced by nice chairs and the white plastic tables that used to be in the fellowship hall.  There are power supplies mounted to each table so that members and visitors can plug in their laptops.  I take notes directly on the computer.  We have formed some very good friendships during our time at GracePointe.  The pastor’s family lives closest to us.  So we’ve gotten together with them more frequently than we have with the other families, although we really want to make a point to have each family over.  So as we come to the end of 2010, I’m happy to say that we are established in a local church with a legitimate, ordained pastor.  GracePointe is in the Southern Baptist Convention, and we are part of the Founders ministry.

I mentioned already the Logos purchase.  There’s another purchase I made this year which I have enjoyed immensely.  I bought a Kindle DX.  I have loaded it up with a lot of theological works.  I have the ESV Study Bible on it, along with McCheyne’s reading plan.  It rests nicely up on the treadmill as I walk each weekday morning.  In that manner I easily read my Bible chapters for the day while getting in a workout.  I’m also constantly finding books offered for free from Amazon.  Often these books are only free for a short time.  That’s how I got Jerry Bridge’s book that I mentioned earlier.  God in His timing provided that book just a few days before I would really need it.  For his birthday, we bought Justin one of the new wifi Kindles.  So now he can share all of my books on it at no additional cost.

There are so many things that have gone on this year.  Judging from the number of blog entries I’ve made you may not think so.  But the smaller number of entries is most likely related to the shorter amount of time.  In July we attended Vision Forum’s Baby Conference.  We enjoyed that very much, and we picked up the recordings so we can review what we learned there.

I also saw my friend Robert unjustly removed from his position at work.  We are contractors, and our contracting company was very helpful to him as they did not at all agree with the way this was handled.  I’ll not name names here.  However, our company assisted him in finding a position in another state with our same company.  What’s even better for him is that they are allowing him to work from home and continue to live in Oklahoma or wherever else he would like to live.  So this is another classic case of what the customer meant for evil, God has used for good and allowed him to remained employed, and work from home in the presence of his family (and new little baby!).  I miss him, though, as I continue to drive to the same office every day.

Finally, in October 2010, I started AnswerSoft. (www.answersoft.net)  Thanks to a lead from my pastor Jeff, who also owns On-Call Computer Services, I discovered Ifbyphone. (www.ifbyphone.com)  As most of my background has been in IVR development and call center technology, I saw this as a great opportunity to pursue a long time dream of mine, self-employment.  AnswerSoft is an official reseller for Ifbyphone.  I can save my customers money over what they would pay if they enrolled at Ifbyphone directly.  Additionally, I am also available to make any custom changes they need for their systems.  Ifbyphone technology makes sophisticated phone switch applications, like call center queuing, IVR, voice recognition, voice broadcasting, voice mail, call recording, and much more, available to the small business owner as well as larger corporations.  In this past this technology was very expensive.  So only large corporations could afford these systems.  Ifbyphone provides all of these services “in the cloud” and charges a modest monthly fee, bringing these very helpful technologies into the reach of the small business owner.  Jeff Brown has told me how much time and money his phone system has saved him.  One of my goals for 2011 is to bring AnswerSoft to a level of profitability so that I will be able to devote my full time working hours to AnswerSoft.  One of the exciting new applications I am working on is an accounts receivable collections application.  Using this application small businesses can set their phone system up to automatically make those undesirable calls, “reminding” their customers that they need to pay what they agreed to pay.  This is certainly a win-win application that is sure to save your company a load of time and money.

2011 looks to be another eventful year.  Brittney will be our first homeschool graduate.  Pray for her as she enters a new stage of her life.  I want to support her desire to develop her leatherworking skills.  She has been a great help to her mother.  I expect that that will continue as she contributes to the smooth running of our household until such time as God provides her a husband.

I thank the Lord for a good 2010.  I must say it has been much more enjoyable than 2009.  I pray that God’s will and His glory will reign supreme in 2011.

Warren Holliman and His Chair

About three weeks ago we traveled to meet a very special lady from Arkansas.  For safety purposes I won't give you her name, but she is a cousin of mine whom I had never met in person before then.  She and I have carried on email and snail mail correspondence since 1998.  Her great-grandfather, Elijah Holliman and my g-g-g-grandfather, Warren Holliman were brothers and brothers-in-arms fighting for the Confederacy in the 41st Alabama regiment.  Here is Warren's picture:

Warren was born in 1835 and died in 1908.

Sometime, most likely after the war, he built a rocking chair for his young niece, Mary Elizabeth Holliman, Elijah's daughter.

The cousin I told you about is the granddaughter of Mary Elizabeth Holliman.  The chair was passed down in her family, and now it belonged to her.

This lady graciously gave me this rocking chair.  The rockers are missing, and the wicker seat does not look very strong, but this is a priceless treasure fashioned by the hands of my g-g-g-grandfather!

(My dear wife is taking the picture)

We spent about 2 hours at the Burger King on the Cherokee Turnpike.  That was our meeting place as we drove from Guthrie and she drove from Mountain Home, AR.

She showed us a lot of her family tree research that she and I share.  We had a great time and it was a pleasure to meet her after years of correspondence.

And I love the chair!

Snaggle Tooth!

Paton at his best!

The Pain of Miscarriage

Here is a very helpful Kevin Swanson - Generations program. I'd encourage you to give it a listen.

Vision Forum Year End Liquidation

Contemplating the Psalms

This is my prayer tonight. Thank you Father, for Your Word. So much of this Psalm hits home. Please, Lord, grant that desire in verse 9. I repent of my wickedness. Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.

Psa 38:1-22

(1) O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.

(2) For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.

(3) There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.

(4) For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me.

(5) My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.

(6) I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long.

(7) For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh.

(8) I am feeble and sore broken: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart.

(9) Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee.

(10) My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.

(11) My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off.

(12) They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long.

(13) But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth.

(14) Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs.

(15) For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God.

(16) For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me: when my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me.

(17) For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me.

(18) For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.

(19) But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong: and they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied.

(20) They also that render evil for good are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is.

(21) Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me.

(22) Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.

His First Rodeo

Here's my son's first attempt at bull (steer) riding. I think he did a great job for his first time.