Great day with Brenda, Adam and Natascha in Sedona.
Just some pics and a simple map to the Balwin trail that leads to Buddah Beach and Oak Creek.
This section of Sedona is more isolated than the central section. If you get away from hwy 179, you have a better possibility of some peace and quiet.
A year ago I did this section on a mountain bike with a dozen friends. No matter how you travel it, the Balwin Templeton trail is most excellent!
Headed for Sedona today with the family to hike the red rocks.
It is such a great feeling to be able to get out and hike again after my ankle break last summer.
This is my kind of “stimulus package” …. really gets me going to have my hiking boots on the red dirt again.
Cool thing about Sedona, It is just one hour from our house.
Here is a photo of the back side of “chicken point” while standing on “submariene rock”.
There is metric ton of trails in the Sedona area. I have had good experiences with two map resources. The first is Cosmic Ray’s Arizona Mountain Bike Trail Guide and his hiking trail guide. Any of the bike shops in town will have it and you can always pick up a copy online. This is a good resource to have for Tucson, Prescott and Phoenix as well.
I will post a couple of pictures after we get back.
This past week was a great time to reconnect with some friends and say goodbye to others.
Paul Callaway and I left for CBC back in 1975.
From left to right – Adam and Natascha, Brenda, Beth and Caleb, Paul and his son Ben …What a great night of laughter and fun.
Paul Price, Steve Lummer and Paul Callaway The three of us all went to college together in the late 1970’s.
I said good bye to Ceasar Garcia this past week. He and his family are moving back to California where he will manage a Dillard’s store. What a great family. Its been my privlege to be their pastor for the past five years.
The best part of being a pastor is the gift connecting with a lot of great people in your lifetime.
My brother Gary and I looking for Santa out the front window of our Iowa home.
Now we use NORAD to track him.
As of this post he was spotted on the NORAD radar over St. Louis Misourri.
http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.html
Merry Christmas.
Sunday we had an unusual but meaningful gift placed in the offering bucket.
One of our outdoor guys brought an offering to bless the ministry.
Nick has been a elk and deer hunter most of his life and this year he was blessed again.
He wanted to share the bounty with us and so here are some pics of the elk and deer offering he brought.
“And the remnant of the meat offering shall be Aaron’s and his sons’: it is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD made by fire. ” Leviticus 2:3 (kjv)
I will never forget last Sunday’s love gift…and I will bless our family with it soon on the grill.
Yesterday my daughter Natascha called my cell phone on her day off from work and the first sentence was, “dad you need to come and see this”.
She wanted me to come over to a little apartment here in Prescott to see the eight girls from the youth group painting and refurbishing a house for a couple in our city.
Brenda and I walked into a true AOL (Acts Of Love) moment.
The girls where totally having a blast cleaning, caulking and painting this house for a couple in the community that have just started attending the church and getting their lives turned around for the better with a new life change.
Here are some of my real life heroes.
What is really contagious about this is now the church is looking for other ways to help people in our city with real live Acts Of Love….cant wait for the next opportunity.
Thanks girls for the momentum you are adding to this movement in our community.
It seems the old childhood habit of collecting rocks is still alive in me to this day.
As a child I was always bring home rocks from my expeditions in the woods or near by construction sites.
The interest in rocks and minerals helped me when it came to the subject of geology in school and it all came very natural for me to study.
While in Alaska I was in a place called the Taylor mountains were we camped on a gravel bar for a couple of days.
The morning before we left for our base camp, I did what I always do and that was to explore the island we were camping on.
With the millions of rocks on the gravel bar availible to me, obviously this one caught my eye and I had to bring it home.
To me, it is a choice of looking for the fingerprints of God in every situation that makes the difference.
In everything and everywhere He has made it possble for us to see him and be influenced by him.
In the vastness of our search for traces of God, He makes it very simple by saying the Kingdom of God is at hand…. it is within our reach.
“The man who finds life will find it through trusting God…and God has put knowledge of him in our hearts, since the earliest of times men have seen the earth and sky and everything God has made, and have known of his existence and great eternal power. ” Romans 1:18-20 (lb) In other words …(Even nature itself proves the power and presence of an eternal caring involved God.)
What a great passege that points us to to realize God’s power and presence no matter where we are.
Just look around today and see what you can see. He is near.
A song that says it all is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOY0mjjmx8Y
Well, we made it down to the altar with flying colors.
Before I walked Natascha down the isle I looked at her and said, ” Here we go….no eye contact until we get to the front.
It was not easy to hold back the tears of joy that I felt today.
The waves of emotions ran high but everyone did fantastic.
It was great to see our church family come out and celebrate with our family.
Tonight just after leaving the church I called Adam and Natascha on their way to Phoenix and over the phone I heard her say, “Thanks dad….that was awsome.”
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY.
Thank you God for such a great daughter and new son-in-law.
A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies. Proverbs 31:10 (niv)
Anyone feeling a little vunerable or uncertain about our culture?
I heard a commentator the other day say something that I think connected with a lot of people.
He said, ” “we are in uncharted territory as a Nation.”
Yesterday as a Nation, we celebrated a National holiday in memory of Christopher Columbus.
Columbus was very familiar with “uncharted territory.”
Mark Batterson writes in his newest book, Wild Goose Chase these words. “In Washington D.C. there is a statute of Christopher Columbus. Beneath the statue there is a plaque that says; “To Christopher Columbus whose high faith and indomitable courage gave man kind a new world.”
TERRA INCOGNITO – Cartographers used to write terra incognito on the edge of medieval maps. A few brave souls sailed off the map into uncharted waters and discovered a new world. Terra incognito is the Latin term for “unknown land”, used in cartography for regions that have not been mapped or documented. The equivalent on French maps would be terres inconnues , and some English maps may show Parts Unknown.Naysayers and doomsdayers believed that if you ventured too far into unknown territory, you would either fall off the edge of the world or run into two-headed dragons. But that didn’t keep Columbus from venturing into uncharted waters”..
I love this quote.
People cannot discover new lands until they have the courage to lose sight of the shore”. – andre gide
So if you are feeling like you have never felt before, it could be that you are discovering something new, something uncharted.
One thing is for sure, Terra incognito keeps life from becoming a bore.
Abraham or anyone elso for that matter who has ever walked in faith lives in Terra Incognito land most of the time.
By faith Abraham ….went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8 (esv)
Just a few pics of today in Sedona and Flagstaff with Brenda.
Great to get the whole day with just her.
First stop – THE BLUEMOON CAFE
Next Stop – BIKE & BEAN for a great coffee and bike buds banter.
Oakcreek never dissapoints. The leaves are starting to turn and the trout are still swimming.
It was great to see where our son Caleb is working. Deckers Coorporation is parked perfectly in the college town of Flagstaff Az. Only 90 minutes from mom and dad.
I have learned in 28 years of ministry to “come apart”, so I don’t “come apart”.
“Come ye apart into a desert place, and rest a while. ” Mark 6:31
stevelummer.com 