Reflections on 2013

One of the many blessings of being a part of my church is the New Year’s prayer service.  The body gathers together and the elders and any other member who feels lead pray for each family and single in the church.  It is a time of encouragement, challenge, healing and refreshing.  I look forward to being a part of it each year praying over folks as the Lord leads and being prayed over.  I come home and write what is prayed over me.  Some times it is challenging and convicting to look back, because I see things unfulfilled or not fully walked out.  Not because of God but to my sin and life.  But it is encouraging to see how the Lord worked.  The words I took home for 2013 were;  “No fear in the Lord,  the Lord is my shield, hospitality in my house, be a John Mark for the elders at church, and be stretched and grow.”  I don’t know about how much I was a John Mark to the elders and I know that I have not fully lived in the reality that in the Lord there is no fear.  But I think if you look over my life in 2013 you will see the rest walked out.

Professionally, this year was a tremendous year of challenge and growth.  North Carolina made a change to PowerSchool as our student information system.  The system is majorly different from our old system for anyone who is not a teacher.  Being the point man for it in my school I had to jump in and learn and teach it.  My school district gave me the opportunity to do a 5 day training in Raleigh on the system.  I was able to ride the express bus from Chapel Hill to the Capitol area in Raleigh each day.  I got to know some folks from across the state and eat with them at several great places.  In the afternoons I had more time to wait before the bus came and got to explore the Capitol area.  But it just makes me want to go see the museums more.  Thanks to the training I’m one of 3 trainers for the district on the new system.  I’ve enjoyed training others.  But it is challenging, since things are not fully working and in place as they should be yet.  Another challenge was being elected at the president of the local chapter of my professional organization (Educational Office Professionals).  I’ve served for several years as secretary, but president is a real challenge, since leadership is not a natural gifting for me.  I’m so grateful to the others in my local chapter because our chapter planned and hosted the district (several other chapters) fall meeting.  We spent months planning and making it happen and it went very well.

As many of you know, I’m a fan of podcasts.  I started listening to them in 2005.  The first two I listened to were about the TV show LOST.  Those two connected me with Ryan & Jen Ozawa in Hawaii (would love to go visit them sometime, but I might just stay in Hawaii 😀 ) and Cliff & Stephanie Ravenscraft.  Because of these two couples, I have developed friendships with them and with people around the world.  Cliff & Stephanie’s podcast network, gspn.tv /podcastanswerman.com,  had meet-ups and events for years.  But they have always fallen at extremely busy times for me.  But two years ago they announced that they were going to be doing a community cruise.  Thanks to planning and money from my Aunt Mary Ann’s estate, I was able to set money back for the cruise.  I had a blast planning for it and looking forward to the Summer cruise to come.  I hate that more in the community could not come, but the group we had was great.

We spent weeks talking online and calls planning.  We had the great fortune of having Randy Crane & his wife Faye coming with us.  Randy & Faye are Disney lovers and experts.  Plus Randy was our travel agent, I highly recommend him if you are going Disney or anything else click here for details.  I really enjoyed getting to know them better and am thankful for them letting me be a third wheel on the cruise 🙂 .  Randy & Faye have a deep faith in the Lord and Randy has even written a book called “Faith and the Magic Kingdom.”  He uses the Disney Parks to illustrate principles of Christian faith.  So it was wonderful to be with them on the trip.

We cruised to the Caribbean on the Disney Dream.  I know Disney costs more but for me the ease of travel, quality of food and entertainment were well worth it.  The service was amazing!  Please read this post to get the full picture.  Our group of 15 had a great time eating together, seeing the aquariums at Atlantis, enjoying Disney’s Castaway Cay, and doing the Mid-ship Detective Agency.  It was so great to get to know people face to face that I have known for years and for them to know me better.  I had a great time and I could go on and on.  But I really enjoyed it and would LOVE to do a Disney Cruise to Alaska some time.

Continuing the friendship and hospitality side of things, I got to open my house up several times to host Bible study.  In the fall I had my first overnight guest when my buddy Rob Mancuso came down for a visit and to help with a missions fundraiser.  I’ve had several family members come and see the house.  Plus it is great living in the neighborhood.  My church home group (Wednesday night meeting) is just around the corner at the Lungren’s house.  It has been great to walk to home group and spend time with such loving and supportive folks.  I love the neighborhood and have met many of my neighbors.  Living in the house for a year has been great.  It is truly home.  Lord willing, I pray that my home can be a blessing and a place of hospitality for years to come.

I’ve also enjoyed a lot of live music this year thanks to the band Love & Valor.  So much so I created a page on my website to promote them.  This group is made of folks I know, but I’m not just supporting them out of friendship.  They are good.  They are all gifted by the Lord in music.  They do covers but most of the songs they do are their own.  They have a cool sound with many instruments and are a blast to hear live.  It is fun supporting them!

I’m a part of an Iron Man group (as in iron sharpens iron from the bible, not the competition sport).  Our church has small groups of guys who get together weekly and encourage, challenge and pray for each other.  Dan Lungren, Nathan Heafner, Caleb Fox and Eddie Mullins have been a huge blessing for me.  We get together in the evenings (since that works best for us) once a week and that time is a blessing.  We share what the Lord is teaching us, pray about needs in our lives and families and even serve as a witness to the world.  This is because we meet at the local Panera restaurant.  These guys have been encouraging to me and such a help in physically, mentally and spiritually challenging year.  I pray I have helped them as much as they have helped me.

This year I’m blessed to have several folks working with me at church running the computer during services.  This lets me be off two Sundays a month and frees me up to be in worship or, like several times this year, visit family.  It is a joy to serve the Lord at Antioch in any way He leads.  I’m truly blessed to be in such a solid, bible teaching, God worshiping, growing church.  I’m surrounded by people who are my family just as much as my blood family.  I’m encouraged and challenged by the Word of God preached.  I’m drawn into worship by the worship leaders and worship team.  I’m challenged to teach in home group.  I’m encouraged as I serve in the body and on the mission field.  I also continued to serve at Arts Alive.  This year I was challenged in running lights for the end of year productions.  It was wild.

My heart is to serve the Lord and He is teaching me and challenging me to go deeper with Him.  I has been a challenging year for that.  I have to be honest and say how often I have turned to things and sinned instead of turning to Him this year.  But I love how He has orchestrated my life to draw me closer to Him.  The challenges at work and with the professional organization, the challenges of meeting folks in person for the first time and being out of my comfort zone on the cruise, the challenge of being on the mission field, the challenge of health issues,  my dad’s health, and being single and surrounded by people getting engaged and married have all been used to make me draw closer to Christ.  It has truly been a growing and challenging year and once again I say I’m SO grateful to my church, my Iron Man group and to Rob for their support.

It has been a good year with my blood family but challenging too.  I have gotten time over the year to spend with all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, Mom & Dad and Mary Etta (grandmother Gentry).  I had some good weekend visits with Mom & Dad during the Summer and Fall and a great Christmas week with them.  I got so celebrate my cousin Jennifer Shields getting her doctorate.  Both my Dad and his brother Joe had heart surgery this year.  I’m so grateful for the support they got and so grateful to the Lord for healing.  Prayer works.  As our family sat waiting while Dad’s surgery was going on, I felt the prayers of Mom & Dad’s church and mine.  So many people came to support Dad & Mom.  I’m grateful for the Lord’s healing in Dad and Dad’s dedication to do the hard work in recovery.  This time gave me more insight into Dad and what a role he plays at King Moravian, in the family and in the community.  I’m blessed to be his son and am so grateful for the quiet life of service he leads.  I have and am still learning about service from him.

One last high point I want to share is about my 5th mission trip to Bocachica, Colombia.  If you know me or have been on this website you know my heart for the community of Bocachica and the people there.  We have been working for years with Proyecto Libertad (a YWAM outreach) and our church has sent teams to work for years.  We even have a family serving there on the island full-time.  It was a joy to go back in January.  We were able to minister to the community in many ways.  It was great to see the Ariel’s home there and see the impact they are having living on the island full-time.  The water filter project they are doing is great and I want more people to help!  One of the other cool things about the trip was the fact Rob Mancuso and his daughter Meredith went with us.  Rob and his family are good friends to me.  Rob and his wife Amy went to Elon (the were a year ahead of me) and we have kept up ever since.  Rob and I even went to Kenya together on an Antioch mission trip.  So it was great to be back on the field with him.  The Lord quickly knit his and Meredith’s hearts with the Ariel family.  It was great to see them share the passion for the work there in Bocachica that I have.  Even so much that they both went on Antioch’s trip in the fall and Rob is taking the whole family down in March to serve with the Ariel’s.  God is so good!

I just want to close by saying thank-you to my friends, family and family in the Lord.  Thank YOU for helping me through the challenges of the year and being a part of the blessings of the year.  This year continued to teach me how much we all truly need the Lord and how important being a part of the church is in our lives.  I’m truly blessed and thankful.  Thank you for stopping by my site and supporting me along the way!  Here is to 2014, may we all grow deeper in relationship with the Lord and with each other.  May the challenges of life push us further into Christ’s arms and not further away.   My our lives be spent loving God, obeying His commands out of love and serving the hurting and lost world around us.

In His Service,

Geoff

p.s. my photo page has captured much of the events of the year.  I’ve enjoyed taking photos all year thanks to the Fat Mum Slim photo a day challenge.