Its been well over two months since I have posted to this blog. I can’t give a specific reason for it. November was a month filled with physical labor, as we gutted and rebuilt our Kitchen at The Center. It took a little more than three weeks, but thankfully we were finished enough by Thanksgiving to host around 60 Marines for two Thanksgiving Dinners with the help of some friends from New Life Baptist in White Marsh, MD.
Since Thanksgiving I have been busy, but tired. Closing out the year is still not done, but some things have to wait until the clock strikes 12. I’ve been unusually tired lately so I finally found a doctor in town and got a checkup. I discovered my blood pressure was back up a bit, and medication was restarted. More importantly I found that I had a latent virus that reared its head again, all the way from my teen years, and that, not my advancing years, has been the culprit for my excessive aches, pains and general tiredness. On orders, I’ve taken the Holidays as a time to rest.
With most Marines taking extended leave and going home for the holidays we have basically shut down operations since Christmas and I have taken a long overdue rest. Patty and I did not take a vacation this year, so this week and a half at home was a substitute vacation. God is gracious in that He puts us into rest mode forcibly if we do not rest voluntarily.

Even that does not account for my failure to post to the blog though. I actually have a few blog posts sitting on my hard drive, but none have struck me as the one to publish. Writing is a creative endeavor. I have been drawing all of my conscious life. Hundreds of thousands of drawings over nearly half a century has taught me one thing, we rarely get a piece of art right on the first try. I first started writing professionally when I was a reporter and news director at several radio stations in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  I learned to write fast, lean and accurately. The only place for creativity was in first lines, and changing the story’s structure in re-writes.
Writing sermons, blog posts, commentaries and fiction requires, I find, the creative spark. If its not there, the writing does not flow. Hence, the physical fatigue and being emotionally spent after so large a project kept me from writing anything I could reasonably post.
I have to, however, post on this last day of the year. One year ago today I was still a pastor. On January 1 of this year I became a Missionary. It has been an exciting, terrifying, challenging and surprisingly natural experience. I love my life today. And I am old enough to be smart enough to know that won’t last long. I’m enjoying it while its here, and trying to prepare myself when the next great challenge arises. As Jerry Falwell used to say, “Your are either in trouble, getting out of trouble, or getting into trouble!” Challenges, heartaches, insurmountable obstacles are all what makes life wonderful. It is in overcoming through Christ the pain in this world that our lives find meaning, purpose, joy.
I’m tired today, not so much from the virus, I have rested enough to overcome that. I am tired because I have not been active. I am looking forward to Monday when I can hit the office, write, plan, make phone calls, and schedule meetings. We have very big plans for Military Evangelism in 2017. Banquets, meetings, a new social media outreach. My prayer is to see hundreds of Christians who love our Lord and our Troops partner up with us, in prayer and offerings. We are a special group of people, we Christian Patriots. We love Jesus Christ and we love the country founded upon His principles. And because that we love especially those who fight and die to protect our freedoms.
Join us as we reach even more Marines with the Gospel this year.