A Ragamuffin Voice

It's been awhile since I posted on this site, but things have been quite busy. PRAISE THE LORD! We finally have all the permit stuff taken care of. I want to put out a special thank you to Andrew Golike who took time off work and more to chase all of this stuff down. Thanks to Cary Eidsness, Orville and Coreen Caldwell, and Bud Knapton for going the extra mile on the Restart Team, to make this happen. I also want to thank John Paxson from New Life Church for being so involved and an incredible support to ALC. I thank God for these folks every day. Let me bring you up to speed on all the happenings. The offices will no longer be at West Gate Inn. I have an office in my home for the time being. The phone number is still the same. Vickie Golike has come on board as a volunteer office manager type person since Coreen had to take another job. I am very sad that we can not pay for the position at this time. Coreen is still involved in small groups, Taste and See, and prayer. ...

Just this past week I attended a funeral of an acquaintance of mine. Let me correct that. I would say that, while I didn’t know Austin Parker as a close friend, he was definitely a friend. We played music together and lead worship at New Life Church just a few years ago. Our worship team was very much like a small group and we got to know each other fairly well. I began to think about Austin’s life accomplishments after viewing the big collage of pictures at his wake. I wondered how many lives he’d touched and all the things that he must have laughed about. You see, most of the pictures showed something of his character. He loved life and could be seen with his big broad grin or mouth wide in hysterical laughter. I stood in front of those memories of Austin and chuckled remembering some of his silly jokes or the times he loved to kid around. Some of us standing around laughed out loud with the family as they recounted some of those moments. Imagine, laughing a...