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We attended a talk and healing service by Alan Ames (www.alanames.org). He is an australian man who was not looking for God and had everything that the world says a person should have, but he did not have peace or joy in his life. Even though he was not looking for God, the hound of heaven was looking for him.
When God reached down into his life, Alan responded and took the Lord up on his offer of Love. Now he spends his time traveling the world spreading God’s message of Love for everyone and laying hands on people and in some cases God works through Alan to heal them of spiritual and sometimes physical healing.
It was a great talk and Rachel, Denae and I are very thankful that we were able to attend.
We upgraded to a larger RV at the end of last year, during our last trip we realized that we had outgrown our old one and that if we wanted to continue taking family vacations with the whole family, that we needed to look at purchasing one that had a larger kitchen, more space for dining and more storage. We found this 2007 Fleetwood Terra in Austin and it had very low mile (only taken on two trips) and everything it had all the features that we were looking for and the owner was asking a reasonable price.
Here is are some pictures of the new rig:
And while we were on our first trip in the new RV, we took this great photo of our kids:
This year I decided to make a New Years Resolution, sort of. Ever since I turned 40 in June of 2009, I have been noticing that I am no longer the young guy, which is weird. I was always the young guy, at work, at church, etc. I was always the youngest guy in the group. I got married young, had children young etc. So this realization, or admission, that I was no longer viewed in such a way was a very real change in the way I have always looked at myself.
In this moment of self realization, I decided that given that I was growing older and still had an infant in the home, that I needed to ensure that I was going to be able to still do those things with my younger kids that I have always done with my older ones (coach sports, keep up with them outdoors, etc). I have always been pretty physically active, used to swim in a masters program on a regular basis, play sports on adult teams, but after Denae went into the hospital with Joseph early last year, I stopped those frivolous activities to tend to more pressing needs and haven’t been able to get back into it.
As a family we have also been reviewing our busy lives and have been taking inventory of those things that are keeping us too busy (we do have 9 kids…), and only doing things that fit well into our family’s schedule and trying not to allow any one person’s activities in the family to have an adverse effect on the whole family’s schedule. This is where my resolution comes in…..
Physical Fitness
The only thing I could find that would help me to keep fit, or at least provide a regular opportunity for physical exercise, was an in home fitness program, I choose P90X. I have friends who have done the program, and they loved it and the results were pretty impressive. So I took the plunge and started working out at home last Monday. So far so good, a lot of variety in the workouts and they are pretty intense activities too. I love the feeling of working out so hard that you are just a bit sore and feel it for the next couple of days. I know that sounds weird, but it is a feeling that reminds me that I need to continue the program because I am not in as good of shape as I need to be.
Some of my kids are working out with me too, not every day, but there is usually someone who is interested in what I am doing. So far we have been having a good time and working really hard. I know taking care of my physical body is important, but I still need to find that balance with my physical fitness and my spiritual fitness.
Spiritual Fitness
Another thing that happened after Denae went into the hospital is that I stopped attending daily mass on a regular basis, I had no choice, too many things to do with work and taking care of kids to give an hour to attending mass. As one Catholic priest says, “You are called to a vocation in life and perhaps as a married person and parent, it may not be appropriate to spend 3 hours in front of the blessed sacrament each day (like a vowed religious could do), lest you neglect your vocation.” Now I was just spending an hour each day, but even that had to go when Denae was taken from our family for almost 2 months (hospital and recovery).
Now I must figure out how to maintain and also grow in my spiritual life once again. We have been praying as a family each night pretty faithfully, so this is good, I have been taking an online course in Theology (Theology of the Church, taking 9 months instead of 6 to complete), and attending daily mass about once a week. I still feel something lacking, so pray for me in figuring out the right balance.
In conclusion
Life is very good, there are some things which need some work, but I think I have them identified. Hopefully I will keep my new years resolutions and continue to follow my vocation as husband and father according to God’s plan.
Allen
 Tim Staples and a younger version of me back in 2002 at the Fullness of Truth Conference in Houston, TX Have you ever been to a Catholic Conference? If you are Catholic or just curious about the Catholic faith, or have no faith at all you should find one and attend as soon as possible. My family and I have been to several (more than 10 I am sure) and it is a unique and fun way to learn about Christ and his Church, in the process you also get to meet some great people who love the Catholic faith.
About a month ago, Matt Warner, sent out a call for bloggers (I guess I qualify since I have a blog) to consider writing an article about their favorite Catholic speaker and I accepted the task. Matt’s blog, fallibleblogma.com, had quite a list of well known and lesser know Catholic speakers for us bloggers to choose from. Towards the end of the solicitation phase, I decided to volunteer and was delighted to see that one of my favorite Catholic Speakers was still available – Tim Staples.
We attended our first Catholic Conference back in 2002 (I think) and it was called the Fullness of Truth, it was held in Houston, TX at the Catholic Charismatic Center and featured two and a half days of speakers and babysitting was provided. I think there were over 20 speakers and about 3500 attendees, it was an amazing event. It was at this event that we heard and met Tim Staples for the first time.
Tim Staples is a convert to the faith and a former Marine. He was raised as a Baptist, participated in various the Assemblies of God communities and God eventually placed a fellow Marine in his path that led him home to the Catholic Church. Tim loves Jesus passionately, and that love is contagious, he is so passionate about our Lord and Savior that you can’t help but be drawn closer to Christ after hearing him speak. In addition to his deep love for Christ, Tim is a gifted scripture scholar (former Catholic seminarian) and motivational speaker. (Okay, well maybe not exactly like the SNL skit with Chris Farley, but this is what comes to my mind first when I think about a motivational speaker, but I digress).
Tim has a true gift to motivate people towards an intimate relationship with Christ and in the process give them a deeper knowledge of the faith and the Catholic Church. To say Tim gets excited when he shares the faith is really an understatement, you really just have to see him in person to know what I am talking about. I don’t know of too many other Catholic speakers that have the gift that Tim has to rally the troops and make a call to action in quite the way he does. After listening to Tim don’t be surprised if you have a sudden urge to read your bible, go to confession and start attending daily mass and start sharing your Catholic faith with everyone you know.
Links:
We celebrate Halloween in our home, which I know is something that we Catholics and indeed all Christians may be struggling with in their own homes. We celebrate this day for a few reasons. One is that my mother (God rest her soul) was born on this date in 1945, and she would come up to see us each year and go trick or treating with us and our young children. She always brought cute Halloween decorations and thus when I see all the traditional Halloween items, it reminds me of her.
The other reason is that we socialize with our friends and neighbors. It is more of a neighborhood night out than a celebration of some Satanic holiday. I have no doubt that there are some who do celebrate it otherwise and make it to be a scary and demonic event. But not us. As in days past, we celebrate not only the social aspect of this day, but we also remember those members of the faithful who have died and are hopefully now in the presence of our Creator.
The feast of All Saints is celebrated the day after Halloween (All Hallows Eve) and we remember all those faithful men and women who lived holy lives and while not officially recognized by the Church as Saints, they nonetheless have attained Heaven and eternity with our Lord. The following day (November 2nd), we remember all Souls of the faithful departed who while not yet in Heaven, are going through the final purification of their souls so that they are able to stand before God with a clean heart and no attachment to sin. We pray for them to have the courage and ability to shed all attachment to those things that keep them from complete union with God.
So in a particular way, this holiday (holy day), is very special to me, because it reminds me of my mother and also reminds me to pray for her and all those members of my family who have died and to give thanks to God for his sacrifice that made it possible for us to have eternal life with Him.
God Bless,
Well I am sure you have noticed, or maybe forgot that I actually had a blog, that I haven’t blogged in quite a while. In fact it has been about a month since my last blog entry.
In this return to blogging entry, I wish to share with you my thoughts on priorities. First of all our vacation in August was fantastic, everyone had a great time, we realized that our RV is a little smaller this year and is probably not big enough for a 4 week road trip. Maybe one day we will find the perfect RV, but it will cost more to purchase, cost more to maintain and big more difficult to drive :^). Here is a link to the video that my 11 year old daughter created using the videos and photos that we took while on our trip:
Midwest Vacation – Fall 2009
So onto the topic of priorities. We all have them, we all violate them and we all desperately need to re-evaluate them on a regular basis to ensure that they correlate with our mission. As a Catholic man, husband and father of 9 children, my mission is different than a vowed religious or a single person or a husband with fewer or no children. I have to remind myself of that often, because there are so many worthwhile, fun things that I could do to fill up my daily schedule. I have over the course of my life engaged in a regular workout program, the hobby of aviation, watching regular TV shows and lots of movies, coaching various kids sports (as well as playing some myself), and volunteering in various capacities at Church.
Each of these activities are good in and of themselves, but unfortunately, there is not enough time in the day to work a job, raise a family, have quality time with your spouse and still do even half of the things I mentioned above, at least not do them well. Which brings me to my main point, I need to prioritize, and since I am married and have children. I need to make sure that when I prioritize, I do not do make my priorities by myself, I live in community and thus must sacrifice my own desires for the good of the family in which I am an integral member.
This revelation really hit hard when we returned from our vacation to a home which had moving boxes all over the place, due to new flooring and paint upstairs. Despite our home being packed up and not really usable, I had to resume work from my home office (which is upstairs), the kids and Denae had to start school and our normal fall activities (soccer, RE, Adult faith formation). To say we hit the ground running would not be the right term, it was more like hit the ground tripping over boxes and looking for our shoes (which were in boxes) and still trying to keep all our commitments.
With this wake up call, my family and I have been re-evaluating which things are really most important right now, given our current state in life (18.5 years of marriage, 9 children, oldest 16 and a home that will be paid for within 10 months). We had such a rough start back at home after the trip that we had to turn to family prayer. Obviously, this should have been our first action, but it wasn’t, we tried to rely on our own strength to fix the situation – Our strength is in the Lord (Psalm 27:23).
So far this week we have begun our day with family prayer (prayer for a successful day of schooling and the like, mostly petitions and asking for God to be part of the day), and we have ended the day with a rosary and a daily examination of conscience from Fr. John Hardon which I highly recommend. After only a few days, I see a huge difference in everyone’s attitude, it is not perfect (far from it), but holiness is a life long project. But a funny thing happened, we noticed that our activities during the week were getting in the way of our family prayer time. So the priority settings continues, I think we know what is the highest priority for us, but letting go of those other things which keep us from our higher priority is a difficult task.
Please pray for us as we seek the will of God in our family and thus set our priorities to be in accord with His plans for us.
We will be attending a family retreat in early October, so if you are available, consider attending with us. More information here.
God Bless,
Allen
Announcing the first episode of our new family show, 11 to Heaven, will premiere this evening at around 8:30pm. We had originally hoped to air it live at 7:30pm CDT (which was about 11 minutes ago), but life got in the way.
As Catholic parents, my wife and I have a goal, to get our whole family to a place of perfect peace and joy. While we try to accomplish this state here on earth, we fall short more times than not, but our ultimate goal is beyond this life. This podcast will focus on our life and the methods we employ to achieve this goal.
So tune in this evening at around 8:30pm and listen to us talk about the important role of community in raising a family. Here is the link to our uStream broadcast channel:
We also have a website setup for our new show:
God Bless,
If you are in the Austin Area, consider attending this fine production put on by a great group of young people, including my second oldest daughter.
Christian Choral Society of Austin Presents: The Music Man (click here for the PDF flyer)
The Christian Choral Society of Austin is proud to present Meredith Wilson’s classic “The Music Man.”
Families can enjoy terrific entertainment as well as delightful desserts & coffee.
This production performed fully by home school teenagers will amuse and enchant the entire family.
The Music man centers around classic flag-waving, feel-good, musical comedic Americana, with a refreshingly jaundiced subtext: Footloose con man sets out to fleece a repressed Midwestern community during the early days of the twentieth century, but instead learns a lesson in moral responsibility from the town’s comely librarian.
This full cast presentation includes Kyle McKinley (con man, Harold Hill), Miriam Nelson (Librarian, Marion Paroo), Elizabeth Berg (Mother Paroo), Joshua Upham (young Winthrop) Danny Waller (Mayor Shinn), Hannah Hargis (Eulalie Shinn) features the Redeemer Men’s Quartet, and MANY more!
The show runs July 17th and 18th at Red River Church, 4425 Red River St, on the corner of 45th street.
Performances are Friday at 7:00 pm, and Saturday 3:00pm & 7:00pm
Tickets online: $8 @ www.ccsa.info (guarantee of entrance to show)
Tickets at the Door: $8 per person (first come, first served – don’t run the risk – buy on line!)
Children 2 & under free!
Kathryn Hargis
Director
Christian Choral Society of Austin
P.O. Box 92223
Austin, Texas 78709
Ph: 512-394-0033 Fx: 512-394-0037
I am attending a Catholic new media conference in San Antonio today. I found the title of this conference a little odd to me, but after attending this conference I have a much better idea of what it is all about. As most of us are aware, the world of communication and media has changed substantially in the last 20 years. We went from books and newspapers being the primary means of sharing ideas to Facebook, twitter, blogs, podcasts, youtube, ustream, and other electronic means of getting your message out.
It is amazing to me that there is so many free tools available for publishing your thoughts, and ideas. This particular conference I am at is being broadcasted live over ustream.com – go to the SQPN (Star Quest Production Network) website at sqpn.com to watch live for the next few hours. The whole event will be available in the archives as well.
In the past you had to have tons of money and the right connections to broadcast a video you produced, now you can do that for virtually free on Youtube and you can even broadcast live using ustream.tv.
I am mainly here to learn how to use these new technologies at our parish (www.saintwilliams.org), but I am also looking at using it to share our family life as well. God has definitely blessed our family immensely and I am often told how much of an inspiration that my family is to many that we meet. So who knows, maybe there is an audience here and since John and Kate + 8 are on their way out (say a prayer for them and their kids), maybe folks would be interested in seeing the inner working of a most normal large family, with 9 great kids and parents that love each other and struggle through each day to raise the best kids that we can with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Stay tuned for more. – my ustream.tv channel is named go-bless:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/go-bless
There isn’t much out there yet, but maybe we will inaugurate it on our family vacation in August.
God Bless,
Our new little one was baptized this past Saturday. We had about 80 family and friends celebrate this joyous event with us, the kids outnumbered the adults. It was a beautiful ceremony and it was great to visit with everyone. I have included an collection of photos taken by our good friend Christine Mesich. Thanks Christine.
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