Friday, January 2, 2009

...and a Happy New Year!

Hello everyone!

I pray that this entry finds you all well, and rejuvenated in this fine New Year! After having a wonderful Christmas with lot's of visiting with family, I felt that the Lord had Blessed us real well. I hope that you felt His presence (presents!) in your home, too!

So, the New Year was upon us, we again spent time with family, and I woke up New Year's Day thinking about the ScriptureSticks, and wondering how God would be able to use us. To be honest, I started thinking about the website, and how I really don't have a clue as to how to manage it. It needed pictures of ScriptureSticks, badly, and a lot of updating! My mood was not the best, and before the day was well under way, I needed to do some apologizing to my wife, Cari...

But, something wonderful happened yesterday, and TODAY feels like a Happy New Year! We recieved a terrific e-mail from Pastor Dave Lyman, a gentleman who recently recieved a couple of ScriptureSticks. Here is an excerpt from his letter...
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Kel:

We hiked in Sam's Point Preserve near Ellenville, NY. Started at the preserve parking area at 10AM, it was 30 deg F, very windy and thankfully sunny. Went up to Sam's Point where we crouched down behind rock walls and boulders to keep from being blown off the cliff. Then hiked past lake Maratanza which was very cold because of winds gusting 60 -80 mph, creating a wind chill of 6 deg F. After Leaving the loop road to head for Indian Head, we came across school bus load of adults and kids that were doing a short hike (about 25 people). They asked what it said on our hiking sticks, so we held them horizontally and spun them while one of the adults read our Scripture Stick out loud to the whole group. "Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." Colossians 1:10. "Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth." Psalm 86:11 A great and natural way to share God's word with hikers.

Next we went out to Indian Head, stopped for lunch, and climbed up to High Point. Hiked through a rare and endangered ecosystem, consisting of a Rare Dwarf Pitch Pine barren. One of the few remaining in the world. After that we hiked over to the White Crags which were breath taking cliffs on top of the mountain. From there we descended 500 ft to the top of Verkeerder Kill Falls which which dropped a spectacular 180 ft drop and had a lot of water from the recent snow melt. We did not stay too long because there was about 1.25 hours of daylight left and we had to push to cover 3 miles, which included a 500 ft climb, to get back to the car. Got to the car at 5:15 just short of getting out the headlamps. A 9.5 mile overall trip with many great views of God's wonderful creation!

In the King's Service,
Dave Lyman
www.sermonfollowup.org
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Wow! How uplifting! Thank you, Dave, for sharing with us! It is our sincere hope that folks everywhere will be exposed to Scripture in just this way!
...Let's see if we can get a picture in here...



Yep, there he is with his son-in-law. Looks chilly!

...at the end of the day, my wife had been able to load pictures into the website, accept my apologies, and help me make additional changes to the site! So... it was, indeed, a Happy New Year!

Thank you, Dave, for being there for me, at just the right time!

Hmmm... it's off to work, now, so I ask for God to give you His Blessings... and a Happy New Year!

Stickman