Today!

It is 8:38a on March 31st. I knew this day would come and here it is. I am sitting at the PUMP house, Lanny has just come in to work and I am listening to Acappella's new album "Radiance" with Zach Wilson - a Portland native - singing lead on "All Men Will Know". The album is one of my favorites with Take 6's "Feel Good", Warren Barfield's "Reach" and Donald Fagen's "Morph the Cat" rounding out my current "frequent playlist". Well, here it is, my final day of "official work" of PUMP church. I have to say "official" because I love PUMP too much to ever completely stop working for the Kingdom through PUMP. So far it has been surreal and I have not felt this overwhelming "you are through or finished at PUMP". I suppose that will come sometime in the near future. The next week is so busy I will probably not be able to keep up with it for the most part. Know this though, I have one more day and my plan is simply "do my duty" (Luke 17:7-10). The difference in me and this passage is that I have been made to feel very, very, very appreciated and I really have been blessed to be here. I will miss you PUMP. I have to get to work, so I will get back to you later.

What A Day!

This Sunday started out just any other Sunday at PUMP. I got up and helped Alasha with Jonah. Alasha works on Sundays after church so we go over the game plan so as to know what to do for babysitting and so on. This Sunday would be on of those busy ones but nothing out of the ordinary. A leadership team meeting was scheduled, children needed to be picked up on the church vans, Hosting for 252Basics needed to be rehearsed one last time and songs for worship needed to be prepared. So I had Alasha take a few pictures to remember my last walk out of the house to the PUMP house. I prayed as I walked that God would have His way with this day and that He would be praised. It takes about 7 minutes and I am at the House. I am the first one there at 8:30a and I set up my computer to look over 252Basics stuff.
A little later Joe Britt comes in and “here we go”. It becomes quickly apparent that I am going to need to drive a van and off we go. Joe and I went on the route and had a great conversation. The children got on the van as stopped at their respective homes and it was great. I called Kristi to inform her that I was 5 minutes away at 9:55a (252 bible class starts at 10a) and she said no worries. Bible class went great and worship started. The congregation was ready to sing praises to God and off we went. It was awesome, but like I said, not unlike any other Sunday.
There is a young man that sits up front in church every Sunday and his intention is to help whoever is doing whatever do it better. When I lead worship, he helps with overheads, when Ike is preaching, he excitedly interjects his thoughts into Ike’s preaching. His name is Bevin. Looking into Bevin’s eyes this past Sunday all of sudden brought it home for me – this is my “last” Sunday to officially “work” at PUMP church. It became a little more difficult to lead the worship, but the Holy Spirit was moving and that made it alright.
I will miss standing up there, sitting in there and worshiping there. I am sure it will hit me a little while after I am gone.
This coming Sunday I will visit the Metro church of Christ for their early service and then head North to visit the Vancouver church of Christ. On April 9th I will be at PUMP with my family for the last time and then drive out of town that day! Keep us in your prayers, please.

522a Cousins Lane Arlington, TX 76012

March 3 - somewhere around 2 am that morning Alasha and I are getting me ready to make a pretty important trip. Alasha has been online for months looking at houses for us to rent once we get to Arlington. Jonah is sleeping peacefully and we dead tired. 4am comes and we make the trip to PDX. Somewhere around 1:30pm I land at DFW. After I get to baggage claim I am surrounded by this Harding University clan and that includes Ryan Gibbons, my new Senior Minister. We promptly head to Sonic Drive-In so I can be properly replenished. I get to the house and Lilly, Ryan and Amy's daughter, is sleep. I had seen pictures of her and was ready to see her in person. I followed their blog when they went to China to get Lilly. She is a beautiful little girl and I am looking forward to seeing her grow. That night we went to Buca di Beppo. Please observe a moment of silence for some of best Italian I've had (other than my wife's stuffed shells).
The next day was spent south of Arlington about 30-45 minutes at the Park Row cowboy cookout. It was a great event with great people, great food and awesome bluegrass music. That night was spent chilling and preparing for worship the next day.
Sunday was great. Ryan and I co-led worship and his message was great that day. Right after services I was invited to lunch by one of the worship team memebers and his wife. I went to The Alanta Bread Company and had a Cuban sandwich and it was right. At church that morning I had met two ladies, Billie and Debi. They told me they would help me look for houses that aftenoon. Now they helped me find some houses that had been sent to me by Stephanie in an e-mail before I even got to Arlington. We visited about 10 to 12 different houses. To make a very long story shorter. I saw some places I liked and the next two days saw me, Ryan and Amy Gibbons and Stephanie Nekar, a real estate agent, looking at place after place. Finally on my last day to be in Arlington I found a nice little duplex town-house. It is a nice little 3 bedroom, 2 full bath house near the church building. And this will be our home for the first year of our stay in Arlington. Please keep us in your prayers.

The Big Catch Up

Ok so the last time I blogged it was February 28th. That in and of itself is a testament to the craziness of my life at this moment. I am going to try and catch you up on what has been going on with the Maxwell clan over the past 2 weeks.

I went on a staff retreat that was very nice. The best thing about it was the fact that I got to spend time with the 3 people I have spent a lot of time with over the past 3.8 years planning and working in God’s kingdom serving PUMP church. It has been a blast and continues to teach me even as I approach the end of my tenure here.

The next thing to happen was a trip to Arlington, Texas where the Maxwell family will start serving God with the congregation at the Park Row church of Christ. I will take the time to blog about this separately.

Next was a concert to see one of the best singer/songwriter/guitar players I have seen in a while in contemporary Christian music. Warren Barfield blew my mind and I will blog about that separately also.

Overall God continues to be gracious and I try to present myself broken and in need of Him every second of my existence here on earth.