Using a small -holding to maximize your productivity

Of late I have been putting a lot of thought into what a fellow can do to maximize his stewardship. The simple fact is that many of us do not own, or have use of, enough land to build an ideal hobby farm. We simply don't have the square footage available to make our own bread AND wine! So what are we to do?

Are we to simply give up the fight for better stewardship and turn our attention to increasing revenue production, in the hopes that we will outpace the inflation/deflation cycle of the Federal Reserve?

I have been in that rat race for too long! No thanks.



While there is some truth in the old adage that, "it takes money to make money", I do not want to spend the rest of my life slaving for a dream that I will be to old to build upon when I finally get there! I want to start now! By God's grace, I want to do everything that I can to maximize my stewardship of the trifle that I have been given.



Not so that I can amass more and then 'buy out' the neighbors...that is only falling back into the same old trap of modern 'gimme-gimme' anti-Christianity. There is no lasting hope or peace there. As Paul told Timothy when counseling him , "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." 1Tim 6:6-7

No, I am not interested in stirring up the covetousness of this world in my children. I am not interested in teaching them to stop craving new sports cars and designer clothes, only to replace that with the sin of craving more land and cattle than we can have reasonable use for.



Not that there is anything wrong with a large estate. I pray that God may be pleased to train and equip me for the right use of one some day. It is the place and station of some to have all these things and more. And it is their responsibility to realize that they have it for the relief of the brethren... It is fitting that God has given much to some men, that the needs of the Church might be met. " But by an equality, that now at this time of your abundance may be a supply for their want,..."2 Corinthians 8:14 . That is really a great passage to think on some time. It clears up the whole debate over how we can best minister to one another without becoming communists, or envious of a wealthier brother. The false teachers today have misused this passage greatly to scam the flock and this has hurt us all. If you look up these verses, you will see that the 4 or 5 verses before it, teach that a man is never to be so charitable that he enriches a man into being a gluttonous bum while making his own family destitute! Good stuff in that old book.



The thing that I am seeking is not so much 'more', for the sake of more. But, stewardship in all that I have been given. Becoming a profitable servant, both spiritually and physically, by utilizing what God has given to the absolute best end that I am able and equipped for. This is an extremely important issue that has been twisted and nearly lost with most today. Redeeming the time has a lot to do with it. Not just because bad days are upon us, but because God exhorts us to this lifestyle at all times throughout history. I want to be a frugal, wise, charitable, and diligent servant, along with becoming a holy father and husband!



It is with this in mind, that I am starting a series on Small Holdings . This will be a rambling series of what we have done in our little place to try and maximize our potential. They will be rather 'raw', in that I am by no means an expert on all things agrarian! There will be sad looking pictures of crudely built animal houses and an ever- present back drop of junk in the yard! Sorry. It's not from a lack of concern for our animals, or from laziness. It's just really hard to build stuff with no carpentry skills, left- over scraps, and 9 children running to and fro with all my hand tools scattered between them;) Add to that the fact that we never really had the foresight to plan ahead for exactly when, or if the Lord would supply some additional material, and you have a kind of build as you go approach that utilizes stuff as it comes!



I hope that some of it will be informative. Some through my trials, and much through my errors...

Finally, West Virginia

About 6 months ago our mid-wife finally brought her husband along for a visit to meet our family. She has been our midwife for awhile now, but up until now we had never met her husband.

During our previous pregnancy he had come along but refused to leave the vehicle as a standard rule to ensure patient privacy and HIPPA regulations. We had understood at the time and made sure to keep him company in the yard with tea and cookies while the ladies talked inside. We had no idea at the time that we had made any type of impression on him. The practice that our mid-wife owns is one of the largest in our State and they see many families. We figured that we were just another patient as far as he was concerned.

It was not until this meeting 6 months ago, that we realized how the Lord can use normal acts of every day kindness to soften the hearts of men and make allies for His children where least expected.

Our mid-wife had been around during some of the times when our former landlord, Ms. T had come around, and she had heard the gracious offer that we had received. She also heard much of our discussion about how concerned we were that a dying lady with only months to live was trying to make her peace with God in this manner. Our mid-wife said that she understood our concerns, but that an offer like this was too hard to pass on. We then became very close to our mid-wife as we explained that the importance of a good name was more important to us than any amount of land. We spent many weeks discussing this with her and explaining to her the situation with the children and the certain accusations of 'spiritual manipulation' that they would make if we accepted this offer. As related in the post on that subject, that is exactly what happened to the person that eventually accepted the offer. Thankfully, we have been in a position of speaking with one of the children involved in the estate battle, and because of our refusal to accept, we have been able to give a clear testimony of only love and a clear conscience to that child. After much prayer and reflection, our mid-wife said that she understood our decision. Little did we know that she had been sharing some of these issues with her own husband, and that he had finally decided that after 15 years of never entering a clients home, he would break this rule to meet the family that had turned down what turned out to be a multi-million dollar estate in a commercial zone!

So, we finally met the husband of our dearly beloved mid-wife and had a wonderful time hosting him for a few visits. Shortly after these visits, he called and told us that he and his wife wanted to invite us to their home for a dinner and discussion of a personal nature. We were excited and a little nervous, thinking that perhaps they wanted to ask us some 'religious' questions about our unorthodox life-style. ( Note: Our life-style is unorthodox only compared to main-stream evangelicalism, we are a poor example of puritanical followers of Christ, though we strive to be).

I will speed up to the present now, or I'll never tell you about W.V.!

At this meeting, we were shocked to learn that Mr. &Mrs. B (Husband and Mid-wife), owned land in rural West Virginia that they planned on retiring to soon, and they wanted us to move there as neighbors! They had not been Church goers in many years, but professed faith, and were so glad to see real Christianity in action that they wanted to be near it more! They then told us that they wanted us to consider allowing them to give us 2 acres of their land to homestead and that they would even pay for us to go up and visit the area for acceptable churches if we were willing to consider it!

Wheels within wheels! That's all I could think of folks! Who could imagine that in the space of a year, a man with no money and a broken back, (no prospects), could be offered, NOT 1, but 2 estates! For free!

We were shocked to say the least! They went on to explain that they understood how important our Church family was to us, and how 'peculiar' our doctrine was, and that they had been in touch with a few locals in West Virginia that were keeping up an old abandoned church building from the 1800's who wanted a Pastor that could come and take it over! This old church is a local landmark in the hills there and still provides a hand powered well-pump for a few local families to haul there water from! The locals, had upon the testimony of this couple, agreed to allow me to come and begin a Church there whenever I wanted to!!!

Now, to be clear, I am not an ordained minister of the Gospel. I was formerly a 'Youth' minister in an Arminian church, and attended a Bible college along those lines in our old home. I am currently seeking the training needed in my denomination to become ordained, but we have one little hurdle....Financial Accountability. We are not spendthrifts mind you. But, we do live at the charity of my Pastor since my accident, and he has personally paid for our light bill while allowing us the use of an extra home he owns. Not the picture of most Presbyterian theologians out there... The Church, rightly so, wants men who are above reproach. And while I have been assured that I fit all spiritual and moral qualifications, the financial issue is a stopping point right now. I will not comment on this further now, except to say that I am trying to be careful in my study of past 'poor' preachers, to make sure that no resentment builds for my denomination. My Pastor is in general agreement with this thinking and he has shown himself to be a man of exceptional wisdom and a deep desire for the purity of the ministry. I yield to the godly example that he has set forth. I have witnessed it first hand.

Still, we were thrilled at the possibilities that now lay before us! If we can gather a 3 family minimum of like-minded believers that are indigenous to that area, we can request our Presbytery to send a minister that is already qualified by their standards, and establish a new congregation there!

My Pastor is not very excited about this prospect. He has made several good points about this still being above my place and station, as I cannot live upon an open field with a family. Very true. However, as the Lord continues to work there, we met a neighbor that has just purchased an adjoining 30 acres with his young family. He is planning an off-grid homestead and is a faithful father, demonstrated by the behavior of his wife and children. He informed us of a local Amish group that will build us a 2 story, 24 by 24 gable roof house for just under $10,000! Yep, that's right folks! If you are looking for cheap land under $1000.00 an acre, and a 2 story 1200 square foot house for under 10K, then check out West Virginia! ( I have the contact info for any that may be seriously interested). So, now we are just wondering how in the world the Lord is going to do this next part! I know that it is nothing to Him, but from our side it might as well be 10 million... It is just another reminder of a great adage that I read in the biography of John G. Patton, Missionary to the New Hebrides..."Duty is ours, Results are God's"! We will wait on the Lord, and stuff the penny jar!

Further, it seems that in West Virginia, I will not be barred from trying to use my Plumbing license to scare up work. Here, in Florida, I am forced to comply with VERY stringent Work- Comp laws to 'protect' myself and my gimp back. The State of West Virginia will approve my Comp-exempt license and let me go out and take the risk of my back upon myself, ( I trust in the Lord, and work s-l-o-w-l-y), so that I can actually move toward our home-stead dream!

Well, just pray that the Lord will continue to make His will known, and that He will motivate the local Taco Bell to call so I can start supporting my family and saving some treasury bills before they are worthless! Really, I applied at Taco Bell. Duty is ours.....If this is the Lord's will, I know that He will provide. There is actually a 16 by 16 off- grid cabin there now that I have full use of, but convincing my Pastor that this uninsulated shed is acceptable housing for my family isn't really working right now;) Pray, pray, pray, my friends! We will do the same for you.

Here are a few shots of our week in off-grid West Virginia..

This is taken from one of the acceptable building sites on 'my' land. Down in the ravine on the left there is a 4 foot wide creek. We saw many deer drinking there, and over 35, (no joke), on the road to this property.

This is a poor picture of our friends cabin that we all stayed in. If you look hard, you will see the white pop up building, (privy and shower area), and the blue 'kitchen area on the right. Just behind was the sleeping quarters. It is an uninsulated 'shed' that we heated with one open flame propane stove burner! It snowed 2 days and rained a chilly 35 degrees for a few days! This was a great day of around 65 day temps! Perfect.

This is a shot from about 20 feet in front of my building site, looking at my truck. Believe it or not, that was as close as the truck could get because of the incline. 3 different 4X4's got stuck on that hill. It is a quarter mile drive from the road to this point. Can you say, Off-Grid!

This is a small spring, one of over 15, on the property that we saw. It measures about the same as each of the others...2 gallons per minute! That's 800 gallons a day...per spring!

This is the ridge that separates us from our 'neighbors'. The large dead walnut tree just right of center was cut down by us while there. It was nearly 4 feet thick at the point we felled it at, and that was almost 4 feet high! Loads of firewood were chopped and stacked by my boys.

This is a shot of my wife and two of the children heading down to the creek area to hunt for some wild rose hips. They are high in vitamin C and make a superb tea. There are loads of wild roses all over the hillside!

This shot does not really do justice to the scene. If you will notice the evergreen trees on the ridge ahead, you may be able to pick out the tombstones underneath! That is an old private cemetery from the late 1700's. The entrance to my property is just over that hill! The cemetery access shares an easement with us, so every time we come in or out, we drive right by it! Pretty neat to me. You can also see the clay churned up into mud at the first drop through the valley between us. My two wheel drive Suburban made it fine, but the 4 wheelers got stuck and we had to dig 'em out! We have laid $1500 worth of large gravel there now that our friend purchased. I also cleared a large garden spot down under that slope in a spot that gets the full day sun. We cut down many 100 foot walnut trees to make way for it. There are hundreds of walnut trees here! It took the better part of a day to get the fire wood cut and brought up to camp. Several chords are stacked for next winter.



The Lord is gracious and kind, He has pity for His people....

Until next time

The Road to West Virginia

Alright, I am back on the trail of exactly how the Lord has led us to the point where we currently are.



In the last post on this trip, I left off by telling you that I would share the story of how a sweet lady had offered our family a 81=/- acre farm in Northern Florida about 2 years ago, and why we felt constrained to turn that lady down.

As unbelievable as an event like this seemed to us, and probably to the majority of you, we were sure that it was only a test of the Lord to see if our real desire was to live a life that was faithful to His calling, or if we just simply were interested in worldly security and prosperity.



The lady in question was the mother of our landlord, and she was quite a real estate tycoon by most standards having amassed several large properties in different regions that she was using to secure an inheritance for her children. It seems that she was quite taken with the 'picture' of our little family that she had witnessed in the various meetings with us. This is an important point because, as you will see later, those pictures soon faded when the reality of our lives began to intersect with that of her own family.

This sweet lady, had seen my 'Amish-looking' wife and daughter, on several occasions, and had closely watched our family interact in both public and private on a daily basis. She was apparently attracted to some facets of our life and approached us one day with a cryptic offer to help us live the life style that she 'envisioned the Lord' calling us to. We later found out that it wasn't so much envisioning, as it was visioning. What I mean by that, is that this sweet lady was receiving 'visions' from God about our lives and what He intended for her to explain to us. She did not share these 'visions' immediately, but soon they were to become the backbone of much of our interaction with her and her family.



At first, it was an unexpected joy to think that God had heard our prayers to live a more sequestered and agrarian-sufficient life!

By sequestered, I mean a physically separated life that would limit the interaction that we, and our children had with the daily masses of Babylonians around us. By an agrarian- sufficient life, I mean a life that is lived in closer dependence on God, as we literally look to the blessing of increase from the land, mixed with our stewardship of it, as our chief means of living as the only alternative besides an unexpected inheritance!

A little more explanation, considering the current discussion surrounding agrarianism.;

I really want to pause for another moment on these two important parts of our understanding of Christian living.

For those of you who don't already know, I am theologically aligned with a segment of the Church, visible, that is very diligent in doctrinal studies, and takes great pains to root out any heresy, along with the false teaching that leads to heresy. I am in agreement with every major reformed confession, (by reformed I mean those that commonly arose during, or out of the Calvinistic reformation period), and I am an unabashed Puritan in my theology. That said, it is with the deepest and most sincere love to my brethren, that I state that, I am in almost universal disagreement with them on the issue of physical separation .

I am NOT speaking of spiritual separation unto personal holiness in our daily walk. This IS the primary lesson of many of Christ's teachings, and parables...internal righteousness, as opposed to only external legalism and a false sense of righteousness based on our own works. What I am speaking of is the need to get our children out of the bus ministries, and schools, and playgrounds of the enemy. It is a faulty theology that teaches us that we should send our wives and children into the hot bed of anti- Christianity as evangelists and teachers. We, as the men and women of God have a very difficult time standing against the modern age, and yet we willingly send our babies in to fight these battles. Please don't send a bunch of references about the chorus that 'the beasts of the wild shall be led by a child'. Tennessee Ernie Ford had a fine voice, but the theology of such arguments doesn't work out! If we would just take an honest look at the culture around us, we would easily conclude that during the greatest time of American so called 'evangelicalism', this nation has become the most perverse and debauched society in history. The examples abound and anyone that cannot see this just isn't paying attention. My fellow Presbyterians have been some of the worst defenders of an 'integrated' society. I can only assume that this is because we do strongly believe in biblical reformation of every part of civilization. We do not want a pure church alone. But, pray for a pure society at every level. Religious, political, education, economics, etc. We can point back to the great Puritan experiments in many places and prove that it can work! The problem here is that the people around us do not want it to work. The people themselves are not interested in living the Christian life. They may like Joyce Meyers, and even donate to the Osteen corporation, but they DO NOT have any interest in real Christian laws and government. They enjoy the shady bookstore at the edge of town. It helped revive the romance in their marriage. They have many 'gay' friends, and they are 'good people' who deserve respect.
Folks, this IS our country today. They HATE your Christ and His Law-Word. They love freedom and lawlessness. They choose it at the box-office and in their bedrooms. They even choose it in their legislators and magistrates. They have codified wickedness to ensure that they can live outside of the influence of the Gospel. Unless God chooses to send the Spirit of repentance to these people, our efforts to reach them have no meaning.
Therefore, I choose to remove my family to the safest physical place possible to train them for the battle that God may call them to one day.
It is not that I don't realize the potential mission-field in the urban areas of our land. I do. But, I am not interested in taking my children into a whore-house to hand out a gospel tract. That is not what God has instructed us to do ANYWHERE in His word! We are to set no evil thing before our eyes. Now, how can you take your child into modern day America and avoid that...
The only answer that I can find for my family is to physically remove them, as far as I can, and THEN make sure that I teach them the importance of heart-holiness, and reality with Christ as opposed to pharisee ism. For us, that naturally means trying to live as much of a self-contained 'farm' life as we can, while choosing wisely when and where to expose them to the bitter winds of this land. Perhaps God will surprise us and bring the harshness of this world crashing down upon some of our children before we have been able to fully prepare them, and then they will be like lambs to the slaughter... My only question to you is, do you pray for mercy against such a thing, or do you secretly accept the ultimate failure of purity in your life before you begin the battle?
O.K., sorry for the rant. It's a habit I am trying to break...

So, our new benefactor was now offering to us an old hog-farm of 81 acres with an orchard of 40 Jerusalem Apple trees, 20 Persimmons, 30 Raspberry bushes and two-houses and an underground fallout shelter complete with a bicycle powered generator! NO, I AM NOT JOKING! The only problem was, that of her 3 daughters and 1 son, they all expected that property for themselves!

You see, our new friend had terminal cancer and has since gone on from this world to what we truly hope is a better existence in Christ Jesus, where she will never have to rely on 'visions', or private communique again. We quickly learned that she had lived a pretty rough life up until shortly before the 'cancer' news, and now wanted to make sure that she did some things right before leaving this world. We could see the disdain in the children's eyes every time we were around them and knew that they were not happy. So, we decided to do what any Christian would, and abstain from even the appearance of evil, by taking advantage of a dying woman with a bunch of money-hungry children that would be sure to drag the name of Christ in the dirt after her death.

But we did not tell her that. We instead, accompanied her to the land. The land that she had purchased, it turns out, as her own personal Shangri-la. Not to be sold like the other property, but where she would grow old learning how to tend the garden and pick the berries. Before she knew she had cancer. While there, we labored night and day to transform the effects of years of neglect back into the once radiant place that had brought her a little earthly joy. We still have photo's of Ms. Stewart, (that's what I'll call her), walking through the 45 acres of berries with my children, and picking apples that she did not even know existed anymore. We even went down to the local nursery and bought a few annuals to plant around the door of the house so she could sit and enjoy her last few days here. Then, we told her that while we were very grateful, we felt that God wanted us to stay where we were. ( Another factor was that moving here would mean leaving our Church and there was not any Church around the Farm that was acceptable). We explained slowly and gently how God had blessed us so much by giving us a faithful Pastor and that we had prayed for years for a Church that did not add man-made worship into their teachings, and that raising up children in the Lord was our greatest concern.

We smiled and thanked her again by telling her that the love expressed in her offer made us the richest people on earth. She then slowly turned around....and left!

The next few days she happened to have another 'vision' of the Lord that involved 12 rusty folding chairs being set up in the house there and a female prophetess standing on the mantle of the fireplace yelling some gobbly-gook...There you have it, obviously! Why did I not see it sooner? God had really wanted her chain-smoking prophetess friend to divorce her sissy husband and move here to start a church that would call back the 12 tribes of Israel! ( In respect and sincere love to Ms.T, she had a very aggressive cancer that had encompassed her entire being), so that is what happened. Today the children are still in court fighting the prophetess, each other, and one of their own husbands for control of the estate.

Lesson:
Obedience to God, faithfulness to the Church, and kindness to dying old women are more important than lands, or riches. Even if it is a lot of land...

Next up, How our mid-wife came to offer us 2 acres in West Virginia. And our new dilemma...

Last of the update.

Here is a neat pic of the trial we performed with our Seedsaver Pinto beans. The row in the fore ground was simply planted right out of the package. The back row was from the same pack and was soaked in water for an hour before planting. Both are 20 foot, wide rows. Notice the better germination rate in the soaked bed. You can't really tell here, but the back row plants are almost double in size from the unsoaked bed. We'll be soaking all our bean seeds from now on.

Here is a shot of the labor camp here at the 'farm'! We try and get all the help we can get around here.

This shows some of the progress that a few willing children can make in keeping the homestead moving along. This is the 'army trench', aka; future underground root cellar in the making! In the background you can see one of our smaller tire compost stacker's doing it's job.

This is the bunny factory! All materials are recycled/scrounged/gifts, etc. The bunnies are attached to the inside of our chicken run fence, (also all free items). There are currently 8 kits fattening, and 2 pregnant does. We have an average of 12 bunnies per litter, so we are expecting to eat a lot of wabbit over the next few months. These critters breed back a week after dropping a litter and wean each set in 4 weeks. Obviously intended as food stuff! On top of the roof you will see my homemade version of an automatic watering system. It consists of buckets and drip hoses fitted to specially designed waterers. Before we watered twice a day...now once every 2 weeks!

And last, but certainly not least! We answer the question of where best to start that next batch of layers?! If you can read behind the 'plug' then you know that he's saying, "somebody bring the wash cloth over here! These rubber duckies are filthy!"Thanks for letting me update the happenings here. We will resume the West Virginia trip next time.

Poor man's follow up..

More of the garden...

This is a pic of my wife training the main stalk by twisting around the twine.


Here are a couple prime beauties waiting to be canned!

This is a remarkable start of lettuce for so late in the year! Salad anyone?

And this is how to use bamboo that you acquire for 'free' when you help a neighbor clean the yard. Those are Edisto 47 heirloom cantaloupes growing at the bottom, and the netting was all tied by hand from some old twine we had. My son helped in the tedious webbing, and knotting of each square to be sure that they could support the heavy melons that will trellis on them.

A little more to come...

This road is full of turns; Garden update

Just a little update on the homestead events. I really do promise that I will finish, or start.. the West Virginia description soon! For today, I want to discuss a very important topic:

What can a poor man do with a small piece of rental property, and no income?

Well for starter's here is a short list.

This is our potato garden that we planted just a short time ago! They are now in about 25% bloom and should be ready for harvest of early potatoes soon. Next we will start working on some under house root cellar experiments to deal with the high temp and humidity here. We will be using recycled, ( scavenged junk), materials to house our harvest. The variety we used was Norkotah, from Ronniger's Farm. We are well pleased in that we had 100% of our seed sprout!

These are some beautiful St. Valery carrots that we got free from the fine folks at Baker Creek seeds when we ordered from them. I have never gotten carrots this far before, and am very happy to see a little late cool night weather here that is helping to keep them going. Winter is when we were supposed to plant these, so there is no telling if they will actually develop into some real roots, or just bushy tops! So far, we are lookin' good!

This one almost got me in trouble! My wife hates to have her picture snapped. It probably doesn't help that she feels REALLY pregnant right now! Still, I wanted to get a shot of our little bed of late blooming lettuce in the lower right corner. Paris Island Co. variety/ Baker Creek. You can also see my redneck tomato trellis system! We grew an indeterminate variety, ( Amish Paste/ Baker Creek), so we needed to stake them well. As you can see, we are VERY happy with Amish Paste Tomatoes! As we realized that we were going to soon need the trellis, we started looking around the homestead to find some material to build with. All we had was a few trees and some twine, so there you have it. We buried the side supports about a foot deep and used some cotton string to run down to the plants. My son cut 12" pieces of stout limbs to tie the bottom of the string to, and then buried those in the ground to give a nice 'anchor' to the string. Then you just keep the suckers pulled off and twine the main trunk around the string every few days. What you see is not a big, bushy, fruitless vine, but a massive wall of tomatoes!

For some reason I can only post 4 pic's at a time so following will be more of the Poor Man's Plan for making due with what the Lord has given...

A wild and wonderful time! With a little historical detour...

Above is my daughter, Abigail, enjoying the first experience of snow in her short lifetime! Taken at the property that our friends have offered to sell us...for $1.00 ! Yep...

( Thank you for the prayers. My wife is still down, but much better and the baby is doing well)

After years of trying to explain the beauty and majesty of God's handiwork among the more northern climes of our land, the children finally get to see first hand what a wonder and joy the wilderness really is! We are thankful that they have had this opportunity. It might as well have been Alaska in the 1800's to them! So magnificent was their joy and awe at seeing the mountainous land of West Virginia and the Blue Ridge area going up, that we thought it almost cruel to bring them back to the land of sun and oranges...at least during the beginning of summer! Summer time in Florida does not start on any particular calendar. No, no! Summer here is best judged by when you begin to see folks making their way to the Mart, or any other public venue, in bikini's and underwear...Sad, but true. Anyhow, I digress. Rather than discussing the sad state of life in a populated area of Babylon, I want to tell you about the glee and adventure of rural life!

We were quite nervous about our trip. To catch some of you up, I will briefly tell you how this nice diversion came to be.

For some years, my wife and I have lamented our decision to leave rural North Carolina and return to our native Florida. At the time, it seemed like we were being forced out of our adopted home in the Smokies. My little business had failed, we were behind on all our bills (including basics like rent and lights), and I had recently dropped out of my fundamentalist, independent, Baptist college and church of 5 years to start attending a small group of puritan minded Presbyterians who practiced 'purity of worship', ( also known as the Regulative Principle of Worship), . Our world was in a bit of a tail-spin! Our landlord was also the old Sunday school teacher at our former church who had, for a time been very gracious concerning the rent situation. But now that we were 'presby's', things started getting rough.

It probably didn't help that I had been involved in the Law Enforcement community and was dabbling in the worst circles of society. It was having quite an impact on my life, and I began to lead a double life, like the worst of hypocrites and infidels. I cannot imagine how great the grace of God is, in that he did not strike me dead over some of the abominable situations and sins that I got into during this same time. Still, His grace is an amazing thing and having a wife praying night and day for my soul , ( despite my dereliction), was a blessing that I will never forget again.

It was in this time, that I went to a Gun-show to buy some 'research' materials. I was heavily involved in the State's Rights movement, and we had several notable 'groups' throughout Carolina that were leery of Mr. Clinton and his friend, Ms. Reno. Being a member of the Law Enforcement community meant that I could easily, and without scrutiny, obtain a variety of 'stuff' that might be fun to play with at some of our more out of the way gatherings. Nothing illegal mind you. Just, good old patriots keeping their skills sharpened. Contrary to the current reports in today's news cycle, most of these 'right wing extremists', did NOT want to do harm to any innocent citizen. It was at one of these gun shows that I saw a fellow with a League of the South booth set-up with all sorts of literature. Naturally, I wandered over and gave the customary glance toward the govt. guy that is always sitting at the end of each 'questionable booth', pretending to read a paper, while trying to listen for any 'code talk' between the seller and buyer. NOTE TO READER: While I no longer attend Gun Shows, and have never been a registered member of any 'group' other than a local church, I can tell you from experience on both sides of the table, that you should always expect that there are MANY federal employees at EVERY gun show, or like event in America that you will ever attend. It was true in 1996 and is sure to be even more true in today's world.

Anyway, getting back to the point of this post... It was while here that I saw some religious material for a Publisher by the name of Sprinkle Publications, along with a funny green book called the Westminster Confession of Faith. As I began to ask the booth attendant about these books, he directed me to a nice fellow who he wanted me to meet. This fellow was a kind gentleman who had come along and placed these materials for his church as a draw to try and rescue a misguided fellow just like myself, and to help them see that true Government reform would never happen without true Christianity becoming the cornerstone of the people of said government. ( There will be a lot more on this in coming posts, Lord willing).

To speed things up, we began attending his church, learned about the doctrines of grace, embraced the regulative principle of worship as the biblical and historical mode of worship, and almost joined the church. I say almost because when I came down to Florida to visit my mother for one of the Roman holidays that every one celebrates, I found her in the midst of a cancer battle with an older brother in a rehab center, and living on welfare with a hospice nurse taking care of her. After a short discussion with her, it became evident that she would not move to Carolina, and with some of my more 'adventurous' former associates still lurking around to see if I would return, I immediately moved my family back to Florida to care for my mother and start a new life without the old connections of my militant days.

For the next year and a half we felt like we were wandering in Egypt! We had left Florida so that I could pursue a ministerial degree in the Arminian branch of the independent baptist church, and now we were returning with all the baggage of a misspent decade as head-covering, psalm signing Presbyterians, in the heart of Central Florida, aka Sodom! We briefly attended a few churches before finding one almost identical to the PRC church that we left in Carolina. After months of driving 6 hours round trip every Lord's Day, we moved to our current locale and have been happier than we could ever imagine at how God works His wheels within wheels to bring us to obedience and grace.

Since coming to the church that we currently attend, the Lord has completely restored the joyous christian marriage and home that we once had! No perfection yet, but lots of grace and learning. During this time we have budded into novice agrarian minded homesteaders who have lived in an almost paradise of sound teaching and biblical worship...except for one thing. We are still in a pretty metropolitan area surrounded by a way of life that eschews a stay at home mom and a one income family. No matter how hard we have tried to get ahead there was always some roadblock to our goal of a more family integrated economy. Enter the Agrarian Dream!

I know that there is much angst out there about even using the word, agrarian, right now, but bear with me. I don't have any better terminology to describe to you the direction that God has been leading us. You may call it homesteading, farm life, back-to-the-land living, or whatever. The fact is, for us at least, that God has opened our eyes to the reality that I need to pursue a more sustainable way of living, that is not so materialism driven, if I hope to help my children avoid the plague that is coming upon this nation. Indeed world! I know that a new economic theory of life is NOT going to replace home evangelism! I know that many folks feel that they should just focus on personal holiness and devotion to the Lord, and trust Him to sort out the next 20 or so years. I also know that there are plenty of jokes about how debauched "farmer's kids" are, and that there are a whole handful of folks who are just waiting to see us homesteader types fail and crawl back to embracing the 'modern' reality. I am caught between two worlds and I am not yet ready to embrace either! I do not mean the world of Christ, and the world of he Anti-Christ. I mean the world of those who say that the agrarian way is the only biblical way, and those who seem to be adamantly against allowing a discussion of it into their churches. I am not yet ready to declare that it is this way, or no way, for every christian. I can only tell you that it is this way for us and our longing for our children to grow up as holy and pure, both internally AND externally, as possible.

Again, I will try to continue the current topic. Hang in there! There really is a lot of neat news to share! I will try and get to the point soon. But first, I have to tell you about the lady that offered to give us 81+/- acres last year... and why we turned it down.

Stay tuned....

III John 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Back to Civilization...er, sort of.

Friday afternoon we returned from our trip to West Virginia. Most of this weekend was spent resting and cleaning up from what turned out to be a very exhausting and rewarding week. Most of my family is experiencing varying degree's of sickness ranging from a severe croup like cough in the 17 month old to a serious stomach bug which is plaguing my wife at the moment. The condition of my wife is of the most concern and I would like to request that prayer be made on her behalf. She has lost two children in the past, both precipitated by a similar stomach attack. Before, we were barely in the first trimester and now we are at the end of the pregnancy with only 10 weeks to go and in expectation of our second daughter. The Lord is good and has been faithful to us in all our experiences, and we are confident that He will continue to be so no matter what the outcome of our daily struggles are. We are very blessed in that we have been given a wonderful opportunity to know Him and raise up a quiver of arrows for His glory. As we overcome this series of bugs, I will be posting updates on the adventures that we faced in Wild Wonderful West Virginia, along with the continued reflections of my study on separation and reformation.

It has been a solemn return for us as we have found so much changed in the blogosphere while we were gone. With the cessation of Herrick Kimball's blog and the nasty turn of discussion concerning how best to proceed with a more family oriented economic system, (a.k.a. christian agrarianism in some circles), along with several changes in direction by many of our blogging friends, we are considering how best to proceed through a highly charged personal atmosphere in a charitable and Christ-like manner. It seems that there is a lot of name calling and anger out there and we do not want to be a part of such an atmosphere. Even so, we still have a desire to engage the discussion of how a christian can best proceed in their own particular place and station, to glorify God in the midst of an apostate era. I hope that we are able to add to the discussion out there and help those who are interested in learning more about God and more about why the current system of man is so antithetical to the aid of christian growth and happiness. As a hint, some of it is the economic system that we are in, and some of it is the 'paradigm' that modernism has created around us, and MOST of it is men and women who have trodden under foot the precious blood of the covenant, wherewith we were made holy and acceptable before God. For those of you who are now ardent enemies of 'agrarianism', I would ask that you stay tuned and not join those who are breaking fellowship with all of 'us' that might use the word to help define concepts. We are moving toward a unified theory of economics that will encompass some of what the more stringent agrarian writers advocate. And, along the way we will certainly learn and adapt to a more biblical pattern of economic theory. More importantly, we will be learning how we each can work to restore a christian vision for our own individual communities, whether they be separate, off-grid cloisters, or the attempted mass excursion of Christians to certain state's to 'reclaim' a certain belief in what Christian government should be. They are all similar attempts of fallen man trying to best work out the calling that we see in our own lives. We are brethren and should lift each other in prayer and love before the throne of our Lord daily. Most of this should be taking place internally and deliberately as acts of seeking to cast off the all 3 enemies that are listed in the bible...not just 1. The world, The Flesh, and the Devil, are our common enemies. I pray that we may find a way to move toward the desire of Christ, as recorded in John 17..."that they may be one, even as we are one..".