Just a quick photo update that doesn't say terribly much about our daily lives, but just glimpses of the physical. What takes up all my mental and spiritual energy is what is happening in the unseen, but for that report a coversation will be needed.

Anyway pictured here, the newly painted house, my shop crammed into the garage out of which i amd now producing my third kitchen and misc furniture and overflowing onto the back porch. A few good evenings spent out on the boat fishing and the local Fish Lake fishing derby today where the boys all walked away with prizes, so we'll have friends over tomorrow and feed on the trout we caught.

I,m 3 hours away from the house project, sitting in the sunshine looking out over the water from a good friends living room and reflecting on the journey over the past year. The first days of April 2008 we were here, newly arrived back from South Africa, me the sickest i'd ever been with the hepatitus bug i pcked up in our travels and wondering what the next step was. We were literally booted out of the nest by our community here and ended up moving to Plain , welcomed into the most loving, hungry for God's presence, extraordinary community that i've ever had the delight to be a part of in my life. Real people, living life and pursuing God together. Much of the past year has been building those new relationships, exploring new insights into Fathering and building a house while Jesus builds through and in us a home and community(the dearest thing to His heart) I have experienced His kindness (Lovingkindness is the word King David uses) and favor in ways that some days have left me speechless (a rare thing for me) and stunned.

So, we're building a home, and in two weeks we plan to move in, one year to the day that we moved to Plain, a journey that would fill volumes in order to describe the conversations, relationships, help, dreams details and descisions that take so much mind space as to leave room for little else. But there have still been times of God encounters, around every corner He waits, lovingkindness, patience Grace and Grace and Grace oh and did i say kindness that i'm learning to expect even though it still takes me by surprise. Isiah 25 v 6 - 10 is the passage that describes what Gateway ( our home ) is to become: "And the Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces withmarrowand refined aged wine. And on this mountai He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will sallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces and He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day, 'behold this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whome we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain and Moab will be trodden down in his place as straw is trodden down in the water of a manure pile."

For year Becky and i have onged to be healed and be part of a healing community and now we are in the road, getting off the ground, learning to fly, to overcome, to be in agreement with what God says and with His amazing loving intentions for us and the community we live in and as we see and believe with the eyes of faith we become more free to be what he intended all along. As we hear His voice and agree with His declarations over us and our community and we in turn decare it and live it out we go from strength to strength as He is strong for us. I'm aware now how inadequate words are to describe the journey we're on, how it feels to wake up in the morning with an expectation of goodness, regardless of the circumstance, because in my weakness He shows Himself strong, He pitches His tent over me. Words aren't sufficient to describe what it is like to be taught by the greatest teacher, councillor and comforter in the universe. Holy Spirit, you are awesome, surprising and you breathe life into me like no other, i'm lost in wonder some days and others, you're just a thought away, just a remembering or a question is enough to know your always closeness.

It's Christmas eve, i'm sitting looking out of the window at the falling snow. I'm not out in it, my toes are warm and my fingers unfrozen. the individual flakes are so amazingly intricate and the gathering together of them transforms the world. It makes m long for the body of Christ to be so, each one amazingly intricate, designed and loved, yet when we get together the world is clean and white and silent. There the image breaks down as all analogies do, "for now we see only in part" as Paul says in 1st Cor 13. Anyway, for snow to fall and stay around the conditions need to be right. And Holy Spirit is at work in the world creating the right conditions....

In the meantime, the daily round: i wake up thankfulness in my heart for a warm home and resources to build a new one for my family and friends to enjoy, a place to welcome strangers and see them transformed into friends, to see Isiah 25 v 6 - 10 become a reality. Out i go into the cold framing, siding plumbing electrical and the immense task of building a house goes on My brother Rod arrived Dec 7th and has been an immense help with siding the house and braving the waaay below freezing weather. We work and then huddle around the fire to thaw our frozen digits and faces. The tractor has been earning it's keep blowing snow from the driveway ( i love useful machinery) and when Rod gets on it a can't get him to quit, he's ready to clear snow from the whole town. Part of the cost of building a house is the room it takes in my mind. There are so may things to remember, so many decisions to make, it's quite overwhelming at times. I get home at night and fall asleep the moment i set my body down. We are so blessed to have this warm quiet rental house for the winter. The boys work at their schoolwork and then spend their hours creating, each in their own way, lego's, knex, drawing cutting and pasting, snow forts and sledding, Christmas plays, royal rangers, boys club and story time fill their days. We are truly beyond blessed living in this amazing community. It's like a womb, warm, healthy, nurturing, readying us to be sent out again for our next assignment in the world.

before

after

Rod wraps the house like a giant Christmas present

It seems like i have spent my life up on a ladder

our respite from Jack Frost's attacks

I love this little red baby!

I take a break from house building to train as a snowmobile guide.

Just an excuse to get out, away and meet more people. So Rod got to go with me on the first trip

It's a clod cold world out there.

We mad 35 gallons of cider in the frreezing cold. Next year we'll definitely do it earlier!

the boys at play

So we're off to play in the snow, visit with friends and enjoy a few days relaxing and trying to think of something other than the house. Merry Christmas to you all. I dream of having each of you to come and stay with us in our winter wonderland and while away the hours together, reminiscing about a life lived under the favor and blessing of our Warrior Father King.

Vision

I remember the day i showed this picture to some good friends of mine, excited about the purchase of the piece of land we now call "Gateway". The comment was:"boy you must have vision to see anything in that ugly barn. So after a long almost 3 year journey, studded all along the way with many moments of revelation and mind renewing flashes of Jesus unending kindness we hit a major milestone this week. Isiah 25 v 6 - 10 has been the passage that we have camped on and fed on for the past few years. So from a rumpled cobbled together barn in a tangle of trees, we see a home rising above the trees to take in the magnificent view of the valley and hamlet below. The milestone was the roofing of the house, and as the house started with a crowd of friends pouring the foundation under the barn, the roof was put on by a crew of men working hard to get it all done before the snow begins to fall, with my friend Aaron topping it off with he final layer of roofing. So here's a little photo essay of the journey sofar.


This is the Barn and property before we bought it in the Spring of 2006 (April for the S hemisphere folks)

Earl the logger, cuts down the first tree, clearing away for a good view

Good friends Art and Lisa camp out for a week of hard labor digging a foundation under the old barn. Note the Jack hammer to break up the concrete state of the clay in summer. When it rains it turns to soupy mess.

Getting the forms ready to pour concrete. My right arm's tendons were so inflamed from digging in the hard clay that i could do no good to help on the day of the concrete pour, but that's what friends are for and they showed up in droves to help out.

Father and son, Greg and Stephen manouver the big elephant hose of the concret pump truck


Note Becky's bold moves in the background

My three helpers dive in for a few minutes here and there to pull nails and pick up stuff.

Skye earns a penny a nail picking them up and is currently at about $15

Tim helps out with building the well house on top of the 1500 gallon storage tank on a trip over Last summer

By way of explanation, Gateway is about 3 hours drive from Anacortes and we would come over about once a month or so to work on the property until we got back from South Africa in April this year. We felt certain that it was time to move to Plan permenantly, even though we had not yet sold our house in Anacortes. We lived in this 5th wheel trailer, kindly lent to us by a friend, from April till October. Our house sold in October and the day after we recieved the offer we found a place to rent for the winter. Once again, Father's timing is always perfect.

The long drop (actually a prety short drop as i dug the new hole in the summer by hand!)

The black domes are infiltrator panels for the massive drainfield system that we have to have for the septic. 270 ' of trench, two 1000gal tanks and more electronics and pumps than you could imagine, just to deal with poop!

Finally the roof comes off and work on the house begins. Our Anacortes house still has not closed, but we feel Father blessing the move to go ahead with the framing, so i subcontract it out to my framer friend Rob.

Walls going up ( the good kind)

My Little red helper gets unloaded 3 days after the Anacortes house money is in the bank.

This baby will dig ditches, plough snow, grade roads, move logs and lumber and generally save me hours of backbreaking work.

Beams go up on the day of our first snowfall!

The race is on to see of we can get it roofed before the snow comes to stay.

Framers race to sheet and paper the roof while Aaron is hot on their tails with roofing shingles going down at high speed.

The view from the roof as the rain and snow fall all around us. I asked for a miracle and we had no rain or snow the whole day we were working on roofing. as we pcked up for the day the sleet began. The next day was dry too. Yeah God!!!!

Now here is a man sized saw. Jason helps me cut beams and posts for woodhenge, the porches on each side of the house.

Thar she be folks, the house as of 4 pm today. Future home of the campbells and anyone else that may need a home, place of feasing, fine wines, veils being removed, blindness, deafness and brokenness healed and the exclamation " this is our God for whom we have been waiting and longing" Isiah 25v 6 - 10