The Land of Ozz

My wife and I both felt led to attend church on Sunday even though we both were pretty exhausted from the events surrounding our son Caden’s hospitalization this past week. Caden had been out of the hospital less than 24 hours. We took turns attending church since we did think it would be wise to take Caden. I took Riley and attended the 9:30 service at Seacoast Summerville. I cut out before the last song and rushed home so that Sherry could make it to the 11:15 service. Our attendance was well rewarded with a message from Pastor Greg that was by a video he found on YouTube about a Lion, a crocodile, and a herd of water buffalo. You need to go over to Pastor Greg’s blog to get a look at the video and then listen to the awesome message that he delivered by downloading a free audio or video copy of week five from the antidote series at Seacoastresources.org. The message is packed with Biblical truths as well as some pretty detailed facts about how Seacoast Church operates being a non-denominational church.

After watching the video and/or listen to the message, you might find a close comparison between our little family and the baby water buffalo. We have found ourselves getting attacked from many sides during this past week. If you were to look at our family over the past several weeks prior to Caden’s surgery then I suspect you would have a noticeable look of surprise on your face. The things I wrote about concerning Caden’s health this past week were obviously the most important, but by far not the only things we have been facing.

For instance, in the past month or so we have had many other attacks including a few financial ones. When have been clipping along on a tight single income budget for some time now and a few financial attacks are almost expected from time to time.  We try to stay prepared with an emergency fund, but that was pretty much wiped out recently.  Our clothes dryer went out, our microwave bit the dust, and our refrigerator stopped cooling twice within a two week period. The refrigerator incidents spoiled a considerable amount of food on both occasions. It was only about a month before all of this that our central air conditioning system stopped working. Don’t forget to factor in how Sherry must have felt being 7 months pregnant with no A/C when we are used to running the house at about 72 degrees in the summer. These repairs and replacements have reached into the thousands of dollars. Never mind the fact that we have been trying to scrape together some extra cash to prepare for the newest addition to our family who will be born in August. These things plus many others that I am not at liberty to disclose along with the build up of emotions related to Caden’s surgery and hospitalization resulted in a fresh batch of stress for everyone in our household.

I feel like we have played the part of the baby water buffalo in the YouTube video. The praying readers of this blog as well as all of the names listed in my Thanks to all post on Caden’s Page, and countless others around the world who have been praying have been playing the role of the water buffalo herd. These folks have fought for us as the agents of the enemy (financial issues, bleeding, fever, and fear) have crept in like the lions and crocodiles trying and devour our little family. Our strong support system within the body of Christ continues to help protect us against attacks like the herd of water buffaloes came to the rescue of the baby water buffalo.

It has been a rough few days for our family.  My son Caden remains hospitalized after a surgery that he had on Wednesday.  We expected to be discharged in less than 24 hours.  We are in the middle of night three at MUSC.

It has been reassuring to read 2nd Timothy this week during daily reading. I found myself reading one of my favorite verses in such a timely fashion. I have spoke this verse out loud during several prayers since Wednesday.

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Remembering this truth and reading about Paul’s sufferings and his encouragement for Timothy has helped to keep things in perspective this week.

…the first time I ever prayed with them.  I know that sounds weird, but stick with me on this one.  I was listening to a pastor on the radio while on my way to a meeting at the church last night.  He talked about how dads really should be setting the example for their kids.  Many parents tell their kids, “Give me a kiss and then go on up to bed…oh, and don’t forget to say your prayers.”  If the statistics being thrown around are close to being correct, then this sort of dialog is much more likely to be the norm in most Christian homes.

Some of you parents may have heard something like this before, but I am going to say it again.  Way more is caught than taught.  You can not sit in your recliner and give the old “do as I say and not as I do” speech and expect it to work.  That dog won’t hunt, especially with the older kids.  Get up and join your children in their bedtime prayers.  Teach them how to talk to God by your example.  Do you remember the last time you prayed with your children other than when giving thanks for food?

I hope that my kids are not able to remember the first time I prayed with them.  I want prayer to be so much of a routine part of our lives that they can not remember when it started because it was farther back than their memory can stretch.  I challenge all dads to get a similar mindset towards prayer and daily devotional with their kids.

Please add my son Caden to your prayer lists. He will be going in for surgery on Wednesday 6/27. You can read more details about what is going on with him on Caden’s Page.

I have been a little bit obsessed with my blog statistics at times in the past. I believe as a serious blogger you need to be concerned about where visitors come from and why they come to your site if you want to understand what your blog is really accomplishing. The visits like the one above help motivate me to stay in the blogging game. This is only one of the interesting visits that came from a search engine recently.

About one third of all the traffic across all of HOEI.COM (six separate blogs) comes as brand new visitors from search engine results. Most land on this blog or Caden’s Page. I posted a more detailed article on my new front page HOEI blog. I am focusing that blog on blogging tips and other blog related subjects. The new post on HOEI also contains a couple of new acronyms to throw into your bowl of Internet soup.

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The Wizarding World of Harry Potter will be coming to theme park capital of the world in 2009. Warner Bros Entertainment will join forces with Wizard World to build this park in Orlando to reach even farther into the hearts, minds, and wallets of America’s families.

In a statement rich in entertainment hyperbole, the builders of “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” said they planned to “create the world’s first immersive Harry Potter themed environment.”

It will be interesting to see how the Christian supports of the J.K. Rowlings book series react to this theme park. It will be difficult to tie in the argument of how much children benefit from learning to read through the Harry Potter books. I believe that some like LaShawn Barber and the Christian Science Monitor have called it Reading Magic?

The full story can be found on Yahoo! News

This is a valid question no matter how determined you are to homeschool your children. I am told that homeschooling is not easy. Since we have not technically begun homeschooling, I am only speaking from the limited experience of homeschooling a four and a half year old preschooler. We have received our share of questions from friends and family. They want to know why we are homeschooling. The answer to this question is more valuable to us than it is for our family and friends. The list of reasons why we have made this choice will server us best as encouragement when reviewed on the tough days that will come in the future. Below are a few my answers to the question.

1. Best opportunity for moral training based on family values
2. Best student to teacher ratio
3. More opportunities to build family relationships
4. Dynamic learning environment

I don’t know why I have never posted my testimony, but it is about time.  I have also added a copy of my testimony in my “About Hank Osborne” page found in the sidebar of my blog’s main page.  I believe it is important to share this so that my readers can have a good ideas of where I am coming from, especially when writing on Christian subjects.  There are so many twists and spins that religion can put on Christianity.  Don’t leave your blog readers guessing where your beliefs come from.

I am a born again Christian!

“I attended a Southern Baptist Church every Sunday from birth for 14 years except for the Sunday when I got my tonsils taken out at 5 years of age.  Yes! I was counting Sundays back then because there was a competition between a few of us kids to see who could get the longest perfect attendance pen.  I still have mine.  The Babpist Church was serious about only giving these pins out to folks who actually can to Sunday School every single week.  The end result was that God made an impression on me by my early teen years.  I committed my life to Christ while attending a camp at Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly in Black Mountain, NC.

Shortly after accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior, my parents separated.  My mother, sister, and I left my dad after years of abuse.  Our departure, led to my father’s attempted murder of my grandfather.  My grandfather would not tell my dad where we went.  My mom completed the divorce which I supported, but then she went back to my dad within a year and remarried him.  That I did not approve of nor did I understand.  I found out many years later that my mom went back under direst.  My dad entered the ministry to become a Baptist preacher, but the abuse started back up almost immediately.  At 16, I ran from him and God at that point.  Eventually my dad committed suicide after I had been long gone for several years.

From the age of 16 forward, almost twenty years of backsliding ensued to what I thought was the point of no return.  There is no need to go into that list of sins, but it was bad.  Then I met a wonderful young lady.  My life had been a cakewalk compared to hers.  Her testimony still brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.  We fell in love.  We both had committed our lives to Christ at a young age, but had very bad experiences with “religion” and suffering at the hands of “men of God”.  Even with our experiences, we knew that we needed to bring our future children up in a Christian home.  We started looking for a church and ended up visiting the church where we have been attended since 2001.  On our first visit to our church (Seacoast Church), the pastor stood up in front of about a thousand folks on a Saturday night and taught on “Why God Allows Suffering”.  He did a great job and God spoke to both of us through that message.  In 2003 I attended a men’s encounter weekend (i.e., encounter with God).  It was the turning point in my life.  That weekend I was taught for the first time what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  At the end of the weekend I confessed and repented of years of sins and asked God to fill me with the Holy Spirit, and he did.  I have leaked and needed regular refills ever since, but the revelation that I got from that weekend was beyond what words can explain.  I began to seek God’s plan for my life and put a priority on growing my relationship with Jesus Christ.  Just a few months after the encounter weekend my wife and I both publicly recommitted our lives to Christ and were baptized again.  We both continue to strive to be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.”

I frequently use this blog to write on subjects that I believe are relevant to those who are seeking to learn more about God or who have committed Christian lifestyles.  I continue to try and shine a light in the darkness that the Internet delivers to so many computer monitors.

I challenge all Christian bloggers to share their testimony, especially if your blog is listed in a Christian blogroll, webring, or a Christian directory.  Help your visitors understand where you are coming from as a Christian and how your life (and blog) relates to Jesus Christ.  I also challenge you to raise the standard of your posts so that the things you write about will glorify God.

Rodney Olsen has posted to his blog a copy of a live radio interview he recently did with my friends and fellow low country residents Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo.  Rodney is a radio announcer for Christian based 98.5 Sonshine FM in Perth, Western Australia.  This seventeen minute interview provides a great overview of the Growing Kids God’s Way curriculum.  You can listen to the MP3 copy of the radio interview by visiting Rodney Olsen’s blog The Journey.