Last night I was blindfolded...but it was fun.

I was a little nervous last night. Our church had a "golf cart rodeo". In that, the driver is blindfolded and the passenger has to give directions through the course. My passenger was my 112 year old daughter, Shaylee. It was fun. My wife did a few courses driving and a few giving directions. It was really fun. We also had a silent auction and a spaghetti dinner. The benefits were for the building fund. We raised nearly $2000. I was a little disoriented with the blindfold on, but since I was not walking, it was fine. When I took the blindfold off, I drove pretty well. All in all, it was a good night.

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It's been a long time...but here I am back in Stratford

It has been nearly 6 years since I have updated this blog; my apologies. For those that had been following for some time, since I last posted: I stepped down as Senior Pastor at New Covenant church in Knoxville, I moved to Ankeny, Iowa, started a new ministry with St. Croix hospice as Chaplain. I was chaplain with St. Croix for about 4 1/2 years, then in 2020 I moved back to Stratford to pastor First Baptist church. It was a big change going from chaplain work back to the pastorate. I must confess, when I first came (back) to Stratford I was ready to pastor again! I love preaching; I love the ministry of being a pastor, and I love interacting with people long-term. (Being a chaplain is great, but you only interact with a family for a week or so, for some a little longer, but there was a constant upheaval of people and it was exhausting at times...) But, one thing that I have noticed since my stroke is that I get my feeling hurt easily. For instance, people leave the church all the tim

A stroke survivor's memory is tricky sometimes...

Tomorrow I will preach the funeral for a dear friend of mine. He was the definition of a selfless person. I truly appreciated all that he did, but, when I was meeting with the family on Wednesday a memory came to me suddenly and I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Let me back up a little bit: After my stroke in December, 2008 my license was revoked for obvious reasons and it took me some time and practice before I was able to drive again. I finally got my license back in February, 2009. But, shortly after I got my license back the reality of the severity of my stroke became evident: my stroke had seriously impacted the PONS area of my brain stem, and therefore, a lot of my nerves were negatively impacted. One of the nerves that was damaged was the nerve that controls my eye movements; my left eye would would twitch, at times almost uncontrollably, and that made it really difficult to drive, particularly at night. That brings me to the memory that left me so emotional. Fast forwar

What my stroke has taken from me...

I was sitting in Knoxville, outside of the Knoxville Dance Academy, waiting for my girls to finish up with their dance classes when I had just a little bit of time to reflect on the last 7+ years since me stroke and all that has happened in my life. My stroke has taken my ability to play basketball as well as I used to (which was not very good...) My stroke has taken my ability to play football as well as I used to (see the above statement...) My stroke has taken much of my energy to be able continue as full time Senior pastor, My stroke has made me take medicine to control eye movements, My stroke has made me start taking medicine at night to help me sleep, My stroke has made me much more of an emotional wreck than I ever was before, My stroke has made it so I laugh, nearly uncontrollably, at the wrong moments, My stroke has made me lose the ability to answer people appropriately at time, My stroke has made me nearly choke on water or tea because of swallowing problems, My

a stroke survivor story

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