I was recently asked to record my testimony for Pastor Jim Bradford’s sermon on “God’s Economics.” The video guys at Central Assembly did a phenomenal job of editing…here is the result that was shown in both Sunday morning services on June 8th.

It is finally go time…I am ready to let the cat out of the bag. The business I have been working on since mid-March is called Professional Law Enforcement. The venture will focus on providing high quality training to Missouri law enforcement officers; particularly those from smaller agencies that are unable to conduct their own in house training.

The web site is prolawenforcement.com; it is a little short on content right now, but that will change in the days and weeks to come. I have been at annual training in Salina, Kansas, for the past week and Amy has been in Tennessee making it a little difficult to build a web site, but we did it.

I sent out 152 flyers earlier today for a Racial Profiling class in July. By Monday I have six more classes to add to my calendar and get advertised…all while molding my 24 candidates to become officers in the United States Army. Thankfully the TAC officers will be occupying most of their time until we (instructors) pick back up on Monday

A frequent commenter here and friend from MTMMO, Patrick, finished his pizza delivery journey this week. He has been writing a pizza blog thread for the last nine and a half months (sorry you have to be a subscriber so I can’t link directly to it…they give me the subscription for free in case you were wondering). In an emotional closing post he wrote the following:

First I must thank God for granting me the blessings of hard work, energy, and a workable plan. Then I move down the list to my family, of whom I will re-commit to spending time with. Next I commend and thank Dave Ramsey for his never-ending quest to further financial and manly wisdom among those who listen. And lastly, I send out a heartfelt thank you to Joel Maxwell, for providing a wind-draft for me to break my stride in. If you hadn’t so boldly and publicly stepped out, placing your family and integrity on the line, I would’ve continued on my path of mediocrity and trudged forward with a ’someday’ mindset. I will forever be in your debt, brother.

Patrick much like me owned a couple of restaurants that went belly up. His similarities to my story are almost scary at times; money borrowed from family, closing on short notice, living on debt…I look forward to hearing his debt free scream…now go spend some time with your girls, Patrick!!

Today Amy and I have been married for 13 years (Jami and Kurt too; happy anniversary guys!); while I was in Afghanistan the kids and Amy decided to call this our family birthday instead of our wedding anniversary. This year we decided to keep with the theme and go on a family date.

The kids are huge CS Lewis fans, so we spent way too much money and watched Prince Caspian. We all loved it; lots of teaching opportunities for a suddenly curious Jeremiah (I don’t want to say he is agnostic yet, but he sure has lots of questions lately about Jesus and God). There is a lot of violence in the movie, but most is shielded compared to what you see on television. Don’t worry; the kids know it isn’t real

I will end this short post saying I am so fortunate to be married to the love of my life and to my best friend. I love you Amy!

Thursday night after the kids took off to their friend’s house for the weekend, me and Amy headed to our apartment to finish cleaning everything out. Having grossly under estimated the amount of work remaining we were stuck until 2 am before leaving our place for the last time. Once the work was done we quickly packed our bags, sneaked in an hour nap and headed to the airport for our flight to South Padre Island.

Amy and I have thoroughly enjoyed our better than all expense paid trip this weekend. It is better than because the Army not only paid all the expenses but also paid us to attend this weekends strong bonds marriage retreat. This is an excellent program for Soldiers who have previously mobilized or who are preparing to go.

Here are some photos from our fabulous weekend:

Me and Amy sleep deprived at the Springfield Airport…

Still sleep deprived on the balcony at our hotel…

Well rested on the beach…

Sunset on the beach…

One eyed crab on the beach…

On the beach after our marriage vow renewal this morning…

One last view from our balcony…

This is the original Iwo Jima monument used to cast the bronze one in DC; it is located just outside the Valley International Airport…