Minister Of Mocha

This past week found your MoM driving from Portland, Oregon to basically Abilene, Texas. We saw a ton of beautiful scenery then we hit the plains… Just to set the stage properly, I do not really enjoy the Great Plains. It’s so flat out there you could basically use Texas as a straight edge! We…

Today is graduation day at the prison where we serve. It’s not graduation day for everyone there, but it is for the men in our program. It’s kind of bittersweet. The prison will be closing soon, so today is also our last day there. Every time we are ready to graduate a class for this…

I spent last week at the annual Celebrate Recovery Summit at Saddleback Church in Orange County. It was our first time back with an in-person Summit at Saddleback since before the pandemic. Everyone was very excited to be there and it definitely had a reunion atmosphere. Since my wife is now a State Rep for…

This week you MoM is at CR Summit in Orange County. We are here for the week and have a couple of families traveling together so we opted for an Air BnB rather than a hotel. It makes it nice for chatting and such in the evening. We found a nice place. It feels like…

I stopped into the “office” to do some things this morning. Since I had a bit of a late start, the dark roast was already gone. I opted for a latte instead. I need to do some business research this morning for our ministry so I figured I could use a calming drink. I ordered,…

It’s July 3rd today. Kind of a weird time…we don’t call it Independence Day Eve, but ostensibly, that’s what it is. I’m celebrating with my friend from way back in elementary school by golfing. We are going out early in order to “beat the heat”. The forecast is calling for somewhere around 108! I’m not…

This weekend we had a brief visit from my brother and niece. Several weeks ago, when my mother returned home from her stay in the hospital, my brother came to help out. Through a series of events, it turned out that he drove my mother’s car back home to Phoenix. We have been trying to…

This morning is June 19th. Juneteenth. In two days it will officially be summer. So why did I wake up to sleet?!? Weather, life and recovery are filled with mystery and adventure. The dilemma is what to do with them. I am driving through the mountains today, so precipitation of any kind is not awesome.…

A couple of years ago I put up a small pergola in the back yard. It’s main function was to provide shade for the garden and I didn’t put a lot of detailed effort into it. The boards on top were a bit wiggly. The posts weren’t completely square. One post even had a twist…

Now that we are headed into summer and kids are getting out of school I hear a lot of folks talking about their plans and then asking others about their plans.”Hey, do you have any big plans for the summer?” That kind of conversation is happening all over then place. I just had a great…