Walking by Faith, not by Sight

Don resigned from his ministry position at Lamb and Lion Ministries a few weeks ago. It was hard to leave Dr. Reagan and the other employees and Board members because they are more than co-laborers...they are extended family and we love them all so much; however, the decision to leave was an easy one for we knew it was God's timing for Don to resign when he did. Change is never very easy as it usually involves leaving a network of people God has placed in ours lives in one way or another. As for provision, they gave Don a severance package that was a huge blessing and one for which we are very undeserving, but very grateful.

So, many people have asked us, "What are you doing now?" From a worldly perspective, Don should be pounding the pavement looking for another job and honestly, that would be the easy thing for him to do. We know that God wants us listening and obeying Him more than anything else we could be doing. So, what is God telling us to do? He is simply telling us to pray...wait...read His Word and grow closer to Him...wait...walk by faith and not by sight...pray some more...wait some more...not give in to things that distract us from His will for our lives...pray...minister to others...pray. We know that God is preparing us for the next thing, but during that time we know we are to wait, pray and trust Him until He says "do something!"

You know, as I was reading about all the great people in Hebrews 11, the "Hall of faith" chapter...two things really struck me. One, that God used incapable, humble, obedient followers to fulfill His will. Why did God pick his children who had those characteristics? Because if they were the opposite (capable in their own strength, arrogant or proud and disobedient), God's will wouldn't have been accomplished and He would've have gotten the glory! Instead God shows us that he uses our willingness to serve Him, our giving every part of ourselves to be used for His glory, and our obedience for His plans and purposes. He can't use us at all if we don't give everything we have to Him 100% (our plans, our desires, our bodies, our gifts and talents).

The second thing he called to my attention, were not all the main people listed (the ones I usually focus on when I read that chapter), but verses 32-40 are the ones that stuck out like a sore thumb: And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed {acts of} righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received {back} their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated ({men} of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
Wow! From a worldly perspective, these men and women would not be considered successful in any way shape or form! But, God's way's are contrary to the world's ways (Satan's ways). We know that there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who could be added to this list of the faithful.
We don't want to do anything in our own strength or to run ahead of the Lord in anyway. We want to wait on Him and only do what He tells us to do, when He tells us to do it. We want to be on this list with the faithful ones. Are we worried? No, because we are living out Phil. 4:6-7, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
We just found out that our van needs $3000 in transmission repairs, so God is allowing us to walk out the above promise in a big way!
The bottom line is, we know that He will never leave us or forsake us and that we can trust Him as we walk by faith and not by sight. Following Christ is certainly an adventure, never boring...in other words..."never a dull moment!" :o)
One more thing...we have more than one close friend who is close to dying and our prayers go out to them and their families right now. We are so grateful that these friends know the Lord and are eager to be with Him in heaven. God is using these circumstances to remind us how short life is and how living for Him and Him alone is doing the hard thing, but at the same time it is also the best, most fulfilling, rewarding, awesome life to live! :o)

Our Blessed Trip to Florida

Uncle Greg and Josiah

Here we are at Disney

The Lord blessed our trip to Orlando SO MUCH and we are so grateful! The Lord provided the money needed to go and then some! :o) When we arrived, we were blessed with our visit with Don's sister Michaelle and her sweet family. Don especially enjoyed spending a relaxing afternoon shopping and visiting with Michaelle. Don's Mom was there and we were able to spend time with her too, which was a huge blessing.
We stayed the first two nights with John and Michaelle, then we were able to stay at the beautiful Gaylord Palms Hotel for 7 days...we had fun at the AMTC competitions, swimming in their huge family pool with slide, etc. We also have some new friends who live near Disney World and they have 8 children. They came to visit with us and swim one day with 5 of their children and that was a lot of fun! We met so many wonderful people through AMTC and Don was honored by being picked to be one of 20 select men for their special Gospel choir. Don was also honored and flattered to have "Advantage Model and Talent of Nashville," invite him to sign a contract for representation.

We also were able to go to Holy Land Experience. Our favorite treat there, was seeing a live reinactment of "The Passion;" however, we missed the best part (The Scriptorium) because we were hot, tired and ready to go home! God blessed us unexpectedly with 8 FREE tickets to Disney World! We couldn't have worked that out if we'd tried! We only had to pay for a park-hopper pass for Josiah. John and Michaelle had two different friends who work at DW and they wanted to bless us with the tickets. Suffice it to say, we were very humbled, grateful and we had SO MUCH FUN! :o) We got to go to Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studio Parks! We were on our way to watch fire works at Epcot in the evening and were too tired, so we went to a wonderful Chinese restaurant, relaxed and filled our tummies with the delicious food.
I think our favorite time in Orlando was our few brief fun-filled hours at the beach. My friend Rachel gave us some wonderful tips on which beaches to go to, but for the sake of time, we opted to go to the closest one...Cocoa Beach, one evening. We had an exhililerating time of memory-making playing in the waves, digging our toes in the sand (we did that for you Melissa!), and watching dolphins swim by way out in the ocean. Thanks to Rachel's advice, we took baby powder with us that helped in getting all that sand off our bodies!
At the last minute, we found out we were going to get to meet my brother Greg and his wife Janice on our way home! They live in Kentucky and met us in Memphis for 3 days and two nights. Noah, Mary and I got to tour Graceland with them. My favorite part was Elvis' car museum. I couldn't believe how giving he was in giving so many vehicles away...he also had many vehicles he liked to play on, like a tractor! That night, we were able to go to a fun park and ride go-carts, bumper boats, and play games together. Uncle Greg and Josiah left the other drivers in the dust in the go-karts! Seeing Greg and Janice was the "icing on the cake" of our trip and it was truly a blessing to spend time with them.
God's timing in this trip was perfect! Nathan was able to save a small child from drowning in the pool at the Gaylord Palms. Also, we started planning this trip in March. Shortly thereafter, Don's sister Michaelle was diagnosed with breast cancer. We were all able to visit with Michaelle and her family at a time when it was really important for us to be there. In addition, John and Michaelle planned 6 mos. previously to go on a cruise to celebrate John's parents 50th wedding anniversary. God worked it out for them to be able to go on the cruise at the only possible time (right after Michaelle healed from surgery and the week before her chemo/radiation was to start...Praise the Lord!)
We are so grateful to all of you who helped us be able to go on this once-in-a-lifetime trip as a family! Many of you paid us for work we did for you, sponsoring the children in their reading, prayers and donations. We couldn't have done it without the Lord's blessing and without all of you.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts...We love you,
Don, Lori, Nathan, Noah, Kaylee, Janna, Hannah, Faith, Josiah, Jonathan and Mary Ann - P.S .Thanks to all of you who sent cards to Don's sister, Michaelle. She's mentioned more than once what a blessing it was to hear words of encouragement from people she doesn't even know.

Thank you Friends and Family! :o)

June 26, 2009

Friends and Family,

Thank you, Thank You, Thank you!

We are Florida bound! We are so grateful to you, our friends and family for helping us raise money for our trip! We raised enough to go, with a little extra! :o)

As you know, 4 months ago, Don found out that he would be going to Orlando for some acting and singing competitions. He wanted to go, “but not unless my whole family can go with me,” he said. Also, as many of you know, we are working hard to get out of debt. So, taking 11 people to Orlando in 4 months without going further into debt seemed like an impossibility! We prayed and felt we had the Lord’s blessing to proceed with working toward the possibility for all of us to go to Orlando the end of June.

So, we decided to ask our friends and family for help, hiring us to do work you needed done, etc. Many of you gave us donations for our trip for which we are very grateful. Several of you sponsored our children to read books, for which they were delighted! Many of you gave us jobs to do as a family and we had fun working together! Some of the things we did were car detailing/washing, weeding, housework, pet-sitting, moving, donations of items for our garage sale, yard work, etc.

We’ve had a lot of fun working on this project together, but we couldn’t have done it without the Lord’s blessing and without the prayers, love and support of our friends and family.

PS Will you please keep us in your prayers as we travel the next two weeks? Also, will you please pray for Don’s sister Michaelle, as she continues to recover from breast cancer?


Thank you…God bless you,
Don and Lori Gordoni and Family

This is the cross-stitch I just finished. It took over a year to do, but was well worth it! We gave it to some dear friends. :o)

Noah's New Toy! :o)

Noah saved up his money to buy this new toy!

It goes up to 38 mph. on our acreage.

Nathan is saving up for something bigger...a car!

He'll be 16 in December! :o)

Oasis in the Country

Psalm 107:1

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.

1 Thess. 5:18

...give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

As I was sitting on the front porch this morning and enjoying the coolness in the air and hearing the rumble of thunder in the near distance...a sense of gratitude and contentment washed over me...so did the idea of our house being and "oasis in the country."

Many of you know that our large family of 12 has followed Dave Ramsey's advice of "live like no one else, so you can live like no one else!" Meaning, you may look crazy by the way you are living by the world's standards while you are working on paying off debt, but in the end, you'll be the one sitting pretty when your debt is paid off! How are we following his advice? By working diligently to pay off our non-mortgage debt. We haven't borrowed money (no loans, no credit cards) in 3 years! We are living like no one else, because we are a family of 12 (with the exception of our oldest son who is no longer at home) living in a 3-bedroom, manufactured home.

My husband and I finally started listening to God as He was condemning us for our non-mortgage debt. All our married lives we had debt! To make a long story short, we were finally feeling convicted about it. We looked at all the interest we were (and still are) paying each month . We were saddened to think about what that money could be used for (the Lord's work, blessing others, giving our children more opportunities to do things). So, we sold our big 5-bedroom house and moved to our "Oasis in the Country" 2 years ago. That's not what I would've called it 3 years ago (you don't want to know how I would have referred to it)! Just to tell you how far I've come in a couple of short years, if my husband had suggested we move into this little house then, I would've said he was crazy and he would've had to bring me here kicking and screaming!

All that to say, I could be discontented and wish we had more bedrooms, a bigger kitchen, nice trees, and the list could go on forever! However, I know that we are in the middle of God's will and that by making sacrifices and working hard, we will see our debt paid off before we know it! I also know that our children are learning from our mistakes and at least they'll be able to say "my parents made the mistake of getting into debt, but they worked hard to get out of it," instead of "my parents got in debt and stayed there." It is fun to see the debt going down and we celebrate small milestones as we go along.

It's not easy and I am very tempted to be discouraged and ungrateful sometimes, but when I remember "...give thanks in all circumstances," that helps me keep my eyes on the Lord and to be grateful for all He has provided. It also helps me be so grateful for my dear husband Don and for his obedience to the Lord in this...and, I am so grateful for all of our children who are such blessings...nothing else really matters.

Letter to Family and Friends - Florida or Bust!

Hi Family and Friends:
Just to remind you we are working as a family to save/earn money so we can all go with Don to a big acting/singing competition in Orlando, Florida this summer at the end of June. Don hask been taking classes through AMTC, www.amtcworld.com (Actors, Models Talent for Christ). This has been a wonderful organization to be a part of and support. We've met so many new friends and everyone encourges the whole family to attend the classes with Don and it's a very fun, welcoming atmosphere for all of us. Don will be in 9 competitions this summer and is working on performing a funny monologue and is singing a beautiful song from Phantom of the Opera...ask him to sing it for you! :o)

If you live near us and have any items that you would like to donate, we are partipating in a big yard sale this weekend and can come and pick up the items. Part of the proceeds will go towards the women's ministries at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Lucas and the rest will help us with our trip this summer. If you have items to donate, please call or email us and let us know when we can come to get them!

We wanted to update you on our progress thus far. We still need to earn approximately $2,500 before the end of June so if you have some work for us, please call (Lori's cell: 972-832-8444) or email us, dlgordoni@gmail.com and let us know. It's been exciting to receive several gifts and lots of odd jobs. Here's a list of the odd jobs we've done:
power washed siding
washed/detailed car
pulled weeds
dug gardens
moved shrubs
prepped mowers
installed flooring
fed and walked dogs
cleaned house
trimming hedges
book reading (A dear friend who lives in Virginia suggested this way for people to help who don't live near us. We sent her a list of books the children promised to read and her family sponsored them! Some friends from Georgia participated in this, as well. This is a great way for the little ones to help earn money for our trip too because we read the books to them! The children are finished with their first list of books and are ready to start on another one! If you would like to help us in this way, just email us and we'll gladly send you their book-reading list.)

We have really appreciated all the encouragement that we have received and would really appreciate your prayers that our trip would be a blessing to our family and that the Lord would use our family to bless others too!
Thank you and God Bless You...
Love,
The Gordoni family