Ministry​

March is already coming super fast, I feel like just a week or so ago was the beginning of a new year. Youth Ministry has been working out well,I was able to meet a the family of one of the youths in my group. They share the gosepl in something called a Skoolie (Converted Bus to RV) and willbe in Melrose, FL until around the begining of April. This month has been a bunch of meetups with fellow Christians hanging out and just fellowshiping.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 King James Version
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.

Also, lost a dear brother Bill this month who will no doubt be with the Lord. I will miss him, but excited for him and glad he is no longer suffering. Just want to love on the family during the funeral at the end of this week. As a family we have been focusing on making sure all our ducks are in a row and we are packed and prepped for Brazil. I have practiced presenting the Gospel a few times in only Portuguese and feel pretty comfortable in a basic presentation.

In other news, after many years of searching Facebook Market place for a Shuttle Bus to buy one came up for sale that met all my pickyrequirements. So we bought it. I think it will open up missions in the future. The timing seemed weird but God knows what he is doing, and I sure don't.

Technology Journey​

Working on a Habit Tracker​

Recently needed to create my own anti-virus scanner and needed something that could run from a live booted usb running Ubuntu. I pretty much live and breath Powershell, but it always feels dirty and lack luster on Linux. Everything that is complicated in bash seems to die, so I figured I would give Perl a try since it was already on most Linux distros pre-installed. I was also familiar with TK from Python, so I figured I would try and make Pearl GUI for my PopOS distro that could track habits. I built in Javascript first, but thought... hey maybe I can make an app, since many of the options I have suck. Mine still sucks too, but it meets my needs and took me less than an hour to code it. Maybe I will put code in repo if anyone is interested and develop it more for my needs as my needs grow. Random note:

Still working on my Security Plus Certificatation, it is pretty dry stuff but generally useful. Much of the knowledge is exposing what terminology is commonly used and introduction into tools, mindsets, and general security principles.

Ministry​

Youth Group​

I have gotten to know some of the leaders better at Youth Group and a few of the young boys/men there. I knew some previously but am still working hard to remember names and match faces with backgrounds. Overall, I can tell they are listening but getting teenage boys to engage is more difficult than I remember when I was in youth. Most are polite and from time to time I see both leadershipship and foolishness opperunities in these young men.

We are on continuing to practice Portuguese in hopes to be more effective when presenting the gospel in Brazil next month. Our bags are packed (1 small backpack per person) and will carry only what we need. Much like youth group, I have no idea what to expect and will be jumping in semi blind into Brazil. Ultimately we look forward to some fellowship with our brothers and sister down there and want to be a blessing any way possible.

Ministry​

Youth Group​

Started working in youth group for the first time after a reading a book called "Husband & Fathers" by Derek Prince (https://www.amazon.com/Husbands-Fathers-Rediscover-Creators-Purpose/dp/0800792742) and feeling conviction for the many teens who may not have that Christ-centered foundation in their home. So not sure what to expect or what that really looks like, but just thanking God for the opportunity to serve and hopefully plant some seeds in these young men's lives. We shall see what comes of it.

Brazil​

In other news, we are preparing to team up with the body of Christ down in Brazil. We have some members of the church that moved down to Brazil full-time to live and serve in a ministry capacity. Our family intends to try and help out wherever we can and just love on people. Not sure exactly what that looks like either, but I have the family learning some basic Portuguese for getting by. I am hoping to be able to hold a conversation in Portuguese by March. So I will be studying in my spare time for the next 2 months to see how fluent I can become. I would at least like to be able to present the Gospel without an interpreter.

India (Uppahar)​

Got two letters recently from some people that are serving the Lord over in India. I cannot go into too much detail for safety reasons and the hostility over there, but despite many things they are both doing well. One is a gentleman around my age (give or take) who preaches to High Caste system as he comes from the same. Another is a teenager who has been displaced by violence against Christians in India, but he is doing well in school and overall. Praying for continued boldness and great harvest for the Kingdom of God. I have not written back to them as of writing this, which is another reason I am starting this blog. When friendships become international the post office is always nice, but a blog is a bit more consistent.

Gardening (Snow in Florida)​

Well after looking at the cost of groceries last year, I decided to become a farmer... sort of. I was, however, pulling weeds out in the garden beds about 2 hours after I did the math of food cost. Wouldn't you know it that many of the things that can normally handle Florida cold died. Who knew it would snow in Florida? My beans I planted sure didn't.

Technology Journey​

In nerd news, for reasons I will not go into... I have had to quickly educate myself in Cyber Security defense and forensics with a bunch of White Hat Hacking stuff. Not the career path I was looking into, but it is useful.

My script kiddies (Library of Automation Scripts) have grown quite a bit as I have had to make more and more tools for both work and personal. Check it out if you wish. https://github.com/afrank84/DevOps-AutomationToolingV2

Nerd Stuff​

I have not created or maintained a blog for at least 10 years. However, I do write a ton of documentation for both my work and personal life. Obsidian is my go to for documentation since I broke away from Confluence, but as for this blog I will run it on Docusaurus using CloudFlare workpages and GitHub as a solution for hosting some of my content to the world.

The Goal (Acceptance Criteria) for blog​

• Share with people whom are friends and family, but not exactly in communication everyday.
• Host some of my Documentation online so I can reference it out in the field.
• Ability to import my blog to another format. (Markdown is universal)
• Ability to view and host locally
  • Just clone git clone yourRepoHere and run command: npm start

New Years goals​

• Dedicated Bible time everyday
• Dedicated Book reading time everyday
• Dedicated Exercise everyday
• Dedicated Project time everyday
• 8 cups of water a day