That’s just one of the great questions my son Brock asked me yesterday.

As a fan of the Batman comic, I know that Bruce Wayne’s parent’s were murdered by a thug right in front of a young and impressionable Bruce.  But I don’t know the name of Batman’s mommy.

The boys (4 and 2 and a half years old) have been asking all sorts of good questions lately.  I know the answers to some, I fake the answers for most.  Here are a few that have made me smile lately.

“Does Will (our 3-week old baby boy) poop too?”

“What makes the bottom of the creek slippery?”

“Why does Brock always choose the same bedtime book?”

There have been a myriad of cute questions about male and female anatomy that I won’t quote here.

Questions are fun. There are tons of questions we all have… about God, about ourselves, about the universe, about Lost. If we think we know all the answers, we’re kidding ourselves.  If we quit asking questions, we’d better check our pulse.

I think people stop asking God questions for 1 of 2 reasons: (1) they don’t think God will answer so they don’t bother to ask, or (2) they see questioning God as a sign of weak, doubtful faith.  I’ve found that God doesn’t answer lots of questions I ask him, but he does answer some.  I’ve also found that my faith and my connection with Jesus has grown stronger as I’ve asked God more tough questions.

I don’t know most of the answers… and just when I think I have an answer figured out, something happens in life that makes me re-question the conclusion I had just settled upon.

The beauty is that I don’t need to know all the answers.  Jesus knows all the answers, and I can trust that.  That’s tough to do for some people, but I’ve found that to be the best road for me.

Here’s my question for you readers: What funny questions have kids asked you lately?  It could be your kids or someone else’s.  Leave a comment so we can all smile.

We all have deep questions about God and life and Lost… I’ll ask for those on another day.

Here are a few more recent pics of our crew.  Enjoy.

Our crew at Trinchera Falls.

Brock in the jumpy castle.

Blue tongues from Brody’s Batman birthday cake icing.

Yep, that’s the title of a country song by a guy named Craig Morgan.  For the first time in several years, I really feel what that song is about.

As a Pastor, Sunday is my work day.  There are lots of good things that happen on Sunday as a pastor… preaching from God’s Word, catching up with people, shaking lots of hands.  The funny thing is, that is my job.  It’s my duty to do all of those things.  Those things are all good - I enjoy every part of a pastor’s Sunday.  It’s good for me to remember how everyone else (non-pastors) enjoys and relaxes on Sundays.

We’ve been in Evergreen for the past two Sundays.  On the first Sunday, we just chilled out at the in-law’s house (read between the lines - we skipped church - gasp!).  It was relaxing and refreshing.  It truly was a day of rest.  We went to church this past Sunday. I loved sitting under the trees (it’s an outdoor service) an listening to an encouraging, informative, challenging, uplifting sermon.  The church hosted a big barbecue VBS celebration (with a jumpy castle!) after the service.  Later than afternoon, 2 groups of friends and cousins stopped by to see baby Will.

Relaxation.  Rest.  Family.  Friends.  Fun.  Rejuvenating.

That’s what Sundays should be all the time.

For those of us that faithfully go to church every Sunday, it can often turn into a routine thing of duty.  God wants us to encounter Him and encounter each other in fresh, vivid ways.  He desires us to rest and relax in His presence… hopefully that can be in the presence of other believers as well. My challenge to you is to examine your typical Sunday experience.  Is it a time of duty?  Is it a time of routine predictability?  Or is it a time of refreshing and recharging?

For those of you that don’t go to church on a regular basis, I respect your need to rest. Weeks are long and we need to recharge.  God created us to need rest.  God also created us to need connection with Him and connection with other Christian brothers and sisters in a healty, wonderful way. My challenge to you is to find a church family that is connected to God and to each other.  Find a church home where you can plug in, where you can relax, where you can be yourself.

For those of you in our Branson church family, how can we be more refreshing for each other on Sunday and during the week?  Kind of related to that… where can we have an outdoor service out of the wind and under some trees?  That could be really fun.   Any ideas?

Just a few days into being a father a three boys, I find myself very observant.

Me and my Boys

The boys are absolutely beautiful.  Each is very different in unthought of ways.  They all make me laugh and tear up at the wonder that they are.

There are so many confusing, bewildering, crazy things about this adventure of life that Jesus calls us to.  Much of it is designed to break our prideful hearts and bring us back to a place of trusting in God.  If we slow down, we’ll see that there are lots of nuggets in life that are meant to make us smile… or cry happy tears.  I’d like to share some of those nuggets I’ve seen over the last several days.

Here are five purely perfect things about raising boys that are good any way you look at it.  The things on this list make my eyes light up, no matter how gray the day may be.

1.  Holding a newborn on your chest.

2.  Taking a nap with your toddlers.

3.  Watching your kids giggle uncontrollably on a trampoline.

4.  Realizing that your 2-year old shadow wants nothing more than to be near you.

5.  Listening to your 4-year old talk about his karate skills in his sleep.

6.  Watching your son being born.

7.  Watching your wife give birth.

So here’s a question for you readers out there:  What would make your happy things list?  What are the things that make you smile no matter where you’re at in life?  Is it people, or a person?  Is it a song, or a mountain view?  Is it chocolate?

Remember that God created good things for us to enjoy.  They remind us that God is a good God.  He is a loving father.  He not only wants us to trust him in tough situations, but he wants us to smile and laugh and enjoy the good things he has made for us.

Take a minute and thank him for the good stuff.

Really, we got stopped.  The story is at the bottom of this post.

Big Will is Here

Announcing… William Franklin Doherty was born on June 30 at 3:36 pm.  He weighed in at 7 pounds, 9 ounces and measured 21 inches long.  Mommy and Will are doing great.  Brody and Brock are loving their little brother … Brock calls Will “My Baby.”  Dad is back on caffeine with a vengeance.

To our church family in Branson: Thanks for your prayers and support!  We will be returning to Branson on July 7th or 8th.  John Hudson will be preaching again on July 6th.

Who’s he named after? My maternal grandpa is a William and Jodi’s paternal grandpa was named Willis. My paternal grandpa (known in the family as Grandad and known all over the world as Tanky) is John Franklin.

Getting Stopped by the Cop: So Jodi woke me up at 4:00 in the morning with the beatiful words “Contactions are 6 minutes apart - it’s time to go.”  Those are action words.  We got in the car and I didn’t waste any time driving through Evergreen (that’s the mountain town where we’re staying - it’s about 45 minutes to the hospital).  As I was doing about 65 in a 55 zone I notice someone tailing me hard and fast out of nowhere (that’s never good).  The red and blues flashed and I pulled over.  I’m thinking “People joke about using this as an excuse for speeding, but this is really happening.”  The officer walks up with his little flashlight and says “Good morning.”  I reply “Good morning sir.  My wife is super pregnant and our hospital bag is in the back seat.”  His little flashlight shines on Jodi’s belly and he says “Holy crap! Get out of here!”  He was a young guy who wanted nothing to do with helping a woman deliver a baby in her car at 4:30 in the morning.  It was priceless.  As he waved us on he said he actually stopped us because one of our headlights was out.

Finally, here’s part 3 of the Camping Adventure Trip Saga.  It’s the part you’ve all been waiting for… the story of the lost keys.

I mentioned in part 2 of the saga that we awoke on morning number 2 to the sound of my car alarm.  No one wanted to go through that again, so in my infinite wisdom, I decided to give my keys to the camp early bird, Bethany.  This way she could wake up as early as she wanted and the rest of us could sleep in.  My plan worked beautifully… sort of.

Bethany was not the only one to wake up early that next morning.  Vanessa got up early to make crepes for breakfast.  “Crepes on a camping trip?” you may be thinking.  So was I, but they were awesome.  Huge kudos to Vanessa for hitting a home run with the crepes.  It was pretty civilized fare for our outfit.

After breakfast we began to pack up camp.  As usual, the girls totally outdid the guys and had their stuff ready to go while us guys were still scratching our bellies and yawning (we were in a crepe coma).  As the guys got their stuff together, Vanessa and Sarah packed their car, said their goodbyes, and hit the road.  They had a date with a west coast road trip and were motivated to move.  After they left, the students and I packed up our SUV, tied tons of stuff to the top so we would all fit, got in the car, buckled our seat belts, then I said…

“Alright.  Behtany, hand me the keys.”

Bethany didn’t have the keys.  Neither did I or anyone else in the SUV.  As it turns out, she had given the keys to Vanessa so she could prepare breakfast.  At that moment, Vanessa was already an hour down the road on her way to Denver.  No problem… I could call her on my cell phone.

Oh wait, we were in a deep valley between two 14,000 feet tall peaks with no cell reception!  And my cell phone was dead.  No problem, I have a car charger… oh wait, a car charger only works when a car is turned on!  Arrrrgggghhhh!

Luckily, the camp host had a good old fashioned land based phone line.  I connected with Jodi in Branson and asked her to get a hold of Vanessa any way she could.  Cell phone, text message, smoke signal, carrier pigeon… whatever it took.

Not knowing if and when Vanessa would get our message, I decided to make the students hoof it to our next destination: a hot springs pool about three miles down the road.  They grabbed their swimming gear and their towels and we began our trek.  We kicked and tossed pine cones, stopped for a roadside nature break, sang songs, and spoke in silly accents on our hike down the hill. About halfway there, clouds began to roll in and rain began to sprinkle when I made the executive decision to hitchhike to the pool if we could.  How bad could it be, right?

After Zack and Stephen tried to run down several vehicles, one Isuzu Rodeo came to our rescue.  Our chauffeurs were two college-aged guys (one of them had a huge red afro - it was awesome) who gladly dropped us off at the hot springs. The students went in to swim and I was able to trade my gold teeth for use of the resort’s phone.  I quickly found out that Jodi eventually got in touch with Vanessa, who had nearly reached Denver.  Vanessa and Sarah had turned around and would reach us in a little over an hour.  Whew.  It was safe to breathe now.

The students and I had a great time at the hot springs (Mt. Princeton Hot Springs if you’re interested) playing Marco Polo, making up zany races, and just plain goofing off.  It was a great way to wind up the week.  Vanessa and Sarah did show up… what a sight for sore eyes.  Vanessa said she was driving like an “L.A. woman” to get there as quickly as she did.  As soon as they arrived, we changed into our dry clothes and got on the road.

The trip back to Branson was pretty uneventful, which was okay at that point.

We had an awesome week.  The planned adventures rocked.  The best lessons for me were learned in the midst of the unplanned… but isn’t that the way it always seems to happen?  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thanks for reading.   –Brad

Jodi and I are waiting in Evergreen.

We’re waiting for our third baby, which should arrive in about a week.  If the ultrasound pictures are accurate, it should be our third boy in 4 years.  Living in Branson where boys can be boys is exciting.  Thinking about how to train our boys on when and how to “man up” is exhilarating.  The faith exercise deepens as we look at the monthly math of finances and remember that (1) God has always provided and (2) that God is bigger than math.  The thought of getting beat-down by 3 little Jedis in our lightsaber battles makes me grin.  The waiting is the hard part.  There really is nothing I can do to speed up the baby arrival time… which is strangely similar to the second thing we’re waiting on.

We’re waiting for direction and insight into the best way to minister in Branson.  Small town ministry is very different than ministry in larger towns.  In a small town, you know everyone and everyone knows you.  Jodi and I see this as a positive; we desire to live transparent lives and we want people to know what makes us tick.  We’re finding that many people in our little community want more privacy in their lives than we want in ours.   Some of that is healthy.  When everyone knows (almost) everything you do, there’s comfort in having part of your personal life that’s private.  As I study what the Bible says about Christians living in community, transparency is key to how it’s supposed to work.  Getting people to open up to God and to each other is proving to be a very slow, prayerful process.  I’m learning that pace is okay.  Maybe God wants to work in peoples’ lives at his pace, not at our microwave-western-give-it-to-me-5-minutes-ago pace.

What are you waiting on?

Three weeks and counting…

Jodi and the boys leave tomorrow for Denver.  I’ll be joining them in Denver on Sunday afternoon.  The gameplan is to hang with her parents until the baby is born and stay up there a few days after the little man arrives before heading back to Branson.  I’ve let her and the boys go up north without me before, but this is different.  This is harder.

None of it is impossible or out of God’s control.  Nothing is.  Things are just different this time.  Jodi is uber-pregnant.  When we return from Denver, Brock will be the middle child.  When little man arrives, I’ll be primary parent for the 2 bigger boys for a while.  Life will change when we get back to Branson.

I’m looking forward to this mini-vacation in Evergreen.  Specifically, I’m looking forward to a few days to rest and pray while Jodi’s parents play with Brody and Brock.  We all need time to connect with God, to see the picture, to let go of the “tyranny of the urgent.”

Do you have a place to retreat to?  How long has it been since you were rested and still before God?  What do you need to clear off your schedule to make some time for you and Jesus?

Here are a few picures of me and the boys at the playground 2 days ago. Jodi was there too, she was just behind the business end of the camera.  Enjoy.

Today I got to thinking about how awesome life here in Branson is. The awesome part comes as I stay open to Jesus and go through doors of adventure he presents. Here the 13 adventures I’ve had over the last 15 days.

1. Hiked to a Mountain Lion’s Kitchen Table a Second Time. Yep, the dogs and I found a place with a recently gnawed bone and a big pile of fresh big cat scat right next to it. I didn’t stay there very long. As if once wasn’t enough, the second time around I took my sister, a good friend, and 2 girls I was trying to convince to be our female sponsors for our adventure camping trip along. No one was eaten.

2. Mountain Biking at Night. I didn’t blog about this one, but I did talk about it in a recent sermon (listen to it or download it here ). Downhill, no visibility, rocky road, oak brush…. nuff said.

3. Worship Under the Stars. The night before we rafted, we were invited to join a college group for some music and worship around their campfire. It was breathtaking.

4. Whitewater Rafting. Blogged about this here.

5. Camping 15 feet from a raging river. Ditto on the last post.

6. Rock Climbing. Blogged about it here.

7. Hitch Hiking. I’m working on that blog right now. That whole day was crazy.

8. Hot Springs Swimming. Warm, fun, waiting for lost keys to show up…. oh no, I’m giving away details on the upcoming blog!

9. Horseback Riding. I helped gather a pasture of cows and calves with 2 of my favorite people on the planet: my cousin Dan and my Grandad Tanky.

10. Swashbuckling. I was Pirate Bones (the comic relief) and the game guy for our pirate-themed VBS, which was this past week. Talking in a pirate voice for 3 straight days will leave your throat trashed. It was awesome. Here’s a highlight video.

11. Standing next to 2 Kodiak Bears. They were dead. I got to visit a homestead where a friend had grown up. His father was a serious big game hunter and had an incredible trophy room. 2 Kodiak bears, a polar bear, a moose, several caribou, lots of antelope, a bull elk, and lots of knickknacks from traveling the world. That room had volumes of adventure stories to tell.

12. Wild Grass Fire Fighting. I just blogged about this here.

13. Cliff Diving. Today I made my first trip to Trinchera Falls: the local swimming hole and possible greatest kept secret on the planet. The swimming was phenomenal. There is an archaeological dig just up the creek if you want to see some ancient cave drawings. Oh yeah, and I jumped off a 25 foot cliff into the water.

Coming up in the next month: a 50-mile bike ride and adding a third little boy to the mix (in that order).

So who wants to move to Branson?

But really, location doesn’t matter if you’re open to adventures the Lord puts in your path. There will always be details to take care of and bills to pay. Take advantage of open doors and let God weave some wonderful memories for you. It’s quite a ride.

I spent this afternoon fighting a wild grass fire in a pasture several mile northwest of Branson. This wasn’t the huge 40,000 acre blaze that’s been in the news lately (which is about 30 miles from here), but it was plenty big enough to roast all the marshmallows you could possible want. Here are 10 observations from today.

10. Park your vehicle on black grass, not brown grass. Black grass has been burned up, so flames won’t come back to where there is no fuel for the fire. If you park on not-yet-burned grass, the fire line could engulf your car. No, I didn’t learn this the hard way, but someone today almost did… twice (they’ll remain nameless… for now).

9. Bring a shovel to fight a grass fire. Yep, I forgot my shovel and was pretty much useless until I found one I could borrow. Why a shovel, you ask? You can beat small flames out if the wind is calm enough. But…

8. The shovel beat-down might spread the flame. The downward stroke of the shovel may push the flames out farther. Not a dangerous thing, but really frustrating.

7. The fire line is really hot, even when the wind is blowing it away from you. There were several times today that I had to step back because the heat was so intense. It commanded instant respect.

6. Wild grass fires in small communities are like funerals: you’d rather not have to be there, but everyone shows up and it becomes a fun social time. Only a handful (3 if I’m correct) of people there today owned land or cattle that were threatened by the fire. Most of the people - and there were a bunch - were just being good neighbors. That’s one of the special strengths of our community.

5. Water sprayer backpacks work way better than shovels. When I finally connected with the Branson Volunteer Fire Department, I was given a firefighting backpack, which holds 7 or 8 gallons of water and has a really cool sprayer. That beats down flames way better than a shovel.

4. Brush fire trucks work way better than water sprayer backpacks. A brush fire truck is a F350-sized rig with a 400 gallon water tank and several big hoses on the back, sprayers on the front, and heat shields underneath. That rig rocks.

3. The fire was so big, I didn’t know that my family was also there. This fire burned about 50 to 80 acres. As it turned out, my sister, my cousin, and several friends were on one end of the fire that I didn’t get to. I didn’t know they were there at all until I was chatting with the land owner when the fire was contained and he mentioned them. We were so involved in our own jobs that we were not even aware of each other’s presence. We were fighting the same battle, but on different fronts. There are tons of spiritual applications with this one. Hmmmmm…

2. The best thing to do when the wind picks up is sit back and enjoy the show. You can deal with wind or fire, but not both. God made nature an incredible thing. At one point I was about 30 yards away from a small twister that was right on the fire line. Heat from the flames seemed to intensify the twister: hot air rose in the middle of the twister, which drew more cold air (which was fuel) into the fire. That twister lasted at least 10 minutes, and all I could do was do stand on some black grass and watch. Trying to spray it down (even with a big rig) would have been futile and dangerous. It was awesome.

1. Pray for rain. There hasn’t been a decent rain around here for weeks. The grass that is there is extremely dry. Right now I’m preaching through Psalm 107, which is all about God rescuing people. Verse 35 reads “He turns a desert into a pool of water, dry land into springs of water.” We need God to rescue our land in a very physical and real way. Please pray for rain for our area.

Day #3: The Waterfall and Rock Climbing

On the morning of Day 3, I woke up to one of the most wonderful sounds of nature - my car alarm. Apparently the camp earlybird (Bethany) tried to get out the cooler of food we had locked in the car the night before. That set of the car alarm, which sent me into a scramble to find the keys and hope that the remote would turn the alarm off without me having to get out of my tent. It did. Lucky me.

The Waterfall

By the time the guys and I finally got up, Abby, Bethany, and Mariah had gone on a hike to scout out the waterfall we could see from our campsite. The boys and Vanessa and Sarah somehow stumbled out of bed and had breakfast while out fearless outdoorswomen were busy exploring the great outdoors.

The explorers returned and we all went on a hike to the waterfall. All of us, that is, except Vanessa, who decided to stay at camp and read and try to nap on a tree that hung over the “creek.” The waterfallers hiked up to the waterfall in short order to find that the waterfall was much larger than it looked from our campsite. Everyone but me took off their shoes and climbed onto a cool rock while I took some a few awesome pictures and video. After that, Zach and myself climbed up to the base of the waterfall, took off our shirts, and took an icy shower. We returned from our hike with just enough time to have lunch and head to Granite, CO for some rock climbing.

Video of the Amazing Waterfall

There’s Nobody Here…

As we began our drive to the rock climbing outfitter, I quickly realized that I didn’t have directions. Not a problem… I just called the place and was told to look for a place a few miles outside of Buena Vista on the left side of the road with a sign and several buses. As I turned into the parking lot with lots of Arkansas Valley Adventure busses, we all began to feel like we were in the middle of an old western. No one was there. There were several buildings, a few cabins with dogs tied up on the porch (I’m not kidding), lots of adventure gear (rafts, climbing stuff, mountain bikes) but no people. I called the outfitter again and told them that no one was there. After a few more minutes in the adventure ghost town, a car drove up and told us we were at the gear storage location… the main offices were another quarter mile up the road.

Time to Climb

Once we were at the right place, we got fitted with rock climbing gear. We all got helmets (which were way cool), harnesses (which looked very funny), and rock climbing shoes (which fit way tighter than normal shoes). Our climbing guides Cheyenne (a guy) and Jamie (a girl - you gotta love gender neutral names) taught us the finer points of climbing and belaying and let us have some fun on a 40 foot high slab of granite with 3 different climbing routes. Several of us even took up our guides offer to let us “free fall”… the guides gave us about 10 feet of slack in our lines as we jumped backwards away from the rock. That was a rush. (those crazy jumps are in the second video below).

There are so many amazing spiritual tie-ins with rock climbing, and most of them revolve around trust. Solo rock climbing is pretty dumb in that it’s one of the most dangerous activities I can imagine (swimming with hungry sharks has to take the cake), but climbing with a partner, proper gear, and using basic safety techniques makes rock climbing safer than crossing the street in Branson. Even with the boatloads of safety, there is an element of fear involved, and facing that fear is a bigger challenge for most new climbers than the physical challenge. As we follow Jesus, the most amazing parts of the journey involve risk, overcoming fear, and trusting Jesus. I could go on and on about how amazing climbing is, but tons of books have already been written about it. So here are a couple of video clips of our afternoon.

Rock Climbing Highlights - Part 1 (about 10 minutes long)

Rock Climbing Highlights - Part 2 (about 4 minutes long)

Don’t worry, the story about the lost keys is coming in Part 3 of this post in a few days.