The Neely Team

Have you ever considered that fellowship with other believers is sort-of like an energy swap? The power and joy of the Lord working in the lives of His children generates this unique, beautiful strength, and so when families get together for small periods of refreshment, and each individual has a focus first on Christ, and then on how he can bless those around him, the possibilities for the ways this energy can be exchanged are immeasurable!

What a privilege to have the Wilkes Team here for a few days!! The entire visit was truly one ginormous energy exchange (cross between ‘gigantic’ and ‘enormous’ ), as each individual shared freely from the abundant stores God has given. Gifts of testimony, praise, song, creativity, enthusiasm, and service were unrelentingly passed from person to person, until, in the end, we all came away completely filled up and ready to press on in life’s race.

One particular highlight for everyone on this visit was the night when our wonderful parents took the opportunity for a “double date,” leaving the other 19 of us at home alone. We declared it to be National Opposite Night, where we ate piping-hot soup from a cup with our least-trained hand, drank from bowls, and ate dessert on the kitchen floor. Ahhhh…. memories!

Another important feature of our days together was all the time we spent reading the Word, discussing what we’d read and many other aspects of the Christian life, singing the praise of our God, and coming before Him in prayer. These four elements helped to keep His goodness continually before our eyes, and kept us acknowledging Him in all of our ways. (Proverbs 3)

Thank you, once again, Wilkes Team, for being so willing to let the Lord use you to influence, encourage, and refresh us. May we all go forward with the mindset of being fountains of energy, bubbling with the joy of Jesus – so that others will be drawn to Him, and He gets the glory!

My, how time flies! We love keeping in touch with so many of you… leave a comment!

On the day after Thanksgiving, we had the chance to go on a family hunting trip in Georgia on some of our relatives’ land. When we got there, we sat in our 12-person, brown hunting-blind in the middle of the hay field. Daddy had a gun, and the rest of us watched for deer.  During the afternoon, we killed two deer and a pig!! When Daddy shot the gun, he was out of the van,  and for the second deer and the pig he propped his gun on one of the hay bales in the field. With the deer, he didn’t take any extra ammo, though, so he ran out! He signaled to Mommy and she went softly scooting toward him with more. The rest of us were still sitting in the van watching the whole thing, and we thought that she looked like a pioneer woman from years ago, helping her husband kill food for the family.  The deer ran away when he shot it, and it was almost dark, so we had to track it with flashlights. We had so much fun! Daddy, Mommy, and the little ones gutted it, while Amanda, Jessica, Kathryn, Victoria,and I walked in the dark back to where the pig was. We took a strap and tied it to the feet. Amanda, Kathryn, and Victoria had fun dragging it while Jessi took pictures and I guided them with the light.  When we got it there, we wrapped it in a plastic raincoat and put it in the back of the van. We had to put the two deer on top of the van!

I am glad Daddy had this wonderful idea! We enjoyed the trip getting there, and LOVED hunting together. (Gutting the deer and having a science experiment was fun too! ) I can’t wait to get to do it again!

My shoulder felt like someone was sticking a knife into it. The temperature was only in the 40’s or 50’s, but sweat beaded in my hairline and ran down my back. As we neared the edge of the woods, my breath came heavily and I stumbled a few times. Ahead of me, Dad moved easily and quickly, carrying the other end of the 10-foot pole from which hung my latest kill. I grinned in triumph and excitement. Several times, Dad asked me how I was doing, but I couldn’t complain. We had a deal: I would haul anything we killed as far as we needed to get it, if he would do the gutting for me. I had the easy part. So we marched on in the near dark, carrying our prize between us, like victorious hunters of olden days. The doe was small, not much larger than our Labrador retriever (although her dead weight (literally!) made her seem a little larger ). We laughed as we walked: of the five deer that I’ve been able to bring down, the biggest probably didn’t weigh more than 100 pounds. But this had been a perfect shot, and we were content, in spite of the small size. This was fun!

This is just one story from my first visit to one of Dad’s all-time favorite hunting spots. Dad invited me to go along with him this trip, and I loved it! He even generously let me hunt his “honey hole!” When we walked into the woods before dawn that Friday morning, we had a plan: stay in the tree until you shoot something or until it gets too dark to see anything. That day was very interesting; as I sat in my tree stand thirty feet high, I was able to observe God’s creation in a way that I had never seen it before. Some of the most memorable things were watching a hawk tantalize and then draw a whole flock of crows after it in a hubbub of hoarse squawks and shrill screams, watching another hawk light in a tree a little bit in front of me and then drop a squirrel into the creek below before taking off again, and sitting spellbound as a little deer bed down about thirty yards in front of me!! (For those of you who might be wondering, yes, I did shoot it a little later… after he stood up again. ) I also encountered what I considered to be somewhat of a small phenomenon. Whenever we walked through the woods in the dark with only our flashlights, I could see hundreds of little green “sparks” all over the ground, but they disappeared beneath leaves and brush when we got too close. Curious about what this might be, I watched quickly, and to my amazement, I saw that the “sparks” were actually spiders’ eyes reflecting light in the dark, just like deer, cats, and dogs do! I know that probably gives some people the willies (i.e. some of my family members thought I was crazy to enjoy that), but I think it was a pretty cool discovery… as long as the spiders stay on the ground. In the day and a half that we hunted, I probably saw 15-20 deer – beautiful! – as well as redheaded woodpeckers, hawks, squirrels, and other miscellaneous critters. Someday I want to go back – out of season, maybe when it’s a little warmer – climb the tree, and observe just for the fun of it.

Friday brought in my two small deer, and Dad’s 150-pound feral boar. Although we didn’t actually get anything on Saturday, we had a good time – outside, enjoying the stillness of the woods and the beauty of God’s creatures. I had a lot of fun with the hunting aspect of the trip (after all, one of my favorite seats is a tree stand!), but I especially loved being with Dad! We had a wonderful time, and I’m ready to go again next time my turn rolls around; although with all the stories we brought back, I now have several siblings lobbying to go!! Hmmm… too many hunters to go at once… what a great problem to have, huh?

On this day set aside for thanksgiving, may our hearts be lifted up in deep gratitude to the Lord for all He has done!

Dad read this to us this morning at breakfast:

“When ye will offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord, offer it at your own will.” Leviticus 22:29

One day, while paying my electric bill, I decided to thank the company for the service they were providing me. “Thanks for my electricity,” I said, “It’s really quite a bargain for all the benefits I receive.” “What!” said the lady behind the counter, in amazement, “That’s the first time anyone has ever thanked us. All I ever heard around here are complaints.”

It’s a challenge to grow up with a thankful heart. From an early age we are exposed to a culture of complainers, gripers, grumblers, and critics. We complain about the weather, traffic, food, work, neighbors, bills, the government, church, and life in general. Worst of all, we are ungrateful toward God. It would be hard to count the number of complaints and criticisms that are daily spoken before Him and against Him. How can we, who have received so much, be thankful for so little?

One of the great indicators of true spirituality is not measured by how many times we go to church, how big our Bibles are, or how long we pray, but it is measured by the level of gratitude that is in our hearts. When we are ungrateful, the heart of God is saddened, the Holy Spirit is grieved, and the joy of the Lord is quenched within us.

Being thankful sweetens you, grumbling sours you; being thankful brings sunshine to your countenance, being ungrateful casts a shadow; being thankful brings a melody to your words, criticism makes you sound like a clanging cymbal; being thankful keeps your feet on the pathway of celebration, complaint takes you down the road of despair.

When our hearts are filled with gratefulness, we may feel like our thanksgiving is always appropriate. It will gladden the heart of God to hear your heartfelt thanks being freely offered to Him today.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Neely Team!!

Ø Top-bunk beds make good diving boards into imaginary swimming pools made of excess pillows and blankets

Ø You cannot ride five stick horses at once

Ø If you splash the bath water hard enough, you can soak the one who’s bathing you

Ø Behind the phone stand in the corner is a good home for baseball bats

Ø Stuffed monkeys like to climb onto ceiling fan blades (and will stay there until they are removed by room cleaners)

Ø It’s not funny when binkies, toys, and important papers get placed in the trash can

Ø No matter how hard you try, you cannot drive away from Dad in a parked car

Ø Quarters are not edible

Ø Bungi-cords are good van toys when strung on the hanger hook with a water bottle on one end

Ø Step stools and/or rocking chairs turned up-side-down and filled with pillows make nice tree stands for hunting, just like Dad’s and Big Sister’s

Ø Supportive poles in the basement are also good places for hunters

Ø A desk lamp on the floor shining into your little sister’s mouth is very similar to the one used by the dentist

Ø Bowls of chocolate pudding are fun to play in

Ø Tractors are no longer called “tractors”; they are now called “brr brrr brrrr”

Ø If you scare your sister bad enough, she will jump three feet in the air before losing all of her limbs (in appearances at least)

Ø Sisters in deep concentration at the piano and/or violin are good targets for scaring

Ø Toy guitars have small holes which are fun to put things in

Ø Live hermit crabs are hard to get out of toy guitars

Note: if you have learned something that you want to add to this list, please do so in the comment section. Thank you!

-Management

(Of this site at least)

This weekend we enjoyed the blessing of having the Stelzl family here once again!! With every visit from friends, I am discovering anew the manifold beauty, richness, and delight of fellowship in Christ!

A couple highlights: practicing music as a ten-person (and three-part) ensemble and then singing two arrangements together in church on Sunday, hiking a beautiful, sometimes thorny trail up a mountain at Fires’ Creek, taking a tour of the gun stock plant where Dad works, listening to harmonizing pennywhistle duets and trios, and playing Football Freeze Tag. Wherever we were, though, edifying conversation flowed freely, and it was GLORIOUS! When the weekend was over, we sat down as a family and discussed the ways we had been encouraged by this dear family. A few things that particularly stood out to me were the Stelzl’s passion to share Christ with the world, their heart for discipling others, their servants hearts, and the joy that was manifested in SO many ways. Whether they were clearing the table, about to tag you for the third time in freeze tag, teaching younger ones how to draw, eating chocolate caramel ice cream cake, or relating a story of how God is at work in their church and community, smiles lit the faces everywhere. Joseph Addison was right when he stated: “What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure, but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.” You just can’t help but come away encouraged when you are around someone who faithfully practices this fine art!

Thank you, Stelzl family!