First week of school!

Well Rory and I made it through the first week ever of homeschooling! No children have been lost or sacrificed so I would consider it to be a great success!  We actually had to pull each other back from the ledge of you "don't want to go there!" several times but by working together with some awesome rebuking of one another we have succeeded.  The kids seemed pretty pumped to have their new schedules and we are moving right along and trying to find a good routine to work in.  So far I think the best part of schooling is knowing I am teaching my kids and they are learning from us.  We also get to be intentional with our time with them which is a huge desire of ours over the next year.

We asked the kids what their favorite parts were of this week.  Ethan liked my math character "Mr. Yang".  Mr Yang teaches Matamaticas (insert asian accent!).  Alli finds it annoying but I think it is rather funny.  Owen was probably the hardest one to motivate but he is doing really well when we speak to his heart and encourage him that way.  Alli is rolling right along and she is really enjoying the new schedule.  Sophia just sucks up any information we put right in front of her and she loves doing big kid stuff!

As we continue to teach a more steady routine for the kids will develop and things will smooth out.  I think the week went great and Rory did awesome.  We really enjoyed ourselves!

Extending our time in Wilmington!

Well, we have our house under contract! We put our house for sale 20 days ago and after many showings it is officially under contract!  This is a blessing in so many ways.  Our family truly desires to make a homestead when we finish our RV adventure.  This is a step in the right direction.  It frees us up from this home to buy land and build another upon our return.  We prayed that the Lord would sale our house and we sold it exactly at the price the Holy Spirit told me I would get.  Another amazing testimony of God's faithfulness.  All the way around everyone is happy.  Rory and I and the new buyers and the children as well.

The house was a great place for the season we had it but we have big dreams and desires to have more land and a more simple approach to life.  Our new place will be self sustainable in all ways.  We will also have a 1-2 acre garden to feed anyone in need of food.  Also on the land we have a desire to build individual log cabins and have missionaries and pastors who are in need of respite and relaxation can come and enjoy what the Lord has blessed us with.  We believe that God will deliver this desire to us and is laying out the foundation of what that looks like.  That being said we have decided to extend our stay in Wilmington until after the appraisal is complete.  After that we will return to KC and pack up our house and sign it over to the new buyers.  WE are really excited.

We have really enjoyed our time here.  All of us feel like our hearts are being healed and filled with our time here in our hometown.  We get so happy to meet with our friends, visit old places that we have memories of and meeting new people altogether.  We have been enjoying the beach and every night spending time with great friends who have persevered with us over the last season and years before.  I love having friends who stand through thick and thin.  Those are true friends! Thank you to all who were there for us.

As far as our RV goes we are loving our new living arrangements.  Life is so much simpler when you go from 5700 sq ft to 400 sq ft.  Things are easier to clean and the children are easier to manage.  Rory has been doing a great job in creating an environment where the kids are stimulated in good ways.  Tomorrow they start school so Rory is preparing for that to start.  Please pray for us as we get challenged in this new endeavor.  We strongly want our children to learn well and live well.  We just desire to that with the Lords heart.

We had a great time visiting church today.  First, we went to Port City Community Church.  WE LOVE THIS CHURCH!  We have attended church there for a long time prior to moving and just love and agree with the calling that is on that church. Pastor Mike and Chris, through their obedience, have changed the lives of multitudes in this community.   I also want to say thank you to Richie Marshall for speaking to me today.  It was so encouraging.  I pray that our conversation was encouraging to you as well!

We then went to Life Community Church.  This is a church that is located in an active mall.  I love the concept! Tim Blevins is a great Pastor and has a heart for intentional time with others and small groups.  Man he was speaking my language today.  I was so full from the worship and talk.  I have no doubt that the Lord will continue to bless both of the bodies of Christ as time goes on.

Thank you to all that follow our blog.  Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments.  I would say only leave encouraging comments! We love to read them!

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A RV trip for one year? Blank stare follows.......................

Have you ever gotten into a conversation with someone and said something and their facial expression was one of dismay or they looked at you like you had two heads?  Well recently that seems to be the case! We have run into several old friends from around Wilmington lately that have not heard about our RV family plans recently and some of them look at me in utter disbelief. You have four kids and your staying in a RV for how long? How does that work with your big family?  One year really, that seems kind of long.....These are just some of the questions that I have answered lately.  I am not by any means upset by it but I have learned enough wisdom in walking with the Lord not to project my expectations of how someone should react to our plans on them.  It keeps everything from a perspective where I am not offended and I can get a good laugh at the different reactions.  So why do this with my family and why now?  Both good questions with easy answers but come with profound implications.

I am a man after the Lords heart.... (most of the time, I fall into my own selfish desires) and my heart is for my wife and my children.  They are my ministry.  They are my full time reflection of my heart.  Nothing surpasses the importance of my family except the Lord and I hold them dearly to me knowing the responsibility that I have for each and every one of them.  The answer to the first question on why the whole family? Easy answer, we are a family.  Families bond together by spending time with one another, teaching, listening and learning.  One of the deepest desires of my heart is that my children would fear God and seek His wisdom.  This is what we are called to do a disciples.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  I want and desire my children to know who they are in Christ.  I want them to understand their full rich inheritance that our Father has for them and the power that they walk in.  They upon giving their lives to the Lord, and given a special gift in the Holy Spirit.  The same spirit that lives in me.  The fullness of God available to us anytime and anywhere.  Most believers do not understand who they are in Christ therefore they never get past looking at their sin and trying to stay away from it as opposed to walking in the freedom Christ has given us thus bringing about in us change in our hearts.  To sum it up, I want the fullness of God's promises for my children and I want them to desire them more than anything else.

Why now?  Walking in obedience sometimes in not easy.  It does not make sense to me sometimes of God's timing in our lives nor reasons as to why He calls us to do things when our plans do not call for such change.  When we left Wilmington 20 months ago some of our closest friends who knew us questioned our decision to leave and go to Kansas City.  They were offended that we would leave everything we had here to go somewhere we had never been and replant our family in a new place.  I learned a valuable lesson during that time.  It was a lesson on expectations of others.  Some people thought I lost my marbles, others were just offended in the worldly sense because of the lifestyle we gave up here.  None the less I know when the Lord speaks to me and how to lead the family. So when in prayer I very clearly heard the Lord say what to do and where to go I knew my first reaction was one of obedience.  There is a season and time for everything.  Our season here was done.  I did not know why but that did not change my obedience to His word.  So when the Lord recently gave me a plan to spend intentional bonding and teaching time with my family was I going to stand and tell Him no?  No thanks, I am not looking for a Job like showdown where God asks me to "Gird up my loins".  I choose to walk in obedience and sometimes that is different than your friends expectation of what your life should look like. So our RV journey began out of obedience like the last 12 years of our life.

I have learned that walking in obedience does not require you to apologize to anyone.  I know the Lord will bless us for standing with Him. I know great things will come over the next year.  Our intentional time teaching the kids about the Lord will be a foundation they can always look back on.  While this is foreign to some and some will not agree, I believe the Lord will bless my children because of Rory's and my obedience.

Besides, a year with these guys in 400sq ft is my idea of a good time!

My awesome and beautiful wife! A story of unity....

This is my awesome and beautiful wife........ shooting a gun.  Why is this video on this blog is what you are asking?  It is just a hot looking woman shooting a pistol, right?  Well this is not really about Rory shooting a gun as much as how Rory and I stretch and push and encourage one another in our relationship.  I met Rory when she was 16.  I was dating a friend of hers and she was dating a friend of mine.  Not serious dating just more hanging out than anything but one night I saw her for the first time and she blew me away with her beauty.  Suddenly miss no personality sitting next to me was out of the picture and my eyes could not stop gazing on this amazingly stunning woman.  A few weeks passed and we eventually started dating.  I was 17 and she was 16.  Today we are 35 and 36 respectively.  We have been together ever since that first date.  I realized very quickly that I loved her deeply and could not wait to make her my wife.  That is where this video comes in.  A year ago my wife would not have been interested in guns, shooting guns, looking at guns or having anything to do with them.  She now is a proud packing mama with a CCW! What happened was like the last 20 years being together we encourage one another to try and explore new things.  My interest became hers and hers have become mine.  In marriage stretching one another's interests and constantly encouraging one another to try new things keeps marriage fun and interesting! There are many things that I do now because of credit to my wife.  Through the last 20 years I have had the pleasure of falling deeper and deeper in love with her everyday.  The Lord expands my love for her daily, past what I think is possible.  It is a beautiful thing to experience a God filled union of marriage. 

 That is where this awesome one year RV adventure comes in! In 2007 when I brought up the idea of buying our first RV she did not want any part of it.  But through trust in me and prayer, we bought our first RV and proudly named her Big Brown Betsy.  We would take extended vacations in her annually but nothing more than 6 weeks at a time.  Fast forward to today where we have now embarked on a one year journey of adventure with our four fabulous little ones in our new motor home, Penelope London.  We are living out of a RV! I believe that through the greatness of the design of marriage, the foundation of trust we have in the Lord, the trust we have in one another and by God's mercy we have continued to love one another deeply, encouraging one another, praying for one another that we have expanded one another's adventure boundaries!  I love this woman with all my heart and who is she is today is who she was yesterday, years before and who she will be to come, but along the way no doubt God will continue to mold our hearts and there will be more adventure, more times to laugh, more times to cry and more times to fall more in love with her deeper than where I am at now.  I am grateful with a full heart, thank you Jesus............... 

It's good to be a Son at the beach.....(HA HA)

Well we hit the beach, 5 kids in tow.  The extra was courtesy of my brother and his baby girl Brynn.  The kids had a blast and so did I.  I forgot how beautiful it is at the beach.  There is something calming in my soul from hearing the Godly created rhythm of the waves.  It reminds me to keep track of my rhythm as well in my life so I run at the pace God intended and created for me.  I have found that it is so important to run the race in my created rhythm, when I don't things get out of whack real quick!
We met our great friend Jill Critchfield while there and the kids had a blast playing with Bodie, her son.  Here are some pics of our afternoon.

The Aughinbaugh's are in Wilmington!

Hey friends and family! It has been a really great last three days.  We basically blew through the mid west because we were so eager to get back to our "home".  Wilmington has always been a special place to all of us.  As many of you know we lived here for 12 years before the Lord called us to go to Kansas City.  It hasn't been the easiest thing to do but growing in God is never easy and walking in obedience is sometimes even harder.  As I teach my children this reality they also get to see it walked out daily by their parents.  The analogy I use most is that of someone who goes to the gym quite regularly to keep their bodies in shape and push themselves to grow their muscles.  When you are at the end of a set the burn you feel in your muscles is one of intense pain, but you push through it because in the end you strengthen your muscles by going past the previous end point of resistance and create a new one....... thus making yourself stronger.  It is sometimes really hard to do this when your walking with God.  But walking in obedience creates a new depth of trust in your relationship with the Lord.  I know many of our friends were wondering if we lost our minds when we said we were moving.  We had the perfect american life.  A beautiful home, great small groups, awesome church, I had a great job I retired from early, the kids were learning well at their school.  The best I can tell you is that when you hear the voice of God and He asks you do to something in obedience you have a choice,  you can go your way or His.  We chose to give up everything here to go and follow Him whom we trust in completely.  So that is what we did.........

The last 20 months have not been easy at all and to sum it up have been tremendously difficult at every turn.  We have had to rebuild from scratch.  Making friends has been a challenge in Kansas City.  I don't know why exactly because Rory and I are pretty outgoing and usually can make friends pretty quickly.  We have persevered through much as challenge after challenge has been to us.  Through is all one thing has remained, God's love has been with us and we have felt that through everything.  Thank you to all those that stood with us and prayed and were warriors for us through the last season.  Thank you to the Critchfields who have blessed us abundantly through their prayers, special messages of encouragement, and desire to serve us.  You have been monumental in our lives and it is good to know that we have true friends like you.  Thank you to my awesome sister in Law, Audra, who has always been by our side to be a listening ear! You bless my wife so much Didi!  Thank you to the Steighners, our lifelong friends.  Steadfast, one word to describe you guys! Both of you have never desired to use us for your advantage and have always been willing to give and give and stand with us in prayer.  Thank you to the Tippets for always giving us an ear to listen and speak wisdom in our lives.  The Lord has blessed you two abundantly with this and we know you are well that we can go to sometimes quite often! Thank you to the Blair's who have been faithful to us as true friends.  Matt and Erin, you are so humble before the Lord.  Your messages of encouragement to us have been steadfast.  Thank you to the Raines.  I was blessed to to see Davids' handsome face when he made a surprise visit to come see me through a very difficult circumstance last year! Thank you to his wife Anna who was a wonderful friend to my wife and encouraged her so much through that season.  Thank you to Allison Miller our faithful friend who has become part of our family.  You are a blessing to my family in so many ways.   Thank you to the Smithsons in good ol' Kansas City! I do not have words to explain the depth of our gratitude for our Aussie friend Glenn and his better half Kari, and I really do mean she is better! HA!  Thank you to the Masters, Roger and Sarah.  Thank you for the depth of wisdom you have given to us freely over the last 6 months.  Thank you to the Bryants.  Your friendship has always been genuine and you guys have always had beautiful hearts for us and most of all for the Lord.  Thank you to the Faagutu's! Thank you to the Thibedeaux's!  Finally thank you to the Hopkins.  Your guys rock! We can not wait to see you in Texas!  Thank you for praying and praying and praying!  Thank you to the countless others who stood with us when we needed it the most. All of you not mentioned here that have stood with us! We are grateful for each one of you.  Your prayers before the Lord petitioned Him on our behalf and I know the sweet smell of them all was beautiful before the Lord.

As we spend the next two weeks here it will difficult to see all of you.  We will certainly try our best and ask you to forgive us if we do not get to the see all of you this time around.  The beauty of making our own schedule is we can always come back! We are staying at the KOA off of Market St.  spot 37. Please call first if you would like to drop by.  We will be in and out and we do not want to miss you!  Today we will be at the beach  off spot 11 on Wrightsville from 10-1 depending on the kids!

Thank you to all our friends.  We cherish your friendships deeply.

At our first campground !

Well, we made it to our first campground! We are just outside Asheville NC! We always loved vacationing here when were natives of North Carolina.  Rory and I had the best vacation of our lives here at the Biltmore Estate.  I know what you are thinking, really in Asheville?  Well there were some awesome Godly circumstances and love from our Father in Heaven that made it that way.  That is a story for another time.  So on with our timeline.......

20 minutes in on Friday, just outside KC, our refrigerator decided to open up while driving onto a merging ramp on the highway.  What followed was a complete olive disaster! The jar of olives that my wife got at Costco this week for the trip, you know the ones that are like the size of mini-barell? well, they went splat all over the tile and olive juice invaded the living room carpet! Now, my wife is in Heaven because good ol' Penelope smells like olives!

We lost a wheel cover somewhere between KC and London KY

We arrived at our scheduled appointment and the slide seal was fixed, they fixed a small tow electric problem

We found a few problems with Penelope when the rain started.  The biggest was her wipers needed adjusted badly.  We had the great guys at Day Bros RV's fix that for us as well.

So after all that and working out all the small things, we are really enjoying our new home.  It is really refreshing to be able to have the kids come together along side of us and help us with our tasks.  Rory is a champion at getting them motivated and giving directions. I am so thankful for this family.  Our kids are really awesome and understanding when they have to be and also are learning quickly how to adapt to smaller spaces.  Considering we went from 5700sq ft to 400sq ft, I think they are doing great! Here are some pics of the last few days!

Rory taking the wheel for the first time! She was looking at the rear camera focusing on the tow car.  Making sure it was staying between the lines!

Here is one of me and 3 of the munchkins.  I was keeping Rory company while driving and I was getting Daddy love at the same time.

Our first time having dinner in our new home! We had awesome tacos!

New computer space

Well this isn't the greatest picture in the world but I wanted to show everyone what I have been doing the last 2 hours.  I moved the bedroom TV out of the cubby and I installed my awesome butt kicking computer and printer inside that cubby space.  I also put in a trip-lite UPS system which you can see on the shelf in the center.  On the left of that is the blu-ray and on the right you can barely see my external hard drive.  

I took the TV and mounted it on the outside of the cabinet.  It is still attached to a swing arm so it can move wherever it needs to.  I then used the secondary HDMI input on the TV to act as my computer screen.  I put a wireless keyboard and mouse on the system so that I can surf the web and write blog posts while laying in bed!

Here are several more pictures....

Here is a video tour of Penelope London.  The first video broke off around the 4 minute mark and I had to do a second video.  This video is not comprehensive but gives you and idea of what we have done to the RV to get it ready for our trip.  We hope you enjoy it and share it with others! We would love to have people use our ideas in their own RV's and spend some intentional God infused time with their children!

http://youtu.be/Od7tS5VzJFA

Here is part two of the video

http://youtu.be/R6ZtEw-6fgI