2 Years and 529 posts later…

I began this bloggin business on August 13th, 2004. I have posted 529 posts since then (and probably a few I’ve erased..!).

That’s :

264 posts a year
1.39 posts a day

The Watchman Show

Every once in awhile, Watchman over at Transistions does an episode of his talk show, “the Watchman Show” Here are the first two installments. I think they’re hilarious!

Watchman Show 01

Watchman Show 02

OCS Update

Check out how God provided for our school!!!

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Dear OCS Family,

I write to you today with amazing news of great blessing from our Lord! I promise to follow up this letter with many more details, but I wanted to share this news with everyone as soon as possible.

At 11:59 pm on Monday August 21, our challenge grant expired. Our goal was to raise a total of $66,000. If we had done that, our anonymous challenge donor would have contributed $33,000 to our school.

I have to report that we did fall short of reaching our $66,000 goal. In the last hours of the overall campaign, we collected just shy of $10,000, which, without doubt, is amazing in and of itself. This brought our total to approximately $54,000- $12,000 light.

However, we were astounded by the response we had received in this short time. In just four days, 135 separate people came forward to give to our cause! There were people who had never set foot inside our school before, but they had heard about our mission and they responded. I spoke to men and women all day long who told me they felt “called” to give. When they handed me their donations, they did so with a profound sort of service and humility and hope. They knew, and I could see that God had urged them to this place.

So, after all the money had been collected and counted, I called our anonymous donor to share the news.

I spoke of the dollar amounts, but the donor was much more interested in the stories and the people and the spirit with which they gave. He cared more about our efforts and our faith. He could see that even though we hadn’t reached the stated goal, we had been part of a Heavenly plan.

Therefore, the donor desired to reward our school community for this monumental effort and outpouring. He could see that OCS now has a fire burning that will attract many more people in the coming months. This fire, this passion will affect everything we do as a school now. In the donor’s eyes, even though we fell numerically short of the goal, we greatly surpassed it in terms of our attention to our Lord’s call.

So, after serious prayer, the donor has offered to match, at the same ratio of $1 for every two we raised, the final amount of the capital drive. That means, that in addition to the $54,000 already in hand, the donor will contribute an additional $27,000 to OCS! Praise the Lord!

$27,000 added to the $54,000 comes to a total of $81,000. Also of note, back in June, we received another gift of $14,000 that wasn’t counted into this campaign, because it was directed for the past fiscal year. However, we can accurately say now that since June of 2006, just three months ago, that OCS has raised approximately $95,000!

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is such profound news for our school. When we combine this financial success with all the new programs and enthusiasm, it is plain to see that the Lord is doing mighty work, right in our midst. This is the time that we must honor His grace and respond in kind with our time and talents. We have asked God for a miracle, and He has clearly delivered- in numerous different ways.

It is our promise to you, the parents of our students, that there will be no let up in our relentless drive to bring glory to God through the Otsego Christian School. Your voice, your vision, and your talent is greatly welcomed in this winning family. Please join us in this commitment.

Again, in the coming weeks, we are going to talk a lot about this amazing journey we have just experienced. Again, this blessing is going to influence our bold path to the future. Again, we invite you to be part of this miracle in Otsego County.

May God bless you, your family, and the Otsego Christian School.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Jim Berigan