Kyle Goen Blog

Thank you to all who were part of the Spirit Night at Chick-fil-a in Murfreesboro last night. The boys, Evan and Peyton, were so encouraged by your support and friendship. There was a great sense of community in the store as we laughed and had a good time with friends.

Many thanks go to Chick-fil-a Murfreesboro, Cortney Bartemus, LifePoint Church and Providence Christian Academy for making the evening a success and a fun time.

Evan and Peyton will make sure that you get to see pictures and hear about their experiences in Belgium when they return following Spring Break.

Tonight my sons are hosting a fundraiser for their mission trip to Brussels, Belgium at Chick-fi-la in Murfreesboro, TN. Everything begins at 5 pm this evening and wraps up at 8 pm. If you are able to come out and take part we would love it. You will see lots of your friends and have some great food.

Chick-fil-a allows non-profit organizations and individuals who are attempting to raise money for mission trips have a fundraiser in their stores. These events are called Spirit Nights and I am so thankful for the vision of Mr. Cathy for allowing these to take place.

We hope to see you tonight at Belgium Mission Spirit Night 5pm – 8 pm @ Chick-fil-a in Murfreesboro. 15% of the total ticket goes toward their project.

Pat and Amy Hood have some incredible shirts they are selling to help bring home their son Isaiah. Hopefully you can help out by purchasing a T-Shirt.

The men’s short sleeve Save One is charcoal.

The men’s short sleeve Serve One is stonewashed denim.

The women’s short sleeve Save One is silver. (S – XL only)

The women’s short sleeve Serve One in black.

The ladies long sleeve combo burnout tee is dark chocolate & white. (S – XL only)

The long sleeve Anvil is black.

Sizes are S – 2XL

Prices are $25.00 for the short sleeve Next Level & the long sleeve Anvil for both men and women.  The women’s long sleeve combo burnout is $30.00

You can order by emailing Amy at amyrhood5@gmail.com If you live away and would like to order, we will be glad to ship your shirt(s) to you. Shipping will be $5.00 extra on your total order.

From a USA Today article published today….

Millennials are significantly more likely than young adults in earlier generations to say they don’t identify with any religious group. Among Millennials, 26% cite no religious identity, compared with 20% for most members of Generation X (born 1965-1980) at the same ages, and 13% for most Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) at those ages.

Worship attendance is sliding steadily, too: 18% of Millennials say they attend worship nearly every week or more often, vs. 21% of Gen Xers when they were in their 20s and 26% of Boomers at those ages. (Cathy Lyn Grossman, author)

Read the entire article here.

The Goen’s are always looking for ways to make family memories. I believe memories are gift from God.  In times or hardship and heartache great memories are often the things that help us make it through to the other side of our difficult situation.

On December 31, 1999 my family put together a time capsule that contained pictures, tracings of our children’s feet and hands, prices of the day and a letter detailing what our family was involved with at the time. I wish we could take credit for this idea, but in reality we probably read about it in a magazine. We did follow through with the idea though by sealing the tube and writing on the capsule “do not open until 2010.”  Our children were 9 months old, 3 years old and 5 years old at the time we assembled our little offering of memories. For the first couple of years our kids begged to open the time capsule around the new year and we would refuse to give in to the desire. My wife eventually put the capsule out of sight and away so we would not run across it often. The whole “out of sight and out of mind” phenomenon took over. In fact we actually forgot about the capsule until our recent move  when we ran across it and realized this is the year we get to open our surprise.

All of us had forgotten the articles we inserted into the tube so the opening was accompanied with anticipation. Last week after our Sunday lunch we opened the time capsule and laughed extremely hard at the little objects we carefully shoved into the tube. We remembered old stories about that particular time in our lives and couldn’t believe how time had flown. After a few minutes the kids gathered everything up and started toward the trash can to throw away ten years of memories. Amy and I both yelled “Stop!”  The little pieces of paper where full of memories we couldn’t part with as easily as they could.

Our kids are wanting to create another time capsule, but not for ten years from now, maybe three to five years from now.  I am thankful this little memory maker has meant something to them like it did for Amy and me. Get started creating memories with your family.

Goen Family Time Capsule

The anticipation…..

Who is this family?

Times have changed…so have prices.

Beautiful drawing of birds…very simple

Family Letter from the time capsule.

From our family to your family…Merry Christmas.

Over the past several weeks as we have prepared for the impending sale of our house and the move to an apartment we have given, sold, and thrown many things away.  It has been amazingly freeing to get rid of “stuff.”  The “stuff” we have moved out of the house hasn’t been bad, worn out or broken….just extra.  Why do we have four pots and three pans when we always use the same one?  That example doesn’t take into account the other cooking implements we have in the cabinets.  The “stuff” we have had in closets  and the attic for years that we never used and really had forgotten about had to be dealt with before we moved to an apartment.  I was amazed at the amount of clothes that I had in my closet that I didn’t wear and really didn’t like.  Someone else could utilize these and probably needs clothes that I am hoarding or holding onto “just in case” I decide I need them.  Well, purging started and continued for several weeks and honestly it felt good.  Freeing is the only word I can really use to describe how it feels to “lighten” the load.  Amy has called this “taking off another layer.”  I think that phrase adequately describes the process we have been walking through in preparation for our move to Belgium.

I am so thankful that God has given us time to walk through this process over a period of time.  I cannot imagine what it would be like to “take off the layers” all at once as some have had to do before.  This past week we took off “another layer.”  Our house sold and we moved into the apartment finally.  God has given us a wonderful place to live.  We are very thankful God answered our family’s prayer to sell our house quickly so we could transition to an apartment and learn that lifestyle again before moving to Belgium.  It has been around thirteen years since we last lived in an apartment and we wanted to make that transition while we were still in a familiar culture, not while going through culture shock in another land.  We said goodbye to our house of seven and one-half years and around 2000 sq. ft. and began life in a multi-family housing development and a 1300 sq. ft. apartment.

All the “layers” that we had shed over the past several months had been well worth it. I am so thankful that God has given us this opportunity. But, we have learned we still need to take off several more “layers.”  We didn’t fully realize the size of our refrigerator in our  former house, the size of our food pantry, the amount of cabinets we had or the lack of closets, drawers and storage in an apartment.  I think our “stuff” multiplied during those years of attic and closet living in our old house.

God help us to not hold onto “stuff” and show us the “layers” that have built up over the years.

I want to point you to a good article on raising the next generation of missionaries and glocal Christians.  Good suggestions on raising our kids to think glocally about our the faith we are trying to pass on.

How can we save some money these days?

Tony Morgan has some great suggestions…get a read right here.

A seventeen year old girl, a Muslim convert, is told she must return to her parents even though she is afraid for her life. A judge in Orlando ruled today that Rifqa Bary must return to Ohio where she will be placed in foster car. Read the story here.