Pastors Retreat & Dedication of Go Away Farm, November 15-17, 2007

This past Thursday through Saturday we hosted a pastors retreat for a limited number of pastor-friends who would listen to what we felt God was directing us in to, and who would help us dedicate the farm to God's service. We weren't disappointed in the outcome. The guests were Rev. JR and Roffie Ensey, Rev. Michael Ensey, Rev. Randy and Dovey Ensey, Rev. Sean and Monique Libby, Rev. Kevin and Jacklyn Prince, Rev. Brandon and Jackie Macey, and Rev. Ron Macey. We selected our pastors and former pastors along with their Associate ministers, a Pastor from Maryland, and a minister friend from the Texas District United Pentecostal leadership team. The mix and cross-section of ministers, age, and experience proved to be the perfect balance of input we needed.


Mikki, our kids and I were all very blessed from the outcome of the dedication service we had in our living room. The words and prayer were wonderful, but the Spirit that fell in that room was unmatched at Go Away Farm. Then the singing by the entire group was more than your ears could believe. The harmony (of course every one there can sing like crazy, which helped) and the acoustics made me to never want to stop the song. The presence of the Lord was in that place and we'll forever be grateful. God moved. We heard his voice!


We plan to host our first Pastoral Thinking Session at Go Away Farm in March, and maybe February, with a second to follow in April or May. We'll be working on the schedules. We will be hosting 5 pastor and wife teams for three days and two nights. More to come in the next few weeks as we work through the schedules.
We ended the Friday afternoon session with a little skeet shoot right before sundown. There was a lot of broken clay. Some good shots in this group!

Two musicians, Steve from Houston, and Don from Bellville played some neat instrumentals on harmonica, acoustic and electric guitar during our Thursday evening meal. Great musicians. We'll definitely have them back for some more. They do a lot of hymns and praise songs along with some jazz and blues staples. 

Saturday before everyone had to leave, Bryan Saintes took Rev. Brandon and wife Jackie on a horseback ride around the farm. 

Diane Young in the kitchen preparing a spinach dish. Fabulous meals!

We were able to squeeze in a skeet shoot right before dark on Friday afternoon. Here, while Rev. JR Ensey reloads, Rev. Kevin Prince and Rev. Sean Libby take out some clays. 

Rev. JR Ensey reloaded and did a masterful job. He's a great shot! Be careful not to get him angry:-)

We were so blessed to have such an interested, informative and fun group of Pastors work with us this weekend. The fellowship was equally enjoyable for us as the learning.

The dinner fellowship was a lot of fun. We had some great food and conversation.

Sunday Morning at Go Away

The light was just right to highlight Dad's bird-hotel, such as it was. The thing probably weighs 80 pounds:-) There is one thing I can say about my Dad. The weight of things never came into play when he was building something, moving something or creating.

These are the woods the deer ran into this morning. 

If you can look closely, the buck is in the middle of this photo. He never saw me. 

I was rewarded this morning early on my walk. I decided to go to the back pasture instead of my usual walk to the front of the place. As I walked toward the equipment barn I heard a rustling in the youpon mott to my right that was adjacent to the fence line about 10 yards from me. To my surprise, I was rewarded with the beauty of a 8 point buck and a doe. They jumped up and ran into the dense woods of our neighbors. Then, as I walked on to the back to get a glimpse of a pair of cardinals, to my surprise again was another large buck walking down in the pasture next to Tank. Tank didn't seemed the least bit bothered by his company. I decided to stand still and see what he'd do. Then to my utter surprise, he walked over to Johnnie's pasture fence, jumped it gracefully, and walked almost right next to me across the fence. I was no more than 40 feet from him when he sensed that something wasn't right and turned and walked gracefully and cautiously into the same dense woods as the first pair of deer. Wow! That is such an amazing sight to behold. I just wish I had brought my binoculars and Canon D10 with me this morning. I failed you! My camera phone tried to capture it but it was just can't pull it off.

Rock Posts on the Barn

Samuel Villisana from Bellville is adding the finishing touches to the posts on the new guest barn at Go Away Farm. He is a perfectionist and a wonderful craftsman. It is such a pleasure to watch him select the next rock and then carve it with a hammer into the perfect fit. Seems there's an object lesson here. The harvest colored sandstone is going to make the barn a wonderful accompaniment to Go Away Farm's architecture. Here in this photo it appears that Isidro Vasquez, our helper here at Go Away is actually doing something to aid Samuel. But truth be known, he walked over and picked up the shovel and I snapped the photo with my iPhone. Samuel and Isidro got quite a kick out of him acting the part of working on the post. We should be finalized in a couple weeks. It takes almost a full day per post. 

Mikki's Fall Garden

This year, we were so busy getting the barn completed, hosting several key events, and adjusting to all the change in our lives, that we didn't focus as much as we'd like to have on our Fall garden. But things are still going along pretty well in spite of our neglect (notice the sharing of responsibility:-). We have three varieties of lettuce, several varieties of peppers, a few tomato plants left, sage and several other herbs, peppermint, spearmint, beets, butternut squash, collards, mustard greens and broccoli. Next year we'll have more time to nurture the garden in the Fall (hopefully). The most surprising are the oranges. Isidro Vasquez brought us an orange bush (that may be grapefruit) and we planted it in a flower bed. Low and behold, we have seven beautiful oranges as shown in the photo here. They are huge! We also have a grapefruit bush that was literally covered in blooms but a late frost bit it and we lost the chance to see production. The plague of this year was the fire ants. I've never experienced fire ants like this year. All of the early rain we experienced created a plethora of ants to combat. And combat we have. 

Red, chocolate, and yellow bell pepper

Anaheim peppers that I'm afraid to eat

Green leaf lettuce
Red leaf lettuce
Oranges (that may actually be grapefruit)

It's that awesome time of the year!

The Fall season (such as we experience) is hard to beat at Go Away. The Spring is beautiful as everything is coming alive after dormancy, but it plays a second fiddle to the Fall. After a long hot summer, these cool mornings with the fog over the water (see images further on in the blog) is just almost impossible to match. I love Go Away in the Fall! The smell of oak burning in the fire pit and the leaves turning colors. And the pinnacle of beauty is as the sun sets and the long shadows of a Fall evening appear. Wow! This is a view of the far bank of the pond from the pier Friday.

Living Way Church Sets their Plan for 2008 at Go Away Farm

Living Way Church held their 2008 planning session at Go Away Farm this past weekend. The meeting came on the heels of a powerful 8 week Revival that has revolutionized the thinking and actions of every member of Living Way. Mikki and I are members at Living Way and have had the pleasure of witnessing what God is doing. Mighty miracles have been experienced this past couple months, and Mikki's feet being completely healed are one of those miracles. So, hearing about miracles and witnessing them are quite different. It is nothing short of amazing and so indicative of what God is wanting to do with us all in this late hour. Living Way is tuning itself to be prepared for a time such as this. Rev. John Boone was the evangelist during the revival. He allowed God to use him in an amazing way to speak to us. The planning session that was already planned, yet followed the end of the revival by one week was probably one of the most annointed planning sessions I've ever sat through. It was hard to keep your eyes dry most of the time. The following photos are just a few of the great experiences we all had this weekend at Go Away as we prepared for 2008.

Terry and L'Sanne Oglethorpe.

Candi Weekly and Lindy Loftin.

The Leadership Team of Living Way Church (sans Rev. and Mrs. JR Ensey)

What would our planning meeting have been without the fire? 

Kyle Loftin went down to the pier to check on Steve Weekly. He was concerned that Steve had gotten mixed up on fishing for men versus fishing for fish. Sure enough! Actually, Steve and Pastor Ensey got a chance to throw a few lures in the water by arriving a few hours early.

Ben and Rani Nolan, Sisters Dovey and Rebecca Ensey.

Steve Weekly, Charles and Jenny Ingram.

Rev's. Michael and Randy Ensey, and Galen Walters.

Galen, Kyle and Steve resting after the hard work was done.