Renewing Faith

Well we hope you are all blessed. We’re going to do something a little different today as we have a lot of information to cover and we don’t want you to get lost in a 15 page email that’s spread out over too many topics. So we’re sending this newsletter out in three parts so you can scan each quickly, do whatever might be appropriate considering the information contained in each one and go on living a better stronger life.

1. Thank you to everyone who has been in prayer for my father-in-law and responded to us in such a positive way. We really appreciate all the emails. To update you on his condition, he had been doing very well up until Monday when he had an intense episode of chest pain which sent him back to the hospital. He has been there since Monday being tested and so far everything has come back negative and the best answer that we have as to why is that he essentially had an internal vascular “cramp.” That’s not really what it is, but that’s the simplest, closest explanation and that it’s not that uncommon among those healing from heart surgery. It carried similar symptoms to a heart attack, but is just painful, not damaging. We expect him to go home later today or tomorrow morning. He is feeling well and healing nicely other than the aforementioned episode. Thank you all again for your support and prayers.

2. We have been watching, just like everyone in the country, with amazement and horror at the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. We have friends and customers in the New Orleans area and in fact my sister and her family live there while working at Riverside Baptist Church and being fulltime seminary students. They evacuated in the early stages on Saturday and arrived here with the rest of our family Sunday morning. Thank God for their safety and that they had somewhere to go. They will more than likely however lose basically everything with the exception of a car and the few clothes they brought with them and they are definitely among the lucky ones. They have a close friend who manages one of the historic hotels in New Orleans in the French Quarter, that they cannot locate. His wife and children rode back to Florida to stay with her parents with my sister and brother-in-law, however Walter stayed out of obligation to the guests who were stranded at the hotel.

--- Well this is the way we originally wrote this, this but just got a call updating us. Their friend, Walter Johnson was able to get out and left after the violence became eminent in their area. Also he and his wife attend the seminary as well and live just a few blocks down from my sister in the family apartments on campus. He was able to check on the situation at the seminary somewhat and said that there is water four feet deep inside their second story apartment. Most likely it’s the same for my sister as they too had a second floor apartment.---

There are also many other people in the hard hit areas that are dealing with much worse circumstances. There are several lifters whom I know from that area and have not heard about, but I hope are doing alright. Above all, let us continue to pray for these people and their times of need. More than likely this will be an ongoing situation for the next few months for almost all of these people.

I just got a letter from Charles Staley who is asking his email group to donate $5 or whatever they can spare to the Red Cross Donation center or one of their choosing that will be helping the victims of the storm. Let’s join in with the same.

He set a goal for his email group to try to give $100,000. It only takes 5 minutes and you can donate $5 with your credit card. Let’s join them. I’m also going to ask you to do what he did with his group which is email me after you’ve donated. We’ll keep a running tally and then send that to Charles so he can add that to his group. I believe together we can make a huge difference for some of these brothers and sisters. Don’t worry about it only being five bucks, but put the feet to your faith so-to-speak and concentrate on the action of giving. We can all afford $5.00 and together we can make a huge difference.

Below is a link to the Red Cross’ donation page to the Hurricane relief fund.

https://secure2.convio.net/arc/site/Donation?ACTION=SHOW_DONATION_OPTIONS&CAMPAIGN_ID=1161

3. Renew your faith or for those of you uncomfortable with the word “faith” renew your positive outlook.

These are some of the most difficult times with our country and people we know personally are going through. Many people would be difficult to ask the question, “Why do these bad things happen?” But I think that’s the wrong question and the wrong attitude. Our attitude should embrace the challenge and know that when we come out on the other side we’ll be stronger. Worrying about why things happen is a waste of time. Concentrating on making things better is a productive, positive state.

Tim Larkin speaks frequently in his self defense material about cause and effect state. Refuse to live in the effect state. Sitting back, wondering about why is being effected by some circumstance. Actively battling that circumstance is being the cause. Be the cause. There’s much in life we have no control over and parts of life are just hard. I have some thoughts on why, but at the moment they’re irrelevant. What’s relevant is changing the situation. Forcing yourself to accept and move ahead with a positive attitude. The more you are doing to change or effect or help your situation the more control you have and the more healing you can precipitate. Now is the time to build and ask for strength. Now is the time to count your blessings and make the most of them.

In the last few months we have had two friends and a family member violently assaulted. A friend and a close family member with major medical problems. Another family member dealing with a very ugly divorce and my sister just found out that they basically lost everything in this hurricane. This is the kind of thing that can shake your foundation, but this is the time to make your foundation stronger. Faith is a choice. It’s not something you go back on because times get hard. A positive attitude is a choice just like faith. Thing like this test the mettle in your life. Nothing is served or helped by giving in to the negative outlook. So continue to be strong, to move forward, to believe. These are the things that get you through… the things that make life worth living. The things that make you stronger, happier and greater on the other side. Know that we will be praying for you and that God loves and IS protecting us.

Each of these situations that we named before could have potentially been much, much worse, but we’re all still alive. We’re here to grow, to laugh, to live with each other and to come through as a conqueror back to a joyful life. Let this be an encouragement to you to do the same, because this is what we will do. We will accept nothing less, because we can have this in life and because God’s love dictates this for us.


NEW STUFF

In part 2 and 3 of these email we’re going to talk more about new stuff and the sale we’re going to have starting tonight and exactly what that sale will entail so look for that in the next little while.

Right now I want to tell you some of the new stuff coming out with some of my friends and things you should be looking for.

1. Zach Even-Esh a new friend of mine and a tremendous strength coach has teamed up with Ryan Lee to launch a new website: http://www.UndergroundStrengthCoach.com

This is a membership-based site that will have continuous new articles that give serious strength info on cutting edge routines. This is exactly the same stuff we do. Twisted type routines using barbells, strongman, bodyweight exercises, kettlebells, etc. I’ll also be writing articles for the site. They already have two articles from me and at least 50 that are up right now from lots of great authors all dealing with real hardcore training. No fluff! It’s very inexpensive to join. Go check it out now!

2. Russell Jones’ new site is up. I believe their store will be ready within the next few days. You should be checking their stuff out because they have some GREAT products including a new protein that I’ve been testing that I really like. Russell and Lyn’s book “Secrets of Success 4 Kids,” and artwork by Tom Hermansader as well as other poster, books, and minerals. We’ll talk more about them again when their store is ready to go, but Russell has great info and outstanding protein powder. http://www.powerworkshop.org

3. Dennis Roger’s has a new DVD out that you should all have. I have seen it and it is freakin’ cool! It’s a new DVD detailing the life, strongman career and training of Slim “The Hammerman” Farman. It is probably the only DVD in the world where you get to see one of the last real life legends of the old time strongmen show you inside his personal training quarters and inside his mind about training, strongman and feats of strength. It’s an unbelievable opportunity that is for the first time been made available to the public. We’ll have more on this on our site soon. Here’s a link to Dennis’ site: http://www.dennisrogers.net/store/ads/slim_dvd.php