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Over the last several months I’ve been working a lesson plan on stewardship to share at church. At first it was going a bit slow, but over the last week God has just been opening things up to me like never before. It’s odd how a scripture in the Bible that I’ve read hundreds of times over the last ten years can come so alive all the sudden.

I wanted to share just a couple lines with everyone though. When I first started hearing about financial stewardship I just lumped it in with the financial prosperity sermons I’ve been hearing for years. I even had a bit of an attitude about it since I’m obviously not exactly living the ‘good’ life. But once I started praying and studying this, I found that I was off a ways. What I realized, courtesy of the Holy Spirit, is that financial stewardship is a fancy name for just being faithful with what we’re given. God showed me how, at different times in life, He has made me prosperous for a time but because I had no idea about being a good steward I would inevitably squander what I had been given.

That revelation led to several others and now I’m wanting to finish up this lesson plan and teach others. Eventually I’m sure I’ll post much of it online as well. And on a slightly related topic, I highly recommend that everyone get a copy of a little booklet written by Charles Capps called God’s Creative Power. It is a very light read but contains a very powerful principal. You can purchase them off the Official Charles Capps website for only a couple dollars.

I know it really doesn’t take much to amuse me, but this really got me excited. Back in 1997 I ran a website on GeoCities under the handle, CyberChristian. I was thrilled to get five or six people a month on that website. I just checked my server logs for 2005 and this blog received over 27,000 unique visitors last year! And my mortgage website racked up nearly 90K visits last year. I know some of you reading this run blogs that get that sort of traffic every month, but for me, that’s huge.

Anyway, here’s a break down of unique visitors per month, per site… for anyone who’s interested.
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Today was the much anticipated visit to the Orthopedic Surgeon. After more x-rays and 20 minutes inside a (very loud) MRI machine, I was informed that I have a deformity in my shoulder. Next on the agenda, three weeks of physical therapy and a return appointment. Oh, and I’m allowed to go back to work as long as it’s desk duty.

In my previous post I asked the question, “What will the new year bring?” At this time the answer to that question appears to be 1) a dislocated shoulder and 2) a police chief who couldn’t care less. But, life goes on and I’ll continue to go wherever God leads.

The new year is here. The town of Helena, Arkansas no longer exists. Consolidation has taken place and the town of West Helena has consumed the town of Helena. The voters have chose the the name Helena-West Helena for the new city. Something along the lines of New Helena would have been better in my opinion, but that matters little now.

The last several weeks have been filled with political goings on to the point to where everyone is getting sick of it. The new mayor, James Valley, is promising no job loses, but one of the main points in the consolidation campaign was to do away with duplicate positions to save the city money. All I’m hearing is money being spent. And then they’re talking about a 2% sales tax? 2%! That would put us at a 10% sales tax once you add in county and state. It’s nuts. If that manages to pass, it would be just as cheap for my family to drive to Forest City or even Clarksdale and buy groceries… even with the price of gas as high as it is.

Then there’s the whole rank structure at the police department (and all the other departments for that matter). Helena officers want to keep their rank, West Helena officers want to keep theirs. It’s all a bunch of crap. What it comes down to is this. Helena no longer exists. West Helena continues to exist under the new name of Helena-West Helena. When this was brought up in the meeting between the officers and the mayor, Mayor Valley tried to say that if you interpret the law this way you were using tunnel vision and that both cities really cease to exist. But, after reading the law for myself (14-40-1201 through 14-40-1213 of AR Code) I fail to see how anyone could interpret the law as saying both cities cease to exist. Take a look at 14-40-1203(C)(i)

Upon the making of the order, the smaller municipal corporation and the territory comprising it shall, in law, be deemed and be taken to be included and shall be a part of the larger municipal corporation.

Now, it seems pretty plain to me that it says the smaller city becomes part of the larger city, not that they both become part of a new city. With this being the case then, by law, all the officers, fire man, sanitation workers, etc. from Helena should be new hires; meaning no seniority. Now I understand this upsets some people, but the law is like that, it tends to make people mad. When was the last time any of you reading this thanked an officer for writing you a ticket? See my point?

Needless to say, I now wonder if my faith in Mayor Valley was misplaced. In all fairness to Mayor Valley, it really is too soon to say. And it probably won’t affect me much anyway. I don’t expect anything to change in the way of my duties at work. I’ll keep on patrolling and continue to keep all the computers working. The only difference between 2005 and 2006 is I’ve got more land to patrol and more computers to fix.