Kaytlin's birthday was on February 13 and she turned 4 years old. Janna and I spent the morning with her at the OKC Zoo as our little Ashley stayed with my mother-in-law. We want to make an effort to spend quality time with our kids together and individually. One of the things that I always admired about my father-in-law, David, is that he would spend individual time with Janna.In high school and college he would take her out to lunch and they would call it their "daddy-daughter date". When she was in high school, he traveled frequently with his job and was out of town for half of the week. He knew that he wanted to spend quality time with his family when he had the opportunity so they began to develop their time together. When I was dating Janna in college, David was completing his bachelor's degree along with serving as a senior pastor and he made time for her. David still takes Janna out occasionally and spends time with her even though she is married with kids.
In 2008 I was away from Kaytlin & Ashley for 34 days on ministry related events such as a mission's trip to El Salvador, Youth Camp, I-Camp, Six Flags, National Fine Arts in North Carolina, Youth Convention and D-Camp. Janna and I also took a personal vacation for 5 days. Although I enjoy these ministry events and spending time with our students, I am not necessarily looking forward to being away from my kids this much in 2009. However, the perspective that I have on this is that as long as I make an effort as a father to have quality time with my kids when I am at home, then the relationship that I have with them will continue to grow. I am not attaining to be the guy that sits in "his chair" every night and kicks off his shoes as he reaches for the remote control to click on the television and zones out because it has been a long day at the office and is too exhausted to be productive at home. I also do not want to be the minister that puts more time and effort into ministry, the church and other people's needs before the needs of my family. I cannot be that guy, nor do I want to be.
When I was an associate youth pastor I was a single man with no kids. When I started at the church I did not have a day off for the first 3 months. The senior youth pastor was also the senior children's pastor and I worked closely with him and the associate children's pastor. We were starting a junior sports program and we spent Saturdays canvassing the neighborhoods with fliers and having some outreaches. We would be up at the church 7 days a week. Sometimes at 6 am to get the baseball fields mowed and ready for that night's sports program. Then we would stay and clean up and come home around 10 pm. I remember one time when the senior youth pastor, who was 29 at the time gave me some of his best advice. He told me I needed to guard my time now as a single man so that once I had a wife and kids then I would be able to balance ministry and family better. I do not think that I have attained this goal and I know that I am growing as a father and a minister, but I do cherish the time that I have with my children and want to give everything that I can to my family and to my church. I can go back and look at the picture of Kaytlin (located at the top right) when we went to the zoo before her first birthday and the recent picture to realize that time goes by so quickly and I cannot take a "day off" as a father.
