It's a.....

Well you'll have to go to our website to find out. Lindsay and I found out on Tuesday what we are having. I made a little video and put it on the web. Go to www.homepage.mac.com/m.townsend to watch it. You will need quicktime to watch it (which you can download for free).

Y'all just don't know......

How encouraging it has been to my spirit to hear how God is working in your lives. I pray this becomes something that all of us can draw strength from each and every day. May God make it so.

It does me so much good to hear how all of you are doing. Eric, love you, miss you and glad to hear you are alive. :) Mikey T, we live so close and yet so far....we need to get together over a weekend sometime soon. Glad to hear that God is adding an arrow to your quiver (that goes for Eric and DRock as well). DRock, you are just the man. I pray God blesses your hard work at your new church. Jason, JP, Nate....nothing but love for you. ALL of you have affected my life in more ways than you will ever know and I pray God blesses each of you and your families richly for that.

To give y'all a quick update on Ashley and me: We both decided to switch careers in the middle of 2005. This entailed both of us going back to school. Ashley will be graduating from nursing school with her RN in May and will finish with her BSN in May of '08. I am currently in the process of taking prereqs for medical school (yes, I did say medical school....that's right, the Big Henk is going to be an MD) to become an Ophthalmologist. I should be applying and beginning in either fall of '08 or fall of '09 (hopefully '08 though). It has been very freeing and awesome finally getting a since of vocational calling and God blessing it and opening doors. Ashley and I hope to serve in some capacity with medical missions through our church (wherever we end up) . No kids on the way now or in the near future, but maybe within the next couple of years.

We both reside in Niceville at my parent's plantation (it's actually just a huge house and I feel like the Monopoly guy living in a hotel). It's not the most glamorous thing, but it has been a miracle in terms of finances and being able to get by during this transition. Any time any of you are coming over this way to the Destin/Niceville/Fort Walton Beach/etc. area, please come by and see us. Believe me, my parent's home has plenty of room and y'all could most definitely stay with us (and save on outrageous hotel costs).

We attend a reformed, elder-led SBC in Niceville and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know people our own age. There are 2 particular couples Ashley and I hang out with and us fellas get together every Thursday night for accountability/share time to spur each other on in the faith. It has been a blessing.

Please pray for us in our individual walks with Christ, our walk with Christ as a married couple, and our marriage in general. It is sometimes very hard trying to balance all of our commitments with school, studying, working and seeing each other. There are times when I feel like we just sleep in the same bed together (I'm sure you guys can relate on some level with this). God is good and life is good because He orchestrates it.

I love y'all and miss y'all. Grace and peace.

Talk about Transition...

Well fellas, it's been a crazy 4 years: A new car, a new town, a new church, a new ministry, a new wife, a national championship, a new house (Nate, we love it too!), another new car, another national championship, a new baby on the way, and a soon to be seminary graduate...it's been a wild ride. I'm still in Louisville, married to my very pregnant wife Kristin, who is due with lil' Mary Grace by January 24th (just around the corner). I'm serving as the associate minister of music at Highview Baptist Church (been with this family for three years). Coming to the end of my seminary education (grad-ee-ay-tin' in May), i only realize how much i still know that i don't know. How thankful i am that God chooses us because of His merit and not our own!
i want to apologize for being such a terrible friend all these years. You've all been in my thoughts and prayer and i've wondered how God is teaching and leading you. i'm glad for the new start here. i wish i could celebrate the Nat'l Championship with all of you...glad to see Florida again getting the respect we deserve! Grace and peace...

National Championship Celebration

Saturday, January 13th...Noon in The Swamp.

The Univeristy of Florida will celebrate it's 2nd National Championship that day.

Are you guys going to be there? If so, let's all get together. We can have that dinner we were all supposed to have the weekend of the LSU game.

Update for drock

I guess it HAS been along time since I have talked to most of you. A lot of things are different for me and my family, so let me update you. Our first child, Walker, was born on August 16, 2006, so he is now about 5 months old. He is healthy and happy, so we are truly blessed. We also have moved to Mount Vernon, Indiana, which is just west of Evansville, IN. I am pastoring a small church in a small town. Of course, this is a new experience for me; especially since I am the only staff. The church is a typical situation: an older church that needs to grow or it will die. So I am preaching, praying, and trying to make contacts with people in the community. Mount Vernon has a local newspaper that is published once a week, and I have written a couple of short articles that have been published. One on the biblical picture of angels (to go along with the Christmas season) and one on recognizing God's sovereignty over our schedules (James 4). The paper is pretty open to receiving submissions from local pastors, so I am trying to take advantage of it. I have also had lunch with the BCM director for the schools in Evansville. One of the universities, University of Southern Indiana, is on our side of Evansville, so I hope to make contact with some students there.
All in all, we are still getting adjusted. We moved here at the end of November. It is hard for us to make contact with young couples, to make friends, but we continue to strive. Pray for us as we minister here in Mount Vernon, as the only Southern Baptist church in town. May God build a strong church that honors His Son, Jesus Christ.
Mike T.--Congratulations on your marriage. I hope you are blessed.
The rest, let me know what has been happening over the past several months.
By the way, I turn 30 on January 15. I am getting old.
Also, I think I saw Craig Naylor on TV at the Championship game. Any confirmation of that?
God bless,
Derrick

The Reality of it all....

Being an educator, I have found that God's patience for me is limitless when it comes to putting young people first. At times, I find myself getting bogged down with endless grading, prepartation, studying, and managment of multiple endeavors. As I read this speech from Bill Gates, I felt validated in what I truly think about about life in general, and becuase of it, I feel I have even more patience and mercy with those young minds that I shape. Enjoy!

Bill Gates on life...

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and>listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one

So, in essence, I tend to feel the way Gates spoke to his kids, but sometimes I tend to question if it is right. I guess Gates knows what he is talking about though, he is a billionaire 50 times over...

Theology-Federal Vision

Leave it up to me to start the first theological discussion. I will give you guys some homework.
I was wondering if any of you have heard of the Federal Vision controversy or of the New Perspective on Paul. I imagine that you seminary guys have heard of them. Any way it is something being debated right now in the PCA church. They are closely related to each other but there are some distinct differences. I just wnated to get some of your thoughts on it.
A good website is federal-vision.com and thepaulpage.com. I want bore you about now, but just read about and let me know what you think.

nice title

hey by the way nice title jp. I like it.

I'm a virgin too!!!

well, ya'll finally found something that i might actually take part in. That fantasy football didn't exactly tickle my pickle, but i think i might be able to handle this. It will be good to hear from some of you (eh,eh drock). hey, has anybody found the hole that he crawled into yet? Let me know when you do and I will bring the shovel.

It's Truly Great To Be A FLORIDA GATOR!!!!

Words cannot even begin to express the thrashing Florida put on OSU (I have to use just their initials b/c calling them by name would be giving them too much respect and they lost ALL of it last night). Several Observations:

1. Look out, 2006-2007 is the year of the GATOR. We are the FIRST and ONLY team to win National Championships in the same year in both Football and Basketball. Could we go for a hat trick?

2. Florida held OSU to, count 'em, 82 TOTAL yards of offense. This is the fewest in ANY BCS game in history. The domination we put on them last night was worse than what our basketball team did to them on December 23rd, and that in and of itself is impressive.

3. Troy Smith looked great in a Florida Jersey last night. He had one drapped all over him for the entire game thanks to the likes of Jarvis Moss and Derrick Harvey. Also, that was the best Heisman performance ever: 4/14 for 35 yds and an INT. I will relent, however, b/c he is a classy guy and the things he had to say after the game were admirable. Troy, if you ever read this, just know this isn't an attack on you, it's just venting frustration at the media who trashed us, bad mouthed us and said we didn't belong all year.

4. OSU never even knew what him them. Sure they sucker punched us with that opening kickoff (which there was a blatant hold on Reggie Nelson that should have called that back), but after we torched 'em with 21 unanswered points, they had the quintessential look of "Wha' ha happin" on their face the rest of the night. Even Jim Tressel did. Hilarious. OSU had absolutely NO answer for the Gator Offense, Defense and even Special Teams (Chris Hetland, you are so money).

5. Last, and most important: Bravo to our senior class. They never quit, they never gave up and they never said "die." Even with the Ron Zook "purging" (that was a JP quote), they hung in there and bought into the Meyer system. They took care of business even when everyone was saying they didn't even deserve a chance this year (to be in the conversation of the BCS title game) and won not only the SEC (they head and shoulders above the rest best conference in the country), but strong-armed OSU for the national championship. I loved to see Chris Leak, Dallas Baker, Jemalle Cornelius and others go out the way they did. What a great ending to great careers for those guys.

I could go on, and on, but the bottom line is this: IT'S GREAT TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR!

How's this for "style": THE University of Florida 41, OSU 14

Go easy on me, it's my first time....

Fellas,

Glad to be a part of this. I'm not really sure what to talk about....So I'll start with a shout out to all of you. Also, this being the national championship and the opportunity to be "The Year of the Gator," GO GATORS!!!!