Dear Friends:

I hope you all enjoyed a blessed Christmas and that 2013 is a very good year for you as you are about “doing your Father’s business” in the place God has planted you. There are certainly no shortages of stressful circumstances that we have before us as 2012 comes to an end causing us to keep our prayers focused on the SOURCE of wisdom and strength instead of the daunting situations.

I have grand hopes that in the year ahead I’ll be able to finish the sequel to my book and get it printed. The first book is still selling and I really was blessed the other day as I was looking up a clip on YouTube about the Nativity Story and there in the upper right hand corner of the YouTube page was an ad by Christian Book Sellers for Adventures of an Alaskan Preacher! I am starting to try to raise the money I will need and set it aside for the sequel publication. The last one cost about $8000 for my part of the co-publishing deal. The publisher has indicated that they are willing to do the same basic deal as the first time around. It amazes me whenever we research it and discover that the book has been available in 23 countries around the world. If you feel to contribute toward book #2, checks can be made out to CFM and just note the purpose on the memo line…and I will set it aside for that purpose. I am over half done with the manuscript.

A few weeks ago and after the school shooting in Connecticut, I read the verse in 2 Timothy 3:1 (Amplified Version) that says: “But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear]”. That certainly is a true statement of our lives today. With all of the economic, political and international situations on our corporate plate, these indeed are difficult times. I see it in the lives of those I counsel weekly in both my Kenai CFM office as well as at my church office. I am thankful to God and to you that I have been able to keep that office in Kenai open and all bills paid! If you desire to contribute toward that end and be able to claim it for your 2012 taxes, the check needs to be sent by December 31st. I will hold the 2012 books open for a week or so after the first of the year for that purpose.

God Bless you. Wayne Coggins

Now…here is that article I mentioned earlier.

CALENDARS

In a few days, before the clock says it is midnight on December 31st and a new month and year begin, I will go around the house and change over all the calendars we have to January 2013. We have probably a dozen calendars in various rooms around the house and changing them is always a fun thing because you get to see the new picture, read the insightful quotes on some, and glimpse a brand new set of days in which to live. We have one calendar sent to us by a friend in Virginia each year that is made with pictures he took himself in the Caribbean…butterflies, tropical fish, flamboyantly colored birds and other interesting critters are on each page. He is an incredibly gifted photographer. Beyond that special calendar I suppose our favorite that we reorder every year features the artwork of Robert Duncan. He paints the most awesome scenes of life on their family farm in rural Utah. It makes a person feel like you could just step into the pictures and help his wife and kids gather eggs in the barn, feed the critters or hoe the weeds in the garden!

And, of course, there are the usual fishing calendars for me and the book lovers, bird lovers or critter lovers calendars that Marveen is partial to.

This year is a big one for both Marveen and me because when we both celebrate our birthdays, I will be 67 and she will turn, uh… 49, I think. Ha. So, pardon me if I seem a little introspective this year as I look back on a full life of ministry as a pastor and look ahead to more of the same up the road. I love that scripture in Psalm 90 that asks the Lord to “teach us to number our days (make them count) that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” That is my prayer for my own life and making each day count is indeed important…no matter what circumstances land on our plate.

I was thinking that it would be fun to try to collect old calendars, one for every year that I have been alive. Just might give it a try. So, how tall do you think the stack might be…maybe one, two, three feet high? It might also be fun to see if I could remember what I was doing in each of those years. I do know what I was doing on Jan. 1, 1946. I was playing around inside my mom, probably making her sick every morning because it wasn’t until September 10th of that year that I made my appearance as the first boy in our family. If my older sister would have known what a pest I would be with my teasing her for all those years, she might have asked my mom if they could trade me in on a sister instead (just kiddin’).

In 1956, I would have been a freckle-faced little guy with a cowlick and a very bashful streak…only occasionally winding up in the woodshed for something my BB gun made me do. By 1966 I would be getting married while I was working my way through Bible school in the Seattle area. 1976 would have found me up to my ears as a “young” pastor on the staff of what was then the fastest growing church in the state of Alaska, raising two daughters and a son almost on the way. In 1986 I was living out a dream with a counseling office in downtown Washington, DC for a season of life when I knew without a doubt I was dead center in the will of God. When 1996 rolled around, I was getting my Master’s degree in counseling, doing seminars around the country and serving as an interim pastor either at Mountain View or Sand Lake Baptist Churches and counseling at Cornerstone Clinic. 2006 would mark the second year for Marveen and me in Nikiski getting to know the wonderful folks at North Kenai Chapel along with me having a CFM counseling office in Kenai.

Only the Lord knows what will be on the agenda for 2016, 2026, or 2036, but if I can stay alive that long and the Lord has not made his appearance, I will no doubt be trying to figure out what a guy can do for the Lord at 90. I figure I’ll come up with something…and if there are still any fish left in the Kenai River by then, you might find me anchored up just above Eagle Rock waiting for one more bite. Hmmm, I wonder what life will look like if I can live as long as my great-great Grandpa Messer who made it to either 114 or 119? That would be around the year 2065. I suppose I’ll be wondering then why I didn’t take better care of my teeth back when I was a younger man…say 80 or 90. One must keep remembering to floss while you still have teeth to floss! (ha)

So, teach us, Lord, to number our days.