On the Road!

Can you say, "Roadtrip!!" ?

We are heading out this evening in our newly acquired RV! Praise God!!!

From Yuma, AZ, our first stop is Memphis,,TN to visit with friends and share the vision of Hope House International.
Fom there, we set our sights on Pittsburgh, PA for the summer. We will be assisting the church that Joe's Dad has pastored for the last 20 years.

Be praying for us! Drop a line if we are going to be in your area!

Burgan's Update

Greetings one and all!

I wanted to update you on some things.

First, the sale of the land did not go through last week as hoped but should some time this week. Please be praying. This will delay our departure from Yuma but should not affect either our arrival in Memphis or Pittsburgh. But I will keep you posted!

The incorporation papers for Hope House International came through last Friday. Praise God! I will be going up to Yuma this week to set up the banking for the corporation. I also have our first official meeting of the board of directors this Wednesday.

We had been praying for someone to house-sit for us while we were gone but didn't have a clue as to who. I met a gentleman from Washington state who just recently moved to Mexico as a missionary and is needing a place to stay. The Lord worked it out and brought us together to fill both our needs. His name is Joe Avila. Be praying for him for direction, for favor and for clarity of vision!

Of particular interest to the folks in the Pittsburgh area (who had no Christian music radio last I knew) and others as well, is my recent discovery that iTunes, a music program from Apple that works on Macs or PCs has Christian radios stations built right in. You can choose from Air1, our favorite, or K-LOVE or southern Gospel, etc. and have it play through your computer. If you are interested in Air1 or K-LOVE in particular, you can also listen via their websites. I would also like to introduce you all to KNLB out of Lake Havasu City, AZ. Faron and Debbie Eckelbarger are the owners of the station and Miss Debbie does an afternoon program called "Kids' Korner" from 3-5pm Pacific Time. They feature kid's programs and even allow the younguns to call in to request a song or answer the question of the day. You can listen to them on line as well.

Here are the sites:

iTunes from Apple

Air1.com

K-LOVE

KNLB

Also, if you use Windows and have not done so already, there are some major security updates that you need to download from Microsoft.

If you have never seen or heard of "The Wittenburg Door", I have posted a link to their newest newsletter at the "Musings" site. It is published by Christians and allows for a slightly different point of view on current events in Christendom with satire and parody!

Be blessed!

A Tribute to my wife on Mother's Day!

A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies. Prov. 31:10 NIV

My wife, Erica, the mother of our two children, Cody age 11 and Alissa age 9, is a rare and wonderful creation. She chose to marry me and begin our adventure together rather than pursue a career or attend college even though she graduated 2nd in her class from a private school and had a grade point average over 4.0. She has, faithfully, followed after the heart of the Father in times of plenty and times of want. Her love for me has never wavered; her devotion never waned as we walked through the deserts or rejoiced on the mountains.

Erica has persevered in loving our children and remained steadfast in her commit to teach them by home schooling. She has laid down her life for them and for me. Even when all others seemed to abandon us, she remained faithful to the call of God placed on our lives. In times of despair and loneliness, we clung to each other and prayed, seeking the face and heart of God.

I am eternally grateful to the Father for choosing her for me and me for her. I have the blessing and privilege of being married to my best friend.

There are those who do not believe that God has chosen a specific “help meet” for each of us. To those I present this challenge. Do you not believe that the Father has established all your days before any one of them existed? Can you not recognize that each of us was created with specific talents, giftings and abilities from in our mother’s womb for a specific calling? Are you unaware that even your physical makeup, your skeletal structure was determined by God? Read Psalm 139.

You might say that it was just chance DNA. Then you would be a fool to believe in chance. I choose to believe in divine intervention. It is called procreation or perhaps it should more appropriately be named “co-creation” in that we are participating with God in the creation of a unique, living, eternal being.

From before the foundations of the earth, God, our Father, chose for Erica and me to walk this journey together.

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Gen 2:18 NIV

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Gen 2:22-25 NIV

Do not think it chance or “dumb luck” to choose a person with whom you shall be one flesh, a union symbolizing, typifying the union between Christ and His church.

"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church. Eph 5:31-32 NIV

Erica was and is the will of God for me and for my children now, even after almost 24 years, and until we finish our course. For that, I thank God daily!

For Mother’s Day – a tribute to my mother!

Charlotte Jane Axton Burgan has been married to that same man, Joseph H. Burgan, Sr., for over 50 years. She has raised three children, me, my brother, Tim and my sister, Joy. Mom and Dad live in the same house that we were raised in which they built in 1959. Mom raised us in the days of innocence. We could walk down the road and out to Null’s Market, almost a mile away without fear of anything happening to us – no abductions, no molesting, nothing.

Every morning that I can remember, my mom got up before the sunrise and would wake us up to get ready for school. Every morning for 21 years, she prepared breakfast for each of us kids and my dad. I can remember going out to the kitchen and listening to Jack Boget on KDKA radio while mom packed my lunch. She says that I was the only one with whom she could talk in the morning because all the others were still asleep even though they were eating their breakfast. So we would chat over breakfast. Then I would pack my stuff and head off to school.

As I got older, I would work in the evenings after school. No matter how late I got home, Mom would have dinner waiting for me. I loved it when she would make chili and leave the pot on the stove to cool before putting it in the fridge. That was when it tasted the best!

Mom made bread and buns at home while I was growing up. There was nothing better that coming into the house after working outside on a cool fall in Pennsylvania and sitting down to a dinner of navy bean soup and home-made bread. The bread would be fresh and hot and sliced about one inch thick. The butter would melt as you spread it on. I hope they are going to serve that kind of bread at the marriage supper of the Lamb. They can ask my mom for the recipe.

The holidays always had a cornucopia of home-made goodies. Chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, pumpkin pie, sugar cookies in the shape of Santa’s face, Christmas trees or stockings which we would decorate with icing and sprinkles of all kinds. The dinners always had turkey and ham, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and potato salad, corn and green beans, stuffing and gravy, fresh vegetables and cranberry sauce. Of course, no dinner was complete if you didn’t have the horseradish!

It would be impossible to calculate the number of hours that mom spent preparing these meals, nor can I fathom the energy she spent to provide us a safe and comfortable place to call home. In the winter, after playing outside in the snow, mom would get us into dry clothes, give us some hot chocolate then we would lay down in front of a heater vent to get warm and fall asleep, content, without a fear or care in the world.

Those days of innocence are long gone along with too much of my hair but I will always be grateful to the Father of a mom who provided for my brother, my sister and me a safe place to call home.