Reply to Justin
Vas: Well Justin, a typical day for me in The Family is first getting our 5 children up, dressed and ready for the day, and then we all go to breakfast. After breakfast we have an hour of devotions and 15 minutes of prayer time and then go into the other activities of the day. The kids and teachers go straight into school and the other members of the home usually do some house clean-up and then some people will go out witnessing and some will do cooking. I myself usually will go into my little studio and record and compose music but not everyday. Some days in the afternoon I will take the kids out for a witnessing excursion, like to a park and pass out tracts and invite people to receive Jesus.
Or on another day I will spend most of the day doing the weekly shopping which consists of going to the market here and getting good discounts on produce and even free from some people who donate goods to us. We are just starting out in this home so we don’t quite have enough donors yet. So this day consists of finding new donors, visiting and talking with the ones who already help, as well as trying to get discounts on the items we still need after all that. This day is also a day that one does a lot of witnessing and talking with these friends that donate because we feel it is very important to feed spiritually those who feed us physically.
We also have one free day a week and this is a time where we get some extra rest and time meditating but also will do some fun activities such as going out to a restaurant or a night club and dance, have some drinks and relax with my wife and sometimes some of the others who are on free day that same day. See, half the home has free day and the other half keeps things running– caring for the children, cooking, cleaning and so forth, then we switch so everyone gets one free day a week. We also have parent day which is a day focused on spending time with our children and doing activities with them such as a picnic in the park or an outing to an amusement park or eating in a restaurant which the kids love also or seeing a movie. Also normally we would have a Bible study once or twice a week but since we just opened our home and are pioneering, we have not yet started an official Bible study but have had a few here and there, and I think we are about to start our official weekly Bible study now that we have met some people who are interested in attending and have ironed out who will be responsible for this ministry in the home. You see one thing about our home in particular is we are starting a band that we feel will be a witness in a big way if we are faithful to follow the Lord and His leadings. So we are focusing a lot on that and the Lord has helped us to get to a point where we are able to bring in the bulk of the finances for our budget from the band doing gigs in nightclubs. There is a long way to go and we have a lot to learn and sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done and it seems that the Lord is opening the doors faster than we can handle, as playing five nights a week and witnessing in between sets as well as working on our demos, not to mention staying close to the Lord and being faithful to study the Word, take our daily prayer time and some time with our kids and wives and doing a bit of home chores, home business, home meetings to keep things organized and running smoothly, leaves me pretty exhausted by the end of the day, so the progress seems a bit slow sometimes, but I guess anything good is done slowly and surely. You can’t lose weight in a week and keep it off and also be healthy, you have to settle for a calorie here and there while adjusting your habits to see long lasting results. So may God give us the patience and determination.
Since we started “giging,” we have adjusted the schedule so that we can still have united devotions and it seems to be working well. Us guys in the band go to bed at about 3 or 4 am every night so we obviously can’t really get up at 7:30 am like everyone else in the home. So we moved devotions to 12 pm and the kids have school in the morning right after breakfast and depending on what time we got to bed the night b4, we will get up and have 15 minutes of word time together, then work a bit either learning songs, working on our own material or demos as well as band business which we are finding is quite time consuming. Then we all get together for united home devotions at 12 pm. One other thing that this schedule affects a bit is the special time I like to have with my wife, as it’s a bit hard to pull off when you get home at 4 am. So needless to say, there is less of that but when it does happen it’s serious which is a good thing.
After dinner another thing we do is have parent time and that is time to spend with your individual family. Well it doesn’t have to be just with your family, as sometimes we do things together between families, and we have a single mom in our home, so sometimes we will also invite her and her son to be a part of our family time which consists of playing some games together or watching a DVD and usually ending the hour and a half period reading some b4 bed stories. This is done from 7:15 to 8:45 and then bedtime for the kids is at 9:00 and that’s when the band leaves, so I try to help Joni get the kids ready for bed also before I go. I feel bad ‘cause lately I have been under the weather as I think the schedule we have is taking a bit for my body to get used to, and V.Joni has been doing the lions share of the work with the kids. She gets help from the other home members, but you know a women’s job is never done. Oh wait, I mean a mothers job is never done… you know that saying. Well Justin, I hope this isn’t boring and you can make it through reading this and I also hope it answers your question of what my day currently consists of in The Family. I think I am going to go ahead and post this on the livethecreed site, maybe someone else will be interested in reading it. Well I love you man and God bless you. Your brother in the Lord, Vas