Anna M. Aquino

I am very excited to get to finally write this blog. When Dan and I felt led to begin the ministry there was an expense that we knew we had to do. I don’t need to get into specifics, though some of you know, but it was a large amount for us. It was such the large amount we wouldn’t even have the payments on it if we’d financed it. Not that I’m suggesting that, Dan and I are firm believers in living Debt free as much as possible. (Romans 3:8) I could teach on all of this but go read a Dave Ramsey book, and grab ahold of it! The decision to do this or not to do this thing was one we talked about, prayed about, and sought wise council on. I’d be lying to you if I told you the choice was easy. It would have been so easy to run the other direction. I remember one day jogging and hearing the Lord ask me, “Why are you looking at the giants in the land?” I knew that taking on this faith step was such a big deal to me that like the Israelites I was seriously seeing the money as a giant a...

Dan has been reading a book on entrepreneurship and business and in that book the author was talking about making a vision board. He was encouraging people to put on it all those things you are striving towards and believe are your destiny. He encourages people to get specific with ideal salaries, businesses, cars, houses etc. He encourages people to get the board out and study it. To keep it up somewhere where you can see it and be reminded of it. While we know we’re going after a God first, then a God given destiny and not just stuff. What the guy is saying is very Biblical. You need to keep the vision before you, and keep it fresh in your mind. Studies have proven time and time again that the word of God works. Habakkuk 2:2-3 “2 And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. 3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it wil...

Several years ago I decided I really wanted a pair of calf length boots. However I didn’t think it would take me so long to find a pair that I liked and would work. Every boot season I would start looking for ones I liked and trying them on, and every season I would end up without a pair. Sure there were several reasons behind this: sometimes price, sometimes my big calves, sometimes I just didn’t see something that made me swoon. What is so funny is that I was so convinced eventually I would find a pair I liked and that fit me right, I even put down to write the blog “I found my boots!” years ago. It was in my blogs that I think about and have in the corner of my head. I wanted a pair and knew I’d eventually find them. Last week I decided to look at one store I hardly ever go to. I figured its February and just maybe I’ll find something on clearance. As all bargain shoppers go I wanted the perfect pair and I didn’t want to pay much for them. There on the clearance was the most p...

Dan’s been in Canada with his family for the last week, so I’ve been getting glimpses of single parenting here on the home front. My hat is off to all you single parents out there. I’m so glad that Dan will be coming home soon. I don’t know how people do it. Yesterday my youngest, who I refer to as Jr, and I had a bit of a scuffle in the morning. She had to get her clothes out for school, and I discovered that instead of putting her clothes back in the proper drawer like she was supposed to be doing she’d just been randomly shoving them in the drawers without paying attention to what goes where. It’s an issue we’ve had with her on numerous occasions. I’ve organized those drawers and reorganized them. I realize no kid is perfect, but we had to get to school. So I took out every article of clothing in her drawers and put them on her bed. When she got home she had to organize it and put it back into the drawers. She was looking at me crying as I did this, internally I was getting so...

The weekend Dan graduated from college has become one of those family stories that I won’t likely live down ever. It’s become one of those stories we sit around after dinner and laugh about over and over again. It was a quite the humorous weekend. Dan and I were newly married living in an apartment that really was the back end of a house. It wasn’t the best part of town. We had a mutual secured and gated courtyard but that area was rough. There was a porn theatre around the corner. His parents and my parents were coming in town for his graduation. My parents were running late, and I sent my in-laws and Dan onto where he had to be and waited on the steps of a neighbor’s house for mine. When my parents showed up, my mind was on trying not to miss Dan’s graduation and I accidently left my keys on the steps of the neighbors’ house. I didn’t realize my mistake until we were all going back to our apartment after the graduation. So, we managed to figure it out that we could use Dan’s key...

The other day we were on our way out the door to church and my youngest daughter was reading the Ten Commandments and all of a sudden she piped up and said when she got to #2 “We don’t use that one.” “What?” I questioned her. I think something’s had gotten a little twisted up in her cute little brain. I tried to understand where she’d gotten the idea we weren’t using the 2nd commandment and didn’t get very far. The best understanding I have come up with is that often when the girls have watched shows we’ve explained maybe certain things a cartoon is doing why we don’t practice it or celebrate it and what the Bible says on the matter. Somewhere she’d gotten the impression she could do that with the Bible too. I explained to her we couldn’t. The Bible wasn’t just some grand buffet that we could pick and choose the parts we wanted to follow and what one didn’t want to. I’m pretty sure she understands it now, though it may warrant for a few more conversations later. Sadly many people...

I had the honor of meeting Rev. Kathy Arbaugh-Patmon in 1995. I was a senior in high school about to embark on one of the most challenging years of my life to date. While I had only been baptized in the Holy Spirit for a small amount of time I was still very involved in my local Lutheran Church. Kathy came in as the new intern for that Lutheran church. She was finishing up her degree from seminary and I suppose you can say I was part of that assignment. Though Kathy had her own daughter only a few years younger than I, Kathy and I struck up a very unique friendship. I was a bit of a spiritual misfit, that few knew at the time what to do with, and Kathy always believed in the calling and gifting of God on my life. She was sound wisdom in various points of my life. I was there when she graduated from seminary. The day she was ordained I traveled to her first church and sat there. I don’t know of too many Lutheran pastors who would have been open to getting a prophetic word on the d...