Meanwhile back on the ranch

I realize it’s been awhile since we’ve been contributing to the Timber Butte Homestead journal and especially for those of you who have been so faithful to constantly visit it, we apologize for such a long season of silence. Our silence has not been caused by a loss of motivation or because our lives have been dormant. On the contrary, this past year has been so full that time and priorities have kept Nancy and I focusing on getting through a most major transition of our lives.  Our job descriptions as you may remember from reading our last blog entry recorded last winter, changed from being the lead pastors of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Boise, Idaho last November to becoming the founders and directors of a ministry called “i-61”. I-61 (named after a passage found in Isaiah 61) is a ministry of compassion, justice and mercy among the extreme poor of the world. For greater explanation please have a look at www.i-61.org . Among many other things this new ministry venture has required us to establish a full time staffed training base in Nicaragua, an extreme poor country in Central America. Establishing a base in a country like Nicaragua has required a tremendous amount of time and energy as we have renovated a large home in the city of Managua. The house is now called the “Isaiah House” and its four member staff has been receiving teams of willing people from across the United States for the purpose of equipping them to address seven world crises issues. Again, this is a subject for later, but for now only to say that is has required much of our time, passion, thought and energy.

In addition to this new undertaking we had been given the amazing opportunity to travel to Spain in the month of May for the purpose of walking the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage Trail of St. James through the Galatian Mountains and on into the city of Santiago. This adventure and the provision to do it was a retirement gift given to us by our church family. To have a look at this really wonderful adventure you can look at my journal blog on www.trirobinson.org .

In the midst of it all, Timber Butte Homestead has carried on and has in fact continued to develop into the sustainable farmstead we had originally envisioned it to be. We hope that you will once again visit and revisit the Timber Butte homestead blog site to catch up on the activities here for ideas and the inspiration to pursue a smaller foot print for the purpose of making a larger handprint on the world.