5 Autographed Books Being Given Away!

Hop on over to Andy's Facebook page to share his post about his giveaway for a chance to win one of five free autographed books!  The opportunity ends tonight at midnight!!

I'm so proud of Andy.  God definitely gifted him to write this book.  Sidenote:  Andy minored in English in college--and you'd never know by reading this book that he is dyslexic.  That just means he had to work a bit harder to put his thoughts down.

We're so amazed by God's plan.  Andy wrote this book to get the facts straight.  Several people had written articles about his kidnapping which were inaccurate.  And he wanted to write it for his kids and grandkids to have.  We never dreamed that his book would be outranking other books printed by major publishing companies on Amazon...before it's even released!!  That's amazing.  And for Andy to be asked to tell about his experience on Huffington Post?  Where did that come from??  

You can check out Andy's website here.  You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.  We're pretty excited--only 22 days til release date!

I hope you win one of the five autographed books!  But if you don't, they're not all that expensive.  ;)   We'd be forever grateful if you'd help us get the word out.   Share his website.  Share this blog.  Share Andy's post--maybe a friend will win a book!

Andy's Interview on Huffington Post

Andy's interview today on Huffington Post Live.  His book, Kidnapped in Budapest, doesn't come out until the first part of June...but it's already available as a pre-order on Amazon & Barnes & Noble.

My Energizer Bunny

For those who know Andy, they won't be surprised to hear me call him my Energizer Bunny.  The guy has no end to his energy!  Especially when it involves ministry.

This past weekend, we had our first-ever Disciple Now for the youth at First Baptist Church, Groom.  Andy organized it (with some great help from our youth leaders) and had Zach come help lead it.

He loves the youth--and, as many of you can confirm, he loves to give them a hard time.

He taught some of the Bible studies on worship.

He played the games.

He preached Sunday morning and then took a group of youth to visit an older man from our church who is in rehab in Amarillo.

He got to play with two of our grandkids for about 24 hours!

And tonight he's spending a couple of hours with the youth as they learn the drama.

He loves it all!

And he never stops...

(You won't want to miss his live interview with Huffington Post--Thursday at 3:20 Central time!)

His book comes out the first of June.  We're pretty excited!

An Update on Andy & Becky Dietz: Where are they???

Andy & I were talking last night about how many people were asking what we were up to---and realized we just hadn't kept everyone up-to-date on what's going on in our lives.  So...here goes!

Andy resigned from his position as Missions & Evangelism Pastor at First Baptist Church Borger last April (where we'd been and loved the people for 25 years!).  We just knew it was time and Andy clearly heard God tell him to "step out of the box."  We'd gotten way too comfortable!  Almost immediately, we were talking to a Chinese church in Dallas about going there as pastor.  (You know how much we love the Chinese people!!  And this is the church that supports our trips by sending interpreters...so we already had some great friends there.)  We were in that process for 4 months.  We made several trips to Dallas during that time and took full advantage of being with our family.  We also caught up with some friends we hadn't seen in a long time.  But God clearly shut the door to that church and Andy withdrew his name from consideration.  Andy's had his resume' in several churches, he's filled the pulpit of several churches, but we have no clear direction for our future.  God has put a desire to pastor a church in Andy's heart, but there's also a desire to speak in churches, help churches with conflict resolution, and develop a business in China to help our friends there have jobs.  

What God has been doing in our lives in the meantime:

• Teaching us to rest.  We're terrible at it--and always have been!  Andy had great benefits at FBC including weeks of vacation.  He seldom took them.  We spent more time going on mission trips (which were fun--but lots of work!) than vacations.
• Refining our hearts. This has been an ongoing process all of our lives, but it seems to have intensified while we've had some quiet time to listen.  There have been some strongholds in our lives He's been digging up.  Ouch!
• Giving us time with our family.  It's been awesome to spend so much time with our kids and grandkids!!  In fact, if you didn't know, we've been living with our son, David, his wife, Lindsey, and their two kids in the house they bought from us.  So we're still at the same old address in Borger...but just living in the basement.  They have been very gracious hosts and have loved on us through this process.  
• Teaching us about The Church as we've visited about a dozen churches in the past 5 months.  It's been enlightening!  It's also given us vision for what we'd want a church to look like if Andy should pastor.
• Waiting.  We're terrible at this, too.  It's hard to know whether we should just pursue other jobs to support ourselves (since we don't have an endless supply of money) or...what.  We're listening closely and we're willing!!
• We don't want to retire.  Period.
• Andy's been working on getting his book published.  We hope it will be ready before Christmas!
• Realizing how much we need the prayers of others.  We even had some friends fasting with us a couple of weeks ago.  So encouraging!
• And probably the most important thing we've learned is how valuable our friends are.  We've learned that people love us for us...lumps and all.  That's been so encouraging.  And we've learned just how deep some of those friendships run.

We're reminded of the verse, "Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest." in Matthew 9:37-38.  

And we're raising our hands and saying, "Pick us!!  Please!"

Pick-a-pic

Andy is working with his publisher to get his book out.  We can't believe it's actually happening...but it's true! We have no idea when it will actually hit the bookshelves, but we're hoping before Christmas.  Anyway, he has to turn a photo of himself in for the back of the book.  This is where you come in.  Tell us which is your favorite photo.  Our beautiful daughter-in-law, Shanna, took these amazing pictures!  (She is married to our youngest son, Zach.)  There were so many good ones to choose from, but we've narrowed it down to these three.  Tell us what you think!!

The Book Writer Andy

The Smiling Andy

The Casual Andy

And your choice is....

Anticipation

I can't go to sleep.  Know why?  There's so much anticipation in my heart!  And I think that's crazy!!  If I had to give a word which I thought would describe this point in my life it would be "resigned."  And that probably comes from watching people who've traveled this path before me.  But instead, I am incredibly filled with anticipation.  And for that, I'm glad...and grateful.

Isn't it good of God to do something like that?  To surprise me at the last 1/3 of my life with anticipation?  I absolutely have no clue what is ahead of me.  But God has thrown out some incredible possibilities and gotten me all excited!

Andy had an agent tell him today that she couldn't put his book down (the book he wrote about his experience of being kidnapped in Budapest).  She wants to send it to a publisher and thinks they'll pick it up.

I love surprises.  And God knows me.  I'd hate to get to a place where I was resigned with life.  I hope God constantly fills my life with surprises.  I want to anticipate each phase of my life.  What a great Daddy!!