18 years-WOW!

Well Oct 15 was the day, 18 years ago, that I "officially" started as Flamingo road baptist church's Worship pastor(actually, it was called Associate pastor, Music). I remember my first day at FRC. I wallked upstairs to what is now our school's admin buidling and i walked into the church's office and saw Sarah Crocker and Brenda Mashburn. Two of the kindest women I've ever met. Dan and Gar were there and that was it! We had two buidlings. The office building, which was built in 1985 and the "auditorium" building which was built in 1981. The AB was 2 stories, had a kitchen in the back of the room downstairs for Wed night suppers(gotta love those green beans-right Gar!), Sunday school classrooms upstairs and had 285 seats for our 2 services! Sharon and I had been married for 5 years, had a 7 month old by the name of Lauren Elise DiStefano, 1 Hyundai Excel(yikes!), 1 Mercury Marquis(thanks Mom and Dad!) and a dog named Lendi(Len for Allen and di for, you know). Roll the clock fwd 18 years-WOW! The staff honored Sharon and me this past Monday. Thanks for the wonderfully kind words-we reeeally love you guys and are thrilled we get to do life with you. Thanks for the low fat "organic" cake! You rock Lili and the goblet shall be treasured for at least a week or two! God has done some things beyond my imagination and some expected things. I am forever grateful for the absolute gift he has given me in my family and FRC. I've had the priviledge to serve with 2 awesome pastors Dan and Troy. It is hard to believe that the best is yet to come! Some wonderful people through the years, Gar's been there the whole time-love ya bro and I'm sooo glad my honey gets to be on staff and share this with me now! God has been so good to me. He has used the good and bad in a remarkable way. Thank You Father.