Author: Mason Sinclair

Others who did their Sabbatical before me said that 30 days goes by fast and I thought nah but it sure did! It is hard to believe that tomorrow September 3rd is my last Sabbatical day off. As I look back on everything I have done during my time off I would not have changed a thing. I found a new organization that I can volunteer for, I would not have thought about trying to have my parents go back to church and the Bible study my wife and I are doing.

Those who have read the first week of my blog may be wondering about my parents since it was the main mission of my Sabbatical. Well, that is the bitter sweet of this all. Following up with my parents, my dad went to church last Sunday for the first time in over 30 years! My mom stayed home and watched one of those televangelist shows. Now, not the greatest for my mom, but it’s a start. My dad said he is going to try a different Baptist Church tomorrow and compare to the one he went to last week. I will continue to call them each week and see what I can do to keep this momentum going.

My family and I took a mini vacation down to Canyon Lake Texas. It has been beautiful weather down here so far and everything worked out as for hurricane Harvey. Having said this, down here the gas prices have sky rocketed and they are running out of gas since people decided to panic over gas shortages. That has made me upset since I had to go and wait inline for over 30 minutes and pay an outrages price for no reason! The only reason I went and did this is to make sure we will have gas to make our trip back to Abilene since some gas stations we went to were already out of gas.

Here are some of the pictures that we have done so far on our vacation:

We stayed at Yogi Bear’s Water Park

Brooke and Hunter jumping on the “jumping pillow” at Yogi Bear’s

Digging for fossils at Heritage Museum

Dinosaur tracks at Heritage Museum

Checking out Canyon Lake. Beautiful crystal clear lake!

Lindsey and I at Canyon Lake

This past week I focused on my service project which was volunteering at Loaves & Fishes. This place is located behind Sacred Heart Catholic Church in an old house. This is open for those who are low income families only and are allowed to come here once per month. In addition, everyone is a volunteer; all food is donated from food bank or grocery stores, and any supplies or items needed are purchased out of own pocket.

Staging the crates to put food in for famlies

Storing some of the food inside the house

I worked outside loading the crates with food and resupplying the shelves with more food. We would have six families at a time in the back with the food. After they had the opportunity to go through the items they could leave items behind or give to their neighbor. I would help load the food into their car and then I would take the shopping cart to the back and reload cart with food and get everything ready for the next six families.

As I write this second blog I can’t believe two weeks have gone by and I have started my third week already. Last week was more relaxing since I did not travel or do any work outside like I did at my parents house. Instead, I started my Bible study, continued reading my devotional book, and learned a lot about homeschooling.

First about my Bible study that I am doing. We had purchased this years ago for my wife to go in a group Bible study from our church back when we lived in Keller, TX. I stayed at home watching our kids so my wife could attend and now I have the opportunity to go through it. My wife Lindsey and I are doing this study together and we are doing two sessions a day which is two chapters a day. With no interruptions, we are averaging 1.5-2.0 hours to complete 2 sessions per day. I will have to admit that I am really appreciative of religious scholars and leaders who have taken time to put together study guides to give you the meaning of what you read. If you’re like me, I need all the help I can get!

Sorry for the sideways picture but I tried and tried to rotate it and the system won’t have it!

As for my continuation of “The book of Mysteries” I like the most so far the mission of the day that he gives. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the content his teacher gives the author and I think about that as well. But, for some reason I really like the mission that is at the end of each page.

As for home school, man, my wife keeps my three kids jammed packed everyday. A typical day goes like this: Breakfast, a few hours of school work, take kids to a place called Studio One (more on this later), come home eat lunch, more school work, back to Studio One, back home and finish remaining school work. I helped out where I could last week and I will do the same for week three when I am not working at Loaves and Fishes for my service project.

Studio One on 7th Street is place that is mainly for homeschoolers, but all is welcome. She does different activities for all different age groups throughout the day and week. Besides the basics, my daughter takes babysitting class, and photography. My son takes Wild Kratts class and chess club.

The first week of my sabbatical I wanted to tackle the main mission I had which was to work on bringing my parents back into the church. In addition, I worked on anything they needed around their house.  You are probably thinking that seems simple? Well not exactly. Little history on this to set the stage.

Both of my parents are in their early eighties and they are able to still move around but like anyone else who is elderly, they need help. As for the church part, I grew up going to church when I was very little and I can barely remember going since I was really young. For whatever reason we stopped going to church and I never bothered to ask why. I guess since I was going to private school my spiritual needs were being met but I did not bother to think about my parents spiritual needs.

So it begins…I loaded my truck with 2 of my 3 kids and my bike for exercise with me and we drove to my brother who lives in Boyd, TX and I dropped both Brooke and Hunter off to stay with them a few nights. After visiting awhile I then left for my parents house which is in Hurst, TX.

As I began working around my parents house last week time can run away from you. I had to manage my self so I can stay on track with the guidelines of the sabbatical because I am one of those who starts a project and keep working on it until it is finished. I had to leave myself enough time for my bike ride in the evenings and read my book which is “The Book of Mysteries” by Jonathan Cahn in the morning. Also, I am doing my bible study over the Gospel of Matthew by Jeff Cavins & Sarah Christmyer.

Here are a few pictures of the work I did around my parent’s house:

Removing trim around shed that has rotted out and critters have been moving in.

Me removing the old rotted out trim

Me cutting the new trim for replacement

Me trimming trees in the back yard. I also trimmed trees in their front yard

One of the evenings I moved their computer and everything else from the bottom of the computer desk and the electrical cords to the top. My mom said it was too hard to crawl on the ground to mess with any of these items and I agreed!

Initial confusion of wires everywhere but operational check is good when I finished!

In the evenings I started slowly bringing up about going to church and not much action was taken on the subject. As time went by, I realized I really have to make an impact before I left to go back to Abilene. So finally late Friday night I had a meaningful conversation with my mom about why they stopped going to church and I had a break through! Come to find out, my mom said that my dad had mentioned to her that he would like to go to church.

I thought this was great, even though my mom did not say anything to my dad when he said he wanted to go to church again. To me this gave me affirmation that God was working through me when I decided to do this for my sabbatical. Before I left to go back home, I told my parents that I loved them and that God loves them too and that you are not off the hook yet until you can agree with what church you are going to attend. I will continue to follow up with them and will keep you posted on what happens.