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MONKLETS

Welcome to Journey Milestones

Oct 24, 2007 ~ Steve Mizel

Welcome to the Journey’s Family Ministry Blog.

I remember taking long road trips as a kid. Those were the days before portable DVD players, PSPs, and cell phones (boy, I feel sorry for my parents). My brother and I would pass the hours by either bugging each other (and my parents) or just looking out the window. We lived in a rugged area of Northern California and had to regularly drive four hours south to visit family in the San Francisco area.

Soon I started noticing specific markers that helped me get a feeling for where we were on the journey. As we drove over the mountain pass and left the rugged California coast, we passed through a little town called Booneville where there was a public phone booth called a Bucky Walter[1]. When I saw that, I knew we were getting close to leaving the isolated coastal world of the Redwood and pine forest to enter broader civilization. Later on the trip, there was a graffitied wall in Santa Rosa that always made me feel like we were half way.  And when we finally crossed the San Rafael Bridge , it was like we were already there.

It is human to find ways to mark the journey of life. What else are birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays than milestones that help us celebrate what is behind and look forward to what is ahead? The ancient Israelites often built pillars of stone to mark significant events in their journey with God. That way, each time they passed the pillar, they would be reminded of what God had done and of what he had promised he would do.

In fact, God commanded the Israelites to build these pillars so that they would be reminded to tell their children about what happened there. As the Israelites traveled throughout Israel with their family, they would pass these markers and would tell their children about what God had done for them there and the promises of what God was still going to do. Deuteronomy 6, one of the most important passages concerning raising children, alludes to this practice when it tells us as parents to tell our children about God “when you walk by the way.” We parents are to purposely create and show our kids milestones that mark their spiritual journey to help them get a sense of what God has done and what he is doing.

That is what this blog is all about: helping parents raise their children to know and love God. It may even help you raise a few journey milestones to help you commemorate God’s work in and for you so you can tell your children about it later. If nothing else, I hope this blog will become a valuable source of encouragement and relevant information to help you become a more confident and effective parent.

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[1] A “Bucky Walter” is a telephone booth. Booneville is located in an isolated valley off the Northern California coast and is known for its unique dialect called Boontling. This fascinating and strange language is only spoken in the Booneville valley and is made up words rooted in the local culture. Walter Levi was the first person to have a telephone in the valley, so a telephone became known as a “Walter,” and "Bucky" was the word for a nickel (the cost of a phone call at the time).