Deanna Doss Shrodes

Jordan and I came home from Africa to a big surprise! Well, it was a surprise for me. Jordan knew about it the whole time. The surprise was new flooring in our home's main areas, plus a new couch! All of it was done by my husband, Dustin, Savanna and friends from church. They also decorated a bit for fall, to welcome us home. Lots of people are asking for photos, so here are the results! My husband took 160 photos and I am going to link to his Facebook album here in case you would like to see more than just these few. I believe he has made the album public but if not, I'll ask him to. (smile) Here's his Facebook Album . Larry had this planned for six months, to surprise me when I got home. I want to give thanks to everyone who helped him on the project. In addition to our children, those who worked so hard with him were Todd Stewart, Doug Rice, John Torres, Willy Letaw, Joel Tevi, Troy Mayercak, Jacob Mayercak, Mason Mayercak, Mike Molinero, and Rachel Rice.  John actu...

Sunset tonight in Kitengala, Kenya I learn more about intimacy with God, every day. It's not formal, fancy-schmantzy or mystical. Intimacy with God isn't about the most theological-sounding prayer or something outwardly impressive. Sometimes it's crying in the shower and telling Him what's wrong. Other times it's pouring out how thankful I am that everything is going so right.  It's plain, every day walking and talking with God. Me in the Kiambethu tea fields, on Saturday Intimacy with God, is being in communication with Him from the time my eyes open in the morning. Or it's lying in bed in the middle of the night listening to the rain pour down as it did in Africa the other night and having a long conversation. I was feeling so poorly, having very uneasy and even outright scary feelings after getting so sick on Saturday.  We had gone up into the mountains and apparently I got altitude sickness.  Eight thousand miles from home, weak and sick...

With the current Ebola outbreak at various places in the world, many people have expressed concern about the fact that my son Jordan and I are going to Africa on Wednesday.  I know people mean well, and love us very much.  I appreciate that. I don't get angry when people express their concern to me, although I do get perplexed at times. Even before the current Ebola outbreak, there were people pleading with me to stay home from Africa  for various reasons. I have traveled there alone, this being my fourth time -- and I've heard concern about everything from a plane crash to a terrorist attack. So you can imagine, with the Ebola outbreak in a few countries, people have gone into overdrive expressing their fears, begging me to reconsider this trip and stay home. Yesterday alone, I heard it from at least 15 people. I do not mean any of this in a condescending way. I am trying to educate because by the way others speak to me about this in such fear, I realize they do not...

Did you know that God works on your problems while you sleep?   I was comforted by this thought when I glanced through a book my husband recently gifted me with entitled, Blessings for the Evening . It's a coffee table book of sorts, nothing real heavy. I didn't read from the beginning, instead choosing to open to a random spot in the book. I found this gem: May you find a moment of peace and quiet tonight to thank God for all that is right in your world. May you have the presence of mind to release your cares and worries to Him. May you have the gritty faith to grab a firmer grip on His promises to you. And may you wake up in the morning knowing that you've gained ground even in your sleeping hours because God is always moving on your behalf. As you entrust your whole self to Him today, He'll get you to where you need to go tomorrow. He is faithful. "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. "...

I'm writing this post today because I don't personally need more income. Don't get me wrong, I could always find uses for money. But my point is, our family income is just fine. But at one time, it wasn't. And only someone who is making a decent salary can write this kind of post, otherwise it's taken as  begging for money. Photo Credit: ccstbp, Flickr Many years ago a woman in the church  where we were pastors at the time came to me with a box of things and said, " Pastor Deanna, I want to donate this to a family in need at the church, and I know you'll know exactly who needs it and who to give it to..." I thanked her. Once she left the room I peeked inside the box and said to myself: "We are that family." I took the box home and our family utilized the contents. At the time we may have been the most financially disadvantaged family in the congregation. We qualified for food stamps. Our kids qualified for free school lunches...

Leaders have to face various obstacles along the way to our destiny in order to prepare us for the greatest things we will do. I Samuel 17 is about David facing Goliath and in verses 34-37 it talks about him killing the lion and bear in preparation to face his giant, Goliath. David had a great destiny before him in not only becoming the greatest worship leader/psalmist who ever lived, but also a king and a man after God’s own heart. David wasn’t sadistic, and he certainly wasn’t killing just to kill. The lion and bear were coming in to steal a lamb from his father’s flock. He had to protect the flock. And so he destroyed the lion and the bear. When I went first into the ministry, I never realized how much I would deal with bears and lions. I just expected to love people. And I imagined, they would just love me back. I was quite surprised that much of my work would involve warfare. Not only did I get tired, but sometimes I thought I wouldn't survive the struggle...

People's failures teach us as much if not more than their successes. One of my greatest failures happened because I refused to use one of my greatest strengths. Resilience: My Personal Uzi I've always been resilient. Had to be. It's a story bigger than one blog post. The crux of it is, I learned pretty early in life that I could be resilient or die. My former boss used to joke that while other employees were complaining about something that happened, I had already formulated a 10-point strategy to come back from whatever took place and was passionately trying to sell everyone on it. Why Some Leaders Don't Move Forward A lot of leaders stay down too long after a hit. Staying immobilized for too long impedes a comeback. If something bad happens in the course of my job, I usually blow off steam for no longer than a few hours. Then, I pray about it and work hard on quickly creating and announcing a new plan -- that day. The goal is move f...