This entry is for all of those who have asked us at one point or another, “Are you guys going to have a garden out there?”  Our answer has always been “Yes,” but now we can go one step further.

We have a garden out here.

If you have been following this blog for the last year or so, you know that God has blessed us in tremendous and often surprising ways.  He gives us what we need, when we need it.  Not a moment before…and often many moments beyond when we thought we needed it.

To use a biblical garden analogy, He is the vine and we are the branches.  We are on His timetable.  We didn’t design Spring to follow Winter, Summer to follow Spring.  We can do nothing apart from Him.  Indeed, it would be foolish to attempt anything else.  How many branches have you seen thriving on their own?

In fact, the garden analogy is “ripe” with real world lessons.

1. Keep the weeds away; they’ll choke the good plants.
2. Avoid chemical substances; God’s way is always best.
3. Be patient.  Seeds don’t grow overnight.
4. If you want shiny tomatoes, you can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.
5. We can plant the seeds, but God gives the increase.

I could go on – maybe you could offer a few suggested lessons on Facebook – but you get my point:

God is the master gardener, and we all live under his green and infinitely gracious thumb.

Whetstone Boys Ranch is intentional and proactive when it comes to character development – a goal that is expressed in our very name.  Like the purpose of a whetstone is to sharpen a knife, our purpose is to sharpen the mind, body and soul of each boy on our campus, making him useful for service in his family and community when he leaves.

Our unique 4 Level/12 Trait system is incorporated into each aspect of our program.  We take the sharpening concept to its limit, using every opportunity to instill 12 traits necessary for a successful and fulfilling life after they leave Whetstone.  Beginning with the end in mind, we work through the 4/12 system in a detailed manner, applying Scripture and building relationships all along the way.

I.            On Level One, we focus on Honesty, Self-Control, and Kindness.  Put into basic terms, we are looking for compliance.  Will this boy work with us instead of against us?  Is he a danger to himself and others?   Can we let him out of our sight?

II.            On Level Two, we raise the bar – continuing to hold him accountable for the first three traits, while adding Purity, Loyalty, Responsibility.  During this stage, we start to examine the words, attitudes and behaviors of each boy.  We start to dig beneath the surface and to shift our focus to matters of the heart.  What is going on inside?  How can we challenge him to be a man of integrity, to do what is right when no one is looking?

III.            On Level Three, along with the first six traits, we begin building Perseverance, Humility, and Excellence.  These require more maturity, and they flow naturally from the previous traits.  Self-Control can be shown in the moment, but Perseverance must be demonstrated over time.  We start to ask things like:  Can that job be done better?  Can it be done faster?  What does it mean to put others before ourselves, and why is it so important?

IV.            Finally, Level Four ambitiously seeks to equip boys with Wisdom, Contentment, and Servant Leadership.  We feel that today’s society thinks too little of young men.  It holds them to a standard so low it’s offensive.  We are determined to not make this mistake.  We believe that God designed boys to be leaders, to show courage and determination in difficult circumstances, and to demonstrate a degree of wisdom that proves them worthy of being called Father or Sir…or Mr. President.  The goal of Level Four is to make sure that boys don’t end up back at Whetstone, unless we hire them as staff.

While it is never our intent to bash anyone with the Bible, we have staked our lives on the truth contained in its pages.  And although we will never fully understand or perfectly interpret it, we will do our best to humbly apply the truth we do understand.  To this end, we have boys memorize one Bible verse each week, meditate on it what it means, and apply its teaching to their life.  (If you would like a closer look at these verses, CLICK HERE.)

Whetstone Boys Ranch is confident that the daily application of Scripture to the lives of troubled boys is the key to personal transformation, which is the ultimate goal of our Level System.  Like the Apostle Paul wrote to a young man of his day, we proclaim that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  II Timothy 3:16-17

God has seen fit to bless Whetstone Boys Ranch with its third boy!  He comes with his own unique set of strengths and weaknesses…just like the rest of us.

Transitions are always stressful, and being away from your family and friends for an entire year can only add to the overwhelming nature of change.  

Just put yourself in a new boy’s shoes for a moment. First off, you have to adjust to new shoes. In fact, you have to adjust to new clothes of all sorts…which actually fit, instead of dragging along the ground or hanging from your body like limp noodles. You must learn new rules, and fast! or there are unpleasant consequences. You must fit in with a new group of teenage boys, and learn how to share a room, a shower, and a toilet. You must enroll in a new school, with a really weird headmaster with an unpronounceable last name. You must eat new food…without complaining. You have to work harder than you’ve probably ever had to work in your life. You might be experiencing withdrawal of some sort.  (Imagine going without your morning coffee!) You have to adjust to a new mattress and pillow, along with new times to get up and go to sleep. And even though it’s now right side up, that doesn’t keep your life from feeling upside down.

You can put your own shoes back on now.   Don’t they feel nice?  Please pray that our boys will come appreciate their new shoes, and that the inevitable blisters will go away soon.

Because our ranch home contains 10,000 square feet, we have to make sure it gets cleaned on a regular basis.  Chickens, cows and horses are one thing – “dust bunnies” are quite another.

However, deep cleaning is not very high on the list of “things I like to do” for boys…or men for that matter.  Take for instance the fact most guys must learn how to put their underwear in a basket once they get married.  And many of us have stories of college dorm filth that would make your skin crawl.  I had a buddy who grew a plastic swimming pool full of instant potatoes for an entire semester…on a bet or whim.  I don’t know which is worse.

Growing up in a family of eight required frequent and spontaneous “clean machine,” as my father called it.  When mom left the house for an hour or two, he would rally the troops and urge us onward, with brooms, brushes, vacuum cleaners and black plastic bags.  “We’re gonna make this place shine like the top of the Chrysler building!” he’d should like Carol Burnett in the musical Annie.  We obeyed, but rarely with quite enough determination to please his drill-sergeant persona.

Life is a messy proposition.  Things get dirty.  We can’t go around with plastic on all of our furniture.  We can’t invite people into our homes without getting dirt on our floors.   And so we must make time to clean up the mess.  It’s part of the deal.

This is one of the many things we hope to instill at Whetstone Boys Ranch:

Clean up your mess.  We all make one.  But it’s our choice as to whether we live in it for the rest of our life.

Boy number two arrived at Whetstone Boys Ranch on Monday, January 23, 2012.

Of course, we don’t call him “boy number two.”  He’s not a number.  In fact, one thing that makes Whetstone Boys Ranch stand out is our low staff-to-boy ratio.  We stand committed to having one staff member for every 3 boys.  This is what allows us to provide the kind of Christian male mentoring that so many of today’s boys lack.

I would even be so bold as to say that this will always distinguish us.  We will not sacrifice the quality of care for the size of numbers.

We’re just not in the numbers game.

“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”  I Corinthians 3:7

Pray that Whetstone will continue to grow as God wills.  And more important, pray that our boys will do the same.

Can I level with you? 

Can I shoot straight, get right to the point, and keep it real?  Can I have a no-nonsense, no-holds barred, come-to-Jesus moment with you? 

OK.

Here it is. 

Wait for it…

Buffering…buffering…buffering…

God is good, all the time; all the time, God is good.

There it is. 

I don’t care if it’s cliché.  In fact:

Clichés will often Speak to us

when Everything Else fails  –

In Language uncircuitous,

like Firmly driven nails.

                                                                (Axel Liimatta, 2012)

God is good.

No need to beat around the bush.

How many New Year’s resolutions have already gone up in smoke…or down in donut grease?

I spoke of goal-setting last week, but we all know that the hard part is carrying through.   It’s not how you start the race, but how you finish that counts – a lesson we try to teach everyday at Whetstone Boys Ranch…with words if necessary.

So let’s just say your goal is to be less rushed, to heal what John Ortberg calls, your “hurry-sickness.”   (Mind you, I’m just picking a random goal…not one that has been on my list of New Year’s resolutions since I was five.)

Now, what are you going to do about it?

For the last 15 years, I have had my students submit their goals for a class grade.  I find this to be a useful exercise for them, and an entertaining one for me.

I’ve had some memorable ones over the years:

• Become a benevolent dictator of a small island country
• Live to cash my first Social Security Check
• Become a master snow-boarder (in Lexington, KY!)
• Successfully complete a New York Times Crossword on a Saturday
• Overcome my fear of rolley-slidey things
• Get into fewer stupid fights with my dear mother
• Start collecting vinyl records
• Don’t sweat the small stuff
• Break my addiction to over-the-counter nasal decongestant
• Visit every country in the world

What I like about most of these goals is that they are unique and specific.  Most of them are measurable to some extent.  Instead of “travel more,” it’s visit every country in the world.  And while this may be impractical, expensive and extremely dangerous, you know if you have achieved it or not.  (Note:  A better goal might be “Visit a country on every continent by the time I am 40.”  Video games don’t count.)

In any case, making a goal that goes beyond the generic “get healthier” or “get richer” or “get smarter” is more likely to become a reality.

And to be specific, Whetstone is in the reality business.

We all need goals in life.  Physical, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, social…pick a category.  Pick’em all.  There is no lack of areas where we can improve.  Our imperfection knows no bounds.

At Whetstone, we have a white board to keep track of certain “Feats of Strength,” like maximum weight lifted, highest free throw percentage, fastest two-mile run.   This was my brother Irving’s idea.  He’s known about Whetstone’s sharpening concept from the time we were little, and my dad offered us 50 bucks in exchange for our New Year’s Resolutions.  He required 3 long term and 3 short term goals from each of his children, recorded neatly on a 3×5 card along with a few steps that would aid us in accomplishing them.

My dad is a prolific goal setter.  Before the crack of dawn each morning (“daylight in the swamps,” he calls it) he’s up making lists – long lists in his unique curly font, that detail his goals for the day, week, and often year.  I have fond memories of finding him at his desk in the morning, felt tip pen in one hand and coffee in the other, hovered over his yellow legal pad.  When I return home for holidays, I sometimes find these lists lying around the house:

1. Dawn Donuts
2. Take truck to Dump
3. Bible Study @ Franklin Road
4. 14 Mile and Telegraph
5. Flea Market  @ Noon
6. Call my daughter
7. Empty Mom’s side the garage
8.  “Wet ducks never fly at night”
9. Taxes
10. Deposit checks

I don’t always know what these things mean, but I know my dad well enough to know he has it all worked out in his head.

When working with at-risk boys, it can be a real challenge to help them set meaningful goals that aren’t too high or too low, too short or too long.  We all need to be challenged without feeling defeated.   We all need stepping stones and stopping points.  We must aim for perfection, while being content with the fact that we’ll never reach it.

But as someone once said:  “If you aim at nothing, you’ll most likely achieve it.”

The record at Whetstone for a 2-mile run is 14:59.  It was set by a very ambitious young man, who has very high standards for himself.   Maybe too high.  Success in life is determined by our ability to know what we can and can’t do – and by remembering that only God working in us, makes anything possible.   For if he were to withdraw his breath, Job writes, we’d all perish.

Please pray that Whetstone will have the wisdom to know if 14:59 is good enough.

There’s nothing quite like having the right tool for the job.  Hours, days and even weeks can be shaved off the estimated time of completion.  Headaches, injuries, and a thousand little frustrations can be eliminated by making a quick trip to the hardware store and investing a few bucks.

One such tool is pictured above.  This is what I call a fence tightener-thingy.  It has an official name, but it would hardly be more descriptive than mine.  To sum up, one begins by securing the loose end of the barbed wire to a stationary point, like a tree or a t-post driven into the ground. One then inserts a portion of the wire in the left grip and clamps down.  The same is done to a second portion, about 2 feet to the right.  Next, one ratchets the device inwards, pulling tight the entire wire to the left and right of tool, and creating slack in the middle.  Once the wire it tight, the desired end is nailed down, and the tool can then be safely removed.

Whetstone Boys Ranch hopes to show boys the importance of acquiring the right tool, and the importance of rightly using it.  And we’re not just talking about power tools.  We’re talking about anger management, and meditation, and Bible-study, and regular exercise and eating right, and getting a good night’s sleep.  Tools that help us to be better at being ourselves – the unique type of person God designed us to be.

Ephesians 4:11-13 says that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Whetstone Boys Ranch and Boarding School is in the equipping business.  We are in the business of assisting the transformation of boys from being tools of the sinful forces that seek to twist, misshape and destroy, to using tools for the betterment of their selves, their families and their future as God’s servants.  

“Will” is an important word at Whetstone.  Brandon and Laura’s 2 year old son is named Will.  We have a beautiful chestnut brown horse named Will. (Interestingly, he was given that name years before he was generously donated to us.)  Will is a helping verb that aids in forming, among other things, the future perfect tense – a concept that we will be working hard to understand on Monday morning at Whetstone Academy.

More central to my point, human will is central to any change that occurs on our ranch or in our boarding school.  We are not behaviorists.  We do not believe that our control of a boy’s environment makes him change.  We’re just not that smart.

But wait, I can hear you say, isn’t that the whole idea behind Whetstone Boys Ranch?  Create an atmosphere filled with unconditional love, positive role models, academic guidance, meaningful labor …and poof! a rebellious boy turns into a responsible man!

Not exactly.

Sure, we believe that environment matters.  We think horses and chickens and cows help boys learn gentleness and patience.  We think exposure to God’s word can encourage life change.  We are confident that our attention to detail on the outside can make difference on the inside.

But when push comes to shove, a boy’s will to change matters more.  And whatever you call us – boys ranch, boarding school, group home, residential treatment center – we will never be able to make any of our boys give their hearts to God.  Ours is a spiritual battle that must be fought with spiritual weapons.

And so this morning, when we received the fantastically generous donation of a round pen for training our horses – or I could say for training our Will – I was reminded of both the similarities and differences between training horses and training boys.

Both need limits.  Both need love.  But only one is capable of being forced into submission.

The other, in the perfect future tense, will have been transformed only when he accepts God’s grace, and understands that God’s limits to our behavior demonstrate his love.

Only then, will God’s will be our boys’ will too.