Art of Marriage

We have been praying for this weekend for over a year now ever since Hal began to be involved shooting and editing parts of the Art of Marriage. We have been hearing of the successes of this video all weekend and hearing about all the salvation's through this video. God is blessing our hard work to release this. PTL

News Update

Thought I would write a short update since our last post was over 2 months ago. We have been very busy and blogging is drifting towards the bottom of priorities now.

We continue to be very involved in FamilyLife videos and Charlotte is loving the reception desk along with recruiting other staff wives to take a shifts at the reception desk. She has had the opportunity to meet many of the radio guests since Wednesdays is recording day and Wednesday is her work day.

Art of Marriage is so close to being released (January) that it is hard to believe that we have been working on this for over a year. Speaking of a year, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of moving to Little Rock on Nov 4 and working at FamilyLife on Dec 7. Where does time go?

Thanksgiving was not as eventful as usual this year since 4 of the kids were not able to come, but we still had Hal's niece and family stay for a couple of days and Hal's parents came. Christmas on the other hand will bring everyone together except David and Sarah Beth.

I guess the other big piece of news is leaving one church for another. When we arrived in Little Rock, our intention was to visit a bunch of churches to see what was out there and after 11 different churches we settled on a church similar to our church in Tulsa. After 8 months of attending, Hal playing in the orchestra, we realized that Amy (youngest at 13) was not making any friends and Charlotte was not finding an area of ministry. Therefore, we opted to start attending a very large Bible church in Little Rock. Amy already had friends there from a Bible study she is in, and Charlotte was able to start helping in the nursery right away, which she loves. But poor Hal, no orchestra. Not really, playing trumpet is not what God wants me to do right now, so I've plugged into the TV ministry (no surprise there) and is directing the church service. The strange thing about that is that I directed church services 30 years ago at Redwood Chapel in Castro Valley, CA and never expected to do it again. Remember the saying 'it's like riding a bike', the first rehearsal I switched and directed and it was like I never left, it all came back.

Christmas is almost upon us, Hal has hand surgery on Tuesday, kids will all be here, mom and dad are coming and we have the privilege of celebrating Christ's birth. How awesome.

Hal

Campus Crusade Day of Prayer

We just returned from a day away from the office praying. Instead of sharing all the details, I would like to post some prayer requests for FamilyLife specifically. As FamilyLife is launching the largest quantity of resources, mostly targeted for churches, we are now overwhelmed with a new task before us. At our Weekend to Remember Getaways, we have set aside a time after sessions to share with people how they can be involved in reaching people in their church, neighborhood, work place, and community with the message of a godly marriage and the plan of salvation. The response has been overwhelming. So far we have seen 1500 people in the first four weekends of Getaways respond, asking for help in reaching others in their communities. FamilyLife has coded this HOMEBUILDERS. Here are the requests related to our new task that God only knows how we can solve:

• We would be able to find missionary staff to facilitate and communicate with these people that have expressed the desire to reach their community.
• That the Art of Marriage videos would have 1000 showings around the United States on 2-11-11.
• That we would continue to have people at the Weekend to Remember express the desire to volunteer to reach their communities.
• For donors to the ministry to give above and beyond so we do not have to have layoffs of paid staff and we can have the necessary tools to work with.
• That the 'LifeReady' product would be a complete tool in reaching families within a church. LifeReady has different parts; Marriage, College, Women, Men, and family.

Thank you for your continued prayer support as we work supporting all these products in the video department.

Hal

Safely back in Little Rock

After 4500 miles in July and a short trip to Dallas of 600+ miles, it is nice to be where we now call home and not traveling. We had an exceptional time of renewing friendships with some partners and an incredible time of fellowship. Our travels took us through Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, Missouri, and back to Arkansas. Whew!

Kristi arrived on time at the Little Rock airport on July 31 after 1 week in the states training and 4 weeks in Ireland on an evangelical mission trip. Kristi was able to lead one girl to the Lord. To read more about her trip http://www.kristielisabeth.blogspot.com/

School is getting ready to start, year 2 home schooling with Amy.

Charlotte is now working at the reception desk at FamilyLife 5-9 hours a week. This is a dream come true.

I continue to work on the Art of Marriage video, Weekend to Remember video for China, and other miscellaneous projects throughout each week. One big challenge coming up the end of the month, I have to take 2 Bible classes at FamilyLife as part of our continuing education. One is Biblical Doctrine, the other is Bible Study Methods. I will be attending 8 hours of classes for 8 days with a final at the end. Pray I will do well on the final as I am not a great test taker.

Hal

Texas and Beyond

We have arrived home safely after 2 weeks of travel visiting ministry partners. We racked up 4500 miles on the car traveling from Little Rock to OKC to Montrose, CO to Amarillo, TX to San Antonio to Austin to Houston to KC to Tulsa to Little Rock.

This week we are in Staff Conference and will see the premier of Art of Marriage over the weekend. This is the main project I have worked on since arriving at FamilyLife. We also will have 3 of our ministry partners in this weekend to enjoy this also.

Next week is family week for 3 days. The entire family (ALL the kids and grandson) will arrive Sunday and leave Wednesday morning. Is our plate full? Just for about 5 days.

Kristi arrives home Saturday at 10pm after her 5 week mission trip to Ireland. Can't wait to hear the stories.

Hal

Weekend To Remember, Dallas

We had an excellent trip to Dallas and back for the Weekend to Remember. We recorded over a terabyte of footage over the 2 day event. That's a bunch of data.

Dallas was actually hotter than Little Rock over the weekend reaching temps over 100, but we were in the air conditioning most of the weekend. We just got a little wet unloading all the equipment on Thursday.

Now that we are back we will have 4 days to organize all the sessions and do some preliminary editing to prepare the video for China.

Hal

June is HOT

Living in Little Rock is a never ending experience. First we have an unusually cold winter, and now that we reached the first day of summer, the temperature is in the mid to upper nineties. No big deal, we hit those temperatures in Tulsa, but the big difference is humidity. It is way higher than Tulsa and there is no comparison to San Francisco Bay area where Charlotte & I grew up. I would still rather have the heat than the subzero temps of the north any day of the week.

June brought a lot of action with visitors from Tulsa, Jon surprising us with a visit yesterday (Fathers Day) and getting ready for the Weekend to Remember Getaway in Dallas and our partner trip the beginning of July. For those of our partners in Tulsa, OKC, Grand Junction, CO, Amarillo, Austin, Houston, KC, we will probably see you during this trip. This will probably be the last trip this year except for the missions conference at Tulsa Bible Church in October.

Kristi spent the entire month working, raising money for Ireland and doing a garage sale the past two Saturdays which netted her about $350 toward her trip. As I write this, she is $200 short of meeting her goal and she will be taking her spending money from her savings. Way to go Kristi. God is good all the time.

Hal

Graduation 2010

Five down, one to go.

Almost seems impossible that Kristi, our fifth, born on Mothers Day is now a graduate. How time flies.

On Friday we attend our first Home School graduation with 64 graduates. It was the best graduation we have ever attended and of course we are a little bias, but we were able to give Kristi her diploma, a big hug on stage, and I had to officially release my baby to be her own person. Now the training we have put into her for 18 years, we are praying will now come out in a positive way to live for the Lord. We are so thrilled to see her already choosing correctly by putting her missions trip to Ireland this summer as #1 priority.

Now we have a five year break from the craziness of the spring activities unless for some strange reason a wedding pops in there. We still have 4 over 18 not married, but that will probably change drastically over the next five years before Amy graduates.

What a blessing to have raised Kristi and all the wonderful memories we have of those years. God is good all the time.

Harold 'Hal'

Driving Shuttles

I guess it is only logical for someone with the last name of Driver be asked to 'drive' a shuttle bus. Today is the travel day for all of Campus Crusade New Staff (are currently raising support) to fly into Little Rock for their follow-up training. So, I'm running couples from Athletes in Action, FamilyLife, Military Ministry, and Student Venture from the airport to their training facility in the middle of God's creation. What a privilege to help in this simple but vital way.

Hal

Spring is here

Spring in finally here in Arkansas. After a long winter we are seeing so much green it is incredible how beautiful Little Rock is. Now the chores on the outside of our new home
begin. The biggest will be moving the rock garden back and planting grass in its place. We are about half way there, but it was interesting after we removed the brick border, to find a steel edging underneath that was rusted out, but the big surprise was another tree stump. We have located 12 stumps which is more than the live trees we have.

The biggest news we have to share is picking a church to settle into. We are attending Bible Church of Little Rock which happens to be the one we initially thought we would go to, but this church is very similar to our home church, Tulsa Bible Church.

I am nearing the end of my roll in the new video conference, LOVE U, at FamilyLife. This conference will be leased to churches and organizations to show on a Friday night/Saturday instead of an entire weekend. This will not replace the Weekend to Remember, but will be an alternative to an entire weekend.

Kristi continues to prep for graduation with the Prom coming next weekend. She is also starting the support raising process for a missions trip to Ireland. It goes from the 26th of June to the end of July.

Amy is making new friends at our new church and had the opportunity to attend a youth retreat at New Life Ranch.

Charlotte is active in the Women's Connection at FamilyLife, but is anxious for school to end and finding a ministry at church to plug into. I have the orchestra (no surprise there).

Our summer ministry trip is just about nailed down. We will be visiting our partner team in TX and southern CO this year. Our west coast partners will see us in 2011 either before our training in Ft. Collins, CO or after.

We are still looking for friends to come see us in Little Rock. The guest room is always open.

Hal

March Update

Wow, where to begin?

Kristi finished basketball season at the State tournament and won 80-28. Now she begins concentrated efforts on graduation in May.

Amy turned 13 (last teenager in the Driver home) on March 2nd. She was able to have a surprise party with about 5 friends she has made here in Little Rock.

Charlotte started a book study with the other 7 women who reported to FamilyLife at about the same time. It is a good time of fellowship for her. Home school still takes much of her time during the day.

Hal finished 3 shoots for the new FamilyLife video conference called 'Love U'. The most interesting was the CAVEMAN vignette, that was a hoot. Now he turns to editing all the footage we have gathered from all over the U.S. to build the complete package.

The rest of our kids continue their jobs. We will see Jon next week in Little Rock during spring break. We will connect with Joel on the 14th, David and Sarah Beth move to NC in April to begin work at a new Chick-fil-a and Katie continues to live and work in Rogers, AR.

Pray we find a church home soon. Not being connect is beginning to wear on us.

Hal

February

It looks like it is time for another post since it has been over a month. As the saying goes 'no news is good news' because things are clipping along here in Little Rock both at FamilyLife and at home. Kristi is into the tournament season for basketball, State, Regionals, then Nationals.

I have been rather busy at FamilyLife with over 30 FamilyLife Today shows edited for promos on the internet. I actually got to go on a shoot outside FamilyLife for our vCon (Video Conference) seminar we are working on. It brought back memories of the days I did that at least once a week in Tulsa.

Amy is enjoying her new friend down the street and had a blast sledding down the street on real sleds like the ones I had as a kid. (see February newsletter)

Charlotte is busy home schooling and fitting into some of the groups they have put together for new staff women. Needless to say, she has met a bunch of women from FamilyLife.

Tulsa is still not on the radar for traveling to (snow canceled our January trip), but we are trying to find a weekend before the end of March.

Pray we find a church home soon. We have at least settled on three Bible churches to pick from.

Hal

New Year in Little Rock

As the new year and decade begin, we are still amazed where God has put us, Little Rock, Arkansas. We were able to attend a staff meeting where Dennis Rainey and Bill Eyster (Executive VP) showed us the projects and roll outs of new and revamped resources. It was amazing what God is allowing FamilyLife to do.

We also heard the preliminary numbers for the year end Match, $2.2 million. Amazing again how God is blessing the work of FamilyLife in our 'depressed' economy. What God is behind, God will provide for.

Work is starting to ramp up with new projects and editing of old ones. I was given a task of making promotional videos from the Weekend To Remember in Dallas last year. These will be clips from various sessions about 4 min. each that will be on the web, YouTube, etc. How fun to be doing video again.

Charlotte is still trying to get a handle on a 'routine' of home school, involvement with some of the women at FamilyLife and keeping up with our partners.

Hal

Week 2 at FamilyLife

We finished up our second week which proved to be much more productive with the completion of editing 8 FamilyLife Today programs. A 3 minute clip of each day will be posted on the web site 2 weeks before the program so people will get a flavor of what the program is about. The next 2 weeks will be a little slow because of Christmas and New Years. We are building edit suites next to our studio so we can be in the same general area all the time.

The girls continued in home school and reached their Christmas break on Friday. Charlotte continues to settle in meeting many people at FamilyLife. She was able to participate in a Ornament exchange at FamilyLife, the Christmas Party and received a home visit from 4 women at the ministry. We are seeing God orchestrate all the events to help us continue to fit in to this new phase of life God has called us to.

Hal

We began our ministry at FamilyLife

I guess it is about time for an update, much has taken place about a month early. I started work at FamilyLife on Monday and I was able to use those God given talents immediately. The first day I was able to help a co-worker with a Photoshop question, and today I will be helping another with Photoshop.

As for the video department (which is why we are at FamilyLife) I do my first shoot today and the projection is, we will save about 8 hours of editing time a week because I can use my directing skills immediately. God has put us in the right place at the right time.

Now, why am I at FamilyLife a month early? God blessed us with the completion of our support (2% from finishing) in the past few weeks. We did adjust some things, which made it possible to be this close and to minister now and our FamilyLife coaches gave us the 'go ahead' to begin work over the weekend. Thanks Tom! The first day was a little overwhelming looking at all the projects that need completion, but we will be able to knock a few out pretty quick.

Charlotte is still trying to get the house in order and do Christmas all at the same time. We still can't find a few of our Christmas lights, so another trip to the store. Many trips to Home Depot and Lowes to change a few things to our house to make it a home. I put mini binds up on the kitchen window last night, it really helped dress up the kitchen a little.

Charlotte and the girls went to Tulsa last week to see the dentist and connect the girls with some of their friends. That was good for everyone, but Amy is seeing Tulsa drift into her past.

The girls are doing great at home school, and Kristi's basketball team is really good. Their average point spread is over 50 points per game. This gives Kristi plenty of playing time, she scored 10 last night. Amy is busy cooking desserts and would do 2 or 3 a day if we let her, she did a pumpkin pie on Monday.

God has been gracious to us this past month with all the changes and getting settled in, we are in awe.

Hal