00ea529.netsolhost.comGoing for Gods Grammy - 00ea529netsolhostcom

Stephen Anthony / MMI Login Register Home The Music OnePage “Love and Knowledge” “Love and Knowledge” But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 Something I have been pondering this past week is that God loves us and He knows us....the good the bad and the ugly...It is one thing to be loved by someone who does know know us (maybe that's why they love us) It is another thing for someone to know us but not love us (and for good reason) But God does know us and He still loves us. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 My hope and prayer is that this love and knowledge will comfort us and encourage us and challenge us to live lives worthy of God calling us into His kingdom and glory (glory=never ending presence). May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and love of God the Father and fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all~Stephen Stephen Anthony Laudise Going For God’s Grammy "Introduction" Born January 13, 1954 at St. Luke Hospital in Pasadena California to Patricia Ann and Ernest Theodore Laudise. Being the first grandchild of Ernest and Lillian Laudise, I was spoiled rotten to say the least. I was also my Uncle Will and Aunt Marion Metz’s first nephew so they spoiled me as well. The first five years of my life I thought I was the only little boy on planet earth destined to become King of at least Toy Land on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel. My Uncle Will bought me a new super hero outfit every week it seemed. One week I was Superman and the next week I was Zorro. My father had met and fell in love with my mother in Hawaii. My dad was in the Navy and my mom lived there with her sister Mary and her husband Swede. After I was born my parents both worked at the Hickory Hill in Los Angeles and my only living grandfather took care of me for six months every day until he passed from a bad heart in '58. He had been sent home and told to take it easy. Ernie taught me how to cuss by saying,"Ship really fast" which my grandmother did not approve of. He would scare me by telling me not to move because there was a butterfly on top of my head which my Uncle Will, a photographer in the Navy, caught on film. My father wanted to be a jet fighter pilot so off we went to aviation school in Georgia. My parents actually got divorced because only single guys were allowed at the flight school. I actually attended their second wedding right after he graduated. It was there in Georgia when I was only five years old these ladies would come over to the house and ask my mom if I could go to their Sunday School. My mother asked me if I wanted to go and for some reason I said yes. The Sunday School was in a home and we watched movies and were taught all about how God sent His Son to earth to become a man and save us from sin, death and the devil. That God wanted to take us to heaven after we died. I loved hearing about this God who loved us so much. Dad got stationed at Lukes Air Force Base in Arizona. My best friend Michael Wells was tickling me and I banged my face into the floor which cut my fairly brand new left front tooth in half. To save my tooth until it got bigger I had a silver crown which made me feel a little bit like Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer and was made fun of quite regularly. My first sister, Laurel, then my second sister, Jan arrived about a year and a half later. After that we would be moving all over the place starting in Clovis New Mexico and then off to England where my twin brothers Michael and Chris were born. Needless to say my dictatorship was terminated rather quickly and I being the first born was demoted to the head baby sitter/servant of all. My dad got orders to Lakenheath AFB in order to fly with real nuclear bombs in his F-100. This was part of a program called M.A.D. which stood for mutual... assured... destruction. The Air Force was not supportive of families at the time so my dad went ahead of us then out of his own pocket flew the four of us to England but had to live in a village called Barrow. We had arrived on Christmas Eve 1961 and was allowed to stay in a trailer on base until we could find accommodations off base. My dad found us a little cottage in Barrow. Our second Christmas in Barrow England my Aunt Betty sent me a Bible and since it was not a toy I thought that meant she was mad at me. Anyway I did like the pictures in it. I had prided myself in saying my prayers every single night since I was four years old. This record was broken when now at 8 years I got the German measles with a fever of 104. I was devastated. My all time favorite gifts as a young boy living in Barrow was my toy jet fighter cockpit and a tape recorder. I just loved hearing the sound of my own voice and pretending to shoot down MIG 15’s! My mom gave birth to twin boys along with four other mom’s giving birth to twins on the same day! The story was on the BBC where I saw her on Television! Now I had two younger sisters and two younger brothers. Music was really a big deal in England so I started buying 45 rpm records by saving up my allowance each week and watching Top Of The Pops and Ready Steady Go on BBC. Living in England out in the country I had to go to an English public school in Barrow where all the boys had to wear short pants and a cap, school shirt and jacket...I looked like the lead guitarist for AC/DC before they ever existed ha! During our summer break these missionaries were at our school and my best friend Stephen Bellchambers came back with a really cool pencil set. It was like the iPod of the sixties so I asked him how I could get me one. He gave me some verses out of the Bible to memorize. When I felt I was ready I went with him as his guest and scored a really cool pencil set just like Stephen’s. At the end of the evening the missionaries brought out a felt board (the power point of the sixties) with Jesus knocking on the door of a heart. The missionary asked us if anyone wanted to open their heart and receive Christ as their Savior? Being all of eight years old I figured if you did that maybe you would win something really big like a bike. So I did it but even though I waited and waited and was the last one there to leave I never got anything. Looking back I realized I had received the greatest gift of all, Jesus, God’s Son. But at the time I felt I had been ripped off by the missionaries and even by God Himself. While living in Barrow I was asked if I was yank. It didn’t seem like a good thing so I told them “No! I was a rebel!” which sounded way cooler at the time and got them to leave me alone for a season. Finally we moved closer to the base where my father was stationed in the village of Barton Mills. Again I attended another English public school for a couple of months where once again I was called a yank and became a wee bit too popular at this school with the local girls. Finally, I got to go to school on the base with all the other base kids. My best friend Gerald Green asked me if I would like to sing the church boys choir. I answered,”Why?”Gerald responded with,”They pay us.” I auditioned and got in. Every practice on Thursday you made threepence and every Sunday you you made another threepence. Every six weeks we got paid. This was strictly mad candy money and the British knew a lot about candy. Because Gerald and I were so close he would invite me to the annual Church outing at Lowestoft one year and Brighton the next year. This was only my third experience with religion and church. After moving back to the States I really did not go to church or anything (both my parents were God-fearing people but since my mother was a Catholic and my dad was an Italian Baptist we did not attend church except for an occasional wedding). I was seven when we first moved to England and eleven years old when we moved back to the good old USA. My father went back to school at the University of Wyoming in La...