Refreshments

We had two sets of refreshments at the ladies Bible study today. They were both good. The study went a little long but everyone enjoyed the conversation. We left the house about 1:00 and headed for Henderson. We stopped by my mother's house first and she was doing great. We had tea and tea cakes with her and my older brother came down to have tea with us as well. Mother had gotten a letter asking for a donation to the World War II museum. She wanted us to tell her whether or not to contribute. My brother looked it over briefly and said "NO." Mother placed it in the trash and that was that. Janie's parents are doing well. The picture is of them sitting in their chairs side by side. Her dad has to walk a little farther with this arrangement but seems to not mind for he seems to like having her sit beside him. You can see Janie tucking her mother in. Her foot is still swollen and hurting from her last fall. In the morning we will head back to Hillsboro with a quick stop at TBI and another to check on Sis. Davis. God bless you.

Let There Be Light

This picture is of one of the deacons at our church changing the light bulbs out in front of our church. Now that's a good deacon. There are six lights and only two of them where burning. He replaced them all with energy efficient bulbs.

Janie and I went to the nursing home this morning and helped in the church services there. It was not raining when we arrived but it started shortly there after. We had a church member taken to the emergency room so after the nursing home we went to the hospital. I dropped Janie off at the door and parked the car. I had no umbrella so got very wet crossing the parking lot. We are so thankful we have a garage at the parsonage. It is nice to not have to get wet getting into the house.

I am boiling a steak and some veggies for supper. The weather is going to be cold the next few days with a possibility of snow up to 3 inches on Thursday. We need to make a quick trip to Henderson and plan to do that Tuesday afternoon. I worked on getting the church van road ready. We will be leaving Friday night about 8:00 to pick up Jason and his family at the airport. Hopefully the weather will be nice.

After the news is over our guest rooms will occupy our attention. Stacie and her kids will probably leave Friday morning and we will have to get the rooms ready again. Jason, Angie, Lilia, Caleb, Micah, Andrew, Sarah, and Justin will all be spending the night with us Friday. It may seem a bit crowded but it will be fun.

Supper is ready, lets eat. God bless you.

BROKEN

The church house was cold when I arrived at my office this morning. My desk top computer at the office is broken and has bit the dust. It is about six and a half years old and served us well. I will offer it to my son-in-law, perhaps he can salvage some of its parts. I ended up working on the sermon for Sunday morning and the Sunday School lesson instead of my thesis. My plans are to work on the thesis tomorrow afternoon.

When I returned home for lunch Janie had found a YouTube video on how to repair the broken agitator in her washing machine. Hers has been broken for quite a while. I watched the video and saw how easy it was to fix and left the video still playing and went strait to work on the washing machine. I got it apart and then called the 800 number and ordered the parts ($9.47). They will be here Friday. Its hard to believe that it was something so simple.

Jason, Angie, and the kids will be arriving at 9:00 pm on Friday. We are so looking forward to seeing them. My daughter and her children are going to come and stay a few days with us and will have already gone home when we head out to pick up Jason. We will need to take the Church van to pick them up at the airport and since we have not cranked the van in several months I hope it is not broken. I will check it out on Monday.

My mother has made some bread for Jason and his family and we are going to make a quick trip over to Henderson to get that and also to check on my niece who had to have emergency surgery on Friday. It seems something inside was broken and they had to go in and fix it. She is doing well but will be in the hospital recovering for the next few days.

We went to Sam's this afternoon to pick up some things we thought we needed for when our son and his family arrive. We bought some foods in bulk which they like and if they don't eat it all while here they can take it back to France with them when they leave.

After supper we went over to the church to take care of something there and then went and bought a few things at Wal-Mart. None of my cashiers were on duty, which has happened a lot lately, so I am going to have to start to work on a new one. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about here's the deal. I try to make friends with people who serve me in public. This means waiters, waitresses, cashiers, postal employees etc. I try to be a friend to them and gain their friendship and trust. This takes a lot of time and often I must wait in a longer line to get the person I want. Sometimes these people are not saved and so once I gain their trust and they know about me and I about them I share my faith in Jesus Christ with them. Sometimes they are already saved and have a relationship with Jesus. I rejoice when that is the case and strive to encourage them in their walk with the Lord. Many times people are broken and need to be fixed and Jesus is the only one who can fix them. Jesus told His disciples to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Building serious and real relationships with people is the best way to help them to know the Lord or to know Him better.

Well it is time to head for bed and a night of un-broken sleep. The picture is of my grandson, Caleb, a few years ago when he was at our house. Something must have caused his sweet heart to be broken but I don't remember what it was. God bless you.

Home School Students

I spoke to a group of home school students today on the subject of hiking. There were 15 boys in the group. They were very well behaved and very attentive. They asked a lot of questions and the one I did not expect them to ask one of the boys asked. "What do you do if you have to go to the bathroom when out on the trail?" Looking at their faces I could tell they all wanted to know.

In all I spoke for an hour and a half and had their undivided attention the whole time. The equipment that I used for this demo was for a two day hike and the weight of the pack was 19 pounds. That included everything but water.

After the session was over we took our grandkids to Wal-Mart and bought them a few things. Then after returning to their house we loaded up and head back to Hillsboro. We got home about 11:00 pm and now that we have everything unloaded and have blogged we will head for bed. Tomorrow I plan to work on my thesis. God bless you.

Rain

Well it rained all day today. I got up and worked on the sermon for Sunday. Next, I got my hiking gear out and sorted through it, repacking my backpack getting my gear ready for the lecture. I have a FireSteel fire starter that I never actually started a fire with. I went out in the back yard and put a cotton ball down on top of a brick. With one stroke on the steel the cotton ball burst into flames. I was amazed. This FireSteel works even when it's raining and wet. I also tried making wood shavings with a pencil sharpener and a stick. That also worked very well. I have both these items in my backpack. Reviewing my gear makes me anxious to go hiking again. My brother and I plan to hike March 11th and 12th if it doesn't rain.

We left the house about 4:00 and drove in the rain to Palestine, where we met our daughter and son-in-law and had supper together. The rain continued as we headed to Moss Hill and it rained on us all the way. We are anxious to see the grandkids and are looking forward to tomorrow's activities.

This picture was taken a couple of years ago of me hiking in the rain. God bless you.

Buzzards

This morning I rose early and got to work on the Sunday School lesson. It is a difficult text and needed a lot of study. I also worked on the lesson we had tonight from the book of Nahum. As we were getting ready to leave my father-in-law's house I looked out the kitchen window and saw 13 buzzards meandering about the backyard. Three of them were fighting with each other. I went outside to take a closer look and they first just looked me over then 7 of them flew up into a tree and the rest sought refuge on top of the old barn (pictured) out back. I did not see nor smell any carrion so I guess they were just having a get together. My mother-in-law said she did not know what she could do about them. We concluded they were probably a good thing to have around.

We went by to see Sis. Davis and she seems to be doing well. After leaving there we returned to Hillsboro and I left Janie at the house and went to meet a man at the church. I got so involved in teaching him how to use a computer that I forgot to watch the time. Janie called and remined me that I needed to come back home and pick her up for church which I did. The services were good. We discovered that Bro. Brian Jones had left part of his display at our church Sunday night and called him to let him know we found it. He wants us to bring it to Henderson on our next trip there.

Tomorrow morning I will work on my thesis and then get my hiking gear ready to go. I am looking forward to talking to the boys about hiking. I plan to share the Gospel with them while I have their attention. God bless you.

1,335 Is Not A Lot

Before we got into the lesson this morning at the ladies Bible study one of the ladies asked a question about the 1290 days and the 1335 days mentioned at the end of the book of Daniel. It says that blessed is the one who comes to the 1335th day from the mid-point of the great tribulation. This amounts to 75 days more than the 3 and 1/2 years or 42 months of the second half of the tribulation. We really can only speculate about what is going to happen in these 75 days but for the one who has lived through the Great Tribulation that last 75 days will seem short compared to the 1260 which precede it. I am not sure if Ezekiel's temple will be built during that 75 day period or not but I am sure that if the Lord wants it finished in a matter of days it will be done.

We had some errands to run in Hillsboro this afternoon and got those done then headed for Henderson. Janie's dad wanted us to pick up a mixer to give to Charlcye for her birthday. We stopped and picked one up and while we were in Corsicana we went by Gander Mountain. I had been given a gift card so I picked up some things for hiking. When we got to Henderson we called and got the grocery list. The picture is of Janie picking up the milk.
Tomorrow I will rise early and work on my sermon for Wednesday night and sermon for Sunday. We will head back to Hillsboro after stopping in to check on Sis. Davis. I have a meeting at my office at the church Wednesday afternoon so will need to be back in Hillsboro by 3:00. Sis. Davis seems to be doing well. She was sick over the weekend but felt better today. Keep her in your prayers. God bless you.

Peoria

I was in Peoria, Texas today doing a graveside service. It was 40 degrees but the wind was not blowing so it did not feel so bad. The CD player stopped working during the first song and so we had to sing the second song instead. Most people, even if they have never gone to church, know the words to Amazing Grace so it went well. The Lady who had passed away was 92 years old. I noticed that she was missing three fingers on her left hand. I asked one of her grandsons how she had lost the fingers and it seems that when she was 80 years old she decided to fix a hole in the barn which her husband kept putting off doing. He was very sick at the time so she got a board and turned on the power saw and proceeded to cut the board to length and ended up cutting off three fingers. The other stories he told of her were warm and tender. She sounded like a wonderful grandmother.

I composed and posted Tribman just a little bit ago. I posted it on this blog instead of where it was suppose to be so had to delete it and put it in the right spot. To you who get my blog by email I want to say sorry about that.

We have ladies Bible study in the morning and right after lunch we plan to head over to Tyler to check on Sis. Davis. The church down in Hewitt had wanted us to come there Tuesday night but I did not think we could make it back in time so had to put them off until later on. I hated to do that because I love meeting with them, they are such good people.

While filling our car up with fuel today I noticed that we are about to hit 97,000 miles. It has been a good car and it still averages about 45 miles per gallon. It needs a bath real bad so maybe tomorrow I will take it through the car wash. The picture is of Lilia, Sarah, and Ruth. God bless you.