August

Janie and her mother

I made a trip down to Waco today for a surgery. That trip went well and returning home I ate a bowl of homemade chili.  It was really good on this cold day.  I got some work done and then went to church.  The service was not well attended but those present had a good time of singing and reflection with the scriptures. I wish that all of our church members would and could attend all of our services but I know that such a thing is just not possible.

Janie trying on a new dress

We booked our tickets today for our trip to France.  We are due to leave on August 1st and return on the 18th.  We are going to fly from the Dallas/Fort Worth airport to London's Heathrow airport then to Toulouse, France which is a city just an hours drive from Jason's house in Magrie.  Sometime during our stay we plan to make a trip by rented van to Normandy and to tour the D-day invasion sites.  I am looking forward to that and spending time with the grandkids who will be out of school the whole time we are there.  It should be, Lord willing, a really good vacation.  
We are due to see our state side grandchildren on Friday and that will be good.  Janie's father is in the nursing home for rehabilitation and we will be spending some time there cheering and encouraging him, or he us. We will return to Hillsboro on Saturday after attending a 90th birthday party.  Janie and I have to leave the house at 5:00 in the morning to attend a surgery in Arlington so I had better head for bed.  God bless you.

$1,100.00 What a blessing

Way more than $100.00 richer

When Sarah and Justin arrived at our house on Monday they came in bringing a gift that they said was a late Christmas gift.  Sarah handed it to Janie and she opened it revealing an 8x10 picture frame.  Janie and I were puzzled by this strange gift until Sarah held it up to the wall next to her and Justin's wedding picture.  This spot is of course reserved for their first child as was the case with each of our other children.  Hugs and congratulations followed of course and we are very excited and happy for them.  When we got back home from Garland on Monday we took them out to eat and then to a teller machine to withdraw $100.00 cash.  As those of you who know me and have been reading this blog know, I give $100.00 to my children upon the announcement of their expectancy of a child.  So far I have been out $1,100.00.  What a blessing!  If she should have twins I will be out another $100.00.  It may be noted that we have not adjusted this amount for inflation; it was $100 12 years ago and its still $100.  Jason and Angie where shorted with Arianna for their $100.00 converted to Euros came out be only about $65.00.  I don't adjust for exchange rates either.

In the back seat Janie and I enjoyed being chauffeured to Garland

The ladies Bible study was really good this morning.  We have started the critique of a sermon by David Jeremiah on the timing of the rapture.  We spent 15 minutes on his use of the phrase "the rapture of the church" which occurred within the first minute and 28 seconds of his sermon.  It is a misnomer of that event called the rapture.  It is the rapture of the saints or of the redeemed not of the church. This prompted some good discussion.  I really enjoy the Ladies Bible Study.
The services at Lorena were outstanding.  We sing several songs and then I preach without a time limit.  We have a short time of visiting afterward and part ways having truly worshiped the Lord.
I may have to go to Waco for a surgery tomorrow but will not know until in the morning.  I have much study to do and so I better get to it.  God bless you.

Let It Snow

Our church parking lot as Janie and I were leaving Sunday

It snowed here on Sunday.  We had a much larger attendance on Sunday morning and Sunday night than I had expected.  It was very cold and raining when we went to church and by the time services were over it was snowing hard and beginning to stick to the ground.  The afternoon saw the snowing stop and the melt down begin. Most of the snow was gone by the time we left for church Sunday night.  Sunday morning I had preached from the book of Amos on the subject of "The Fourth Sin."  Sunday night I showed some videos of Atheists putting down people who believe in God.  The deacons meeting was very short.

The court house in Hillsboro taken Saturday from the Post office

The roads were in bad shape in the Dallas area so the meeting I was to attend was called off.  About 10:30 I got a call that the meeting was on again and we would meet for lunch and then take care of business.  Justin and Sarah drove up just as we were about to leave.  They are going to spend the night with us.  They went with us to Garland and Justin did the driving.  My blog book arrived also as we were about to leave.  I spent most of the driving time looking a the blog book for 2010.  I counted 117 pictures of Janie in the book.  You would gather from this statistic that I like her and you would be right.  I have not counted but I suspect that pictures of grandkids would come in second.  I enjoyed looking through the book because many of the things in it I had forgotten.  It is amazing how soon we forget the years of our lives.  I wish I had been able to blog for the past 37 years.  Well its off to bed now.  I will be making a major announcement tomorrow so stay tuned.  God bless you.

Precious Memories

Janie's sister feeding her dad

I was at the Post Office this afternoon all by myself when a man came in whistling the song "Precious Memories."  I spoke to him and he to me then he resumed the song.  As he began to leave I said "Precious Memories."  He replied "That's right."  He made for me a precious memory.  I like living in a small town.  The vast majority of the people of Hillsboro that I encounter are friendly and courteous.  I went to the grocery store today to pick up a few things and while I was there one of the men who works there was singing at the top of his voice the song that was playing on the store's sound system.  He was off key and lagging behind in tempo but there was a joy in his voice.  It made me start to sing hoping that I was a little more on key and in sync with the song.  It is so nice to be around happy people.

My mother-in-law, son-in-law and daughter Friday evening

I am about to type up my sermon for Sunday.  It is suppose to be bad weather tomorrow so our attendance may be low.  I studied the Sunday School Lesson this afternoon and reviewed the lesson for Sunday night.  It is suppose to be below freezing and snowing here Sunday night so again our attendance may not be very large.
Sarah and Justin came over to Henderson to see my father-in-law in the hospital.  They brought my 16 foot flat bed trailer back to Henderson.  He had put all new lights on it and a new RV type connector plug.  It looked and worked really good. I am going to be very careful about loaning it out from now on.  I do not have a truck right now but plan to get one in another year or so.  Then I will have a way of hauling a trailer.  Justin does really good work. You may remember that he is the one who made the cabinets you see in the picture.  Well its off to type a sermon entitled "The Fourth Sin."  God bless you.

The First Walk of the Year

Janie and I on our 2nd walk of the year

Janie and I took our first and second walks of the year today.  The first was early this afternoon and the second was just as the sun was going down.  My father-in-law is doing well.  We just returned from the last visiting time for the day.  He was sleeping soundly so we did not wake him.  He was very talkative at 6:00 but sleeping at 8:00. 
Janie's sister and her husband are on their way here from Mississippi.  They should arrive about midnight.  It will be good to have them here. One of the daughters can spend time with their dad while the other spends time with their mom.  We will most likely head home Friday evening depending on how things go with my father-in-law tomorrow.  I plan to work on my thesis in the morning. I read 14 chapters in the Bible today and worked on the sermon for Sunday. 

Janie on our afternoon walk

Between ICU visitation times this evening Janie and I went to the store to get some things that my mother-in-law needed.  Janie wanted to shop for some clothes and while at the store I found what I considered to be an ugly dress. I showed it to Janie and she agreed.  I asked her to try it on and let me see what it would looked like.  To my surprise she consented.  She came to the door of the dressing area to show me the dress and I took her picture.  I will not display it here on this blog (37 years of marriage has taught me better).  It was fun and I will keep the picture in my cell phone as a sweet memory.  I did show the picture to my mother-in-law and she thought it looked good.  It will be in my 2011 blog book if I remember to add it in.  God bless you.

Hospital

Huge hollow limb with a bee hive inside

Tuesday night, after the services at Lorena were over, we went outside in the back yard where the services had been held to see an amazing sight.  There was a hollow tree limb laying on the ground and it was full of bees.  You could hear them humming away inside the limb.   The lady whose house we were at keeps bees and this limb was a gift to her.  The man was cutting firewood and had cut this limb out of a tree.  He brought it to her on a trailer and the bees stayed right with it all the way.
Wednesday was a busy day and the services Wednesday night were good.  I led the singing and that is amazing because Sunday I coughed so bad I could barely get through my Sunday school lesson and sermon never mind sing.  The cough is much better now.

In the emergency room this morning

Janie called her mother to see how they were doing and her dad is not well.  He has pneumonia and is even now in ICU at the Henderson Hospital.  We got to the Hospital this morning about 1:00 and stayed until almost 4:00.  After only a few hours of sleep Janie got up and headed back to the hospital to be there for the 10:00 visiting hour.  She plans to have him transferred to Tyler where his doctor is located.  His fever was 103 and he was completely unresponsive.  When we left the hospital this morning he did say a couple of words so was making improvement.  Keep him in your prayers.  I have stayed behind to keep my mother-in-law from being at home alone.  As Janie and I were standing by her dad's bedside in the ER a nurse came in to start the I.V. medication and she asked Janie "Are you his wife?" referring to her dad. Don't you know that made Janie's day.  Janie called just now and said her dad is back to his right mind.  He smiling and talking and feel better.  He does not remember yesterday or how he got to the hospital.  Janie sounded relieved that her dad was doing good.  God bless you.

Swear

The Swearing in ceremony: the tallest one is our music director.

I went to the court house today for the swearing in of our local officials. Our music director was in the group being sworn in as one of the county commissioners.  It was a really good ceremony. I had to leave rather abruptly after the ceremony was over to get down to Waco for a surgery.  I had lunch with the family while the surgery was being preformed.  The surgeon said that all went well and so I left to head back to Hillsboro.  I had just left the parking lot when I got a call that there had been complications in recovery and it was serious so I turned around and went back to check on things.  I waited with the family for another hour or so until we got word that everything was going to be okay. 
Janie was taking a nap when I got home, she was not feeling well. She got up and got Jason's report ready to print and part way through that process the printer ran out of ink.  We dropped what we were doing and headed down to Waco to pick up some ink for the printer and while we were there we went to a movie.  It was a good time.  We got back home in time for me to get a little work done and to blog before heading for bed. God bless you.

Elephant's Hind Leg

Me working on my French lesson.  Made a 47% on the unit 1 final exam.

I found this quote from Abraham Lincoln.  "When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run." That is pithy, is it not? Sometimes I have an elephant by the hind leg and don't realize it.  Some things you just can't stop and if you try you will end up in bad way.  When a thing is too big for you to handle the first problem you must face is to recognize that the thing is too big to handle.  Once you get that figured out turning loose is the easy part.  Prayer mixed with faith, that's how you turn loose of that elephant's hind leg.  God can take care of that elephant so turn loose.

We had good services today.  Our Sunday night service was very well attended.  I am very encouraged by this trend because our attendance was dropping and there seemed to be no stopping it.  When you let go of that elephant God will take over.

My Father back in the 60's at the church he pastored in Ayer, Mass.

After services tonight we were invited to a couples house for a time of fellowship.  We enjoyed it very much. I sat at the table with the new pastor of the First Baptist Church of Hillsboro.  I gave him the 20 questions work over and he fared well.  He is an amillennialist, and a non-gapper.  Like me, he is working on his doctor's degree.  He is a really nice guy and the three times I have heard him preach he has done very well.  He seems to have the fire so I like him.
I will be going to the court house in the morning to watch a swearing in ceremony and then its off to Waco for surgery there.  Stay away from those elephant hind legs and God bless you.

New Years Day

Janie's 37th Wedding Anniversary gift

Janie and I slept late this morning arising at about 10 o'clock.  We went to Wal-mart to pick up a few things we needed.  I had ordered a gift for Janie for our anniversary and it had come in. I got started next on my New Year goals.  I have done my Bible readings and studies.  After I get through blogging I plan to do my French lesson. 
The new bread making machine is longing to make its first loaf.  Its mouth will open in a bit and it will swallow up the bread ingredients.  In three hours it will bring forth its first loaf just in time to go with that homemade vegetable soup. (Il fait du pain. meaning "It makes bread." I think.... guess I better get on that French lesson.) God bless you.