Rain Reigns

Rain has reigned over my day today.  I wanted to get the yard mowed but the rain said no.  I wanted to watch Clint, the young man who was burned so badly just a year ago, operating his tractor but the rain said no.  I wanted to get the church bus ready to go for camp but the batteries were a problem and so that is going to have to wait for a day of two.  I needed to get the oil changed in our car but there was no time for that today.  I did manage to go to the bank, post office, court house, and office supply store.  We needed the rain so I am not complaining.
One of our church members stopped by and left us some tomatoes and they sure are good.  We were given some peaches by a couple down in Lorena and they are real good.  I am going to make some peach cobbler for the grandkids.  I like to let the grandkids cook.  It gives us quality time together.  We will make some fudge and some homemade ice cream while they are here.  I wish I had one of those old fashioned hand crank ice cream freezers.  When I was a kid we took turns sitting on the freezer and cranking that handle.  The ice cream just tastes better when you have to work for it. 

In the morning we are going to head over to Henderson.  Janie's dad has a doctor's appointment and we will need to take him.  Friday I need to help my mother with her TV unless my brother takes care of it first.  Mother got a good report from the doctor today.  She says everything was just fine. Janie will carry her mother to the beauty shop Friday then we will head back to Hillsboro. 

Stacie is about 45 minutes away from here as I am writing this.  She plans to stay with us until we go off to camp and then she is going to try to drive to Michigan to see her mother-in-law. 
The picture is one I took during the afternoon session of the National Ladies Auxiliary meeting when we were at the ABA meeting in Charleston, WV.

2B Or Not Be 2B

It would seem that I am too busy (2B).  When someone calls and asks me if I am busy I try not to lie but the truth is I am always busy.  I always have something I need to do or need to be doing.  I took off Monday afternoon from my busy schedule and went to visit with sister Davis over in Tyler.  It was a two hour drive over and three hours there with another two hour drive back to the house.  Before we left I thought that I really needed to water the flowers and mow the yard.  I chose to let these chores go so that I might comfort and help a widow, a thing that I felt very strongly the Spirit of God was leading me to do.  When I returned home I praised the Lord for while I put His will ahead of my flowers He took care of watering the flowers by giving us an inch of rain. My day is always going to be filled with something.  It is my prayer that each day will be filled with that which pleases God.  The first picture is of one of the Moss Rose that Janie set out in the flower beds. The second picture is of Justin and Sarah looking at them.
Sister Davis has an email address now.  If you would like to have her email address then email me and I will give it to you.  I don't want to post it here for the whole world to see.  On our next visit to see her I will give her a few more pointers about email and the internet.  She seemed happy to have learned a new skill. 
I have been very busy working on camp.  I am the registrar for camp 4 and I was on the phone today with our camp director checking on things.  Our numbers are low right now but I am hopeful we will make the minumum of 250 required for the discount rate.  We have a good camp but it seems to be going down in attendance.  I teach the Adult class at camp and I need to put the finishing touches on the lessons.  I have a sermon ready to go if called upon to preach.  I also have a cabin devotional ready. 

I worked on the sermon for Sunday and have it ready to go.  The Bulletin is ready also.  I did a special bulletin just for the fourth of July.  I still have to get a sermon ready for Sunday night.  I need to get back to my thesis but it is just not going to happen this week.  Stacie and her kids will be here tomorrow night and will stay with us through the end of next week.  I would love to take the week off and spend the whole time with the grandkids but that is not going to be possible, I am just 2B to do that.  I will have to go to the office to get some work done while they are here and hopefully I will be able to make some serious progress on the Thesis next week.  I have to admit that I have considered giving up on the thesis.  It seems my life is 2B right now.  When my mind considers giving up I think "I should not be 2B to study God's word."  God bless you.

When It Rains

The old saying goes "When it rains it pours."  When I left for the ABA meeting one of our church members was in the hospital.  We returned today to find 3 of our church members in the hospital.  Tomorrow afternoon we will make a hospital run. We will need to go down to Waco to see one there and the other 2 are here in Hillsboro.
We had a good visit with Janie's sister and brother-in-law.  We started right off getting a Bible out and having a deep Bible discussion.  Later after Janie's niece arrived with her new baby, which was an unexpected thrill for us, we went out to eat.  The ladies went shopping while me and my brother-in-law went back to the house.  We talked Bible the whole time and I also preached him the short version of the sermon I have planned for this Sunday.  We had a really good time. 
We made it back to Hillsboro and after unloading the car we went to see 2 in the Hospital.  We ate supper when we got back home and then during supper we watched a movie.  Janie is going over the songs for Sunday and I have been unpacking.  Just thought I would stop and blog before heading for bed.  The picture is of Janie with her sister, brother-in-law, and great niece.  God bless you.

ABA, Done

The Sunday School literature is going up in price by 5%.  That was one of the actions taken by the messenger body in yesterdays meeting.  The Wednesday night service was excellent.  Bro. Alvin Dickerson preached the sermon and it was good.  It is the only sermon that after being printed in the minute book I will actually go and read it.  It contains a poem he wrote that was very moving. 

We took the booth down at 10:00 pm Wednesday night.  This morning we finished the session 45 minutes early so they voted to set aside the rule that we had to have an afternoon session and we went ahead and finished all the business early.  We checked out of the room and headed toward home.  We are spending tonight in Nashville, TN and should be home on Saturday.  The first picture is of the building where our meetings were held.  The second is of the missionaries and their families and their sponsoring pastors during the missions presentation. The third is a picture Janie took while we were setting at a traffic light this afternoon.  Thanks to the generosity and kindness of my Sunday School class we have eaten out three times, once yesterday and twice today.  I will have to admit it was better than Spam.  God bless you.

A Walk in the Rain

Our morning started with a walk in the rain over to the meeting. The session this morning was good. Bro. Brooks made a comment of caution which was voted to be put into the minutes. He felt that the standing missionary committee had over stepped their bounds when they wrote a letter to a church telling them in effect their missionary should not be recommended due to his having a divorce in his background. A church split left 9 missionaries in Honduras off of this years list. 3 churches took them up as sponsors and they were added to the list making the total of missionaries this year 174. We broke for lunch and had chicken salad and crackers in our room then rushed over to man the booth. I had a good time talking about old times with a preacher who has pastored in NY since 1972. He knew my father and the man who took over the work in Ayer, Mass. It was sad to hear that the church in Ayer is not doing well. I have enjoyed the fellowship and conversations. We are now in the afternoon session. The picture is of Janie manning the booth. God bless you.

Day 1.5

The second half of our day has gone very well.  The ladies meeting was real good. The third picture here is of Janie at the meeting this afternoon. We manned the booth this afternoon and had a lot of people stop by to ask about the France Mission work. The first picture is of me at the booth.  We went out to eat for supper and had soup and salad which was very good.  The two sermons we heard tonight were really good.  There were several missionaries who got their request for support in late so we had to go through quiet a bit of motions to set aside the mission policy.  I am bringing back to our church a video about mission work in Scotland.  The second picture is of me and Bro. Alvin Dickerson the missionary to Scotland.  Tomorrow will be our longest day.  We go to the meeting at 9 and return to our room at 11 PM.  We got a message today from our oldest daughter that our son-in-law totaled his car in a car wreck.  He is not hurt nor was anyone else hurt seriously.  His car and the truck he hit were both totaled.  Well it's off to bed, God bless you.

Peace and Piece at Last

I made scrambled eggs with bacon for breakfast this morning.  It was good.  Janie does not do breakfast so she had a glass of milk.  We went to our respective meetings.  I walked Janie to her ladies meeting and then went over to the Missionary Committee meeting.  Each church at this meeting has one vote.  We go through all the list of requests for support from churches for the various missionaries and vote whether to recommend them to the main messenger assembly or not. There were 162 request and there was no opposition to any of them.  You might say for the first time I that I have been attending these meeting there was PEACE AT LAST.  For the first time ever we will not have an afternoon session.  It is good to see our brethren in harmony.  The Ladies will have an afternoon session and I plan to attend that with Janie.  

We are taking a lunch break right now and you guessed it we had Spam (pictured).  It has been over a week since I have had Spam so I have had a PIECE AT LAST. 

Made it to the ABA

At church Sunday my Sunday School class voted to give Janie and me $100.00 to be spent on something to eat while we are at the meeting.  After church another member gave me $20.00 and told me to take Janie out to eat so she would not have to eat Spam all the time while on our trip.  Well I must report that, as you can see from the picture, we have indeed eaten out per their request. 

We made it to Jackson, TN. last night where we got about 5 hours sleep before getting up at 4:00 this morning to complete our journey.  I drove 9 hours yesterday and three hours today.  Janie took over for me and drove while I slept.  We have the booth all set up and ready to go.  We went shopping at the Mall that is right across the street from the convention center.  It is a three story tall Mall and it was good to take a long walk after such a long drive.  I plan to get to bed early this evening and get a good nights rest.  I will be posting blogs during the meeting to keep you informed as to how things are going.  Our room is nice though this is the first time we have not had a desk in our room.  We have a small round table and that will have to serve as our desk.  God bless you. 

Packing up

My mother-in-law was in a cooking mood the past couple of days.  When we arrived at her house Wednesday night she had made a lemon cake (pictured) and some brownies, both were excellent.  She also made chicken spaghetti.  She just loves that new kitchen.  Justin and Sarah came over and ate supper with us Friday night and the spaghetti was really good.  After they left we headed off as well getting back to Hillsboro about 1:30 this morning. 

We are spending this day getting ready for our trip to West Virginia.  Janie was tired so while she took a nap I went to the church and then to Wal-Mart.  We had made a list of some things we needed for our trip, so I picked those things up.  Planning is one of my favorite activities.  I planned, organized and packed our food for the trip.  We will not eat out much even though we will be gone for nearly seven days.  We have an electric tea pot, that looks kind of like a coffee pot, that will boil 10 cups of water in just a few minutes.  I am going to bring it along on our trip.  I have several dehydrated meals that I use when hiking.  They taste good and it will give us one hot meal a day which will give us a break from sandwiches.  I expect that we will spend Sunday night in Jackson, Tennessee. That is about half way and we will have to get up extra early Monday morning to make it to Charleston on time.  We have to be there no later than 2:30 so we can set up the booth.  The exhibit hall is open from noon to 4:00 so we have to get there, find the place, and get setup. It would probably have been better for us to have left today and arrived there Sunday night, but that would mean an extra night in a hotel room and I would miss preaching on Sunday morning. 

Things are shaping up well. Janie is almost finished washing clothes and so we should be all packed and loaded up when we leave for church in the morning.  We will return to the house to change into more comfortable traveling clothes and then hit the road. 

I took a walk this morning and meditated on the text and sermon for Sunday.  It will be a short sermon since we will be taking the time to recognize and honor the father's on Father's Day.  It is very rare for me to preach less than half an hour on Sunday Mornings.  I expect this sermon to be about 20 minutes long. 
The second picture is of one of our tomato plants.  I think they may be ready by the end of next week.  God bless you.