Running to God

The teenagers singing a special at church today

What a wonderful day it has been.  There were at least 13 visitors in the services at Walnut Street Baptist Church this morning making the attendance be way more than normal.  The message from God was taken from Jonah chapter 2 on the subject of "Running To God."  It was an exciting text.  The teenagers sang a special before the sermon and the song they sang went along very well with the message.
This afternoon was uneventful allowing time for a short nap.  A Skype session with Jason and Angie was enjoyed very much this afternoon.  It is good to hear that all is well there.  The evening services went well with a message from the book of Proverbs Chapter 8 verse 22 through the end of the chapter on the subject of "Wisdom's Credentials."  There was a special deacon's meeting after church that brought joy to the pastor.  The teenagers had a pizza party in the fellowship hall after church and it looked like they were having a good time.
The question was asked by many, one of another, concerning plans for Memorial Day. Most have the day off and will be doing special things on that day.  Except for a deliberate pause to remember those who died for their country Monday will be business as usual at this house.  Mow the yard, visit the nursing home, work on sermons, work on bulletins, and a visit to the gym will consume Memorial Day. God bless you.

Cabelas

Sarah, Justin and me at Cabelas

Sarah and Justin spent the night with us last night and this morning Justin drove us up to Cabelas north of Fort Worth.  We had a really good time.  We ate breakfast at McDonald's and Lunch at Cabelas.  It was fun to watch the fish being fed and to walk around looking at all the gear.  We returned home having bought nothing except lunch there.  After supper here at the house they headed home and we went to pick up a few things at Wal-Mart.  Janie exercised while I watched then I exercised for about 2 minutes on the same device.  I had to repair her exercise device after I broke it twice.  My repair made it better than new.

The road in front of where my mother was raised

I got 100 feet of para cord the other day and this evening I braided it so that now it is just 20 feet long.  20 feet braided does not tangle near as bad as 100 feet unbraided.  Using this method and knowing braiding will reduce the length by a factor of 4 allows one to make useful lengths up and have them available in a backpack.  If you need 20 feet of cord choose the braid that is 5 feet long.  If you need just 10 feet of cord choose from your pack the braid that is 2 1/2 feet long.  I think I will place 3 lengths of braided cord in my pack a 10, 5, and 2 that should suffice.
Church tomorrow and that is my favorite day of the week.  It is Memorial Day weekend and I hope we will have a big crowd at church.  God bless you.

Boy Scout

My mother-in-law took this picture today with my cell phone

It has been a busy week as you may be able to tell being my last blog was Sunday and this is Thursday.  We spent Monday visiting at the nursing home and getting caught up on work at the house.  Tuesday we had the Ladies Bible study but did not go down to Lorena for services there.  I had a headache that lasted three days.  It is gone today and I am glad.  Headaches don't usually hang on that long for me.  Wednesday was usual and this morning we left for Henderson stopping to eat lunch in Corsicana.  When we arrived we took my mother-in-law to the cell phone store to get her account straitened out.  That took a while and afterward we took her out to eat.

New Vargo wood stove

When I was a child I wanted to be in the boy scouts.  My mother and father said no and I am sure at the time they had good reason.  Camping out is fun.  I love the outdoors and especially hiking.  I have purchased a new hiking stove.  My older brother put me onto it a year or so ago.  I watched some youtube videos of it in use and liked what I saw.  Janie allowed me to purchase the thing and it arrived yesterday. It is a Vargo Titanium Hex Stove.  It weighs just a little over 4 ounces.  This evening just before sunset I went outside here at my mother-in-law's house and gave it a try.

My day hiking back pack

I have a small day pack that I have put together which contains some survival/camping/hiking gear.  I keep it in the car and take it whenever I go for a day hike.  It has a 2 quart water bladder. I have a first aide kit, knife, snacks, a freeze dried meal for 2, flashlight, cook stove, a pot, fire starter,  and a handful of other things that would help if I got lost in the woods.  Getting lost should not be a factor due to the fact I keep my GPS in the pack as well with fresh batteries.   The Boy Scout motto is "Always be prepared" and I think that is a good idea.  This pack weighs 9 pounds with its current contents including water.

Breaking up some twigs, it only took a handful

I took my stove out of the pack along with my pot and set it up to boil 2 cups of water.  It only took a handful of twigs according to the youtube videos I had seen and sure enough that is all it took.  I placed three cotton balls in the bottom of the stove and then piled some small twigs on top. I used a fire steel to light the cotton balls but the fire burned only a minute then went out.  I added another cotton ball and put a little alcohol on it and this time it caught on and burned real good.  I placed the pot on top and started the stop watch on my cell phone.

8 minutes to boil 2 cups of water with twigs

It took right at 8 minutes to bring the water to a rolling boil.  I was amazed at how little wood it took.  you can see the little pile of twigs next to my foot and I did not use all of them.  I left the little door open most of the time for it seemed to burn better that way.   The problem with using wood for fuel is the soot.  It blackened the pot and the stove.  I used soap, water, and elbow grease to clean them both up.  The carrying case for the Vargo will be needed to put the stove in so that it does not soil everything it touches.  When hiking and primitive camping water is usually a precious commodity so you don't want to waste it cleaning a stove or the exterior of a pot.
I like this new stove it is definitely a keeper.  I plan to cook with it when I take my grandkids hiking and camping during the three weeks we keep them this summer.

Vargo stove setup and ready to go

Tomorrow morning I will be taking my mother to a doctor in Longview.  It is time for them to check her pacemaker.  I plan to take her to a fabric store and then over to Gary, Texas for some reminiscing.  I will take some pictures of our outing and post them here.  God bless you.

Ready for the pot

A Smile

A smile, it costs you nothing
For your face tis good.
For when you are a smiling,
doing as you should,
Encouraging another
Bringing joy and cheer.
And with each smile my brother,
And my sister dear,
You a ray of sunshine bring
On ones cloudy day,
For Jesus wants us to sing
Share His joy for aye.

Janie and I out for a walk, she took lots of pictures.

The next 5 church bulletins are composed leaving 8 more to get done before Janie and I leave for the ABA messenger meeting in June.  The poem above is one I wrote for next Sunday's bulletin.  This work, the 8 bulletins, along with preparing 33 sermons must be finished in the next 3 weeks.  The Devil will have no workshop here.  The reason for the deadline is due to the fact that we will be keeping 5 grandkids for 3 weeks.  This will require all hands on deck and leave little time for other work.

Our attendance was up and we had good services.  There was a lot of people interested in the summer mission trip to help the people in the tornado ravaged region of Alabama.  Our church is collecting supplies and a group from our church will go to deliver them and to help with the clean up.  I am so pleased as pastor to have people so willing to volunteer to help others in need.  God bless you.

Preaching to The Pews

Having lunch with my mother on Friday

I had a good visit with my mother on Friday.  I took her out to eat since I am never able to be with her on Mother's day.  We went to see my dad's grave after lunch.  I enjoyed the visit with her.  She is doing very well. 
We got back to Hillsboro Friday night after driving through some hard rain.  We drove 55 mph most of the way (48 mpg was nice).  It is good to be back home.  I went to the store this morning and to the bank this afternoon.  I left Janie at the house and went to my office at the church.  I thought I would give the church bus a try and it cranked right up and I moved it just a few feet.  It is going to have to make two long trips in July hauling kids to church camp. 
The auditorium was a quite place this afternoon and the pews had to sit through a 45 minute sermon from the book of Jonah.  They were silent and completely unresponsive to the preaching of God's word.  Not one of them came forward to rededicate their lives during the invitation.  None of them repented of their sins.  None of them got saved. 

My mother's house

Actually I imagined the pews full of people, 500 in number.  Hundreds of them were shouting "AMEN." Mixed in with the "AMEN"'s  were shouts of "Halleluiah" and "Praise the Lord." I had to often stop to give time for the crowd to settle down a bit.  When I gave the invitation 50 people walked the isle most kneeling to pray and others waiting in line to talk with me about being saved or requesting to be baptized.  It was a glorious imagining.  I had a vivid imagination as a child and often it rears its head in my adult life.  I love to preach and I must confess that often the enthusiasm of the congregation, or the lack thereof, affects the enthusiasm of my preaching. 
The prediction of the Rapture occurring today did not come to pass.  It was no surprise to me.  The Lord will come in His own good time.  Just make sure your ready for when He does come.  God bless you.

Eggs

Janie took this picture while on our walk

I am use to being given a toothbrush when I visit the dentist office and I did get a toothbrush.  When I was a kid in Massachusetts I went to the dentist one time and was given a rabbit and thought that was odd.  Today the dentist asked if we would like some fresh barnyard eggs and gave us three dozen.  The four hour drive we made to go to this dentist is worth the drive.  We always enjoy our visit there.  We went to a Bible bookstore while we were in Center which had been recommended by the dentist's receptionist.  It was a nice little store and we bought some greeting cards.
Back at my mother-in-law's I put a fan together for her.  Janie and her mother cooked some supper which consisted of hard boiled eggs covered with melted butter, boiled potatoes and some left overs from the refrigerator.  It was all good.  Janie and I took a long walk.  It was a beautiful evening for it.  God bless you.

Synecdoche

An all too familiar scene, Janie and me on the road

Out of bed.
Groceries bought.
Off to work.
Lesson taught. 
Sermon finished.
French spoken.
Sermon done.
Laziness broken. 
Sermon done.
Cadintosh learned.
Blogg complete.
Rest earned.
There were seven merry hearts in my class tonight.  The message helped them to be so.  Micah chapter 4 will do that to a child of God.  The cares of this world left the room, chased away by God's Holy word.  Where two or three are gathered in His name, He will always be there.  There were hungry hearts there tonight, longing to be fed.  Those hearts did not leave disappointed.  Truth be known, our hearts but snacked upon a small morsel found in the midst of a container full of spiritual food.
Tomorrow the car will drink much fuel,  the dentist office will chew up a bit of cash, legs will burn lots of calories on a long walk, and a beloved MacBook Pro will consume much information.  God bless you.

Delete Contact

Simultaneous IPhone snap shots at the wedding rehearsal

It was kind of a sinking feeling, a strange kind of finality deleting from the cell phone contacts list the names Tommie Wooldridge and Marie Rogers.  They were both long time members of Walnut Street Missionary Baptist church who died recently.  Hopefully funerals will slow down a bit and give the membership time to recover from this loss.  The teens at the church are planning a trip to help deliver donated relief supplies to the people affected by the recent tornadoes in the south.  This will be a good experience for them to help out others that are in need.  It will give them cause to count their blessings when they see the flood ravaged areas and the families that have lost everything.  We are so proud of our teen leader and the hard work she puts in every week.
French lesson, workout at the gym, Sunday's sermon, Wednesday's sermon, should consume most of tomorrow.  Five hours of driving, a dentist appointment, and a very long walk should devour Thursday.  Doctoral thesis will eat up all of Friday. 
I talked with my youngest daughter today.  She went for a doctor's appointment and they say all is going well with the baby.  The doctor guesses the weight at 1 pound 4 oz.  September 18th is not far away.  We have a lot of exciting things happening this year.  The trip to France and the birth of our eleventh grandchild to name a few.  God bless you.

Book

Janie visiting with her mother and sisters

I ordered 10 bound copies of my book "The Proper Observance of The Lord's Supper."  It is a paper back book with a nice colorful laminated cover.  I wanted to try out web publishing of books to see about the price and how it works.  If I like the look of the book I will buy more copies so those who might be interested in the subject and my studies of it can have a copy.  There is another Online company that publishes books on demand and it looks real promising.  When I get ready to publish my book on the Song of Solomon I may give them a try.  The book I am writing now will be much larger than my first book and will be a hard cover book.
I am planning to write a fiction novel next based on my blog "Tribman."  I am actually looking forward to that project.  I loved the books "Tom Sawyer" and "Treasure Island."  It is that kind of adventure that I use to day dream about as a child.  Writing "Tribman" will be like putting down on paper my day dreams of adventure and intrigue. 
I mowed the yard today while Janie was at the Ladies Auxiliary meeting.  I was tired today.  I guess it is all the activities of weddings and funerals with a whole host of other things that I have been involved with which finally caught up with me.  I took a nap and feel much better now.  The nap however throws me behind on my work so I will start the vicious cycle again by staying up late and getting up early. 
I had a very short visit with my brother-in-law who lives in Mississippi on the occasion when the above picture was taken.  We talked Bible for about 20 minutes and it made me hungry to talk with him more.  I would love to spend a whole day with him and talk.  He loves the Lord and the Bible.  That is probably why we get along so well.  Before his stroke we mostly talked about hunting and fishing but now its mostly Bible.  God bless you.