Some more assembly required

We got to bed about 3 this morning and got up about 9:30. I went over to see my mother this afternoon while my daughter and son-in-law did some work at my mother-in-law's. Me and mother went out to eat with my 2 brothers and their wives. It was a fun time of visiting. We went back to mother's afterward and visited till about 7:30.

Tribman has been well received not only Online but also in our church bulletin. I plan to continue publishing it there for those who do not have computers or Internet access. I am writing Tribman in a word processor and plan to print it out as if it were a diary or journal.

I got my older brother to start blogging and he is doing a fine job of it. I asked my younger brother to start a blog. He is the clown of the family and I would enjoy his humorous point of view on life. My older brother's blog is http://barclyde.blogspot.com/ and I will put this link in the column to the right.

We are about to assemble a cabinet for my mother-in-law. Janie said she would drag it back here to the den and we could visit with my father-in-law while putting it together. She went in there, hurting shoulder and all, and when she saw the weight written on the box she changed her mind. I stopped blogging long enough to go drag it back here for her (see the picture she took of me in the hallway). As you can see from this second picture she is about to get it unboxed so I had better get busy. God bless you.

Waco X 2

Went to Waco twice today. Left town about 5:30 this morning for a surgery and got back to Hillsboro about 8:30. After the ladies Bible study we went to the post office and to Wal-mart. Janie has a problem with her shoulder. It hurts when she tries to move it. We are trying some home remedies to see if that will help it get better. We plan to let her RN sister take a look at it on Thursday. May have to see a doctor, we'll see. We went back to Waco tonight for services there and in the morning we plan to drive up to Dallas to see Clint. I will report on his progress when we get back. The picture is of me and my son-in-law trying to figure out a solution to a problem under my mother-in-law's new dishwasher. He came up with the solution and it all worked out just fine. Better head for bed. God bless you.

Monday Morning

Just too busy to blog this weekend. We had good services on Sunday and on Saturday. The district ladies auxiliary met at our church Saturday and the briskets came out just right. The rest of the food was good and the fellowship was great. We had several visitors in our services Sunday. A young lady that has been going to our church for the past several years came forward wanting to be baptized and to join our church. The families that visited seem very interested in join us as well. I have prayed that the Lord would send us help and it looks as though He is.

I am very excited about the future. The way things are going in the world and especially with our country the outlook is bright indeed. My plans are to continue the sermons in Revelation right through September. In August it is back to school for me and serious work on my doctoral thesis. I want to finish it in two years if I can but that is going to mean a lot of time spent in research and study. I am worried a bit about my pastoral duties. Pastoring a church is a full time job. I do not want to neglect the needs of the congregation while I am sitting in a library researching. It will be a very delicate balancing act to schedule my time for maximum effect. My thesis will be a benefit to many not only in my congregation but also to many more outside of it.

Janie has gone to Curves and I need to take a walk. I better get going. Tuesday we have Bible study in the morning and worship services in Hewitt in the evening. Wednesday I plan to visit with Clint and his mother at the hospital in Dallas and will report on his status then. We are headed for Henderson Thursday and Friday to check on my mother and Janie's parents. We want to go to Canton trades day on Saturday morning and then back to Hillsboro. The picture is of our grandson holding a microphone giving his testimony at church camp. We are so proud of him. Janie is suffering with a pain in her right shoulder. I think it may be due to handling and holding grand kids while at camp. BenGay seems to have helped. God bless you.

Home from Camp

We are home from camp. 3 of the kids we took to camp were saved. There were a total of 26 campers saved. Saved means that they admitted and confessed their sins to Jesus Christ, the One who died for them on the cross of Calvary and was buried and rose again the third day, and they sought and received forgiveness of their sins by asking Him to have mercy on their souls and to save them. They have believed in Him as the Savior and have trusted in His promise of Romans 10:13 "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved." The next step for them will be baptism and then a journey which will take them each day to a closer walk with Jesus.

Clint had surgery on his hand Tuesday and this is the message I got from his mother "Surgery pinned ring finger and we are going to call in a hand specialist for the thumb please pray." I have not heard as yet if the specialist has taken a look at his thumb but have prayed that it will be well.

The first thing we did after getting home was to bring all the stuff in and then head for the grocery store. I picked up 2 briskets and brought them home and started them slow cooking. Next we took a nap and then after supper went to pick up some things Janie needed for the Ladies Auxiliary skit. I have the sermon ready to go for tomorrow so after this blog and the Tribman blog I will head for bed. I will insert some pictures taken at camp. The first is of a water slide that the kids just loved. The second is of our daughter and son-in-law and his sister singing a special during one of the services. The third is of our other son-in-law and their two oldest children doing a special in one of the services. God bless you.

We are having a good time at camp. This is the last full day here and the kids have behaved very well. Two of the kids we brought were saved last night. The kids are playing on a giant water slide and having a blast. I am about to go swiming with the boys. I may play softball against the boys if not enough sponsors show up. Janie and I have seen very little of each other. Between the kids we brought to camp and the grand kids we have had few words with each other. It is cloudy and cooler today and that is nice. We should be back home by noon tomorrow. God bless you.

Camp is going well. I am bloging from my cell phone while waiting in the chow line. A big rain storm came through this morning and cooled things off. Kids have been very well behaved. I am looking forward to preaching tomorrow night. God bless you.

As of the time I am writing this we are getting ready to head for camp. Camp is a wonderful time. I think that everyone ought to try church camp at least once in their life. The day starts at 6:30 when we get up and get dressed to head to the tabernacle. At 7:00 we have a wake up song and a morning devotional. Its off to breakfast and then classes at 9:00. After class we take a break and then head to morning worship service at 10:45 which lasts until noon when we all go stand in line for lunch. We get a good visit in with those waiting in line and make some new friends. The afternoon is filled with recreation activities of all kinds such as softball, volley ball, tether ball, miniature golf, swimming, basket ball, or take a nap if you wish. Supper is at 5:00 and the evening worship service at 7:00. When services are over around 8:45 we head to the recreation area and play or visit with friends. We are all back in our dorms by 10:00 and for a cabin devotion and then its lights out. No radios, TV's, video games, no worldly distractions. Surrounded by Christians and Christian activities it is a wonderful time of spiritual revival. If this year is like most we will see some 20 children saved at camp. I reported last Sunday night some amazing statistics about earthquakes from the USGS (see the link in my last post).

Total Earthquakes mag. 6.0 – 9.9 1980-1989 was 1,085 1990-1999 was 1,492, 2000-2009 was 1,516.

Total Earthquakes mag. 8.0-9.9 1980-1989 was 4; 1990-1999 was 6; 2000-2009 was 12

Estimated deaths from earthquakes 1980-1989 was 58,880; 1990-1999 was 114,646; 200-2009 was 463,955.

Scientists, politicians, and the news media seem completely unconcerned about the steady increase in earthquakes. This trend has been upward ever since Israel became a nation again in 1948.

I will most likely not blog while at camp next week. I will catch up when I get back on Friday. I want to give the six boys I am sponsoring my undivided attention. The picture is of our grand daughter, Ruth, on her bunk bed at church camp. God bless you.

LINK

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/graphs.html check out this link on earthquakes. Add up the numbers and you will see that the Bible is right when it said earthquakes would increase. God bless you.

Clint Fund Raiser

I have been here at the church since 7:00 this morning and the fund raiser seems to be going well. They have washed a lot of cars and I am not sure about the bake and garage sales. They have a concession stand also and I can say that the hamburgers were good. I took these pictures this morning of some of the ladies who are working the sale. There is no A/C in the gym but it was not as hot today as it has been. I have been working on the Sunday School lesson and 1 Peter 4:6 gave me a hard time but I think I have gotten to the root of the problem and have the right meaning of the text. I reviewed over the sermon for Sunday and have it ready to go. We will be back in Revelation 14 again. The lessons I plan to teach the adult class at camp are ready to go. I have chosen to review the end time events with them. I am going to post today's Tribman blog and then get the sermon ready that I will preach at camp. The letters have come which will put our church name on the church bus. I am sure you will be seeing pictures of that project when we get to it. God bless you.

Wash Them Dishes

Well we got the dishwasher installed for my mother-in-law and also a new sink. The new floor looks good. This first picture was taken with my cell phone. It is a panoramic view of the kitchen. I don't know how well it will show up on this blog. Maybe if you click on it you can get a closer view. I took the old sink out and put the new one in while Sarah sat on a stool watching me work. I kept saying "I'm 56 years old what am I doing under a sink!" I have put two more pictures of the kitchen as it appears tonight. The dishwasher seems to be working fine and the new sink looks good. Janie and I went out to eat for supper and then did some grocery shopping for her parents. We have to get up early in the morning to go to the dentist office. I have a filling that is broke and so after having my teeth cleaned I will have one filled. We have a few things to do in the morning before we head back to Hillsboro. We got a good rain tonight and it dropped the temperature 10 degrees. I hope we got some rain in Hill county. God bless you.

Another $100

Well my oldest Daughter, Stacie called this afternoon and it looks like I will have to come up with another $100. I started giving my children $100 when they told me they were expecting a child back when the first one of my grandchildren was born. I have been out $800 so far and now it will be $900. We are proud for them and March is not that far away so they will be in the market for a larger automobile.

It hit 102 again today. The A/C was not working in the church van and so I put it in the shop right after I got the inspection sticker done. We have church tonight and afterward we will head for Henderson. I will be taking my mother-in-law to the doctor in the morning while Janie takes her dad for his cancer treatment. I plan to install her dishwasher tomorrow and we will head back to Hillsboro on Friday. The picture is one I took today here in Hillsboro. Janie saw this sight on the side of the road told me to turn around and take a picture. It is of a dummy with a Halloween mask on fishing. I am not sure what the goats think of it but we thought it was funny. God bless you.

Revelation

I have been teaching this summer from the book of Revelation. I started with the Ladies Bible study here at our house (pictured here as the ladies were leaving today) and then took it to the pulpit on Sunday mornings. I researched and read the history of Israel going back to 1917 and would encourage you to do the same. We are getting very close to the end of this age. There is a town just 30 miles from here that has had 5 earthquakes this year. The number of earthquakes world wide are increasing year by year and have ever since 1948. I would invite you to google earthquakes and look at the data. Read Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. There you will find that Israel's dispersion and regathering are predicted. This regathering has come to pass in our life time. In 2048 Israel will celebrate the 100 year anniversary of her independence in Palestine. The Lord said:
(Luke 21:31) "So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. 32) Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled." How long is a generation? Well, Genesis 15:13-16 would seem to indicate that it is 100 years. Whenever the clock started ticking, and I believe this generation clock has started ticking, we have less than 100 years until the Lord's return. It may have started in 1917, 1948, or 1967. I am hoping for the earliest for I am ready for the Lord to come. How about you?

Clint asked me to convey, to you all, his sincere thanks for your prayers. His surgery went well and here is the text message I got from Cindy today "Surgery over grafted more skin on his legs doing fine." Nothing new to report about his right hand just keep that in your prayers. Fund raiser will be Saturday and I plan to spend that day in my office getting some work done. Drop by and donate to a good cause and stop into my office for a visit. I plan to be there from 8:00 to 5:00 Lord willing.

Tomorrow I will take the van to be inspected and will spend some time at the office. We will be in the book of Joshua Wednesday night and back in Revelation 14 on Sunday. I caught this beautiful Sun set last week. Just had to stop and enjoy God's REVELATION of His handy work. God bless you.

Van

I had to put a new battery on the church van today and while I was at it gave it a bath. It needed new licences plates and they are installed as you can see from the picture. I will take it down to have it inspected and then it should be ready to go to camp. Janie and I worked together, for it took the both of us, to change a burned out head light on our car. We tried to change out a burned out park light bulb but just could not get it. My hands were too big to reach it and Janie could not get it to move so we gave up and when we turned the lights on it was burning so it must have been loose. I have chosen the lessons and sermon for camp but have not settled on the sermon for Tuesday night. I will make that decision tomorrow.

Clint Rogers is doing very well. He has been walking some more and they told me that the other night he watched three movies one right after the other. He is very alert and the nurses say he has a great since of humor. All the nursing staff like him and say he is so polite. He will remain in the Burn ICU for he still has a lot of open wounds that need a lot of attention and protection from infection. He is eating well and the walking and therapy really tire him out. We are hoping that the fund raiser Saturday will be huge success.

We got a phone call today from the lady who covered our bus seats. She is going to get us the letters we need to put the church name on the sides of the bus at no charge to us. This lady and her husband have been such a blessing to our church. They also got a quote from a man in their town of $2000 to paint the bus. I will run that by the church and see what they think.

This second picture is of my invention, that you can see in the right column of this blog, in action. I like inventing and engineering things and am working on a project now for my wife. When I get it built I will post a picture here. God bless you.

Hot Sunday

It was another hot one today,102. We had good services even though our attendance was down (Vacations). Janie and I were invited out to eat and had good fellowship at the Black Eye Pea. This picture is of me and the lady who treated us to lunch. One of our church members brought us a sack of tomatoes and left them in my office before the services started and as we went out to get in the car to go out to eat there was another sack of tomatoes on top of our car. We love fresh tomatoes and they will go fast. We had BLT's for supper tonight and they sure were good.

On Sunday nights I usually work on the bulletin for the next Sunday and so I have finished that and am including in the bulletin starting this Sunday the "Tribman" blog. Our congregation has a lot of older people who do not have a computer at all never mind internet access. They were curious about Tribman and so as long as there is interest I will put them in the Church bulletin.

This week will be more busy than usual. I will be gone most of next week to church camp and so will have to do double duty this week. We have nursing home services in the morning and Bible Study here Tuesday morning and Tuesday evening in Hewitt. I must go to the dentist on Friday morning and get one of my fillings fixed, a chunk of it has come out. In between these activities I must get a sermon and 3 lessons ready for camp along with a cabin devotion. I must also work up a sermon for the district ladies auxiliary meeting for I will not have time at camp to do so. The church van will have to be attended to this week also. It needs some work for it has not been moved for almost a year.

We had deacons meeting after services were over tonight and that went very well. I just called Jason and told him about it. It is about 7:30 in the morning over there and they were about to head out to the beach to let the kids go swimming in the Mediterranean sea. Well if it is 7:30 there it must be 12:30 here so I better head for bed. God bless you.

And Its off...

I posted the first episode of Tribman tonight. I am looking forward to journeying through the tribulation with him. It will be full of suggestions as to how to prepare for the tribulation both physically and spiritually. There is a link to Tribman in the right column.

Janie and I went to my dad's grave this morning and that went well for being 100 degrees outside. The picture was taken by Janie. It is so good to have both my brothers living in Texas and close to my mother. I am sure there is no way to get my sisters to move to Texas but that sure would be grand.

We stopped by Bro. Davis' house and had a good visit with them. When we got home some of our church members came by to practice a song they are going to sing tomorrow. Its going to be a great day. I will return to the 14th chapter of Revelation for the sermon and in Sunday School I will explain who the "spirits in prison" are in 1Peter chapter 3. Better head for bed. God bless you.

Revelation

I left my in-law's house about 9:00 this morning and took their trash over to Janie's uncle Trenton. I also carried some groceries we had picked up from the night before. I had a good visit with him and would have loved to stay all day for he was needing to train some cows and I would love to have gotten in on that but I had prior commitments. I went to TBI and picked up a book which one of the instructors had left for me. It is a book on Revelation written by one of the former pastor's of Walnut Street Baptist Church. His name was Paul Owens and I like what I have read of it so far. He was the longest pastor that the church had ever had in its 91 year history. He was there 18 years and I hope to stay longer than he did. I have been pastor there for 7 years this November. He was very well liked by the people of Hillsboro and especially by the church. That he believed the same things I do about the timing of the rapture has helped. We are going out at the 7th trumpet the way I see it. I plan to preach a sermon on the timing of the first Resurrection and the Rapture of the saints. It will give the congregation and those in radio land something to think about and consider. I went over to mother's house and had lunch with her and Steve. We had a good visit until about 2 and then I headed back to the Taylor's house. We ate supper at the Cotton Patch with the Taylors and our daughter and son-in-law and had a good time.

We plan to go and meet mother and my brothers at the cemetery in the morning. It is the one year anniversary of my father's death tomorrow. Afterward we will go by and see Bro. Davis and then head for Hillsboro.

Tomorrow night I will write the first blog entry of Tribman. I am looking forward to sharing his story with you and I hope you enjoy it. I plan to write the story in a word processor so I can print it out easily for those who do not have internet access. I may even put it in the church bulletin. The first picture is one I took this afternoon of the new cabinets and counter top, the second is a before picture taken by my daughter, the third is of the old cabinets removed and the fourth is another picture I took today. God bless you.

Sink

Sink is in. I finished this evening and my mother in law was sure happy to have her sink back. We had to pick up some new face plates for the electrical outlets and they look nice. I will install a light over her sink tomorrow. I plan to go by and see my mother in the morning. We are considering staying over until Saturday morning. Janie and I may drive by the place where we first met 36 years ago. I am going to suggest to Janie that on the 21st of July, the anniversary of our 1st date, we duplicate as best we can that date. It was on our first date that I knew she was the girl for me. Just like Abraham's servant when he was seeking a wife for Isaac asked God for a sign, I asked and God answered. The first picture is of the sink and the second is of Janie when she was a senior in High School. God bless you.

Classical Music

I met this beautiful woman 36 years ago this Saturday. She is my song of songs! We met July 11, 1973 and had our first date on July 21st. I asked her to marry me on August 25, 1973. I love her so!

I spent several minutes today listening to classical music. It was beautiful. The only time I ever just stop and listen to music is when I am on the phone on hold. The IRS plays classical music when you are on hold with them. I had called to ask a couple of questions and the last question seemed to throw them a curve. I was put on hold while an investigation into the question was made. After a long time the person returned to the phone to apologize for the delay and asked me to continue to hold. After a bit I was told that a mistake had been made and would be corrected after which they would contact me. There was no explanation of the error made only that it would have to be fixed and they would contact me later. I am hopeful that the answer to my question will cause my original return to be accepted virtually as is. We shall see.

I took part in a webinnar today. It was a first for me. I learned a lot and got some good ideas from it. It had to do with advertising and sales. I may follow up on some of their suggestions for reaching customers with your company's message and making sure they understand it, or in my case lost sinners.

Its off to Henderson tonight and put on my plumber's hat tomorrow. I will put my banker's hat on and confer with my mother Friday morning about her finances. This will necessitate a phone call to my oldest sister. Mother is in good health and is about to get a new hearing aid. She asked my oldest brother if a new hearing aid would be a waste of money and he assured her it would not. Good call Steve! I plan to go by and see Bro. Davis on the way back to Hillsboro. God bless you.

Tribman

I have started a blog called Tribman. I will put a link in the side column of this blog so you can get to it from here. The address is http://www.tribman.blogspot.com/ and will be updated once a week usually on Saturday. It will be the blog posts of a FICTONAL character. He will blog once a week telling of his experiences as he lives during the most troublesome time the world has ever seen. I will use the time table recorded in the Bible as a guide and will give my view of how I think things will transpire to bring to power the anti-Christ and the false prophet. This is, again, FICTION, and only the time table and verses quoted will be real and truthful. At the end of each post I will list the scriptures from which I base the fictional story. I hope you will enjoy it. The picture is of the kind of house in which Tribman will be forced to live for two years. God bless you.

Dallas

This picture is of Jonathan our youngest grandchild. He had spilt a box of crayons on the floor of the kitchen while I was cooking some breakfast. I was impressed as I watched him, one to two crayons at a time, pick them all up. Afterward he dumped them again and his siblings helped him pick them up.

We went to Dallas today to check on Clint and his mother, Cindy. We had a good long visit with Cindy. She sent this text message to me about an hour before we left for Dallas "Walked 20 feet with help woo hoo!" Clint's right hand is a grave concern. They will operate on it tomorrow and pin two more fingers. Please make his right hand an object of your prayers. Remember the fund raiser on July 18th starting at 8:00 at Walnut Street Baptist Church in Hillsboro.

The services went well at the nursing home this morning and we had a good visit there. We took the mail by the church and stopped at the bank. One of our church members gave us some yellow squash and tomatoes out of his garden. We sure are enjoying them.

I am contemplating starting a new blog. It would be a fictional account of a person who goes through the great tribulation, ending at the seventh trumpet. It will help me and others to consider what that time will be like and what things we might be doing for the Glory of God. I envision this person blogging weekly about his experiences. When I get the story line ready I will create the blog and post a link to it here.

I do not feel like working on my taxes tonight so will put that off till tomorrow. I need to work on my camp lessons so will do that instead. I will be preaching Revival services at Liberty Baptist Church in Elkhart the week of August 16th. It is a Sunday through Wednesday revival. I am going to look over some sermons and let the Spirit lead as to what to preach. This last picture is of me out for a walk in Henderson. I brought along my harmonica and enjoyed playing it for the cows that I passed. I will never be as good at it as my father but I enjoy trying. God bless you.

New week

This is A picture of a typical breakfast on our diet. I can eat a piece of sausage and one scrambled egg in four bites. It takes Janie a few more bites for she is not a big mouth like me. The other picture is of a typical daytime meal. It is half a spam sandwich cut into two pieces. In between we eat raw veggies, fruits, and peanut butter crackers. With our fourth of a sandwich we will sometimes have a small cup of tomato soup. It is a great diet.

The New week got off to a good start. I thought our attendance at church this morning was down but it was actually up from last Sunday. I have a busy week ahead. I will go to the nursing home in the morning and then up to see Clint in Dallas. I will work on my tax audit Monday night and hopefully get that ready to mail back to the IRS. Tuesday after the ladies Bible study I will work on my lessons for the adult class at camp. I need to pick out a text for my sermon at camp as well. I am blogging while waiting for a file to upload to my baptistville.org website. It is taking a very long time and I do not know why. I plan to post on baptistville.org the camp preregistration information. This will let churches know what dorms they will be assigned and the size of the various classes etc. I will take down the registration form since it is too late for churches to register for camp. I have to turn in the numbers to the camp manager tomorrow.

Wednesday night we will head over to Henderson where I will spend my day off installing a kitchen sink for my mother-in-law. We need to go by and visit my mother while in Henderson and I need to get by Bro. Davis' and check on him. He lost two chapters worth of sermons from the book of Matthew and is having to re-write them. He has two done and I want to get them on the Internet as soon as possible. We will return to Hillsboro on Friday. Saturday will be spent getting ready for Sunday.

I talked to my son in France today. They will be moving in the morning and as a matter of fact they are picking up the moving van as I write this. They will be staying in a temporary rent house for six weeks and then in another temporary house for one year. They plan to start having in-house Bible study with whomever will accept their invitation. We will be praying for this small village that they will be receptive to the Gospel. God bless you.

Survivor

Steve and I survived the hike. We finished Thursday at about 2:30 and set up camp. We talked for 3 hours discussing Revelation chapters 14, 21, and 22. We had hot dogs for supper and we did get that can of chili opened. When it got to dark to see our Bibles we reviewed the history of our lives year by year. He would tell what was going on in his life a particular year and I would tell what was going on in mine at the same time. We crawled into our tents about 11:00 and slept fairly well considering the heat and the hard ground. Steve fixed oatmeal for our breakfast and then we cleaned up and hit the trail. The trail was not well marked and we lost it on Friday morning shortly after getting started. We drove to the south end of the trail and found the trail head there but again it was not well marked and after one mile of hiking up hill it came to an abrupt end. The view was great and worth the up hill hike. We went back to my brother's truck and headed home. I ended up with 2 small blisters on my right foot and Steve had one on his heel. Not bad for having walked some 8 miles at 102 degrees.

We had a belated birthday party for our grandson. He is 11 years old now. It was fun to spend time with the grand kids. They are as sweet as they can be. We got him a bicycle and he got out in the heat and road up and down our street.

I had a meeting at 3:00 Friday afternoon. Three ladies who are heading up the fund raiser for Clint Rogers met me at the church and we discussed the details. I had a concern about the car wash portion of the fund raiser. I wanted to be sure that the young people doing the car wash dressed modestly and they agreed and assured me that they would pass that message on. I expect that this fund raiser will be a huge success. It certainly is in good hands. Clint is doing very well as of last report. I still have a concern over his right hand but have not heard any prognosis. Please continue to pray for him.

I have been working on summer camp registration. The churches have all gotten their registration in and tonight I sorted out the dorm assignments and eating order. We have 239 preregistered for camp. The number is down and I would love to see our camp have about 500.

The pictures are of our hike. The first is the last view we had Friday morning. The second is of us during our Bible discussion. The third is of our supper which Steve also cooked. I was on the phone taking care of camp registration business while Steve was cooking. The fourth is of my brother on Friday morning watching a lot of Buzzards in the trees.

I am going to look over the Sunday School lesson now and review my sermon a bit before heading for bed. It has been a long day and I will rise extra early in the morning for prayer and Bible reading. Looking forward to our services tomorrow. God bless you.

Hot 102

Hot, 102 as we walked what turned out to be a six mile hike. According to my gps we averaged 2.7 miles per hour. Janie droped us off at the trail head and then got lost going home. It took her an hour and a half to get home which was only a half hour away. I had a good cell phone signal all the way. She called me and asked me if she should be in Cleburne to which I replied no. Steve and I only lost the trail once. We are going to have hot dogs for supper with chile if we can get the can opened. If the bugs are not to bad I will sleep out under the stars tonight. God bless you.

Taxing

I did not blog yesterday due to being busy with other things. I am working on my 2006 tax audit again today. I am trying to figure out what they have proposed and done to my 2006 tax return. It is very complicated. It would help if I could deal with the IRS agent face to face but that is not practical or even, I suppose, possible. I will do the best I can and then mail off my response and explanation along with the additional forms they require. Taxes for clergy are complicated so much so that they have a 28 page publication just to cover the rules. I could pay $500.00 to have a professional do my taxes but I am stubborn and do not think it right that I should have to pay what amounts to another tax just to meet IRS requirements. It looks as though I can go to the IRS office in Waco in person and have them help me fill out my taxes this next year and it will cost me nothing. So I will take that big box of paperwork to them in February.

I will work on the sermon for tonight first thing this morning and then resume my tax work. My brother is coming over tonight and we plan to go hiking tomorrow. We will camp out along side the river at a nice campground near lake Whitney. He is coming prepared to answer my questions about Revelation chapter 14 and I am preparing to answer his questions about chapter 21. The picture is one I took along the trail which we will be hiking tomorrow. God bless you.