We are at camp.  This first picture is of Janie and I in the cafeteria.  The second is of Janie with our church group.  All is going well. Services were good last night. The young preacher who spoke did an outstanding job! I can not post pictures with my cell phone so will have to post them later. I slept very well for the 1st night at camp. We walked the hiking trail to the top of the mountain. My sisters would laugh at me calling that a mountain but it sure felt like one by the time I reached the top. The only place I can get a cell phone signal is on the top of the mountain. That means if you are reading this I had to have climbed to the top again.
This camp is very good. Those who organize it are all volunteers and they put a lot of work into it and it shows. I do have one fear. I fear that the words "dude" and "like" are going to creep into like all my sentences dude and like I won't be able to like stop it dude. God bless you.

Camp

I am all packed and ready for camp.  Janie is still packing and I am sure she will be all packed by bed time tonight.  I am looking forward to camp.  I plan to be the Paul Clark of the dream the whole week.  We are going to leave our house at 5:00 in the morning and leave the church by 5:30.  We will stop at McDonald's for breakfast some where along the way. 

Stacie made it to her mother-in-law's house okay.  They went fishing yesterday and everyone of the kids caught a fish.  They are having fish for lunch today.  They will be heading back to Texas on Wednesday.

I will not blog again until Friday night next week so check back.  I will have my hands full at camp and you are not suppose to bring electronic devices to camp.  This will be a five day vacation from my computer. Maybe my right hand will be all healed as a result of five days with no typing.  I am looking forward to both camps this year.  This afternoon and evening I will catch up on some work that I would have done during the week had I not been at camp. The picture is of Jason, Angie, Micah, and Andrew at camp three years ago.  God bless you.

Dream

Thursday night I had gone to bed about 10:30 and I woke up from a dream about 3:30 in the morning.  Janie had not yet come to bed so I went and checked on her. She was still working. She finally came to bed about 4:30.  The dream was very unusual.  I will not put here the details of the dream but summarize it.  I was behaving in my dream the way I should behave every day of my life.  I was acting like a minister, preacher, or pastor ought to act.  I was doing exactly what the Lord called me to do.  It was a disturbing dream.  I am almost nothing like the person I was in the dream.  I can not get it out of my mind and I don't want to get it out of my mind.  It has caused me to feel guilty and that is a good thing.  I plan to take action and strive daily to be like the person I was in that dream.  Does God speak to us in dreams today?  I am thinking that He certainly can if He so desires.  I caution the reader to be careful here.  Hold your dream beside the plumb line of the scriptures before deciding that it was a dream from God.  In my case there is no doubt the the Paul Clark of the dream is what God wants of the Paul Clark who had the dream.  Thank you LORD for showing me such a plain image and illustration of what I should be and what I should do.
Some roll reversal took place this afternoon.  Janie mowed her parents yard (pictured) while I helped my mother-in-law with her church treasurer responsibilities.  Normally Janie helps her mother with such things but for some reason Janie wanted to mow and so I took care of helping her mother.  Both jobs got done and at least hers was done very well.
Another church emailed me they were late registering for camp so I have just made those adjustments to our camp numbers.  We now have 264 signed up for camp.  Tomorrow I plan to get the church van ready to go for camp on Monday.  I will pack my bag and have it ready to go.  God bless you.

You Know You Are In a Small Town When....

I took my father-in-law to a doctor in Longview today and that went well. I took him also to a dentist in a small town called Tatum.  You know it is a small town when you drive up to the dentist's office and the dentist is outside working on his own A/C unit.  We were not there long.  I took a walk this morning while waiting for my father-in-law to get ready.  After about a mile of walking I saw a fox coming down the road toward me carrying what looked like a large rodent which had a long tail.  The fox stopped and stood perfectly still for the longest time.  I did the same.  I wondered which of us would move first.  After a couple of minutes the fox turned and took off in the opposite direction.  Where is my camera when I need it?  

I worked on camp registration today.  I had to assign dorms putting no more than 24 campers per dorm while putting churches together that wanted to be together in the same dorm.  It was a juggling act but I got it done.  Tomorrow I plan to install a radio in our car.  I installed my first car radio in 1971.  My brand new 1971 VW Super Beetle did not come with a radio, (what do you expect for $2,085.00).  I bought one and installed it myself. I never dreamed I would be doing the same thing 39 years later.  The picture is of a picture of Janie when she was a baby.  It hangs on the living room wall at my in-law's house.   God bless you.

Go Day

Today was go day for Stacie.  She left out this afternoon for Michigan.  It has been go day for us as well.  We left about noon and went down to Waco to visit one of our church members in the Hospital.  We got home about 4:00 and found Stacie gone so we do not know what time she left exactly.  We did talk to her tonight and she made it to a motel in Arkansas and is doing well.  We had more in attendance tonight at church than we normally do.  We covered a very difficult verse and had good discussion.  Janie and I are now headed for Henderson.  The computers are down at Sullivan Supply and so Janie can not work tonight.  She is driving while I blog.  I will be taking my father-in-law to the doctor's office tomorrow and possibly to the dentist as well.  I won't know for sure about that until in the morning.  We will arrive in Henderson about 1:30 in the morning.  Sleep really is over rated. You don't need as much as you might think. Janie will take her mother to Tyler on Friday and I plan to install a new radio in our car.  I have read the instructions and it seems fairly easy to do.  We shall see.  I may post some photos of that process.  The picture is one I took the last time we were in Henderson.  Janie had just caught up to me and the grandkids as we were out for a walk.  God bless you.

Let Them Eat Cake

We started our day off with some of my mother's home made sweet bread.  I had 2 loaves in the freezer and got those out and thawed them. The kids ate them completely up.  We had pastries for refreshments at ladies Bible study and the kids ate the leftovers.  After supper we had birthday cake for Joshua.  So we have overdosed the kids on sugar today. 

They are suppose to head out for Michigan tomorrow.  I will check their van out first thing in the morning and put some new windshield wiper blades on it. 
Little Jonathan caused us a lot of hunting this evening.  He hid the remote controls for the TV and the cable in amongst the VCR/DVD's. I could not have hidden them better.  The older grandkids searched the house for an hour nonstop. I also searched and gave up.  Janie and Stacie searched for a while and could not find them.  Stacie was sitting in a chair looking at the shelf of VCR tapes and saw something that did not look just right and sure enough it was one of the remotes.  The other one was also hidden among the tapes.
I have gotten 2 bulletins ready since I will be at camp next week.  It is good to have that done. I have not picked out a sermon for Sunday yet so will do that tomorrow.  I also need to get my oil changed tomorrow and get the church van checked out.  If I have time I will get the bus inspected tomorrow also. Well its off to bed now. God bless you.

No, The Split Rapture People Were Not Right

One might have thought that I left this world since it has been so long since my last post but that is not the case. I have been too busy to blog. Saturday we returned to Hillsboro via Canton.  We had a good time there and picked up a few things.  It was Stacie's first time at Canton and we walked her and the kids hard in an attempt of see as much as possible and to find that for which we were seeking.  I drove the kids home in the van and Janie and Stacie followed in the car.  I made it home with only one rest stop.  Sunday our attendance was up thanks to hurricane Alex cutting short our song director's vacation. It was a good day. Justin and Sarah came for our evening services and stayed the night.  We all went over to Corsicana to see the fireworks and they were really good.  Today Sarah made our breakfast and then Janie and I went to the nursing home for services there.  We returned home and ate lunch with the crew and then we made homemade ice cream.  It was really good and hit the spot on a hot day.  The kids went outside afterward and played with the water hose.  They had a really good time.  

I have spent a lot of time today on camp.  It has not gone as well as I would have liked. I have had to make a lot of phone calls to track down people and churches that have not turned in their registration.  I told myself I would not do that this year.  We have 11 churches registered at present with a total of 201 campers.

We have Ladies Bible Study in the morning and I need to get the oil changed in my car tomorrow.  I also need to go to the bank, post office, get the church bus inspected and registered, check out Stacie's van brakes to see if they need servicing before her trip, get the bulletin for Sunday ready, and mow the yard.  I will help straiten things up for the Ladies Bible Study before I head off to bed. Hope you enjoy the pictures I took today.  God bless you.

Wet Tires

Janie and I left the house this morning at about 8:30.  We encountered a lot of rain which slowed us way down.  It took a half hour longer than normal to get to Henderson.  Janie took her mother to Tyler and I went over to my mother's to help her with her TV.  She had requested, even demanded, that I turn off her Dish Network TV because she did not watch it much.  I had it turned off and today I installed an indoor TV antenna. She now gets 8 channels and two of those are Spanish speaking.  She said she just wanted the local news and weather.  When we got it going there was nothing of interest to her on the TV.  I told her to check between 5:00 and 7:00 and there should be news and weather on.  I got the ladder out and got the transponder off of the satellite dish on her house. I packed up her Dish Network hardware and have it in my trunk to send back.  Mother is doing well, and I enjoyed my visit with her.  I left her house to meet Stacie at the tire place.  They found that where the tire had been patched they had missed the nail that was still in the tire.  The man pulled the nail out but said the three times the tire had been repaired before made the tire no good.  I agreed completely so they put a new tire on her van.  Stacie took off to see my mother and I returned to my in-law's house.  My father-in-law has been home alone all afternoon.  He was sleeping soundly when I arrived so I did not wake him.  I thought I might check my emails and blog first.  The rain has stopped for now.  When the grandkids arrive later we will try to go for a long walk.  Tomorrow we will head back to Hillsboro.  The picture is one I took of  Janie a month or so ago. I met her July 11th, 1973. I have bought her an anniversary gift, in honor of that great occasion 37 years ago, but she does not know it yet. It is coming in the mail and should arrive by the end of next week. God bless you.

Grandchildren in the House and Out

The grandkids and I had breakfast together first thing this morning.  I put them to work cleaning up after breakfast and I put Joshua to work mowing the yard.  It was his first time on a riding lawnmower.  He took to the lessons real well and then took off mowing.  It ran out of gas quickly and we had to run get some gas for it.  He got back to mowing and did an excellent job. He just turned 12 years old. It does not seem right that I have a 12 year old grandson.  How time flies. 

His mother's car had a flat tire.  It had been repaired but was still leaking.  I tried putting another plug in the tire but it still leaks.  She is going to take it to a tire store in Henderson tomorrow.  She wants to get the brakes checked also before her trip to Michigan.  I had Joshua to air up the tire and check for a leak and he found it. 

I had Ruth and Joshua cook lunch for us today.  They helped me make a casserole.  Ruth made the pasta, and browned the hamburger. Joshua cut up the onions and bell pepper and I added the spices. We added Ranch Style Beans to the mix and it was good.  I let them taste test and they both approved.  We had sandwiches for supper and we sat around the living room telling jokes.  The kids are now in bed and Janie and Stacie are going to Wal-mart to pick up a few things.  We will head for Henderson in the morning about 8:00.  God bless you.