Bday

We went to the birthday party of the pastor of Hopewell baptist Church of Corsicanan, Texas. He is 90 years old and still pastoring. Janie took this picture of us with my cell phone. He told me that it does not matter if he preaches to a handful or to a hundred he works equally hard perparing his sermons. God bless him, he is a great man of God. The envelope I have in my hands contains the local association minute books. I saved on postage by hand delivering as many as I can. I have three sets of books left to deliver and will mail those off on Monday.

I made some progress on the jigsaw puzzle today as you can see from the picture below. I am saving the hardest part for last.

They have another bus seat ready for us and I plan to pick that up and have it installed before Wednesday night. We will not run the bus February 11th due to Janie and I being gone on vacation. We may try to take a couple of seats out so they can be worked on while we are gone. I will be singing in the morning right before I preach. I invite you to listen in to our broadcast at http://www.khbrhillsboro.com/ services start at 11:00 central time. We will be having our regular services Sunday night even with the Super Bowl on TV. Most of those who attend our evening services don't care anything about the Super Bowl, myself included, so our attendance should be the same as usual. God bless you.

House Work

Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday. The picture is of her reading the birthday card that my father-in-law got her. The picture below is of her opening a birthday present next to my their new HD flat screen TV. I spent the day paying taxes and getting the car inspected and helping my brothers work on the house. We got a lot done yesterday. My brother Ralph got a lot of sheet rock mud work done. I installed the light and switch in the bathroom, the shower enclosure, and the drain pipe for the washing machine. Steve hung sheet rock in the living room. Mother burned leaves and has the yard looking good. We had lunch with mother and talked about hiking together. It looks like the three of us are going to hike together out in California. We are planning to drive out and hike the PCT for 5 days. Janie and I are going to take a vacation in February. I was telling my brothers about it and how we plan to see the Alamo, which I have never seen. Mother spoke up and said she had seen the Alamo to which Ralph responded "Was that before or after the battle?" It is no wonder he is not in her will.

The vacation in February will be a chance for me to take Janie to some places she likes to go. We will go to a mall in San Marcos and shop which she will enjoy. We will then see the Alamo and then head west to see "The Cave with no name." After that we will drive to Carlsbad and see the caverns there. All of these plans are contengent upon the LORD being willing. Our desire is that His will be done. I am going to go for a walk now and try to get in 3 or 4 miles. God bless you.

Wind Shield Wipers

I just paid $50.00 for a set of windshield wipers for our car. I love the mileage but when you have to buy the windshield wipers from the dealer there is just something wrong about that. We are at my in-laws house tonight. Janie will take her dad for his treatment tomorrow while I go and pay our property taxes and check on my brothers and their progress on the house remodeling. We are going to plan a hike together somewhere here in Texas. I am looking forward to that. My brothers are planing to hike together on the PCT in California. I hope they can work it all out. I may even try to drive out there and join them for a couple of days.

We mailed off our income tax return today which tells you that we are getting a refund. I am not so patriotic as to file my return early when I owe taxes. The picture is of our church bus. the seat that is being recovered right now is number 10 and that means we are half way. This picture sure shows the difference between old and new. The duct tape was a good idea and has been very durable. The duct tape might have lasted for a couple of years. The new seats are far more comfortable. We have not fastened down the last seat we put in. We will do that Saturday before we head over to Corsicana for a birthday party there. Well I had better turn this laptop over to my wife so she can fill those internet orders and make a little money. God bless you.

Ice

21.2 was the temperature when I got up this morning. It was sleeting when I went to bed and ice covered just about everything outside. It has warmed up this afternoon to 43. I will not run the bus this evening but we will have our regular worship service tonight at 7:00. I got my walking in today and finished my Bible reading. The sermon for Sunday is all typed up and ready to go. I will be covering 2 Corinthians chapter 2 tonight. We got our 1099's in the mail today so I can finish my taxes tonight and get that in the mail tomorrow.

I was reading the Song of Solomon today and I am thinking about trying to memorize the entire book in the King James Version. It will difficult but I think it would be good exercise for my mind. I am planning to have my prospectus ready by the end of February and it looks like I am going to make it. I talked to my son in France this afternoon. He is planning to stay up and watch the Super Bowl which will start after midnight in Paris. I am going to go now and work on our tax return. God bless you.

Winter

It has been cold here today. A few days back we had a high of 84 and today our high was 34. It is 29 right now. There is suppose to be some freezing rain and sleet tonight. I may not want to run the bus tomorrow night if there is a chance that the streets may be icy. I will make that decision in the morning. I have spent much of my day on the phone talking to my older brother, my mother, three of my grand children, my two daughters and others. I did get my Bible readings done and walked for a couple of hours today. I made a pepperoni pizza from scratch for supper tonight and it was good. We were suppose to donate blood today but I did not want to drive 40 miles one way in this weather. We will try again next week. Our car needs new wind shield wiper blades and we found out today you can only get them from a dealer. We will pick up some when we go through Tyler next.

The picture above is of Janie in her office at home. She works filling Internet orders for Sullivansupply.com and enjoys her work. It is a part time job and gives her a little spending money. This other picture is of our left over pizza. God bless you.

Nabal

I was just reading about a man in the Bible whose name was Nabal. The name means "fool." His name suited him for he certainly acted like a fool. His wife was the opposite, she was very wise. King David had refused to take vengence on Saul who was trying to kill him but was more than ready to take vengence on Nabal who refused to pay him for services rendered. Nabal's wife was right when she told David in effect that vengence belongs to the Lord.

Janie is working on her ladies Bible study lesson and I have been working on taxes (pictured). It looks like we will be getting a refund. I am always anxious to get my taxes figured so I know how to budget our money. I prefer to over pay than under pay. I am ahead of schedule on my Bible readings. I need to be finished with 1st Kings chapter 6 by the last day of this month and I should make that with no problem at all. God bless you.

Driving

Good services today with a lot of visitors. I missed talking to my son on the Internet today. We had 2 of our church members taken to the hospital today. One here in Hillsboro and the other in Waco so we spent our afternoon at 2 different hospitals. The picture is of me driving to Waco this afternoon. I should be smiling in this picture because my car got 53 miles per gallon on this trip. I must have had a lot on my mind. We got home in time to get to our evening services. My wife and I will be helping in the worship services at the nursing home in the morning. I plan to work on my taxes tomorrow afternoon. I hope to have them finished and ready to mail by Tuesday morning. I am looking forward to attending a birthday party on Saturday. It will be the 90th birthday of a man who has been preaching and pastoring for over 70 years. He is still pastoring a church. I hope that I will still be able to pastor when I am 90. God bless you.

Ladies

It has been another good day. We went down to Gatesville, Texas for the district ladies auxiliary meeting and had good services and food. This picture was taken at that meeting. The first order of business upon returning home was to type up my sermon for Sunday. I then reviewed the Sunday School lesson and took a three mile walk. I got my Bible readings done for the day and you can still check on my progress near the bottom of the right hand column of this blog. Tomorrow's services will be special for our new junior choir will be singing for the first time.

I am thinking about taking a three day vacation in February. I would like to get away from our busy world and spend some time alone with my wife. Her birthday is in February and I plan to take her out to eat and maybe take in a movie. I have not made the kind of progress I had wanted to on my prospectus. I have only about 2000 words of the 5000 that are required. The amount of words is obviously not the goal for it would be nothing for a preacher to put down 5000 words in a very short time. The prospectus is really a mini thesis. It must contain the gist of the subject and how it will be approached. It must also contain the bibliography which must site 80 sources. I have about 47 sources right now and am still looking.

This picture is of a common site in Hill County. We followed this tractor to our church building this morning where we met the ladies that were going to ride with us to the meeting. God bless you.

Miles and Miles

This picture is of Janie and the family of the lady whose funeral I officiated today. We drove to north Dallas this morning and after the funeral we went out to eat with the family. We really enjoyed our visit with them. After we returned to Hillsboro we took a short nap and I went and got the oil changed in the car. We went over to the church and took out another bus seat and then drove down to Waco to deliver it and pick up the one that was finished. Put in a lot of miles today. I am going to go for a walk now and put in three more miles then put together a few more pieces of the puzzle and head for bed. We will be driving over 150 miles tomorrow to attend the district ladies auxiliary meeting. God bless you.