I had a great day today!

I met a new partner, Fidel Guerrero who is one of the Pastors for the Rock Woodstock.

He came from Miami with seven other families to help start outreach to the Latino population in the area.  He heard about me from one of his friends in Marietta that had worked with me on a couple of other projects.  That’s the best thing about longevity in an area, you get to know a lot of people!

I took Fidel to an area that I think really needs a Spanish church.  We ate lunch together and I introduced him to two of my favorite missionaries Marco Solano and Ian North.

Always LOVE hanging out with those guys.

After getting to know each other, we went to visit two missions in the area:  Gwinnett Crossings and The Falls.

Both have given us great space and an open invitation to work in the communities.  Those two complexes represent over 600 Latino families!  I believe Fidel was very impressed with the opportunity!

He wants to partner with a local church and after some thought I took him over to New Beginnings Fellowship with Pastor Reggie Screen.

These guys seem to be made for each other!  They both have a solid heart for outreach! Pray that the Holy Spirit will bind these two brothers together in love and that MANY people will hear the Gospel because of that partnership!

Went over to Azalea to check on my kids.

I hadn’t seen Aylene in a few weeks.  Her Mom brought her little brother for help.  She was very reluctant to let me see her homework.  I knew that she had had a LOT of trouble getting it done in the past so I was leary when she said she could do it all.

The first exercise was a read/comprehension set of questions.  She could not even read the word “day.”  It’s really easy at that point to get frustrated and just give up.  I immediately went back to the basics.

“Do you know your vowels?”

“No, Mr. Tim.”

“Remember a, e, i, o, u?”  She just looked confused.  I knew we were in big trouble.

“Do you know what this letter is?” I pointed to the letter “a.”  She hesitated.  “That’s an ‘a’,” I replied. I usually don’t give them too much time, they just feel really embarrassed.  “Do you know what sound an ‘a’ makes?”  She had no idea.  How can you pass first grade if you don’t know that?

So we went through the long and short sounds of A, and I spelled out some simple words, fat, cat, sat, rat. . . She was somewhat sucessful with that and I laid it on thick how GREAT she was doing.  But in my heart I felt, Lordy mercy.  This is going to take a LOT of time. . .

I explained to her Mom in Spanish that she needs to come every day so we can work on this reading.  You can’t learn too much at one time. Just one small chunk that she can REALLY know is the way to go.

Pray for us as we help the kids.  There isn’t a safety net beneath them.

I was proud of Clinton.  I got him to help Joy.

He acted like a regular little teacher.  It was cute to hear him sounding like me!

Pray for our missionary team!  GREAT things are happening!