Didn’t sleep well last night–too excited about my folks coming into town.

I worked on the forum this morning. I’ve started posting ideas to help folks do this type of ministry. I’ll keep posting things as I think about questions I’m asked regularly. I’ve really had trouble with my internet. I had to restart the router about ten times last night. Enough! This morning I also went over to Best Buy to get another brand–Linksys, I’m not happy with you. So far the Belkin router is doing a good job. I’ll take the other equipment back to Best Buy and get store credit. I buy stuff from them all the time.

My folks arrived into Atlanta around noon today! YAY! It is so good to see them again!

My mom and I went into Doraville to pick up the 3 Leches cake for the party tomorrow evening. We drove around the International Village before going to FBC Mountain Park to check on the facilities and put the cake into the industrial fridgerator.

This evening we took a drive around Stone Mountain. This weekend is Frontier Days at the park. They had camping reenactments of the British soldiers along with the Creek and Cherokee Indians. It was super cool to see how the folks camped out back then.

Peace.

One of the big items on my “to do” list is — Engage the Church! We do that on an individual level locally as well as on an international and national level via the internet.

This morning Jesse set up a forum board for us on our web site! I’m very excited about this endeavor as I think it’s a good way to get practical knowledge out to mission directors and youth directors who are interested in working in the community but aren’t sure how. So log onto our FORUM and leave a post!

I just finished a meeting with one of my favorite partners–Tyler Recker. He’s a real go getter and a real soldier for the Lord. He’s been in contact with a band that’s interested in doing outreach in the community. I’ll help set them up! I’m the “where/when” guy.

I’m getting ready to go to the mission at Azalea and check out the kids and help them with their school work. Hopefully I’ll learn some more Bengali!

Worked out on weights the morning. I’ll probably run this evening. I watched Invincible last night on DVD–the story of Vince Papale. Great flick!

Peace.

Got up early this morning to work on the schedule for our Cinco de Mayo Fiesta this weekend at FBC Mountain Park. I think it’s really going to be a lot of fun. Many of my best friends and partners will be there to celebrate with us. I’m looking forward to it. My folks will be in town Friday morning. Excellente!

Also worked on my Team Assignments page. With the possible loss of one of my teams the end of May, I’m having to come up with alternate plans. I talked with the pastor of the team this morning and they still may come–they’ll give me a final word on Monday.

Did more research and worked on the web site with Jesse. I’m working on building a community of people that do a similar ministry to ours. I want our web site to be THE source of information on how to go about this work. We’re already a leader. My goal is to be THE leader. As Thoreau said, “In the long run you only hit what you aim at. So it’s better to aim high.”

Went by FBC Doraville to work on my email and check the mail. Doesn’t snail mail seem sort of old fashioned? Still, hard copies have their place and I’m sure we’ll continue to have a presence there. I did find out that the source I quoted that said that Baptists only baptized 4,000 people last year was wrong. It was more like 386,000! I can’t believe I didn’t check out what I was told–my source was credible, but.

Still, less than 400,000 for the whole country of over 350 million seems pretty small. It’s the lowest our denomination has baptized since 1993.

Went by Azalea to check on my kids. Jouvens is trying to learn some words of Bengali. I think that’s great. I asked the kids to show him what the alphabet looks like–it’s WAY complicated. Jouvens said it’d take “a million years” to learn that language. I’m sure it’s be rough.

Wanna learn some?

They say Hello like most Muslims—Asalaam alekum. (Ah sah lahm ah LAY koom.) The reply is the reverse–Alekum asalaam.

Basically means Peace unto you.

How are you is–Kamon achen–(Kahmohn ahsin)

Reply is Balo ache (Bahloh ah say) Which means “Good.”

Got home and ran my usual 4 mile route.

Watched Invincible on DVD. Love sports movies.

Peace.

Delivered my financial report to my treasurer this morning.

Finished packing the DVDs for Crosspointe Church, Cherokee Courts and Olde Salem and put them in the mail.

Went to FBC Doraville to check on the mail and take care of regular business matters.

Ordered my Tres Leches (3 Milks) cake for the party this weekend. I’ll pick up the finished product on Friday and take it to FBC Mountain Park to put in their big fridge. Gonna be yummy! Not too late to come–blog people!

Had a good talk with Alex one of the new guys on our team. He’s getting married soon! They’ll be moving into their place soon in Stone Mountain–a lot closer to the work. He’s especially interested in working with Turkish people.

Talked with another partner of mine from Florida today. He was planning on bringing a team to help us over Memorial Day weekend. He just got fired, so not sure if that’ll happen or not. Puts some other plans of mine into jeopardy–particularly two outreach events that weekend that they were supposed to host. Not good. They still may come.

Went to help the kids at Azalea with their homework today. Multiplication of large numbers where you have to keep track of where the decimal point ends up. Remember how to do that? For instance: Multiply .00376 X 3.0087. Not as easy as it looks–unless you bring out the calculator!

Delivered the DVD I burned to Briarlake Village and told them about the team coming over Memorial Day. I actually have two teams–one, a very large (140 people!) from Mississippi. With the possible drop out of the Florida team plans are up in the air again.

I uploaded the Crosspointe Church video of the Outreach Event in Lawrenceville to our YouTube account:

Check it out!

Peace.

End of the month Admin stuff today!

Worked on my financial reports. Took care of my donation and expense reports.

Confirmed arrangements for our banquet at FBC Mountain Park this weekend. Everything looks good to go!

Made a support request to FBC Forest Park. Filling out forms takes time!

Working on editing my video I shot this weekend. Burned DVDs for our partnering churches. Here’s the video I shot of Briarcliff Baptist Church working at Azalea Place and Briarlake Village with some shots of the clean up at the Chamblee Soccer Fields too.

Research on web site promotion. Ever heard of web rings?

K and I worked out on weights this afternoon. I also went for a 4 mile run late in the afternoon.

Busy!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Ashley and I went to Briarcliff Baptist Church this morning. I spoke at the main service on the importance of getting involved in the community. Later we had a meal and a missions fair. If all goes well, this great church will start plugging in at Briarlake Village once a week to help with an after school program with the kids.

After working with the church we went over to Perimeter Mall. One of our favorite things to do together. Actually, going to the bookstore is MY favorite thing to do together, but Barnes and Noble is right by Perimeter Mall so it all works out! She actually didn’t do much shopping, just got some conditioner for her hair. I also bought her a candle. She like Ginger Root. Then we went to the bookstore. I actually fell asleep in a chair while reading. Lack of sleep will catch up with you.

Kathy wasn’t feeling well today. She stayed home and took care of her mom. Tonight we watched an episode of House on DVD. The only problem with that show is I start thinking I might have some kind of weird disease.

When I got home I went for a 4 mile run, then worked out on weights. Guess that nap at the bookstore helped!

My folks come into town this week! We have our Whirlwind Missions banquet this Saturday and they’re coming early to spend some time with us. Excellente!

Peace.

Full speed ahead kinda day!

Started out at Briarcliff Baptist Church for their In As Much service project day. I did a short briefing and training with the teams then took them over to Azalea Place to stripe parking lots, clean the mission and pick up trash from the soccer field in Chamblee. Later that day we hosted block parties at Azalea and at Briarlake Village. Great time was had by all!

Then I went to Huntington Village to off load all the band equipment from the van. Lester and Tito played music and had an Outreach Event with the help of their congregation. I would have loved to play some music with my brothers! But, I had other assignments.

Next was Crosspointe Church where I did a training session with the teams there before leading them over to Cherokee Courts and Olde Salem in Lawrenceville. I had an especially good time there because there was a large group of refugees from Burundi who spoke SWAHILI! That’s the language that I grew up with and is the second language I studied. It was fun to hear it again! I’d like to go back there soon just to get to know them better.

Refugees from Burundi had an especially hard time.

I got home about 9 pm. Mighty tired.

Watched an episode of House with K.

Now I’m compressing and uploading the shots I did to the Photo Gallery, then I’ll capture the video I shot onto my hard disk so I can start editing tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning we go to Briarcliff Baptist Church for their missions fair. I’m supposed to speak for a few minutes. I hope they put me last. Would you want to follow me as a speaker?

Peace.

Spent a couple of hours this morning finishing up writing the newsletters. Turned out to be 196 in all. Takes me about 10 hours a month to write, edit, publish, copy, label, write a little note on each letter and drop them off at the Post Office. A critical investment in time!

Took care of my 81 year old mother in law. She’s not doing very well. She says she hurts all over. But when she takes the stronger pain medicine she just sleeps all day long or sits in a chair and nods off. We’re always trying to adjust the dosage so she’s not so sleep nor hurt very much.

Ashley watched her later in the afternoon so Kathy and I could go see a movie together. It was fun. I wanted to see Tarantino’s knew effort but yesterday was the last day. Bahd luck. I’ll have to wait for it to come out on Netflix. We watched Pathfinder instead. Vikings vs Indian. I liked it. Not exactly a chick flick.

We also went over to the bookstore for a little while. Always doing research . . . lately I’ve been most interested in digital video techniques and promoting web sites.

We got home and checked on K’s mom. She was doing fine. Ashley does a good job watching out for her.

I ran four miles just as it was getting dark.

I just finished packing the van with the band’s equipment and the gear I need for doing the block parties tomorrow. I’m actually working with three churches in seven locations! I’ll have to get up early tomorrow to go get the food for the events, then over for the training sessions first at Briarcliff Baptist Church then Crosspointe Baptist Church. I’m a little bit concerned as to where I’m going to put the food in the van. It’s really full of stuff.

Whew!

Newsletter time of the month! I produced the pages, took them to the copy place and started writing! This month I’m writing 184 notes.

I had a terrific lunch today. I ate at Cafe Istanbul with a friend I used to work with back in my TV days in Savannah–Blair Meeks. He works for Channel 11 here in Atlanta now and is a big time reporter. He’s such a great guy and I really enjoyed catching up with him. Working in the news industry really changed my life. I was confronted with so much sudden death that I got a whole new perspective on life. I have a sense of urgency that most people can’t even fathom.

Being in the news industry also changed me in other ways. I still eat REALLY fast.

I specialize in “semi-legal” driving menuveurs.

My heart starts beating fast and I think I’m in “Live Shot” mode.

I gained the ability to focus and work at light speed without panic or freaking out.

I look at car wrecks and go into analysis mode as to whether it’s “news worthy.”

Weird, huh?

Also went to the mission at Azalea to check on the kids. My friends at Perimeter gave me about 100 little footballs. The kids had a gas throwing them around the parking lot. Fun!

K and I enjoyed watching House on DVD this evening.

My friend Carl has had a setback after his surgery. Please pray for him as he deals with this phase of his health challenge. It’s not life threatening just really uncomfortable.

Back to writing newsletters. . . .don’t get no better!

Peace.

Had a meeting with the cops and managers this morning. Specifically with the Dekalb County Center Precinct and the managers that work in the Memorial Drive/Clarkston area. We usually meet at the Red Cross on Covington Highway. The RC has had a cut back in personnel which resulted in the building being locked up when we got there! I made the suggestion that we meet in the mission at Kensington Station which is just around the corner. I was sure hoping that Ashley had cleaned it up great before she left! I took about 15 managers over there, plus the manager for KS, plus all the cops and the mission looked PERFECT! Way to go, Ash! So it was a good testimony of what we do and our professional standards. There were pictures on the mantle piece of Jesus on the Cross (drawn by some little kid) plus hand written Bible verses of John 3:16. It was a beautiful thing!

Left that meeting to meet with my partners from the UNITE churches. This is being led primarily by my partners from Perimeter: Chip Sweeney and Drue Warner. I’ve worked with Chip since the beginning of my ministry in this town. The Father is really using these two men to lead our churches to work together to reach this city for Christ. We sure do have a long way to go!

Great to meet other partners and see how we can get together in other areas as well.

Also got together with Tito Ruiz and my partners from Crosspointe Church, Steve and Ruth Nolen. They are three of my favorite partners in Atlanta and I am expecting really big things to happen from this partnership. We went over to check out the opening of a new mission off of Satellite Blvd: Gwinnett Crossings. The place is nearly 600 units and primarily Latino. We’re looking forward to having a block party there this Saturday with the help of Crosspointe. In the future we’ll start ESL classes over there with the intention of planting a church in that area.

It’s Kathy’s birthday today! We celebrate for about two weeks. Ironically, on her birthday we usually have a time of somber reflection. Just kidding! She did think she’s getting old. I actually think she’s in the best health she’s been in years.

Her mom’s still not doing well. Having a lot of chest pains. Hard on all of us.