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.