This morning I took the Chrysler Concorde in to have the transmission checked out.  They wanted to make sure that the repair they made last week was all tight.  Nothing leaking.  Looked like everything was AOK.  Should be for the two grand we paid for the job!

I planned on moving tables today, but Jouvens wasn’t available and I can’t lift those heavy things by myself over and over.  A little help REALLY helps.

I bought two new printer/scanner/copiers for the missions at Huntington Terraces and at Adelaide Park.  I had a great visit with Don Devlin the Director of the mission at Adelaide Park.  He’s a salty old Army guy that is rough around the edges buy has a heart of gold.

Went over to the mission and checked on the kids.  They didn’t go to school today so they didn’t have any homework.  Had a good talk with Jouvens and his brothers Ernest and Jimmy.

Came home and ran 4 miles.

It’s about 8pm.  Need to work on my financial report now.

Peace.

Kathy and I went to St. Andrew’s Catholic Church this evening.  We attended the mass for the 28th Sunday.  Part of it was in memory of my mother in law Nell Doverspike.  Afterwards we went to my brother in law’s girlfriend’s house to have a chili party.  It was delicious!

Worked on my yard.  Mowed.  Picked up sticks.  Trimmed hedges. 2 hours of manual labor.

Uploaded about 500 pictures that Ashley took of Miles and of the Impact 360 team.  Still working on editing them.

I worked with my team from Impact 360 today in Chamblee.  They are a “gap year” program for rising college Freshmen.  We worked at Azalea and Highland Gardens hosting a Backyard Bible Club for the kids.  They also helped me clean up the soccer field at Chamblee–hundreds and hundreds of beer bottles.

I took them for a treat to Cafe Itanbul–authentic Turkish cuisine.  Fantastic!

J and I had a great time tonight.  My son is really interested in starting his own business—he’s a web designer.  I think he’s done a fantastic job on the www.whirlwindmissions.org site.

Peace.

Did admin work today.

Ashley finished up the contact information on the maps in our web site. We’ve upgraded the info on the maps substantially. That was a really big job.

Developed a script to use in order to set up appointments with churches. I thought it might help my partners raise funds.

Ran 4 miles this afternoon.

Edited a video for Simonton Baptist Church. Burned the DVD and sent them a copy. Also posted the video on our YouTube channel.

I’ll be working with my college Impact 360 class the next two days.

Ashley and Jesse will come with me tomorrow. I hope J will drive. Good practice for him.

Been working on videos most of today. I had five teams last week that we worked with: Crossroads, FBC Duluth, In His Name Ministry, University of Louisville, KY and Perimeter Church. Awesome!

So today I captured the video on my computer, edited the video and added titles, burned DVDs for each church and for the apartments where they served, compressed the videos so they could be posted on the internet and put them on our YouTube account. Check them out!

Big news of the day was I got to go see my brother Tito and his new baby Samuel at Northside Hospital. Patricia sure does make some beautiful babies! Got to hang out with Jacob their four year old too. I took him for some chicken nuggets at McDonalds. I think I liked the toy better than him. It reminded me of a Rhino Beetle from Kenya.

I worked on my email disaster today.  I have all the sites changed over that J and I could think of.

I imported 1,924 contacts.  I have to work through them to make sure it’s right.

It is interesting to see which contacts I feel like I really HAVE to let know what’s going on.

I really felt like some of my biggest supporters read this and will contact ME.  It’s happened a couple of times this evening.

Ran 4 miles this morning.  There’s always more mileage . . . .

I had a great time with Jesse this afternoon.  We had lunch together and talked about business and how it relates to relationships.  He got more practical experience driving.  He’ll take his final practical test in a month or so.

Glad I could get a little extra rest today.  Man, I’ve been stressed out.

Peace.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse. . .  it did.

Last night late I was working through my email and I cam across an email from the GMAIL TEAM.  It told me they were eliminating all the accounts that were unused.  They asked me to tell them my name and password to verify I still wanted the account.  Like a complete idiot I filled in the form and sent it off.

This morning as I tried to log on to my gmail account, my blood ran cold.  My log in didn’t work.  Time after time I tried.  Nothing.  What have I done!?

I’ve been using email for nearly 12 years.  I cannot believe I fell for their ruse.  It just looked so official!

Bottom line–my email has changed to:  whirlwindtim@gmail.com.

I know you folks that read this blog are some of my best friends.  PLEASE change my email in your address book.

This evening I’ve imported my old address book from Outlook.  I’ll work on sending a message to everyone asap. What a huge hassle.

This afternoon Kathy, Ashley and I went to Eagle’s Landing Baptist Church to see one of my MSC couples get appointed along with the new North American Mission Board President Geoff Hammond.  It was a great service.  The mapquest that I downloaded from the church website took me WAY out of the way into the middle of nowhere.  I couldn’t believe it!  I finally found my way there, but it wasn’t easy.

Also had a mother at Kensington Station call me and just royally cuss me out in the worst language imaginable because we told her son to go home.  She wasn’t there and it was the kid’s first time to the center.  Between all the cussing I explained to her that this was NOT day care and that we are an all volunteer operation.  There are times when we can’t be there.  Did no good.  Just kept cussing me out and threatening lawsuits.  Her husband signed a form stating that we were NOT responsible for their children and that we were NOT to be used as a baby sitting outfit.  When I asked her if she was home when we sent the child there, she admitted she was not.  I felt sorry for the lady worring about her child.  I felt badly.  But who’s watching these children when we are not there?

It has really been a tough week.

It’s Sunday morning. Ashley and I are getting ready to go over to Perimeter Church where I will do a briefing with the whole group and Ashley will do a training station on how to do face painting. We’ll also teach the teams some games, how to tie balloon animals and how to use the Evangecube.

Perimeter will be serving in 20 different locations around Metro Atlanta. It’s always my favorite weekend of the year!

Then Ash and I will go over to FBC Duluth where I’ll give them a briefing at 4pm then we’ll go over to Gwinnett Crossings to host a block party over there from about 5-7pm. Should be a terrific day!

Peace.

Kathy and Ashley and I just got back from the Outreach Events this afternoon.  We had a great time working in the community.  I’m looking forward to hearing how many people accepted Christ today!

Saturday, October 6, 2007

I started out my morning at Crossroads church in Lawrenceville. I did a briefing with them on how to round up the people at Alexander Mill, Greens at Hillcrest and Olde Salem. I also showed them how to tie animal balloons. The teams did a fantastic job and the reception was great from the residents.

Then over to Chamblee to meet with my team from the University of Kentucky. They served at Azalea Place and at Highland Gardens. They cleaned up the mission and painted Azalea. They also cleaned up the soccer field in Chamblee. They collected over 50 big bags of trash—mostly beer bottles. Ay caramba. The team hosted a Backyard Bible Club at the two apartments. I was glad I had Kathy and Ashley to go over there and help them get set up. Thank God for the team!

Ended up at Briarlake Village where the In His Name puppet team from Pisgah, NC was serving. They also were at Don Juan/Pearl Lane that afternoor. Ashley and Kathy helped them get started while I was in Lawrenceville with the Crossroads and Simonton BC teams.

What a day!

Peace.

Today was nearly the worst day of my life.

I somehow mislaid my keys yesterday to the Chrysler.  I’m really careful with stuff and like NEVER lose things like that.  It really shook me up. I had NO other key that started the car.  The copies I had made only open the door.  The engine won’t start because it has a chip in it.  So my car was basically imobilized.

Ironically, this was the 2 year anniversary that I’ve had that car.  It was a very generous gift to our ministry from Dr. Pat Barrington.  She’s my doctor and fellow missionary to Niger this February.

So the Chrysler dealership said I had to bring the car in in order to get a key made.  The car had to be “reprogrammed.”  That meant I had to have the car towed.

I have three old cars.  I have Triple A, so towing’s not an issue, but it sure is a hassle.

So I figured those keys had to be in my office at FBC Doraville.  No keys.

Then Azzlea Mission? No keys.

How about Perimeter mall parking lot. No Keys.  I really thought I’d find them there. Now I was REALLY bummed out.  It wasn’t just the losing the keys. Again, something that NEVER happens, only it did. It was also the repair of the Chrysler transmission that was over $2,000, and making sure all the teams this weekend were set up correctly.

I was feeling so sorry for myself that I actually started crying.  What a wuss.

The Father kept telling me, “Hey son, when did I ever let you down? Don’t worry!

But the last logical place for those keys to be was in that parking lot.

I thought of what happened yesterday to retrace my steps.  I  made one last stop yesterday at Lowes.  But I figured it was impossible for them to have fallen out there because I was driving and the bag with the key in it was on the passenger’s side floor board.

I went in and asked the Customer Service people:  “Did you have a set of keys turned in yesterday?”

Sure did.  And he pulled out my keys.  Praise the Lord!

It’s so dad gum weird that I really can’t figure it out.  How did those keys got from a zippered compartment in a bag to on the ground in the parking lot?

I chalk on this up to spiritual warfare.  Whenever we have a huge outreach event like this weekend, we always incur really weird stuff like your computer and your car will both mess up.

One day at a time.

This afternoon I hosted a team from North Carolina that does clowns and puppets.  I was still kind of in a funk although I was a LOT better now that I had my keys.

We went to do a show at Shallowford Gardens in Doraville.  I went around and rounded up the kids and set up chairs.

There were a couple of kid had just incredibly bad behaviour.  One little 9 year old actually told one of the older ladies on the team that he was going to “Cut her throat and kill her.”  I had to have a long talk with that kid.

Doubt I did much good.

Peace.

Thursday is always special for me.  It’s ASHLEY day!  We really enjoy riding around together and talking about ministry.

Even more exciting was Jesse came too.  Wow!  He needs to get more driving hours under his belt.  If you can drive where I drive,  you’re a big boy driver.  285, Buford Highway, Jimmy Carter, 78 and its dreaded reversable lanes. . . scary stuff.

I just had him focus on his one lane, one mile at a time.  If you break it down almost anything is possible.

We gathered up all the painting supplies and took them Azalea.  Also spent about $150 on paint for the Azalea Mission.  I have a team from Kentucky that will work with us this weekend.  They’ll clean and completely repaint the mission.  Since my wife has been working there with the Bengali women I’ve tried to keep the place cleaner.

Speaking of clean–I encountered the filthiest mission I’d ever seen today at Huntington Creek.  Apparently, one of the kids hid in a closet and waited for the team to lock up and leave.  They he got out, let all his little naughty friends and and completely went bezerk.  I took pictures.  It was unbelievable.  Even down to painting on the walls.  Ash, J and I cleaned for about an hour.  That was something else.  The kids are out of control.  So are the parents.  Go figure.

We spent a little time at Perimeter Mall.  Ash and I like the salads over there. Then we got Ashley some new boots and J some new house shoes.  He calls them “slippers.”  I don’t think I could be manly and wear slippers.

Tomorrow I have a puppet team in town.  Saturday, Crossroads church will be in Lawrenceville.  Sunday Perimeter will be all over Metro Atlanta–20 locations.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Peace.