Today I worked with one of my favorite churches: Briarcliff Baptist Church. This was their annual “Operation In As Much” where they do service projects around the city.

They helped me paint the parking lots around Azalea Place apartments, clean up the soccer fields at the PDK location,

removed garbage from under the bridge on N. Druid Hills where homeless people live,

organized the mission at Azalea and painted over graffiti! Lot of work!

After the service projects they hosted two block parties at Azalea Place and at Briarlake Village. A great time was had by all!

Ashley made the copies for our newsletter this month. The kids at the mission helped me put the labels on the envelopes. Now we’re ready to write the letters!

Busy day!

Working on my newsletter today!

I went to the post office so I have the stamps I need and all the labels are done.

Just got a call from a pastor friend of mine from Haiti.  We’re working together to put a water well into a village in the mountains in Haiti.

It’s Kathy’s birthday!  She’s working at Stone Mountain Middle School today.

My partner Bennett Ekandem is still having headaches.  Please pray for Bennett’s healing.

I got up early to start working on the newsletters. I’ve got the labels and envelopes ready for the kids to help me with tomorrow. I’ll work on my article later this afternoon.

Stayed up late again last night finishing up editing video for Agricola Baptist Church. It’s in two sections, each about 8 minutes long.

I had BOTH my kids with me today! Yeah!

We were supposed to have a meeting with the directors of mission for Total Grace church. Didn’t work out so we rescheduled for next week. That was actually a good thing because we went out to Roswell to do some promotion for the outreach event at Aspen Pointe instead.

We also picked up my guitar which FINALLY was repaired. They did a beautiful job on it. Plays great!

Then over to Lowes where we bought some paint to cover up the graffiti at Azalea Place apartments. I think we have everything we need for the events this weekend for my two church teams: Briarcliff Baptist Church and Roswell First United Methodist.

Ashley picked out Indian food to eat! It was delicious! How about me riding that elephant!?

We spent some time at Barnes and Nobel. I’ve been getting some books on marketing and design. I’m always learning new things about how to get the word out about missions!

Ran 4 miles this evening along highway 78. Must admit I was looking for money after I found $64 last time I ran! Only found .16cents. Wasn’t worth running next to all those cars!

Stayed up late last night working on editing the video for FBC Jefferson and Ty and Sharon Sanders. I posted those on the blog before this one. Check them out! I also posted the Tim Palmer video I made about their ministry at Huntington Ridge.

I’ll work on splitting the video that I made for Agricola Baptist Church tonight. It’s about 16 minutes long in all. YouTube has a maximum of 10 minutes.

Tomorrow will be a rest day, although I need to start working on this month’s newsletter. Always something to do!

You’ve heard me talk about editing videos!

Here are a couple that I’ve been working on including our Outreach Event with FBC Jefferson with my partners Sharon and Ty Sanders.

This is with my partners that are moving up from Missouri: Tim and Cathy Palmer. They’ll be working in Norcross and living at Huntington Ridge and also ministering to refugees in Clarkston.

Ever wanted to be in the Olympics? We’re planning on having Kids Games in Chamblee & Doraville! Jesse and I went to a meeting with partners from Kids Games, Dunwoody Baptist Church and the Salvation Army to discuss hosting this in several of the missions around the area. Dan Williams is the director of the program. He’s a missionary kid from Taiwan. I look forward to helping get this organized in our area.

In October we’ll have the Compassion in Action weekend. That will involved mobilizing our UNITE churches around Atlanta. We had some preliminary discussions about what types of projects we’ll host and what churches will be involved this afternoon. Last year we had outreach in over 20 locations around Atlanta. That’s always a great time!

Jesse and I also went to collect the different items we need for the Outreach Events this coming weekend in Chamblee, Doraville and Roswell. We picked up twisty balloons from Party City and paint from Lowes. I decided to get more paint to cover up some grafitti around Azalea. We’ll get a gallon of that paint tomorrow. Today we got the rollers to paint the parking lot.

We also went to Huntington Terraces to pick up some painting gear as well as see how the new basketball goal we got for the mission there turned out. Bill did a great job putting that together!

It was also good to see the new computers in action!

We went over to Azalea to check on the kids at the mission. Bubba and I went around the complex to see where we needed to paint over graffiti and which of the parking lots needed to be repainted the worst. The kids seemed like they were doing well on the CRCT. Hope so!

I just finished typing the blog and hit send. The connection crashed and lost everything. Bahd luck!

This morning I mailed out the DVDS that I edited and burned this morning until about 1:15am. Sure am glad to get that project under my belt! I did two different projects, one for Tim and Cathy Palmer and the other for Terry Earl and Cathy Palmer. I was pleased by how they turned out!

Jesse and I had a meeting with the manager of Hamptons at Lenox and her main leasing agent as well as the police officer for the area this morning. We had a good visit. Pray that we will find volunteers to help us at the project. Salvation Army has been a main player in that area in the last couple of years but my director of the mission moved south of I20. I helped him start work in that area too and he’s doing a great job over there, but I sure miss him here. Pray that we can mobilize more volunteers in that area.

In fact, I had TWO managers call me and beg for me to help them at their complexes this morning. Never had that happen before! One are is in College Park. I have some great partners down there, I pray that they’ll be able to get some churches mobilized in that area. The other one was near Hamptons at Lenox. I’m less optimistic about getting help for them since we’re already stretched so thin in that area. God can raise up more soldiers!

J and I also went to check out under the bridge near the complex where there have been a bunch of homeless people living.

There were several extremely nasty mattresses over there and it smelled like a dirty toilet.

We’ll have our team from Briarcliff Baptist Church help us clean up that area this weekend. They’ll also host block parties at Azalea Place and at Briarlake Village as well as clean up the soccer fields near the PDK airport.

We went over to our partner Clatie Lewis’ house to pick up two computers for our mission at Huntington Terraces. Mr. Lewis has been sick. He still didn’t look well. Please pray for him!

We dropped off the computers and picked up Bill Hickey from the Terraces. We went over to Walmart to buy a new basketball goal for the complex and to buy some groceries for Bill. He’s a very generous fellow and tends to give a lot of the food I get for him to the other residents. He says, “They were hungry, Tim.” What can I say? I do the same thing.

After dropping the equipment off, Jesse and I went over to the Church to pick up mail, (or should I say, pick up bills?) then over to Azalea to check on the kids at the mission. They have CRCT testing this week so they don’t really have any homework. We just hang out and visit really. I always try and say positive things to them to help them feel better about themselves.

We got back to the hotel around 7pm this evening. Ashley was crashed out in Jesse’s bed. She was really pale and had been throwing up. Please pray for my sweet angel Ashley! She just left for the Lamb’s house a few minutes ago with Kathy.

Well, I guess I’ll try and upload this again!

Love you guys!

GREAT day today!

I got up early and finished the video project I made for Terry Earl and Catherine Palmer. It was a complicated piece and I’m happy how it turned out. I want to post it on my YouTube account, but I need to make sure that the families on the video are cool with it first. It’s after midnight as I’m writing this blog. I just finished editing Cathy Palmer’s husband Tim’s project too. I’m making copies even as I type this. I really wanted to get these done for them before their commissioning but my computer was broken and it just wasn’t possible. I sure was sad about that.

Jesse and I had lunch with the Pastor of FBC Doraville, Sam Letson and one of my partners Keith Harrell.

Keith is one of the new guys on our North American Mission Board team. He’s a GREAT guy and will do a lot for the Kingdom. If all goes well, he might actually come on staff part time at FBC Doraville to help work with the youth. That would be awesome. Pray that the church might consider that. Pastor Sam is doing a great job at the church in a difficult situation. Almost all the white people have left the Doraville area. That’s great for an international missionary like me, but it’s a real challenge for any English speaking congregation!

Jesse and I also went over to our new lawyer’s house to take him the signed contract and retainer for his services. Pray that the Lord will guide him as he represents Jesse. Our prayer is that the county will drop all charges due to his illness.

He is doing better with the medication. He still sleeps a lot but I don’t normally schedule anything for the early morning so that works out fine. He’s a real asset to our team!

We had a meeting with a Haitian Pastor Jeff this afternoon. He wanted to show me the plans for a school that he wants to build. I really like him. I gave him some really straight talk about how he should proceed with the project. Ithink he needs to start out with a water project before going into the whole huge school building project. People are dying there because of unsafe water. It’s a huge need in Haiti. People also tend to support smaller projects and when they see he can handle it, then they entrust him with more money and larger projects. At least that’s been my experience.

We went over to Azalea to hang out with the kids at the mission. I spent about an hour talking with Jouvens and Bubba. They are like two sons to me. They want to start a business. Jesse and I are working along similar lines and I want my son to help mentor Jouvens and Bubba. Pray for all three of my sons!

Ran nearly 5 miles today. My new trail runs along highway 78. As I was running I saw something that caught my eye–a $20 bill! Groovy. As I ran I found more money! I went along the section a couple more times and by the end of my run I had found $64 and a gift card that had $1.38 on it. Sweet!

I’m constantly looking for things on the ground. When we were in Montana hiking in the forest, I saw some trash along the trail. That irritated me so I went over to pick it up so I could throw it away. Inside was a wallet that had over $400! I talked with some local residents who knew the owner and gave it back to him. I’ve found at least two other wallets that I’ve turned in during my runs over the years. I always get a note back from the owner saying how I’ve “restored their faith in humanity,” or something along those lines. C’est la vie, baby.

I stare at the ground because of growing up in Kenya. I was always watching out for snakes!

Love you guys. Keep praying! Jesse’s improving!

We had a restful day today. I really needed it!

This afternoon I’ve been working on video projects. I got a couple of new standups done for projects for the Palmers and Terry Earl, so I should have all the pieces I need to finish those up.

Most of the afternoon was spent with our new lawyer Gary Greenwald to represent Jesse. We decided that it wasn’t a good idea to continue with the Public Defender lawyer, even though overall I think he did an adequate job. These proceedings are just way too important in the Jesse’s future to just HOPE that that lawyer would have been good enough. Pray that the proceedings will do well and that the financial obligations won’t be too onerous.

Jesse and Kathy are at the mountain right now getting some exercise on the bikes. We’ll probably get a third one soon so we can all go together!

We fun lunch together with Miles and Ashley. Good to have the whole family together!

Love you guys! Keep praying for Jesse! And us to while you’re at it!

Jesse and I had a great day today! We drove to Jefferson, Ga where we worked with a partners of mine Sharon and Ty Sanders.

They are in the application process to be Mission Service Corps Missionaries with the North American Mission Board. Sharon and I have worked together for years. She has a real heart for ministry and really loves working with the residents of Pine Lake Apartments.

FBC Jefferson was the lead team at the city park where they hosted an Outreach Event for the residents of the apartment complex across the street. They seemed to really enjoy the festivities and I saw one man addicted to alcohol pray for freedom with the Pastor. Very powerful stuff!

After the event, Jesse and I went to get him a new cell phone. His old one was melted in the fire. He got one he likes that is pretty simple and didn’t cost to much. I’m all for that!

Got home and ran to Stone Mountain from the hotel. That’s 4 miles. It was a beautiful evening for a run!

Love you guys!