I had a great first day with my team from FBC Agricola, MS!  This is about the fourth year I’ve worked with this team.  They normally come during the summer.  They’ve done a fantastic job so far!

I had a briefing with them at FBC Doraville and then sent part of the team on on over to Huntington Ridge to repaint the mission we used to have over there.  The other 20 folks I took with me to redo the play area at Wynscape.  It’s extremely overgrown and just plain nasty.  We collected a bunch of bags of trash and started raking the area up.

Bill Hickey and I went to Lowes where we bought a chainsaw and a weed whacker so they can really start making headway against all the brush.  I think the additional gear will be well worth the money!

In the afternoon I took them over to the missions where they’ll be working this week.  They be covering Highland Gardens, Azalea Place, Pearl Lane, Briarlake Village, Kensington Station and Oak Forest.  The kids at the missions are in for a real treat!

I also went by Peachford Hospital to drop off some art supplies for Jesse to enjoy while he’s in the hospital.  We have our first family counseling session Tuesday morning at 11am at the hospital.  Ashley will be coming with us too.  I’m looking forward to seeing him.  Hope he’s not so loaded on tranquilizers this time.

The team from Agricola had a problem with one of their van tires.  I took it over to Tires Plus to get a new one.

Also went by our house to get the mail and see our sweet ol’ Sugar dawg.  She was glad to see me!

K and I watched Rescue Dawn this evening.  Glad I was never a POW.  Makes me think even more highly of John McCain.  That was some rough stuff.

 My computer is still at the Geek Squad at Best Buy.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll get it back.  What a hassle.

Please keep praying for Jesse’s healing!

After we got Jesse out of the Detention Center we took him out to eat Chinese food. He seemed to really enjoy it!

Then we went over to Miles’ house to see him and Ashley. Jesse was SO glad to see them!

We dropped by Kathy’s sister Ann’s house so we could pick up some extra clothes for him and let him clean up a bit. We packed him a bag and then went over to Peachford Hospital. He is still acting kind of strange. I guess that’s why we need to get him some help. We got there about 8pm and it took us until after midnight before he was finally in the hospital system. I had to fill out a bunch more forms and we had an assessment by one of the counselors.

He had a rough night and the doctors had to give him some meds to help him relax. Today he was kind of woozy. I guess the tranquilizers had really kicked him. We got to visit him for about an hour this afternoon. The doctors seem really hopeful that they can help him with therapy and meds. But they said that it’s a long term issue like treating diabetes.

After we went to the hospital we went over to Perimeter Mall to shop for some clothes for Ashley. I enjoy shopping with her. I think it’s kind of fun to look at the different styles and fabrics. I reckon that I pick out at least half of what she brings home! You have to be pretty sure of your masculinity to admit something like that, eh?

I was super tired and fell asleep on the way home. No, I wasn’t driving!

First thing this morning I tried to look up some information on my new computer about schizophrenia and it was completely frozen up. Wouldn’t restart, couldn’t see the cursor, nothing. Bummer. I had to take it over to Best Buy for their Geek Squad to take a look at. I was pretty upset because I had been working for hours on this big video project and now would I have to start over? I ran four miles this evening and at the very end of my run I realized that I had saved all the project on my EXTERNAL hard drive! So once the computer is repaired all my information should be just fine. PTL! Of course I don’t know how long it’ll be until I get my computer back . . . but while it was running it was a dream to edit with! Pray that it’ll be repaired asap. I’m using one of the Lamb’s computers now. That’s one thing that Jesse really taught me. Most of my critical work is web based so I can do it from ANY computer, not just mine.

Later, I went over to Walmart to pick up some supplies we’ll need for the service projects for me team from Florida. We’ll start work in the morning, including repainting the old apartment we had at Huntington Ridge and cleaning up a park area at our new mission at Wynscape. They’ll be in town through Wednesday working at 6 apartment complexes. I have plenty to keep them busy!

Keep praying for Jesse’s healing. He has really been through the wringer. It looks like he’s lost at least ten pounds. We still don’t know what kind of med they were giving him in the jail.

Love you guys!

It’s Saturday morning and Jesse is still at the Detention Center. Apparently, the paperwork hasn’t made it over the 4 miles to the jail from the Justice Center. May not have anyone working on it until Monday! The lawyer is trying to get a hold of the judge to call them instead. I was really hoping we could have him out of there by now. Apparently the form missed the warrant number. C’est la vie, baby.

We used AA bond company. I call my Dad “Double A.” Ashley Ann is double A too!

I’ve been up since daybreak working on the video project for Tim and Cathy Palmer and Terry Earl, some of my favorite partners. I have the rough edits done now! I’m going to redo my standups because a part that I referred to on the video didn’t work out. I had a refugee from Burundi say, “Thanks for sending Terry!” but my wife couldn’t understand his accent at all. If Kathy, who lived in Africa for 5 years couldn’t understand him, no average white person will either.

Kathy and I visited Roxy Kendall, Miles’ sister to see her newborn baby. What a beauty.

Miles’ dad Jimmy is one of my favorite people!

Keep praying for Jesse.

Love you guys!

We went bright and early to the Justice Center in Lawrenceville to wait for Jesse’s bond hearing.

First thing we found out is that the judge that we had heard that was going to listen to the case WASN’T going to be there.  He was off on spring break!  The new judge was a lady, Judge Head.  She seemed to be very fair too.

Bottom line the lawyers got together and decided that letting Jesse out on bond ($20.000!) would be ok IF he was admitted straight into the hospital.  This is what we wanted all along, so there wasn’t really a trial, the judge just signed the Consent Bond!  PTL!

We didn’t get to see Jesse at all, which we were kind of sad about.  But it’s better that they came to the right conclusion!

I’m going now to make arrangements with the bondsmen to get the money together for Jesse’s bond.  I’ll call Peachford again to let them know to expect his arrival today.

I’ll be back on line later tonight with other developments.

THANKS again my friends, for praying fervently for my little boy.  This is just the beginning of his healing!  Don’t stop praying!

Love you guys!

Ashley day! Yeah! Love hanging out with my daughter!

I started editing the video for the Palmers this morning. I got the initial bed of the program laid today. That’s where you put the standup videos and the narration track down. This evening I started laying in the “insert” edits. That’s where you insert video that covers the narration. I hope to finish editing the video tomorrow.

Ashley and I confirmed the six locations where my team from Agricola, Florida will be working next week. I’m sure everything is going to work out great for them. They’re a terrific team.

We also worked on the service projects. I have a couple of new things I need them to do including painting the apartment that we used to use at Huntington Ridge and a clean up project at our new mission at Wynscape.

Ashley and I went to do some shopping at Perimeter Mall. She’s replacing and upgrading some of the clothes that she had from the house fire. She’s adopting a more mature, professional look. She also got some new makeup–heard of Bare Minerals? Pretty cool stuff made out of all natural ingredients–5 different types of minerals!

After lunch, we shot over to Providence Christian Academy where we spoke to Dr. Carl Barrington’s Ethics Class. We had a good time sharing to this enthusiastic class. I pray that some of them will get involved at the missions near their school.

Then back to Chamblee where we checked on my office at FBC Doraville. Picked up some bills that I’ll drop by my treasurer’s house on Friday. I usually water my plants on Thursdays. They always brighten my day!

Went by the bank to get some money. I got a money order for a family that we’re helping with their rent.

Checked on the mission at Azalea. I talked a long time with Jouvens. We hope to get him into Perimeter College in the fall. We think we can do it as an international student now that he has a passport from Haiti. Pray that that will work out.

I picked up two computers from my friend Clatie Lewis who refurbishes them for me. Ash and I took them over to Wynscape where I met Officer Jose Ayala who is the leader of the community development for the area.

That’s another place where I’ll have a team working to clean up a playground area that is extremely overgrown. It’s become a crime ridden area. I called my partner from Florida to make sure they bring some landscaping tools and chainsaws.

This evening I worked on editing the video project and then Kathy, Ashley and I went to Miles’ house to see his sister Roxy and her new baby Isabella. That is a beautiful little baby.

Please pray for Jesse! We have the bond hearing on Friday morning at 9am Judge Hamlin is supposed to be a good judge. Pray that he will bond Jesse out to go to Peachford Hospital tomorrow afternoon. Please Lord, hear our prayers so Jesse can get some help!

Love you guys!

I got up early this morning and started working on the video project for Tim & Cathy Palmer our new missionaries coming to work with us later this month and for Terry Earl, my partner in Clarkston. So far I have all the video I shot from my camera in my computer. I also went out and did a more field work to get pieces of video I needed to illustrate what we were talking about: like street signs, washing machines, filling out forms and counting money.

Got home and ran 4 miles. Getting hot out there! Gonna get a lot hotter!!

Taking care of my email and my phone calls from this morning.

The crew at our house is really working on cleaning it up. Amen to that!

I’ll start editing the video after I post the blog.

K and I will go to visit Jesse at the Detention Center this evening. We just got back from seeing Jesse. He seemed in good spirits and was talking a lot about Jesus! Progress!

Be praying for the bond hearing on Friday at 9am that we can get him into the hospital!

Love you guys!

Shootin’ news!

Today I did the narration for the DVD for Cathy Palmer and Terry Earl. Terry wrote a terrific script for the project and Cathy did an outstanding job with the voice over. I’m looking forward to working on the project!

They are two of my favorite missionaries and are doing a great job in Clarkston. It was Tim and Cathy Palmer’s first day as “real, live missionaries” with the North American Mission Board today! They both got a full speed missions experience for sure.

I enjoyed getting Terry and Cathy along with Ashley, Bennett and Zeny together for Indian food today at Vikhyat. It’s good for the team to enjoy each other’s company. Missions can be a real pressure cooker. We have very intense personalities and I’m sure I drive people crazy with my “Full speed ahead, Baby!” attitude. I appreciate them letting me be ME. I’ve had some really hard times with partners in the past. Lost major amounts of sleep worrying about what I should do and how I should handle the situation.

I remember one time I had set this lady up in a mission, brought in all the equipment, paid the insurance and brought in the labor to run the program. A month later she was telling me that, “We don’t need your help and you can’t bring your teams to OUR location.” I was incredibly pissed off by that attitude at what I considered MY mission too! My biggest strategy is teamwork and getting us all to work together.

The evil one delights in causing friction in the team. I have NEVER seen a mission work successfully when a person tries to isolate who is working there. The body of Christ has many parts and we need them all.

It’s really easy for us to hurt someone’s feelings. I’m the kind of guy that needs everyone to love him. I can’t figure it out when someone doesn’t like me. Just doesn’t make sense to me. But it happens from time to time. . . I’m in the kill them with kindness camp.

LORD, I ask that you help me to be more sensitive to people’s feelings. Help me not to be too thin skinned or to read too much into things. AMEN!

This afternoon I went to Huntington Ridge to work with Tim Palmer.

I shot video of him and Cathy working at the mission and also him coaching tennis. The kids seemed to really love him! We also did the narration and on camera video this afternoon. I’ll be working on that video intensely tomorrow.

I’ve been staying up working too late that last several nights, not getting to sleep till after 1am. I need to get back to my midnight deadline. Pray that I’ll get more rest. I know when I’ve been overdoing it when the muscles in my left eye start to jump around.

I helped Kevin and Edwin Lamb with a build a fence project at Kevin’s home this evening. I enjoy hanging out with them and being helpful. I had some fun years doing construction back in the 80s!

Keep praying for Jesse’s bond hearing on Friday morning at 9AM. LORD! Please help my son get into the hospital! AMEN.

Sure love you guys!

For 5 years I was the Chief Photographer for WTOC-TV in Savannah, Georgie. I was back in “News Mode” today!

I had a great time doing a shoot for my partners Terry Earl and Cathy Palmer.

I enjoyed watching them work with two of their families in Clarkston. Great stuff! They teach English while also teaching “life skills” like cooking.
They also teach preschoolers the letters and sounds and read to them so they’ll have a head start before going into the school system.
I shot the video of the families and some sequences with Cathy and Terry.

Tomorrow, we’ll shoot the narration for the piece and I’ll also do a shoot with Tim Palmer and his ministry at Huntington Ridge. I’m actually producing two separate DVDs: one for the Palmers and another for the Clarkston ministry of Terry and Cathy. Tim Palmer also helped out at the after school program at Willow Branch.

We enjoyed Vietnamese food with Ashley and Kathy as well as Terry and Cathy!

Kathy and I watched the end of Cinema Paradiso–an Italian movie that I liked. It was all in Italian and shot in Sicily.

I’m checking out to see which camera looks best. In my previous post I used my Sony Vaio camera. This post will use the Logitech Notebook deluxe.

The first time is always the hardest! I’m working on figuring out how to do my video blogs again. I’m using my new Sony Vaio computer which has a built in camera with my Pinnacle software which I use for video editing. Hopefully, you’ll see a video under this!

I had a great day today with my Kathy. We went to Calvary Baptist Church in Lawrenceville to see my good friend Carl Barrington who is the interim music director for that church. His folks, Carl and Joyce Barrington, were in town from Marlow, Oklahoma. They came to see their granddaughter Michelle who had the lead in a play at Grayson High School. It was great to see the whole family again! After church we went over to Sake Gura for Japanese food. It was delicious! Thanks to the Barringtons for their continued love and support for our family!

I also wore my new suit which another supporter of our ministry the Miller family got for me. THANKS for that too! Think I look good?

This morning at about 4am I woke up thinking about a project that the Father gave me in a dream almost seven years ago. He woke me up with this idea for a new type of Bible which is called the “Alpha Bible.” Basically, it’s the Bible with its books in alphabetical order! Seems like a really simple idea that I think could help a lot of people find things more easily than in the traditional Bible. As I was looking at my One Year Bible this week, I noticed that the publisher was Tyndale. That’s the same publisher that Catherine Palmer has. You may remember that it’s her family that we’ve been working on the apartment at Huntington Ridge. My prayer is that Cathy can help Tyndale see the use in publishing something like that.

When the Father gives me an idea it’s my job to do my part. As long as I get the idea out there, to the right people, HE’ll take care of the rest! Think it’s a good idea?

K and I watched an Italian movie this evening called Cinema Paradiso. It’s been kind of cute. The little kid in the movie reminds me of one of the kids at the mission at Shallowford Gardens. I still can’t believe that I won’t see Bob Speer again until I get to Heaven. I’ll always associate him with that mission.

This Friday at 9am is when Jesse goes in for his bond hearing. Please pray that Judge Hamlin will see the need to getting him out into a hospital setting rather than the jail. If you’ve never prayed for me or my family before, PLEASE pray for this.

I still believe that God has his timing in all of this.

Sure do love you guys! Thanks for your prayers!