I had a fun time today!

I had a meeting with Pastor Neal Ready.  He’s the pastor of one of our local ethnic churches.  My prayer is that he’ll help us reach the Clarkston community for Christ!

Also spent time with Toni Branyon and Tim and Grace Hatch.  The Hatch family have just come back from serving in Cambodia.  I talked with them and Toni about local missions and took them to a couple of the local grocery stores. 

The stores are an exact copy of what they’re like back home.

Pray that these folks will want to join us in our mission here in Atlanta.

Ran four miles this evening.

We went to the Bridge service at FBC Mountain Park this morning.

Pastor Bob was preaching on why it’s important to go to church.  We need the fellowship!
God sure is blessing this guy!

I took Ashley to buy a new camera.  Her other camera stopped working.  We give them heavy use!

I picked up Kathy in Stone Mountain and brought her back home.  She’s loving her new bike!

There was a fire emergency while we were in town. Those fire trucks are LOUD!

We enjoyed riding around the historic district and getting some pizza.

Today was “Nakuru weather.”  70s.  Cool.  Really makes me miss Africa on days like today!

Did a lot more yard work.

Ran 4 miles.

Beautiful sunset. 

Went out with Jesse to eat pizza.

I had a double blessing yesterday:  Ashley AND Jesse!  Don’t get no better!

We went over to Clarkston to work with Cathy Palmer and Bill Hickey. 

We met one of the ladies that Cathy is working with.  She’s having problems with her apartment.  We’re helping her get it cleaned up.  I also had a talk with the management to let them know that they needed to get a crew over there to check it out because the carpet was wet and could be a health problem.  I feel confident that they’ll get that taken care of.

We had a fun lunch together at Cafe Istanbul–A great place to take your wife.  It’s really cool!

After lunch, I had a meeting with Bennett Ekandem and a potential new partner, Joseph Scott.

He’s from Barbados and wants to do ministry in the Clarkston area.  PTL for that!

I talked to another missionary yesterday who has been working in Cambodia.  I’m trying to get him to consider helping us here in the States as well.

This week I’ve talked to three people about coming on board to help us in the mission field.  Pray that God will make a way for that to happen.

With the economy in a slump, it’s especially hard to raise money for ministry.  Pray that God will continue to open the financial doors needed to put people on the field.

Ash and J and I went over to Azalea to check on the kids. 

I helped Jimmy with his project on Greece.  It was due the next day.  Hate it when the kids do that to me.

Today I’ve been working around the house.  Mowed the yard, went to the grocery store.  The beloved “Honey DO” list.

Kathy was working at Avondale High School today.  She was substituting for the PE teacher.  She found out last night that she can still work with the schools and not have to go every day as a sub.  She’s been enjoying helping with the little kids at Clarkston International Bible Church in their “Mommy & Me” program.  I’m glad it’s working out for her.

This afternoon I had a meeting with one of my partners from the Atlanta Vineyard Church, Sonia Adams.  She is helping mobilize the young adults at the church get involved with missions.  Amen to that!  We met up with Matt Johns, who is the director of the Corners Mission.  Vineyard will be helping out Matt in the future.  On October the 4th they’ll host a block party at Azalea Place apartments.  I took her over there to show her the mission and introduce her to one of our leaders, Joe Jones.

After leaving the mission with Matt and Sonia, we went to the Guitar Center to pick out a new guitar for Jesse. 
Mark checked up on the new guitar and made an adjustment to the neck.

He’s been playing a lot and really enjoying it.  He picked out a black Fender Stratocaster.  It’s a beautiful guitar.  We also got a Vox amplifier, cords, stand and a case.

Music has meant SO much to me.  If you’ve never learned to play an instrument, check out the guitar. 

They’re easy to play and sound great just strumming the open strings!

Jesse and I went back over to Azalea to help the kids with their homework and play chess.
Can you tell which ones want their picture taken?

Jouvens had challenged me to a game and had stated that he’d “beaten you twice.” 

I told him that was impossible.  There’s no way he could ever beat me in chess.  So we played a couple of games and I thrashed him.   He’d been talking a lot of smack, so he needed a dose of humility.

Jesse got so good I could hardly ever beat him.  He was the #2 chess player for Parkview High School as a Sophomore.

I’ve been so tired the last couple of days I haven’t exercised.  Then I feel guilty.  Tomorrow for sure!

Had a good visit with my brother Marco Solano today!  He’s been caught in the construction crunch and has been looking for a job.  It was good to catch up with him and talk to him about serving on the mission field.  My prayer is that he will answer God’s call and that the Father will support his desire to serve HIM!  We’ve worked together for years.  He’s been a real blessing to me!

I had lunch with my sweet family this afternoon.  That was fun.

Worked with Bill Hickey at FBC Doraville.  We went through the main building at the church to take a look at what the Pastor wants to do with a couple of the rooms.  He want’s to use them as Sunday School space.  I think that’s a good idea.  Shouldn’t be too hard to get the stuff out of those rooms and to install shelving for it.

Marco went over to Azalea with me this afternoon.  I worked with Mustak and Clinton on their biology homework.  Can you name the 6 Kingdoms? (Hint, two are of bacteria!)

One of our windows was smashed out. Maintenance got right on it.

I have a pastor search committee that’s supposed to call me this evening.  I have another friend of mine that’s looking at a possible position in Florida.  I usually give great references!

I rested yesterday.  I sure have been wound up tight.  Lots of stuff going on with the Compassion In Action and Impact Atlanta outreach events on the horizon.  We’ll be covering about 40 different locations.

I worked around the house today. I had a limb fall on my roof. Fortunately, it didn’t mess up anything. Here’s what the view looks like from up there!

Been working on admin stuff today.  Financial report is due.

Beautiful full moon this evening!

Please pray for the Hampton family.  Rebecca is one of our missionaries.  She hosts the Cowboy Church.  Her grandson was in a car wreck and is in the hospital in a coma.

Love you guys!

I had a fun morning today.  I made a presentation on communication at the Gwinnett Neighborhood Leadershipo Institute today. 

I split my hour into two parts.  The first half I talked about language learning.  The second part I focused on the nonverbal part of communication.   The people seemed to get something out of it.

This afternoon Ashley and I were enjoying a visit outside in my garden. Suddenly, I noticed this enormous lichen. What do you think?

I bought Kathy a new bike to replace the one she had stolen while we were at the beach. It’s a step up from the other bike. I bet Kathy has ridden around that mountain over 500 times!

I just got back from eating Thai food with Ashley and Jesse.  It sure was delicious. 

We think that Thai of Norcross has the best coconut soup on the planet!  Man, I sure am full.

The last two days have been super busy!

Yesterday, I had Ashley and Jesse with me.  EXCELLENT! We did a recon of the area near the Gwinnett Place Mall for the Compassion in Action weekend.  I set up a new mission at the FALLS.  I’m excited about that.  Tito’s church has been working over there along with my partners from Apartment Life.

Also talked to the management at Summer Trees.  That place is super fancy.  I’m not optimistic about them letting us in, but maybe!

We went shopping for supplies I needed at Azalea Mission.

I cleaned the place while Ashley helped kids with homework and Jesse was teaching them how to play chess.  We had fun!  Although I sure did clean up some nasty stuff.  Man, those kids can get a place dirty!

This morning I went to the North American Mission Board where I made my presentation to the recently appointed candidates!  They’re always a good bunch.

I was invited to come share at a conference in Washington DC.  We’ll see if that works out.  I told them I’m into the field work aspect.  I think the hands on approach is best.  They like my somewhat irreverant style.

Talked with my partner Keith Harrell about the car he picked up from one of his supporters.

I got Bill Hickey and we drove with Keith to Hapeville to get the title transferred to Whirlwind Missions and then transfer it to Bill.  They were super efficient.

It was a year ago this Monday that I first met Bill.  He has really been a blessing to me.

He told me, “I’ve lived my life just grinding along.  Now I feel like I’m a part of something, that I’m really helping people.”  You certainly do, Bill!

Waded through about 100 messages this evening.  I was too tired to do the computer last night.

It’s after midnight and I’ve got to do a presentation for the Gwinnett Leadership Institute Saturday morning.  I’m talking about Communication.  I’m going to focus on how to  achieve rapport with people and teach them how to do that better.

The seminar is held at the Gwinnett Detention Center. Sure am glad J is out of that place!  He is doing great!

I always have fun in the Clarkston area.  There are just SO many different countries represented.

Today was “Wonderful Wednesday” at Clarkston International Bible Church. 

Over 150 students from Dekalb Tech come for refreshments and a Bible story in the gym of the church.  Pastor Phil Kitchin does a great job reaching out to the refugee community in the area.

I had a meeting with a long term friend of our family: Ileko Mugalla from Kenya. 

She was Kathy’s best friend when she worked there back in the early 90’s.  Ileko is a working on doing medical research in the area.  We hope one day to have medical services available to the community. Kathy and Ashley were working with the “Mommy & Me” program this morning at the church.  There are some sweet children there!  The mothers are learning English while Kathy and some other volunteers help take care of the little kids.

I took three of the monitors that I picked up yesterday from Tyler’s church for Ileko’s office.  She works right around the corner from Ashley’s mission at Kensington Station.  I’m working on getting her some computers now.

Also got together with Kevin Riley, another NAMB missionary.  He has some teams coming in soon and I was helping him develop other locations where he could put them.  I introduced him to several of the managers.

Missed having roast goat at Madina today.  I was hoping to eat there, but it’s closed due to Ramadan.

Went to the mission at Azalea to help the kids with their homework.  The carpet is still drying out from the flood we had there when the commode broke.  What a mess.  We threw a bunch more stuff away, so it’s not looking quite so bad now.

Plus we have a dead rat somewhere in the wall.  Lovely smell.

That’s why they call it missions!

We have some new Bengali families in our area.  Always fun to meet new people.