As I looked at my schedule for the next couple of weeks I thought, “Maybe I should take the day off.”  Yeah, right.  Lots of days in a row . . .

I started out visiting with friends at FBC Mountain Park.  We’re getting the date organized for October 19th when Keith and Cornelia Harrell and Ashley get commissioned.  I think that will be super cool!

Enjoyed sharing what’s going on with Jerry Clower and Kevin Lamb–two staff members at our church.

Touched base with the Kroger folks again to make sure they’ll have everything ready for us to pick up this Thursday.  They wanted to know if we wanted these super big bags of charcoal.  We could split them in half and save a little money.  Any of you guys deal with charcoal?  Last thing I want to do is to start splitting up those messy bags!  Everything looks to be sitting on dead ready.  I’ll keep going over there, just in case.

Our board at Whirlwind Mission is committed to supporting our missionaries as well as extreme needs.  We’ve been working with Pastor Jeff from Haiti for about 6 months now.

Last month the same hurricane that messed up Atlanta’s gas totally wrecked Haiti.  It could be years (if ever) before the infrastructure of bridges gets rebuilt.  People are really starving and facing terrible water borne diseases.  I’m glad we could help out financially, thanks to YOU!

Jeff seems interested in coming back to working with us in the States with NAMB.  I’ll help him get that process in order.  He’s already served with NAMB so he only needs a new request.  I took him over to a couple of apartment complexes where we have work in the area and introduced him to the managers.  He seems excited about this new direction.  Of course he’ll continue to return to Haiti from time to time to help with the churches and schools that he’s started.

Remember when Ashley and I had a video shoot with NAMB?

Today I went over to Grace Fellowships (one of my favorites!) for some help.

Erik McNair is on their video team.

They’ll help dub off the video into a format that we can edit on our computers.  I’m looking forward to working on that project once we have the video!

This afternoon after I got home I had a chance to walk around in the forest a bit.  One of my new interests is in mushrooms.  I’m reading a really great book called “Mycellium Running.”
Sounds to me like fungi can fix just about every problem we have ecologically!

There are strains of mushrooms that actually eat oil and convert it to natural substances that other animals can feed on. That’s great news for areas with toxic spills!

God is so cool to invent all this stuff!

It’s always such fun to have my son with me!

Jesse had an appointment with his Doctor today.  Dr. Evans was very pleased with Jesse’s progress and told us to come back in three months! It’s been two months since his last visit.  Looks promising!  We still don’t know when/if J will have a trial yet.  Keep praying for his healing–it’s Working!

We went to shoot pictures of the two new missions at Highland North and Highland at Sutton Place.


There’s so much work to be done on Buford Highway.

We’ll be covering these two locations this Saturday with Impact Atlanta and First Baptist Church Atlanta.  We’ll host Outreach Events in 25 locations this weekend.

I bought Jesse an acoustic guitar today.  I get great deals on Alvarez guitars at Miller Music in Chamblee.  It’s black.  Looks like something Johnny Cash would play.

We went over to Azalea to help the kids with their home work.  Writing numbers in expanded form.  Know how to do that?  Uses powers of 10.

Also got to see Miguel.  He’s a known gang banger who is trying to change his ways.  He’s like a son to me.  He recently graduated from high school with his GED.  We gave him a gift card from Walmart to buy some new clothes. Doesn’t he look better?

He has to get rid of all his gang colors.  Cops still hassle him.  No surprise really.  Especially if he LOOKS like he’s in a gang.

Remember Uncle Harold who came to visit me last week?  We had such a great time with the Bengali family who lives above our mission at Azalea.  I told them I’d see if I could get them a computer.  This afternoon we took them one.

Bill Hickey helped set it up and gave them a lesson on it.

I was given some baby dolls last week that one of the dear ladies at FBC Doraville made for me. It was fun to see the girl’s faces when they received their gift!

Came home and ran 4 miles.

Pray for our new partners coming on board and that our missionaries will continue to work well together.  It’s a challenge when we all have such strong personalities!

What a great day!

Perimeter has been such an important part of our work in Atlanta and today they showed their true colors once again!

We had well over 500 people participate in about 50 projects around Atlanta.  Whirlwind Missions hosted ten block parties with them today.

I had a chance to greet people at church and then do a short training session on how to get people rounded up to come to the event as well as how to do balloon animals.  That’s always fun!

I spent the entire afternoon at Sturbridge Square which is one of our new mission points!  The manager was very friendly to me and offered us the entire upstairs area to do an after school program.  It’s a huge amount of space.  I’ve very excited to work on getting a team to come help us there.  Please pray for that.

We rounded up over 50 kids and their parents.  There were probably at least 100 people that came to the event!  That’s awesome, especially since it was the first time we’d ever done anything there.  PTL.

I led a young man named Drexel Davis to the Lord!  I watched three others accept Christ today.  Amen! It’s a beautiful thing!

I had a fantastic day today working with 12 Stone–one of my favorite churches!


Today, all around Atlanta, people are giving back to their communities.  I’m glad that our churches are playing a major role in that!

It was a beautiful morning to travel to Lawrenceville where 12 Stone’s church is located.

After a prayer and worship time, the congregation covered over 60 projects.

We hosted 5 block parties and a construction site with Whirlwind Missions.

We had a terrific time interacting with the folks at the Falls, one of our newest missions.

The time was made even better because my brother Pastor Tito Ruiz brought a group from his congregation at Stone Mill Church.


It was great to see him again and help reach out into the Falls community!
I’m looking forward to hosting TEN block parties tomorrow with my partners at Perimeter Church!

Worked on getting ready for tomorrow’s events with 12 Stone Church.  Got the supplies I need and talked with my Kroger contacts to make sure that the supplies I need for next weekend will be ready to pick up next Thursday.

Went through all my email and made my follow up calls.

Ate ribs at Famous Daves with Ashley, Miles and Jesse.  Always good.

Picked up an Ipod shuffle for Kathy.  She loves listening to music while she rides around the mountain.

Kathy worked with the Mommy & Me program for our refugee mothers in Clarkston yesterday.  Sure are some sweet kids!

About half of the kids who come to my mission at Azalea Place are from Bengladesh and are Muslim.

Although we have had many of children accept Christ over the years, we’ve made little in way into their community.  Language can be a big barrier to communication, that’s why I put such a high priority on knowing other languages.

I grew up in Kenya, the son of Southern Baptist missionaries.  In those days the missionary kids (MKs) would call the adult missionaries “Uncle” or “Aunt” even though there was no true blood relation.  So I grew up thinking of Harold as “Uncle Harold.”


He’s been a big influence on me over the years. Especially with the thought that you can learn anything if you can find a book on it and are willing to work.

So I spent the day with my two sweet kids and Uncle Harold.  We also met up with Cathy Palmer and Harold’s wife Phyllis.

I enjoyed taking my friends to Cafe Istanbul for lunch.  It’s such a cool place.

Then I left them in Clarkston and drove back to Stone Mountain to do try and get Kathy’s phone fixed (I hope it works right) and do some grocery shopping.  After that I dropped Ashley and Jesse back at our house to put up the groceries while I went back to Clarkston to pick up Uncle Harold.

His big interest now is in Bengalis. Remember our need for a Christian that can speak Bengali to my neighbors at Azalea Place?  I see my Uncle Harold as a direct response to that prayer request.

God has His timing.

But it’s hard to be patient when I see so many people that we need to reach NOW!

Perhaps you might think, “What’s the rush?”

Last week we actually had a plane crash about a mile from the mission at Azalea.  It’s on the flight path for the pilots landing at Peachtree Dekalb Airport (PDK).

Bottom line is we don’t have any guarantee on how long we’ll live.

Life is fragile.

I worked in the News industry for years.  If there’s one thing I learned it was “life is fragile.”

It’s the sense of urgency that I feel in my gut that drives me to keep looking for the best people to come help us in Atlanta.  We have extraordinary talent in our team.

I’m glad YOU are a part of it!

I hope that Harold and Phyllis will sense a strong sense of the Lord’s direction to spend more time in our area working with us.

Uncle Harold seemed to have a wonderful time practicing his Bengali with the kids.

One of the moms invited us up to her apartment for some Bengali dessert. Uncle Harold just seemed so completely happy and in his element talking with the lady with her kids in Bengali.

My favorite part of my job is finding a person that really feels a call to do a very particular mission: like work with people from Bangladesh.  Then taking them over to the exact people group the wanted and watch them plug in.

It’s supah coo.

We also picked up Andrei Palmer, Cathy and Tim Palmer’s son–our missionaries in Clarkston. He’s really talented and makes cool cars and cakes.


One of the ladies from FBC Doraville made some beautiful doll blankets for the children at the missions.


I can hear Jesse playing guitar above me.  I dig that.

One of my favorite people on the planet is in Atlanta!  Cathy Palmer’s dad Harold Cummins came to visit and see how their missionary work is going.

It was great to spend time with him and his wife Phyllis and talk about the good ol’ days in Kenya as well as the great ol’ days NOW!

We ate at the Dekalb Farmer’s Market.

It’s always interesting to see the huge variety of vegetables and fruits from all over the world.  Of course the best part is speaking with the international population.  It’s alway fun to bring guests to see our work and our city!  They’re always so amazed by it all.

Even for someone like me who was raised over seas, it’s still pretty incredible.

Biggest news is I got gas!

No bean jokes.

So my car is filled up.  I’ll be heading into Chamblee tomorrow to check on the kids at the mission and make sure everything is running smoothly.  That’s great!