We went to Clarkston International Bible Church this morning.

My partner Kevin Riley was preaching.

He did a good job on the Lord is coming back, so get ready!

Rainy day again today.  We’ve gotten 1 1/2″ so far this weekend.  We sure need it.

After church, we went out for pizza.  Excellent.

Working on email and admin stuff.  Watching Jurassic Park–Lost World.  Some of the best computer graphics ever.

I finished all the Christmas mail out yesterday, so today I enjoyed just resting!
I’m glad it rained. We sure need it.

Last night we went to the airport to pick up Miles and Ashley. They had a great trip! She took over 1,000 pictures. That’s my girl!

Kathy and I went to Target and walked about 2.5 miles.  Not too crowded.  Not good for going outside.

We also went to see Transporter 3.  I think Jason Statham is one of the best action heroes. 

Some great stunt work including driving a car on top of a moving train.  Sweet.  Even Kathy liked it.

Fun day.

K and I headed over to the zoo today.


Got gas and groceries before we went.
Wow!

On the way I got to talk with my brother, Jim.  It’s his birthday today!

We had fun at the zoo.  LOTS of strollers to try and walk around.  It was interesting to see all the young humans.

I liked the gorillas and Orang Utans the best.

Pandas are always super cool.

I also like the Golden Lion Tamarins.


We had a sandwich on the way home.

Just finished going through my phone calls, email and now blog!  Worked on a letter for a Nepali pastor.  Takes a lot of editing.

Peace!

I had a fun day yesterday and even better today!

Yesterday Neal Reddy and I went to the Central Precinct Apartment Managers meeting at the Dekalb County Police HQ.


There was some interesting info presented by the heads of Burglary, Homicide, the CIP unit.  Bottom line, be careful!  Lots of crime out there and getting worse because of the soft economy.

So make sure you don’t leave stuff in plain sight, in particular when you park at the malls.

Also had a meeting with two of the Bhutanese/Nepali pastors.

I’m going to help them find where the other Bhutanese live and train some leaders.  I’ll also help Santi get through the process of becoming a missionary with the North American Mission Board.

Interesting clouds yesterday.  Note the rainbow colors in the tiny ice crystals that make up this cloud formation.

Jesse helped me finish up the newsletters.  I still have some gifts I’m making that we’ll put in the envelopes and I’ll mail out tomorrow.

Today we had four of Kathy’s brothers and sisters come over to our house for lunch.
Bill brought his girlfriend Deborah with him. I always enjoy hanging out with the family.

They are always a lively group.  I’m glad we could spend the time together.  They hadn’t seen our house since it had been redone after the fire.  Hard to believe we’ve already been back four months!

I ran 4 miles yesterday.  Kathy just left for a bike ride.  Resting today.

Jesse and I had a terrific day!

His morning I went over to Staples to make my copies for this month’s newsletter.

We went to Dekalb United Pentecostal Church where we met with my partner Jose Leos. He wanted to check out an apartment complex that had a large Latino population.  We met him at the church and I had the chance to share with Pastor Wideman.  He seems to really want to get his congregation involved.  That’s what I do, so I’m excited about the partnership.

Jose and J and I went over to Colony of Stone Mountain off of Central Avenue.

We got to talk with the manager and drop off a bunch of little fliers for people to pick up if they want to have English as a Second Language classes..

The manager let us know that they have a club house and that it just had a grand opening last month.  They invited Pastor Leos to help teach classes.  She told me about Ruth Samples who is the person who is heading up the after school program and runs the clubhouse.  Ruth was SO excited that we wanted to help.

She also talked to us about  one of the leasing agents named Josh.  Apparently, he’s a great musician and helps with the Spanish churches in the area. Really an incredible morning.

After we left Colony apartments we met up with Heidi G.  She works as an editor and is part of New Life church.  She’s a MK raised in Zimbabwe.  She’s particularly interested in working with Muslims.  Heidi also works in the Mommy and Me program that Kathy works at in Clarkston.  I enjoyed meeting her today.  She’s also one of the organizers for the Perspectives course.

Checked on the kids at Azalea.  They sure were glad to have 5 days off!  I picked up 20 chairs for the little party that we’re having at my house on Thursday.

Went to my office at FBC Doraville and worked on writing the newsletters.  Jesse has been helping me too.  Ashley printed up the new calendars.  So it’s definitely been a team project.

We had the Whirlwind Missions annual Board meeting this evening.  I’m SO blessed to have three terrific men of God on my board! They have all been such a blessing to me.

Dr. Carl Barrington is one of my favorite people on the planet.  You may remember praying for him for his Prostate cancer surgery.  His latest reports are absolutely terrific!  Almost no cancer cells at all!  PTL.

He’s the President of our board.

It was also great to see Jon Paul, our treasurer and my brother Tito Ruiz.

These guys are doing a terrific job and I really appreciate them!

Came on home about 8:30pm.  Long day.

Checked my email/blogged.

Peace.

Stayed up till about 2am last night working on the newsletter.  I printed up all the labels then went through the donations given to decide who get’s the laminated calendar that Ashley made. Time consuming for sure.

This morning I went to the Post Office to pick up the stamps for the Christmas mailout.  Long line.

Then over to Staples to pick up the large envelopes I needed.

J and I ate lunch then went over to the Bank to set up his new checking account. 

Now that he’s 18 he can have his own account and credit card.  I think it’s a good idea to learn how to handle money.  He’s probably the best in the family at doing that!

We went to the office to check on the mail then over to Azalea Mission to help the kids with their home work.  They also helped us with the labels.  I really do appreciate that!

Rained on us the whole way home.  Sure was glad to see some precip!  It’s been mighty dry and this is supposed to be the wettest time of the year.

I need to edit Ashley’s newsletter and I still have to write mine.  I’ll take it over to get printed tomorrow morning then start working on writing the letters.

Peace.

Sad day for me today.

We’ve been going to the Bridge service at FBC Mountain Park for over a year now.

Today was the final service of that ministry.  I’m still shaking my head over it.

We enjoyed seeing our friend Debbie Braswell at the Chinese food place.

Came home and ran 2.25mi.
We’re working on our Christmas newsletter.

Friday I spent most of my day doing errands. 
Super windy day–and really cold!

My morning was taken up getting Kathy’s cell phone replaced.

Glad she has that working again.
I did enjoy seeing the new James Bond film. I like the free running stuff better than just long car chases.

Ashley and I worked on getting the 2009 Calendar for our supporters up and going.  I think it looks great!  Jesse also helped us laminate the calendars.



This morning I started out in Clarkston helping my partner Ileko Mugalla with a health fair at Clarkston International Bible Church. 

Kathy got to see some of “her” babies too!
We had a good crowd of people come to get tested for diabetes, blood pressure and HIV.

I also helped a single mother and her three kids get to a food give away.  Unfortunately, they got there very late, so she’ll have to go back next Monday and see if they have any left.  Sure felt sorry for her.  I gave her and her little family a ride back to her apartment.  Pushing a stroller around in the freezing weather is tough!

This afternoon I spent with my partners from Parkview Church. 

I had a training session with them, then I took them for a little field trip to one of the Mexican grocery stores.

Then we went over to the mission at Villa Nueva where my partners Keith and Cornelia minister.  We had a great time with the kids and we shared the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den with the kids.

I need to work on posting all the pictures I took as well as going through my email.  Mucho trabajo, baby.

Today is Thursday.  That has a special meaning for me, because I have Jesse AND Ashley with me!

I’ve been feeling shaggy, so I got a haircut this morning.

Then did the shopping for the family groceris and also checked on getting Kathy’s cell phone replaced.  It’s a brand new Nokia, but she’s had a lot of problems with it reading the SIM card.

Picked up A & J and went to the Ryans restaurant to catch up with my partner Carlos Salaverria.

He organized a meeting of the local Spanish pastors to help get a coalition between the churches and the apartment missions.

It was great to see my brothers Tito Ruiz and Marco Solano. Two of my favorite people in the world!

It was also perfect timing to  introduce two new partners to the rest of the Pastor team:  Eduardo and Sheila Zamora from Venezuela.

They will be serving along the Buford Highway corridor and living at Huntington Ridge.


We went over to Huntington Ridge to check out the apartment and meet some of the residents.  I always enjoy that.  We also met some of the neighbors.  I think it’ll be a good place for them. 

After our lunch meeting I took Eduardo and Sheila over to Huntington Station, the sister property to the Ridge.  Diana is the manager at H. Station, but she’s moving to the Ridge tomorrow.  I also showed them where Pearl Lane apartments are.  I’d like for him to lead the outreach into the Spanish speaking community there.

I brought my plants in weeks ago. My hibiscus started to bloom today!

 Man, was it cold last night!  My digital thermometer read 27 degrees.

This is what the water in my bird bath looked like!  I filled it up with water later.

Jesse was with me today.  He’s always fun to have around.

We met with several other managers from Chamblee and Doraville this week.  It was a very interesting time when the owner of the Do It Yourself Pest Control company came over. 

There’s a bad bed bug problem in Chamblee right now.

We had a meeting with my partner from Dunwoody Baptist Church today, Barb Newman.  She’s a no nonsense go getter and is one of my favorites.  Also met with Eduardo and Sheila from Venezuela.  We talked about possibly serving in Huntington Ridge.   It can be kind of a scary place, so I have to be really honest with people about the challenges.  Barb brought her friends Barry and Tom who are interested in helping this pastor get involved with our Latino community.

Yesterday, when I was in Lithonia, Toni Branyon gave me some fun stuff that had been donated to her.

I enjoyed giving the balls and cameras out to the kids.


I love taking pictures.  I’m not sure if the kids will ever get theirs developed.