Worked on email this afternoon.

Ran 4 miles this morning.

Carpet got cleaned. Amen!

Went to Stone Mountain and ran another 2.4 miles on the elliptical treadmill.

More admin this evening and prep work for my team from FBC New Orleans tomorrow morning.

This morning Jesse, Ashley and I went to Clarkston to meet up with my partners from NAMB who came to serve the refugee community.

They did a great job. I was very proud of Tim Palmer and Kevin Riley in particular for setting it all up. It’s not easy to mobilize hundreds of people and I think it went really well.

I liked this picture of Cathy Palmer with her students from Bhutan!

It was good to see friends from the board!

The kids and I went to Peachtree Corners Baptist Church to pick up some school supplies the collected for us. SUPER! I also got some really good news that they’ve brought a new pastor on board. Great to hear that! A congregation needs a pastor!

We went to Azalea to help the kids. Sometimes I just about lose my mind answering the same question 50 times along with the same begging, “Mr. Tim, I need help!” Everybody wants their piece of Mr. Tim.

Kathy is feeling a little better today. She’s still really stopped up.

Here’s the growth on the mushroom log!

We watched the movie Twilight tonight on Netflix. Talk about a chick movie! But it was better than I thought it’d be. Which isn’t saying much. Wow that movie has created a huge following!

Jesse and I rolled out to the North American Mission Board this morning. I did my seminar on the 5 Levels of Engagement for mobilizing people. They were an enthusiastic group!

It’s always fun to share with people who love what you do!

We met up and had lunch with a new friend from Kenya, Pastor Museli Ndonga. This picture is with Museli, Jesse and two men from the Video department at NAMB.

He’s a great guy! It’s so much fun for me to speak Swahili with another Kenyan. I usually speak a kind of Swahenglish. I’ll be going along in English saying something like, “And those guys better get their act together or there’ll be shida mkubwa!” And Museli would say, “Kweli!” Which means that’s True!

We went on for about 2 1/2 hours talking about missions, church planting and how to go about doing outreach in the area. It’s unbelievable how patient Jesse is!

After lunch, we stopped by Barnes and Noble (my favorite thing to do when I have twenty minutes to spare) then over to Azalea to work with the kids.

One of our volunteers is a wonderful lady named Linda Smalls. Today I took her over to Jemilllin’s house. Almost everyone that comes to the mission are boys and young men. We don’t have a lot of girls come in. My prayer is we’ll get some other lady volunteers soon and I’ll let the girls have “their” room. That seemed to help in the past.

The kids at the mission are doing well. Jesse and some of the kids got the Nintendo consoles going, so they’re having fun.

I really do love those kids.

Today I spent most of my time with Mohammed working on the Periodic Table. I love Science and Nature stuff. I enjoy studying the material again.

This mushroom log that Jesse bought that grows edible mushrooms is fruiting. We had one mushroom about two weeks ago. This time we’re seeing about 8 little buttons come up. I find this stuff fascinating.

Did you know that mushrooms grow with trees and their roots? They work together so the tree can absorb certain nutrients not produced by photosynthesis.

I am always amazed by the great complexity and beauty that God has created. Even on tiny levels. All that beauty and we just walk by completely oblivious.

Came home and ran 4 miles. Took Sugar with me. She does ok the first mile. Really bad the second half of the second mile, good on the third mile and just fine on the 4th. Definitely slowed me down.

One part of my run was funny. There was a couple riding up one of our hills on bicycles. I was keeping up with them!

Admin work now.

Usually every evening I start out by going through my email. While I’m doing that I check on Twitter. I finish up my email and start uploading pictures. I then write the blog and insert pictures. I pick the top three pictures, put them in a file for uploading to Facebook, write the status update and upload the pictures.

Depending on what’s going on it’s usually two hours every evening.

On to the next thing!

BTW, we just went over 120,000 pictures in our Photo Gallery at whirlwindmissions.org! We started out account with Smugmug on December 5, 2003.

May 19th, 2004 was the first day I went on line with a blog! Over 5 years now with nearly daily updates.

50 Videos for Story Tim–my favorite stories from 50 years!

That’s a lot of Mr. Tim!

My wife always says, “You live to hear yourself talk.” Perhaps she’s right.

Today I had a disappointment. I was looking forward to meeting up with my new Kenyan pastor friend. Unfortunately, he had wageni (visitors) in town so we had to put it off until tomorrow. Bahd luck.

The good news is that he’ll meet me up in Alpharetta at NAMB so that’ll save me lots of miles on the car!

Probably worked out for the best. I stayed up till about 1:30am working on admin stuff. Little extra rest is always good.

Had a fun family lunch today!

It’s been rainy and damp for about a week now which means that there are lots of mushrooms popping out. I walked about a mile through the forest searching for cool new species I haven’t seen before.

Beauty!

Went to Clarkston this afternoon to help the refugee kids with their homework while Jesse taught his guitar class.

Also took Bennett over to pick up his van. Glad I could help!

Back home now working on my home work.

I’ll lift weights later.

Kathy is running a slight temp and has a cold. Pray for her!

Today was one of the “light” days that kept going and going and going.

Started out doing the shopping at Kroger for the week.

Came home and picked up Jesse.

It’s been another damp day, which means plenty of mushrooms poking up their little heads. Beauty!

I liked these little yellow ones.

We went to lunch with my Pastor from FBC Mountain Park, Dr. Bill Blanchard. Always great so spend time with him!

We went to Staples, Best Buy, Kroger (again) and Publix picking up equipment for the mission and checking out prices on stuff we might need later.

Over to FBC Doraville to check on the office and pick up bills.

Then to Azalea to help the kids with their homework. Some of them are SO hard to keep on track. Still love ’em!

Came home, ran 4 miles.

Started on my office work. Need to complete my financial report. Always something!

This morning Kathy and I went Clarkston to go to church.

My partner Kevin Riley spoke on prayer. He did a good job. It was good to see friends!

Rainy day today.

Kathy got her hair cut.

Saw the blimp again flying over Clarkston.

Hope to get some exercise if it dries up some.

This morning I went to Kroger to gas up my car and pick up some subs for the family. On may way, my iPhone wouldn’t power up.

Not zesty. I put it on a charger but it wouldn’t take a charge. Got home, tried to sync with the computer. Still had issues. Stress city.

Went out for a 4 mile run. I always run harder when I’m kind of upset.

Came home and felt better. I took the cradle sync off and plugged my iPhone straight to the wall. This time it worked ok! I sure was relieved about that.

I could remember most of the stuff for next week, but after that I got shaky.

I also got my MobileMe account to back up the device. I think I’m pretty much good to go now.

Crazy how dependent I get on these devices, but when you don’t have a secretary, you better have a PDA that works!

Watched TV with Kathy tonight. We’ve enjoyed watching the Lie to Me series on DVD.

It’s been rainy weather. Always looking for my fungi friends! Check out this tiny guy!

I thought this was pretty cool.

Ashley has some friends over this evening. She made spaghetti. It was really good!

Man, it has really rained! My rain gauge said 3″! We need it! Water from the sky still seems like a miracle.

I spent most of my day writing newletters.

We sure have some great supporters!

Jesse has been working on his new desk.

Looking good!

Enjoyed watching Lie To Me, the TV series with Kathy this evening.

I worked on admin things this morning. Got the newsletters all ready to go.

Worked out on weights. Feel great!

5 hummingbirds in the yard this morning. Supa groovy!

Jesse and I went to Staples to pick up supplies for the newsletter and to drop off the originals so they could make the 238 copies this month.

Met up with Ashley and Kathy at Vikhyat.

Enjoyed some of the best Indian food and fellowship ever. Double blessing because Miles also got to eat with us.

Jesse and I rode with Ashley today. We needed “Big Red,” her Expedition. We went to Staples to pick up his new desk. Super heavy! When we got home this evening, we opened the box while in the car so we can split the heavy stuff out.

He also got a 5 shelf bookcase. On sale for $35!

We went to Azalea to help the kids with their homework. Seemed like we had a LOT more yesterday.

Rained really heavily while we were at the mission!

We had a volunteer come help us today. Linda used to help us a lot a year ago. Great to see her back.

We picked up the newsletter copies on our way home.

We still need to put Jesse’s desk together. He is a very precise person. He’s more like my brother. I tended to be the one who could get it done in record time. Jim’s work would be absolutely perfect.

I don’t mind not having to do the heavy thinking.

That’s why he’s the beta version.

Jesse and I met up with a group of our partners from Dunwoody BC.

Tom Frost has been instrumental in bringing new people interested in doing missions in our area. They include the Zamora family and Bayo Otito! Great folks! We at a favorite Colombian food place, La Casona.

After lunch we went to Walmart and Lowes to pick up supplies for the missions.

Also checked out desks for Jesse at Office Depot. We’ll pick it up tomorrow when we’re with Ashley and her big ol’ Expedition!

I also enjoyed looking at the beautiful orchids at Lowes.

Fabulous!

Also went to Azalea to help the kids with their homework.

Took hours.

Had some great conversations with new partners, in particular with a Kenya pastor in Marietta! Look forward to helping them reach out to their community!

Came home and ran 2.2 miles.