Had a fun time today!

Got up really early (if it’s dark, it’s early!).  I spoke at my Dr. Carl Barrington’s missions class at Providence Christian Academy.

I went at those kids full blast for two 90 minute sessions.  Wow.  My voice was whipped after that!

The class was responsive and hopefully we’ll have some of them get engaged at the mission.

Usually, Thursday is my favorite day of the week because Ashley and Jesse roll with me.  Didn’t make them get up and go with me this morning. Too early.

After Providence, I went to Goodwill to pick up some new T-shirts.  Got some pretty cool ones, including one with the Taj Mahal.  Groovy, baby.

Then to FBC Doraville to meet with Marco Solano from Stonemill Church (I consider him my older brother), Mario Amoretti (the youth director from Sunrise BC’s Spanish congregation, and Eduardo and Sheila Zamora (our missionaries living at Huntington Ridge.) 

We had a fun lunch and I enjoyed getting these folks to know each other a little better.

A lot of what I do is networking field operatives.  I can tell right quick if a person really wants to work or just wants to talk.  It’s valuable to get the doers together and the talkers away from my team. We don’t have time to just talk.  So many people equate talking about the problem with DOING something about the problem! Drives me crazy.

We also loaded Eduardo up with a bunch of stuff that we can give away to the people who come to the party on Saturday at Huntington Ridge. 

I hate storing stuff.  Much rather give it away and tell them about Jesus.

Mario and I spent some extra time together talking about missions and helping clarify how he can get his church involved in the mission near his church in Lawrenceville.  He’s a super excited fellow.  We get along GREAT!

Mario also came over to Azalea to help with the kids at the mission. 

Just seeing what I do helped him to catch a vision for what’s possible over at Olde Salem.

Came home, got Kathy and we went to watch the sun set in the El Torerro’s parking lot in Stone Mountain.  It was veddy, veddy beautiful.

Just finished watching Burn Notice, my favorite show.  GREAT season finale! Smooth is smooth, baby.

Got up early.  Went to the Sign shop to pick up my banner for the Outreach Event this weekend.  Looks great!  FIESTA GRATIS!  The only thing better than a party is a free party!

Had a meeting with my partner Tom Frost.  He wanted me to meet a new friend of his Bayo Otiti.  I didn’t really know anything about him. But as soon as I met him I knew he’s African.

“Where you from, brothah?”

“Nigeria.”

“What’s your tribe?  Yoruba?”

“Yes!”

“Bahoni!” I told him, which is his tribal greeting.  We were friends immediately!  Bayo was dressed super dapper.  I was my usual casual self.

After we got to know each other I asked, “Who you want to work with?”

“African Americans,” he replied.

“AFRICANS or African Americans?” I stated.  He looked confused.  “Have you ever heard of Clarkston, brothah?”

“No.”

I told Tom I needed to take him over to Clarkston and show him around.  We set up a meeting with Bennett Ekandem who is one of my best friends and is also from Nigeria.  I knew he was going to be very excited to meet another Nigerian brother.  And I was right!  They were so happy to talk about the many people they knew in common.

Bennett was in the Chief’s family back home.  He’s a big deal, but is humble about his roots. Bennett won a major award in December. He finally showed me his plaque–Citizen of the Year! Mighty proud of that brother!

Same goes for Bayo.  His Uncle is a super heavyweight in the Nigerian government.  Has his name on the currency!

It was great to see these two guys get together and for Bayo to see that he can get involved with a ministry right away that is so similar to what he wants to do back home.

I’m easily excitable, as you may know.  I’m really happiest when I find a guy that has a dream and help him fufill that dream RIGHT AWAY!

Finding and mobilizing people is a big part of my job.

Of course I still love to go to Azalea and check out all “my” kids there.  Rosena, Jouvens’ sister, had her son yesterday. I don’t think she’s really ready to be a mother.

I enjoyed seeing the kids and talking with the parents.  My friends at Clarkston International Bible Church gave me some candy which I spread out to the families.

You into Skittles?  Do you like to eat them individually or chomp down a whole gob of colors?  I’m a gob of colors guy.

Came home and ran 4 miles.

I have a really early morning tomorrow.  I’ll be speaking to two missions classes at Providence Christian Academy.  Dr. Carl Barrington is one of my best friends and is also a professor over there.  He has me come to speak to the kids each semester. Looking forward to that.

Peace!

Tuesday is usually my least favorite day.  My wing man (Jesse) normally works with his sister Ashley on Tuesday and teaches guitar to the refugees in Clarkston.


So I’m back to Lone Ranger days.  Bahd luck.

But today I had Ian North hanging with me.  So I was smiling!

We had another meeting with the Darfur folks.  We did ascertain that the Chief is actually chief of ALL the Darfur tribe.  (Over 2 1/2 million people.) So he’s a big deal.

I was definitely back in “news mode” and tried to get as much info from him as possible as to what happened to get him here.

The hard part about doing the journalist thing is that people from troubled backgrounds can get really paranoid.  When you’ve had people trying to kill you for years, they don’t readily trust you.

So you have to be patient and take it at their pace.  Over time I think we can help him get his story out, but if they don’t want to open up, I’m not going to be their advocate.

Many times when people ask me for my advice what they really want is money.

But I’m not from this country and I’m used to people asking me for money.  I’m not afraid to tell people, “Brother, I know what happens to money in Africa: it gets stolen by crooked officials.  Unless you have a group on site that you trust, there’s no way me or my partners are just going to start sending checks to some guy in your village.”

Hard words to swallow.  But it’s better they know the truth.

I dropped Ian back off at the mission then went to the church to check on bills.  Found out that our Pastor of FBC Doraville, Sam Letson, resigned last Sunday.  He’ll be taking a church in Florida.  I wish him and his family well.  They’re great folks!

Also found out that our church secretary Ms. Margie Brooks’ husband Mark went to the hospital for a heart procedure.  Pray for him!

Then over to Azalea to check on the kids.  Had a great time talking with Tabias and Jouvens.

These two have been with me for over 13 years now and are like sons to me.  Rosena, Jouven’s sister, is having a baby today!  Kids having kids.
It was good to see little brother Jimmy too!

Tabias told me that he did his speech on Diabetes last week and he got a 97!  He told me, “I did just what you told me to do, Mr. Tim.  It went great!”

Very proud of him!

Came home to work on email/blogs and financial reports.  Always something!

Beautiful morning. Post snow day!

This morning I went over to the sign store to get an order in for a banner for the Outreach Event we’re having at Huntington Ridge this weekend.  Fiesta Gratis!  The only thing better than a party is a free party!

Also got some stamps at the post office and mailed some letters.

I’ve been really tired.  Going at it full speed for a couple of weeks without a break takes its toll.

Rested some this afternoon before going back to Conyers for the Missions Banquet.



Had a good time with friends there.  Got to meet some of the new missions pastors doing work in the area.

Fun day.

I really enjoy preaching.

I feel like I have the ability to actually get people to do something.  At least some of the time.

I’ve been looking forward to this morning for a couple of weeks.  I love FBC Conyers!

They’ve been a great supporter of our work and actually seem to care about their community.

A lot of churches do care about their community, but it seems like when it’s inconvenient, or might mess up their stuff, then all bets are off.  It’s rare that a church will really open it’s facility to reach their neighbors and FBC Conyers really does that!

I had a Powerpoint presentation that I’d spent hours working on.  Used some of it, then did my own thing the rest of the time.  I figured that’d be the case.  I really don’t like to stick to a script.  I prefer to have general outlines and then depending on what the Father wants me to do I change it on the spot.

It’s sort of like I have piles of note cards in my head and I can shuffle them and use them in different patterns as I see fit.

Unfortunately, that means that the pictures aren’t always exactly what I’m talking about.  Ashley did a good job trying to make the images fit what her ol’ Dad was preaching on.

Had an awesome time.  Congregation was very enthusiastic.

Love Pastor Jeff.  He’s super cool and has a lot of energy.  He told me that he has a sign in his room that says, “Nothing was ever accomplished without enthusiasm.”  Whole hearted AMEN to that, bro!

He’s a really handsome guy.  I made the comment, “If S. Baptists had a calendar, Pastor Jeff would be in it!” Congregation thought it was hilarious.  Sometimes I even amazing myself with the wacky stuff I come up with!

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Milanos thanks to Mike Jones!
He’s the Chairman of the Missions Committee.
I was glad that Ian and Ruthie North came to support our effort today. Love those kids!

Ashley and I had some good time together.  We drove home carefully.

Because of the SNOW!

Road was already starting to get slippery.  I’m glad that they cancelled the banquet tonight.  They’ll have it tomorrow instead.  I’m looking forward to it even though I’m really tired.

I spent last night at Georgia Baptist Conference Center in Toccoa with about 25 deacons from FBC Duluth.

I had fun sharing about our work to these men.  They seemed interested and I pray that they’ll get involved with us in our missions near their church.

I led two sessions on communications and working with internationals this morning, then drove over to FBC Conyers to set up our display for their missions conference.

I’m looking forward to preaching at the two services tomorrow morning.  It’s actually supposed to snow tomorrow morning!  I hope people don’t decide to blow off church because of the weather.

I remember a few years ago there was an ice storm that froze Atlanta solid. It was the same time that we had a missions conference at Peachtree Corners.  I braved terrible conditions to make it.  Turned out it was me, the preacher and about three other people.  My wife couldn’t wait to tell me, “Told you so.”  She thinks they’ll go tomorrow.  It’s not supposed to be dangerous.  We’ll see.

I only had about four hours of sleep last night.  The clock radio in our room made weird sounds.  Bahd luck.

Super fun day today!

Finished editing Ashley’s newsletter.

Made the copies, picked up the Ashley and Jesse and went over to Doraville to meet Drew Grubbs.  He’s the leader of Youth Outreach United.  They’re helping at 15 of our missions. Awesome team! I was glad that Ruthie North got to hang out with us too.

We had a great time catching up on ministry.

Got a call that my doves from Texas had arrived.

  We went over to the Post Office to pick them up.  Brought them home and got them set up.  They seem like they’re doing well.

Working on newsletters.

This morning I got up around 6:30am and started back to work on the newletter, financial report and spreadsheets. Got most of what I had to do done.  Mainly I was inputting donor information and then editing my newsletter mail out list.  Took hours.

From that wonderful task I went to another!  Dental joys!

I fired my last dentist because they were hardly open.  I think they had three locations.

The new guy is a Vietanamese doctor.  Seemed like he did a really good job.  He finished my cleaning and told me I needed a couple of small cavities filled.  I’m like, “Drag.  I gotta set up and come back.”  He said, “Want me to do it right now?”  Yes, sirree! So it took longer than I expected but I don’t have to come back!  Suh weet!

Went by the Post Office to pick up stamps for the newsletter and by the bank to deposit a check.  PTL!

Also to a sign shop to check on how much it’d cost to make a banner to advertise our Outreach Events in the community. About $100. I’ll keep looking around.
Jesse and I ate lunch then over to Chamblee to check on the kids. 

They are great about helping me with my labeling.  I always get them plenty of doughnuts for a sugary reward!  It’s a win-win.

On the way home we picked up a new phone for Jesse. 

He’s been working super hard and frankly I needed his expertise with the communication part of our ministry.  Now that he has an iPhone too, he can be our total Tech man!  He sure is a blessing!

I still need to work on the financial end of the year report. It’s a huge task.  I’ll  chip away at it a little every day.

My left calf still hurts.  Not sure how I hurt it, but I’m not going to run on it.

Looks like I’m ready for my conferences this weekend.  Looking forward to it, although I have some anxiety.  I don’t like to depend on anything when I’m speaking besides me and my mouth.

Howdy, Pardnuh!

Did you know I was born in Texas?

Spent this morning working on the Power Point presentation I’m giving this weekend at the Deacon’s retreat from FBC Duluth and the Missions Conference at FBC Conyers.  I think I have it all together.

Even though I’m a media guy, I’ve always been reluctant to rely on technology.  Seems like at least 75% of the presentations I see have some major problem, like it won’t go forward, it’s too small or whatever.  But I’m going to give it a whirl as back up images to what I’m talking about.  Even having to stay to a scripted format makes me nervous.  Pray for me this weekend.

Spent most of my day with partners from First Baptist Church Salado, Texas.  Danny Davis brought a college team to help me last year.  They were terrific.  They’re bringing their youth group this year.  I’m sure they’ll be awesome. He brought his partner Randy with him. He’s the music minister.

Dropped off Bibles to my partner Virginia Cosgrove at the mission at Pearl Lane.  I’m sure she’ll put those to good use.

Then helped my kids at the mission at Azalea for a couple of hours. They’re getting ready for the CRCT test.  The immigrant kids almost always do awful on those standardized tests.  We’ll see . .

It was good to see Casey Cruz come and help at the mission.  Her son is supposed to help me, but like Jouvens, when they find work they need to take it.

I had a fun day with Ian North and Jesse today!

We ate at Cafe Istanbul, one of my Food Faves.  They’ve recently remodeled their place.  Looks supah cool.

Rest of the day was spent with new friends from Darfur.

  One of the men is the Chief of the tribe. 

He escaped the genocide into Ethiopia and has been in Clarkston, GA for about two weeks. 

Ian and I will help him tell his story.  Jesse will work on putting together a web site to illustrate the horrors of the country.

Man’s inhumanity to man.  It’s almost unlimited!

This world needs Jesus!