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!

Kathy and I went to church at Perimeter this morning.  The sermon was on confidence in the Lord.

My favorite part was the “Solid Rock” band made up of 4-6th grade students.  Kids were rockin!

Then we were part of the State of the County address at the church.  Gwinnett is a fantastic county, but we have significant issues to deal with:  sex slaves, school dropouts and high divorce rates.



We enjoyed seeing some of our best partners including Chip Sweeney and Debra Potter.  It’s always fun to hang out with them!

I always enjoy setting up our display and talking to people about our ministry.


Then back up Stone Mountain for K and I.  Super windy. 

Biting cold, expecially up at the top.  We still made it!
We also saw a B17. It circles around Stone Mountain making a loop from Dobbins AFB.

My remote for my car lost a button today.  Weird.  My spare one had dead batteries so I tracked down some new ones and replaced them in both units.

  My main remote still works, you just have to push the button that connected directly to the circuit board.  Kinda weird.

I’ve got some hot peach tea cooking.  Sure smells soothing.  I’m trying to get away from too much caffeine, especially in the evenings.

 This morning I was having trouble with my iPhone syncing with my computer.  I just plugged it in and it worked just fine.  Thank you, Lord.  I also worked on my Powerpoint presentation for FBC Conyers and the FBC Duluth Deacon’s retreat I’m doing next weekend.  Gonna be a busy week.

Also enjoyed working on the Facebook project.  It’s been a hoot to get in contact with old friends again.  It only takes a few minutes to set up a Facebook account and it’s free.  Can’t beat that!

Kathy and I had a fun day today!  We hiked up to the top of Stone Mountain.  It was so beautiful of there!


On the way back down we took a break on a flat section of the rock.  I must have been tired, cuz I crashed out for about 45 minutes.  Definitely got some sun on my face.

We went home to check on Jesse then went over to watch Slumdog Millionaire. 

I thought that was a great movie!  It was all shot in India.  Both K and I have travelled extensively in India.  It was fun to see Mumbai (Bombay) again as well as all the scenes on the train.

Woke up at 5:30 this morning.  Ouch.

Been working on financial stuff.  I’m going to start helping my treasurer more with the record keeping.  It’s a lot of work for someone who’s a volunteer working 70 hours plus a week!  He’ll still have his hand in it in a supervisory role.  Just not nearly as much time.

Set up auto pay stuff on line with several utilities.  I’m amazed how not EVERY company offers that service or that some actually want me to pay extra for it!

I talked with my neighbor today.  I’ve been noticing his truck in the driveway the last couple of weeks.  I thought he might be on vacation.  He told me today that the company he worked for had gone “belly up.”  He’s looking for a job now.  That’s tough.

Went by Staples to pick up some supplies for the mission.  One of my friends there is Edwina.  She usually checks me out when I go there.  She made sure to let me know she wasn’t going to be around for a couple of weeks.  I asked her if that was something good, she shook her head emphatically “no.”  She’s going in for surgery in a week or so.  I let all her customers check out and then had a prayer time with her at her counter.  She seemed to really appreciate that.  Most people do.

It was really cold outside.  Looks great, but still cold.  Frozen birdbath weather.  Tomorrow it’s supposed to be great!

Do you do Facebook?  I had a friend from High School encourage me to set up a profile.  It’s been cool to see the folks that have contacted me.  Check out Facebook Profile.

There aren’t many meetings I enjoy going to.  The Unite meetings are an exception.

I’ve been working in Atlanta for thirteen years now.  Over that time I’ve made a lot of friends, some of them close friends.  Many of them go to the Unite meetings.  So it’s sort of like going to a fraternity meeting with old school chums!


It was great to see my partners from Perimeter and 12 Stone in particular.  The subject of the session today was the sex traffic problem in Atlanta.  Our city is in the top three in America with this problem and in the top ten globally!  A 500 million dollar problem that affects little girls from around the world.  Horrible.

I heard a story from a bust last week in Norcross.  A couple of underage Spanish girls were being kept captive in dog cages!  Unbelievable.  I’m glad that churches are trying to do something about this problem.  Our organization is called Street Grace.  Pray that we can help stop this from happening.

It was great to be with Ashley this morning.  She had on her reporter hat at the Unite meeting.  She’ll be writing a story about the problem for her newspaper at Perimeter College, the Collegian.  I think there are a lot of college students that will be interested in the problem and how they can help.

This afternoon I took Jesse and Kathy with me to Azalea.  I helped Jojuan with his play.  Kathy and Jesse helped the other kids with their homework.

It was fun to see all the kids on their bikes.

This evening we went to a seminar at Perimeter Church for all their ministry partners.  I always think they have stuff for us to learn.

It was fun to go over what motivates people to support ministry.

Steve Anderson did a great job leading the seminar.  He works with some of the largest companies in the world!

Super busy day yesterday.  I was so whipped when I got home I went to sleep at 9:30 pm!  Yow!

Last week I had a meeting with the international pastors at Clarkston International Bible Church. 

Many of the congregations need Bibles.  Thanks to the generosity of the staff at the North American Mission Board, I’ve been able to help buy some Bibles.  This church hosts people from over 50 countries!

Yesterday I went to CIBC for their “Wonderful Wednesday” meeting with the students from Dekalb Tech who meet on the church campus. I met with the Ethiopian Pastor Moges and gave him the Amharic Bibles I had tracked down for them. 

The church members were SO happy to have their own Bible! 

I thought about many of my friends who have four or five Bibles laying on a shelf somewhere collecting dust. What a difference!

Jesse and I took chairs over to Hope Ministry in Decatur .  Pastor Terry Cummings is the leader of that congregation.  He’s a former NBA professional basketball player.  Jesse told me, “I sure felt short.”  Me too, son!  One of their congregation helped us in Conyers last weekend with the outreach at Audobon Brook.  I’m glad to be able to support partners.  They may also be able to host a Burmese congregation in their facility as well, but it’s about 2 miles from Clarkston.  Not sure if that would work out.

I took back a bunch of video equipment that we bought last week.  Just couldn’t do what we needed it for.  In particular it had no external jack for a microphone.  To do a good job you HAVE to have a lav mic that you can plug up to the guy you’re interviewing, plus you need a headphone jack so you can monitor your audion.  So back it went.  Best Buy is great about no hassle returns, except I had to pay a restocking fee on the camera.  Bahd luck.

Went to FBC Doraville to check on my office and see if the computer that I had fixed for Ms. Margie was still working ok.  It was.  PTL.  That thing was a hassle to fix.

Jesse’s class at Willow Branch in Clarkston is starting to grow!  I took him over to a guitar store near Azalea and lo and behold they actually had a left handed guitar!  We got a lefty guitar and a regular guitar with bags for a great price. 

The manager was interested in Jesse’s class since he’s teaching refugees.  I think that’s one reason they gave us such a discount.

J and I had two computers over to my partner Virginia Cosgrove.  She has a great ministry with the families living at Pearl Lane apartments.  I was glad to be able to help her out.

Checked on the kids at Azalea.  Miguel wasn’t there to have the mission open.  That was disappointing.  His mom said “He probably forgot.”  You forget on your first day?  We’ll see how it goes.  Jouvens was there with his girlfriend Makayla. 

They were both a big help.

I focused on working with Tabias who is like a son to me. I’ve been like a father to him for thirteen years now. He’s one of our success stories. Stayed out of trouble, in school, loves Jesus! He needed help on a presentation he’s doing on diabetes. He was pretty scared about it.
Did you know that the #1 fear of people is “Public Speaking?” I think he’ll do a great job on his presentation.

Kathy was sick yesterday.  She’s feeling better this morning and is on her way to CIBC to work with the refugee babies.  Last night I fell asleep in her arms watching the Championship Dog  Show in NYC.  Didn’t dream of dogs.

This morning I picked up Andrei to learn more about Atlanta. 

We drove over to the Marta station at Lenox.  Had fun walking around the area.  Visited Phipps Mall.  Place looked like a palace! 

At Northlake Mall they have new Saturns parked in the lobby.  At Phipps they had Bentleys and Aston Martins. 

The Bentley was priced at $225,000!  Yow!
I liked the sculpture on exhibit too.

Beautiful cirrus clouds this morning.

Had lunch with Ian and Ruthie North and Jason Sullivan, my partner from Chris Kids.  It was good to get to visit with these youngsters!

Good meeting with Tom Frost and Eduardo Zamora.  I wanted the Norths to get to know their partners at the other Huntington property.  I think they’re going to be able to help each other a lot!

Went over to Ian’s house to give him my video gear and pick up some stuff I’m going to return to Best Buy.

Saw the kids at Azalea.  Checked on my new leadership in the area, Miguel Cruz!  I think that’s going to work out great!