Thing about yard work is it never seems to be done!

I’m trying something new this year.  Instead of gathering up all my leaves I’m trying to just mow them into little pieces.

I read an article about how crazy it is to remove the leaves and then fertilize.  The leaves WERE fertilizer.  Of course they don’t look as good.

Started me thinking about whether we already have what we need, maybe in a different form!

It’s not that we need new people in our churches that do outreach, as much as converting the “regular” members into a more dynamic form.

Best thing was that I got the lawnmower to start!  Even that will preach!

Been doing a lot of research on the whole social marketing phenomenon.  Do you have a Facebook page?  Twitter?  Post videos to YouTube?  LinkedIn?

I think that all these forms of connection need to be proactively used by the church!

Had a fun morning with my kids.  I’m glad that Jesse is feeling better.  He goes in for his oral surgery tomorrow.  I find it wonderfully whimsical that he’s getting his Wisdom Teeth removed on April Fool’s day!  Ark, ark!

I took the kids to eat at Metro Cafe Diner.

For dessert we had a piece of cake that was the size of Ashley’s head!

Spent a couple of hours with the kids at Azalea.  I thought we’d nearly finished all their homework yesterday.  Joi and Mohasana came to the mission with a 20 page packet due tomorrow!

It was a pre-CRCT test.  These immigrant kids have a hard time with these standardized tests.

When I was a little Tim, I ate those tests up like candy.  But my parents had Masters degrees and one was a teacher and I spoke English as my mother tongue.  BIG difference.

Pray that they’ll do well on the test.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, another Story Tim!  I this one I tell of my adventures riding buses in Nepal and India!

Had an easy day today so went back to my “Story Tim” project.  I recorded another 11 videos and downloaded them to my hard drive.  That makes 28 new stories in the last three days.  Suh weet!

Jesse is finally getting over his sickness.  We went over to Azalea this afternoon to check on the kids.  They had a lot of homework.

I focused on helping Joi with his math and Mohasana with her English assignment.


Jesse made sure that Clinton, Mustak and Neem made progress with their projects.

Jojuan also needed help with his comprehension work.  Productive day!

I’m back at my home office now catching up with my email and blog.  Daily discipline!
The trees are so beautiful now!

I’m editing, compressing and uploading video to my YouTube site while I work on other projects.  It’s a labor of love!

Here’s a video on my encounter with a German toilet. Ach, nein!

I’m so glad that Ashley is my daughter!

She went with me this morning to FBC Eagles Landing.

It’s a major church just south of Atlanta.

Their Outreach Pastor, Bruce Mewbourne, is a good buddy of mine.

He’s doing his best to help mobilize his church.  His pastor Tim Dowdy had a great message on being a CrossFit Christian!  He’s my kinda guy for sure.

Ash and I enjoyed talking to a bunch of their members, encouraging them to get involved with missions!  She made at least 100 balloon animals for the kids there.  Blisters on her fingers!

High point for me was talking with Phil and Jami Covone.  In this picture they’re with one of their main partners, Laura!


They are missionaries working on a church plant with Latinos in Henry County.  If all goes well, I’ll be able to help them get appointed with the North American Mission Board.  I really enjoy helping people get started and accelerate their work!  Being part of a team is SO important.

After Eagles Landing, we went up to FBC Doraville where they had a reception for Pastor Sam Letson who is moving to another church in Tampa, Florida.It was great to see my partner Paul Reynolds from Me and My House ministries too!


We will surely miss them!

I have a lot of friends at FBCD, a church where Kathy and I got married and where my father in law Bill Doverspike pastored for over a decade!

We got home and after a rest I climbed Stone Mountain to watch the sunset.

I am so glad that I have this incredible natural wonder (the largest single stone on the planet!) right in my back yard.  It was awesome tonight.  Go, God!

Here is my Story Tim for your amusement!  Another toilet story!  This one is from one of the most dangerous toilets in Africa, located on Lion Hill, near Nakuru, Kenya!

Rain. Rain. Rain.

It’s a beautiful thing!  Georgia has been SO dry, it’s good that are lakes can take a big drink!

But I’m a sunshine boy.  Too much of this dreary weather makes me sad.  SO, I take on a big project, buckle up and WORK!

It’s quite an involved project.  Record the video (the fun part–as my wife would say, “I live to hear myself talk!”), download it to my hard drive, edit and add the graphics, compress into a MPEG4 format and upload to YouTube.  Then I embed the videos into my Facebook page (been there?  I want YOU to be my friend!), blog and website.  Groovy!

This series of videos from my 50 years on the planet, “Story Tim” has been a labor of love.  So far I’ve edited and uploaded eleven new videos.

If all goes well, I’ll have the other six that I recorded yesterday also on line.

They’re all in my YouTube gallery, but I think the best place to find them is on our website:  http://whirlwindmissions.org/story_tim.php.  I’ve also put the stories from my parents Al & Peggy Cummins on that page.  Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post the new ones right here!

I did a series of three stories on “The Worst Toilets I Have Known.”  The first one is from my ride on an Indian mail train from New Delhi to Kathmandu.  It’s not for the weak of stomach!

I’ve been studying the “StrengthsFinder 2.0” book by Tom Rath.  Interesting book.  I think I’ll get some useful ideas from it.  My five strengths according to the test I took are:  Learner, Achiever, Positivity, Individualization & Arranger. Most people are so focused on everyone’s WEAKNESSES that they forget they should really be looking to help people develop their strengths.  That’s that “positivity” thing coming out.

Heard from Ian.  He made it to Chicago safely.  PTL!  Thanks for praying for that!

My birds like to watch me edit!

Rainy day today.  Got some water soaking into my basement.  Gotta figure that out.

I turned 50 years old this year!  In honor of that I’ve been working a series of my favorite stories on short videos.  This afternoon I recorded 17 new ones!  Now I have to edit, add graphics, compress and upload them!  It’s a labor of love.  Over time I’ll include them in this blog for your viewing pleasure!

Took my birds outside to enjoy the air.

Normally, they fly around my room. I put them in the cage when I take them to visit their relatives!

Spent an hour at the Barnes and Nobles bookstore.  I always head for the Marketing and the Leadership sections.  Today I bought a little book called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath.  Looking forward to reading through that.

Went to the library to find more information on becoming a Firefighter for Miguel.  Called him and told him what I’d found out.  Also talked to Jason Sullivan, who had applied for that job.  It’s SUPER hard to get in.  Jason made it sound like Miguel really needed to get some EMT training before he applied.

Caught up with Ian this afternoon.  I helped him get a van from Enterprise to move the rest of his stuff down from Chicago.

The van was brand new, only 200 miles on it! Cleanest I’ve ever seen!
He’ll be picking up his brother from the airport as well.  My prayer is that his brother Erik will stay and help us do missions here, too!  Ian came over to our house so I could get him an air mattress and a music player that he could use with his ipod, since the van only has a radio.

Kathy, Jesse and I took him out to eat at El Torreros before he left for Chicago.  Pray that he has a safe trip!

I was supposed to have two Outreach Events tomorrow.  They’ve been postponed because of weather.  Made sense to me.  It’s nearly impossible to get people to come outside when it’s raining.  Even crazy kids aren’t that dumb!

Looking forward to editing the video from Story Tim!

This morning I got up early and started working on writing my newsletters to our supporters.  It’s a weigh of life!

Best thing about today was that Ashley was with me!  Jesse was still feeling sick.  Kathy took him to the doctor this afternoon.  They were both feeling bad.  Our doctor put them on antibiotics.  Pray that they’ll feel better soon!

Our first assignment was a Clarkston International Bible Church where we met with a group of International Pastors and leaders that meet at the church. 

Dr. Jerry Baker of the Georgia Baptist Convention’s language missions department made a presentation to explain to them how they could become a Baptist church.

It was interesting to help clarify to these Pastors what being a Baptist is all about.

My partner Ruthie North made a delicious lunch of curried rice for us and also explained our new ministry of jewelry making to help support the Pastor’s wives.  Being a refugee is hard enough, trying to also be a church leader is even more demanding.  Pray that Refugee Beads will help the pastor’s families raise the support they need to pay their bills.

Ruthie will also be working with other women in the community, but we’re trying to be help the Pastors and their leaders first.  I’ve learned over time that when the church loses their leaders they tend to collapse.  This is especially true with small churches made up of immigrants.  They don’t have a long tradition in this country or in their church to help them hold together.

After our meeting, Ashley and I went over to see one of my best partners, Clatie Lewis who works with the ministry Reboot. 

We needed to get a computer for another of our missionary leaders, Bayo Otiti from Nigeria.  We picked up a refurbished computer from Clatie and took it over to Bayo’s house to set up. 

We got it running, but couldn’t get the interet to work properly.  That didn’t really surprise me.  Normally, you have to have a tech person from the company to set it up the first time.  The program said that it wasn’t connected properly, which I’m sure it was.

Could be a cable problem, or a modem problem.  That’s why they have installation guys!

Bayo was so grateful.  I’m glad we could help!

Then over to the bank to get some money for Ruthie to get more beads for her ladies.  When we first start a ministry we have to invest money to get it off the ground.  Over time, it becomes self supporting.  But at first it’s still a fragile baby!  I feel confident that soon this will be a vibrant ministry that will really help families!

Ash and I went over to Azalea to check on the kids.  It’s been raining all days.  Weather plays into weather the kids get out much.  We saw a few of them, made sure that they were ok then went on over to FBC Doraville.

We stored the monitors that we got from Clatie and the repaired computers one of the church rooms.  Soon we’ll put them in one of the missions or give them to a needy family!

We took some dyes that I had in that room over to Huntington Creek for Ruthie and the ladies.  They may use them to make some t-shirts to help promote the new ministry.

Came on back to Stone Mountain, picked up Ashley’s car that had gotten a fresh oil change and to the Post Office to drop off the letters that we had written.

Fun day!

Rainy day! The gutters run lime green with Pine Tree pollen.

This morning I finished producing my newsletter.  Took it over to Staples to make copies and they had two big jobs in front of mine.  So, unfortunately I had to wait to this evening to pick them up.

Went on over to Clarkston to meet up with Ashley at the Perimeter College. Never too much Ashley!

Ruthie North started her first jewelry class at Willow Branch today!  We’ll start the main registration for the pastor’s wives next week.  We’ll meet with the pastors tomorrow.

Took Bennett, Ian and Ashley over for roast goat!

Highlight of the day was our get together with Dr. Geoff Hammond the President of the North American Mission Board.  We had a good group of our team at Clarkston International Bible Church.  It was fun to show him around!


Then back to Chamblee to check on my kids at the mission.  Helped Neem subtract fractions with uncommon denominators.  Miguel also told me that he’s going to apply for the Firefighters training.  I went through the math part of the sample test that he had.  Pulling for him!

Also helped Rosybel and her mom learn her letter sounds and write some sentences.

Need to start working on writing the notes for the newsletters.

Got up early this morning.  I always refer to this week as “that time of the month.”  It’s when I have to work on my newsletter for my supporters! Went by the Post Office to pick up stamps and to Staples to get envelopes.

Drove around in the clouds this morning. . . some call it fog!

Jesse is still running a fever.  This may impact his wisdom teeth surgery next week.  (Get the pun?) Pray that he feels better!

Went to lunch with new partners:  Josh and Margaret Feit. 

They’re members of Open Table church and big supporters of our partner who runs the ministry at Pearl Lane.  A couple of weeks ago they hosted a Bike Workshop in the community.  They had about 30 people come through and get their bikes worked on.  Josh is really talented in graphic design too!  Their ministry is called “Communicycle.” It’s a good way to establish relationships in the community!

I had a meeting with them and Ian and Ruthie North. 

I thought they had a lot of overlap in their ministry strategies.  Ian is going to the workshop this evening with one of the kids from his missions.

People usually get in touch with me when they have questions about expanding their ministry into more areas in the community since we have such an extended infrastructure.  I was glad to give them some coaching.  I’m looking forward to working with them more closely.

Ruthie is working on the signage for her ministry with the refugee pastor’s wives called Refugee Beads.  I took them over to Michaels to pick out the supplies they need to make the signs for when she goes to the craft fairs.  Ruthie is very talented besides being an excellent business person. She starts her ministry with the ladies this week.  We have the infrastructure set up now: business license, registration, etc.  She spent more than 30 hours this week getting that accomplished.  Starting something is always hard.  Doing it the second time will be a LOT easier.

I dropped the Norths off at their car and went over to Azalea to check on the kids.  They helped me with the labels for my newsletters. Occasionally, they get the labels on the envelope!

I brought them some doughnuts and also some school supplies that several of the kids needed.

Then helped Bahat with his math.  I’m teaching him pennies and nickles.  He showed me a page of pictures of the coins.  I tore them each out then pointed to one, “Nickle.”  He’d repeat, “nickle.”  Then to penny.  He’d say “penny.”  Over and over and over again.  Then how much each one was worth.  One, five, five, five, one, one, one.  This stuff just takes mass repetition.  Then I taught his mom (she was dressed in a sari and spoke very limited English, “Show me five.”  “Show me three.”  Bahat would have to then group five pennies, or three pennies or a nickle or whatever.  We’ll see how they do!

I’m sore from working out yesterday. I kind of like that feeling.  Sorta.  Too tired to run.

It’s supposed to rain the next several days.  We sure need it, but that day after day of rainy weather really depresses me.

Dr. Geoff Hammond, the President of the North American Mission Board is coming to visit our work in Clarkston tomorrow.  Pray that goes well.  The more people know about our work, the more come to help us.  It’s all about replicating yourself over and over again.

Like counting pennies. . . . they add up!

Fun day today!

Now that I think about it, nearly ALL my days are fun! PTL, baby!

Santi Gahatay is a great missionary from Bhutan who helped church planters when he was a refugee in Nepal.  I had a meeting with him and a great business partner Chuck Vogt today.  We enjoyed listening to Chuck’s journey and how he thought Santi could fit into the team.  Chuck runs Metro Lawn service in Atlanta.

His ministry is to help people start their own buisness.  I have a heart for refugees and the refugee pastors in particular.  Many of them end of working at the chicken factories in Gainesville. Not exactly the best job.  Hard on pastors because of the length of travel job to get there and the hours are really tough.  My prayer is that God will bless Chuck’s business so they can be in expansion mode and add Santi and then help him start his own business so he can employ other pastors.  Pray for that!

We also met two new partners who have a food ministry called Great Food For All.

Steve Traylor and David Purvis are filling a gap that Angel Food ministries has left behind.  Check out their web site at greatfoodforall.com. They were meeting with my partner Bennett Ekandem in Clarkston.

It was also fun to see Bayo Otiti from Nigeria! My brother Bennett Ekandem, the director of the mission at Willow Branch, is also from Nigeria.

He came to Clarkston to help the kids and talk with us.  I was hoping to get Bayo a computer from my office, but the two I had didn’t work.  Neither of them would power up.  Weird.  So we went by Clatie Lewis’ house to take him the bad ones and see if he could get us another one from the ministry that he works with:  Reboot.

We went by Azalea to check on the kids.  They really don’t have any homework any more.

Seems like the whole school just coasts after the standardized tests are completed.

Bennett gave me a bunch of candy from the mission at Willow Branch. We had fun throwing the kids the candy.

  Ian and Ruthie North and Cathy Wilson and her daughter Leah also go it on the fun!  Excellent.

Came home and worked out on weights.

Spent good time with the kids and Kathy this evening.  Jesse plays great guitar and Ashley has been playing too.  It’s like a dream come true for me!  Everybody jammin’ together.  Even Kathy was singing!  Uber!

Still need to go through the bills from the office, then I can relax.

Peace!

We had a nice restful day today.  After the long outreach event yesterday we needed it.

We went over to Stone Mountain to enjoy the Evergreen Resort for an hour. 

We like to sit in the hot tub outside by the pool.  The place was completely vacant except for us.  Exactly like we like it!  My neck has been bothering me the last few days.  The hot water helped.

We drove around the mountain to enjoy the beautiful trees that are blooming.  Atlanta is an incredibly beautiful city!

Came home and rested.

Then took Sugar dog for a 4 mile run!  Go, little dog legs, go!

Jesse has been fighting a cold.  He’s rested most of the day today.  After I got back from my run and cleaned up, I showed him a few licks on the guitar. He picks up stuff really fast!  I enjoy teaching him things.  I’ve loved playing guitar for over 40 years!