Had a great morning today at Clarkston International Bible Church!
I took my parents and family to celebrate the North’s commissioning!
It was a wonderful time. Ian and Ruthie made a great presentation on their ministry and Pastor Phil Kitchin gave an inspired sermon on what it means to be a missionary—follow the model of Christ!
I made a short presentation at the end of the service and presented them with their certificates from the North American Mission Board. Very exciting stuff!
We had lunch together at Piccadilly along with Kathy’s brother Bill and his friend Deborah and our nephew Jason.
Also got to see good friends from FBC Mountain Park, the Cox and Mayfields! Awesome!
Came home and soaked up some rays and worked out on weights.
My cable/internet isn’t working well. Fortunately, my wifi picks up a neighbor’s signal so I have some ability to work.
On Friday I had a fun time with a partner of mine from Garland, Texas: Mark Hill. I’ve worked with Mark a couple of times in the past. He’s a great guy and a very talented musician!
He’s bringing his youth choir for a mission trip to our area in July. I enjoyed showing him around the International Village.
There are SO many cool things to see here. It was extra special because I also got to show my mom, Peggy Cummins, around as well! And of course it’s always good to have my wingman Jesse with us!
Today I took both my parents and Jesse over to Azalea Mission to check on the kids.
I was also making sure that the mission was set up and ready to go for my first team of the summer, First Baptist Atlanta.
The FBA team is planning on living at the mission!
I also had fun getting to see my team from ACCCN today! They came over for a pre-site visit to get to know the kids a bit before they come back in two weeks.
The kids are SO excited to have “the teams” back in town!
This afternoon I got some new tires put on my car. They were really slick.
Then ran my 4 mile route. Still not too hot!
Spent some time with my folks over at the mission house this evening before coming back to finish up my homework.
Ashley had a scary thing happen to her this afternoon. She ate something that she was allergic to, she’s still not sure exactly what it was. I called her to see if she could pick me up from the tire place, when she told me she had this reaction and actually had her throat start to close on her! J and I immediately went to Walgreens to pick up some Benadryl and took it straight home to her. That seemed to help her a LOT. She’s fine and her usual perky self now! Amen for that!
It was wonderful to spend time with my parents during this momentous time in their life: my dad’s retirement! The church had a big send off for him! I was so glad that Ashley made the trip with us!
Fun to also reconnect with my brother Jim and his family!
And to see friends from days gone by, Rollin Hooper and Joe Dickey!
I love the Texas country side!
Especially with Ashley!
We never know how much time we’ll have on this planet, nor when we’ll see our friends again. My dad got word today that one of his dear friends had died. Very sad.
Jesse had a little cavity that got filled this morning. No big deal.
We then picked up Ian and Ruthie and took them to eat Mexican food. Always good!
Ruthie had a job that afternoon, so we dropped her off and then Ian and Jesse and I went to Best Buy to recon cameras. We really like the little cameras that we have, but sometimes you need something that has an external microphone input so you can have a LOT better audio. When we’re interviewing people for big projects the audio is a big deal. So it’s important to do the research since it’s an investment that will last about 5 years normally.
I’ve gotten tremendous use out of the last Sony Handicam we bought. This will be a huge upgrade from what I’ve used for the last 8 years.
We dropped Ian at his house, went to check on the office and then went to Azalea to have a little Ice Cream party for the kids! Lots of fun!
I told them I’d be gone for a week. Ashley and I leave for Texas Thursday morning. They weren’t happy about that! But it’s the first week off from school so they’re pretty excited!
J and I went over to Lowes to pick up a new lawnmower.
We put it together and then Jesse helped me mow while I picked up sticks and cleaned up. Sure is great to have some help!
Lowes had some beautiful flowers!
I’m headed over to a couple of partner’s houses in a few minutes. Then I’ll focus on getting packed for the trip. Fun!
Today Jesse and I hauled the big boxes of English as Second Language books to my partners Eduardo & Sheila Zamora at Huntington Ridge.
My good friends at Perimeter Church gave me some terrific material. The Zamoras were SO happy! We also took them a bunch of chairs for the mission. The complex is giving us another apartment to work out of for the adult classes. Awesome!
Ian and Ruthie North met us over at H. Ridge. I continue to build links between partners. Glad that’s working out!
We went over to Best Buy to look for some equipment we needed. Needed another charger and battery. I also treated Ian and Jesse to yogurt!
Dropped off Ian at Huntington Creek and picked up my small PA system that my partner at Adelaide Park needs for this weekend.
We saw a large military plane fly at very high altitude this afternoon. Left the weirdest con trails, very, very thin.
Then J and I went to Azalea to check on the kids and have them help us with the labeling of the newsletters.
They always enjoy that. Especially, because I treat them with boxes of doughnuts afterwards. The kids like all the cool stamps and stickers and like being part of the team too!
I took Jesse over to Willow Branch to teach his guitar class. I was exhausted and crashed out in the car, then worked on email on my iPhone.
Came home and anticipated mowing the lawn. I got it started and immediately conked out. I don’t have much luck with lawnmowers. I’m lucky to get three years of use out of one. Of course I buy the really cheap ones, so I probably get what I pay for.
Looks like my car won’t be fixed for a couple of days. So it’ll sit at my mechanic’s place while Ashley and I are gone to Texas.
We got the newsletter printed up. I put all the letters in together this evening. Jesse and Kathy will mail them next week. I have a system as to when the letters to out. Not too early, not too late. . . . .just right! About three days before the end of the month generally. Groovy!
And now, Stoooory Tim! One of the weirdest traditions in Madagascar: Famadiana–speaking to the dead!
Had a fun time with some of my favorite partners today!
Jesse and I went to First Baptist Atlanta to meet with my partner Derrick Posten. He’s really suffering with back problems. Looks like he’s going to have to have surgery soon. Pray for him!
I wanted Derrick to meet another one of my best buddies, Carlos Salaverria. Carlos is extremely talented and brings a wealth of experience to our team here in Atlanta. He’s another of our North American Mission Board missionaries. His task is to work with our Hispanic churches to get them more involved with the community!
About three weeks ago First Baptist hosted the Easter Impact Atlanta where they mobilized 170 people in 15 different complexes around the metroplex. The great news was that over 124 people accepted Christ!
The hardest part is to get those people discipled and then into a local church. That has traditionally been the hardest part of our job. Carlos and Derrick and I are trying to eliminate that gap in the process. Carlos is working on a dicipliship course that I think is going to work out great! We’ll plan on mobilizing the teams from Impact Atlanta to be our follow up leaders. With backup from the local Latino churches, I think this is a plan that can really work. But it won’t be easy! We really need your prayer support as we roll this new strategy out!
After FBA, Jesse and I went to Perimeter church. These two churches are my two favorite partners out of the whole city. So I was doubly blessed! I talked with my partners Debra Potter, Jackie Deiter and Chip Sweeney about our Compassion In Action outreach in the Fall. I’m really looking forward to some exciting partnerships!
From Perimeter J and I went to check the mail at my office at First Baptist Doraville then to Azalea Mission. We had fun with the kids there. I had a little gift for Clinton that he swore he’d share with the other kids. It was a DVD set of the animated show Naruto. They were SO excited about it!
Then we tried to start the car. Nothing. Clicking sounds. . . then nothing. We go the cables out and tried to jump it off. Clicking and nothing. So I finally called AAA to bring over the tow truck. All my cars have over 100,000 miles so I’m a big believer in AAA!
After about a 30 minute wait the driver hooked us up and took my car back to my mechanic in Stone Mountain. Hopefully, it won’t be too expensive!
Ashley’s been working on an art project with paper mache! Groovy!
Spent this morning studying Samuel. Transition of power between Saul and David. Fascinating!
This afternoon, Kathy and I went to the King Tut exhibit at the Atlanta Civic Center.
I’d seen the sister exhibit (there’s 3) in Philadelphia. It was fun to see these artifacts nearly 3,500 years old! Beautiful artwork. A real world class exhibit! These pictures are actually from the gift shop, since you aren’t allowed to take pictures of the actual artifacts!
I’d still like to see the original exhibit in Cairo one day! They don’t let the full death mask out of Egypt any more.
It’s incredible to think that this minor Pharoah, only 19 years old, scrubbed from Egyptian history, is the person that most people think about when they think of Pharoahs!
Jesse and I went to Carniceria #1 to pick up a pinata for the party at Hamptons at Lenox.
We bought a bunch of candy to put inside it. While we were there, we saw Pedro Yanez, a buddy of mine that I’ve known for about ten years.
He used to live at Azalea. He had his wife and two little boys with him. It was great to see one of my kids doing well!
We went over to Azalea to help the team from First Redeemer host a block party. On the way over to the mission I told Jesse, “Looks like it’s going to pour down rain.” So when we got to the mission, first thing I did was have them move everything inside. Sure enough, about five minutes later it absolutely poured down.
We still had a great time with the kids. The team cooked hot dogs and had chips and ice cream for the kids. They had a terrific time!
After our outreach event at Azalea, Jesse and I went to Walmart to pick up some supplies for the mission then over to Hamptons at Lenox to take them the pinata! I’m sure they had a great time at that party too!
We also went over to Huntington Creek to check on Ian and Ruthie North.
Jesse had a CD for them and I wanted to pick up my video equipment that he’d been using. I got him his own camera to use now, so I’ll keep the old one at my house.
Came home and went for a 4 mile run with my sweet ol’ Sugar dawg.
