We’ve been a the office at FBC Doraville for hours. I’ve been calling the managers of the apartment complexes and Ashley has been updating the maps with the 14 new Mission Points we’ll be covering in this outreach! In all I’ve set up 69 sites in 14 cities around Metro Atlanta and 4 counties! Believe it or not, that’s not even all the places where we have work! God is good. We’ll be delivering food to 350 families!
Went through all my email. Working on projects for ’08.
Ashley and I went to Indian food today at Vikhyat. I always get a kick out of speaking Swahili to the Patels who run the place. One of their uncles was also there. He was completely astonished to hear me speaking Swahili. I always find that funny.
We’ll go check on the kids at Azalea in a second.
Hope to run my usual 4 miles when I get home. I was going to run this morning, but 34 degrees is too cold for an old African like me.
Fantastic sunset over downtown Atlanta tonight. Check it out!
I spent most of the day today with Dr. Jorge Gonzalez from Colombia and Dr. Mel Colon who is the director of the International Medical Clinic. I’m helping them get some focus groups together from the immigrant community to discover the needs in the community. Made calls to pastors to see if they could help with folks from their congregation. I spoke Spanish for about three hours straight. I understand about 85% of what I hear. I really enjoy working with languages.
Finished up about 95% of the apartment complexes for the Campus Crusade outreach on January first. So far I have about 63 set up. I’d still like to add about 7 but I need to do some research to decide which are the priority.
One day soon I’d like to be have 100 complexes where we can do work. With that number I could mobilized 1,000 people with team sizes of only 10. Definitely reachable. We’re only scratching the surface of what’s out there.
Went by Office Depot to pick up a tri-fold poster board for one of my kids at the mission. I took that over to Azalea along with a magazine of small business opportunities. I’d like for Bubba, Ernest and Jouvens to look through that. I’d wanted to buy these young men a water pressure washing system for about $300. But with the drought they can’t do it right now. Bahd luck.
Talked with a new friend working in Miami this afternoon. He and his wife have been working in the inner city there primarily with the Haitian community. The church where he works is really liberal–pushes the homosexual agenda. Some of his co-workers are actually athiests. His house just recently got broken into and now his wife feels totally unsafe. I’m encouraging them to come up to this area and plug in with our team. We’ll see what happens.
Lifted weights this morning.
Watched a gorgeous sunset. What do you think?
We just got back from eating Mexican food at El Torreros with my whole family and Miles–Ashley’s boyfriend. Always a good time with lively conversation. Jesse and I tend to argue too much, but even that can be fun.
Seems like that’s what I did most of today. Hopefully I can get done with 95% of the Campus Crusade outreach tomorrow. Got more than half done today.
Went to Lowe’s to pick up a few small things for the FBC Doraville project for Bill.
The USB hub I use at my home office isn’t working correctly. Went to Best Buy to pick up another one.
Ran 4 miles this morning. Cold. I bought some warm running pants this afternoon.
Did I mention that yesterday I got a letter from the AARP saying that I qualify to be a member now? Dunno how that makes me feel, but not good. I’ll be 50 next July 12.
Got word that the President of my board, Dr. Carl Barrington, was misdiagnosed with his cancer! He has a much more moderate form than what was previously thought. Doc told him he could live 20 plus more years!
Went by Lowe’s this morning to pick up more paint for the job we’re doing at FBC Doraville. We’re redoing the white poles/fence around campus. Bill Hickey is helping me take care of that.
Picked up some more paper for the mission at the Terraces at Office Depot as well as some more laminating sheets to finish up the calendar project.
Working on the big outreach for Campus Crusade on 1/1/08. Still trying to get all the details hammered out before I call all those managers and let them know what’s happening. I hate waiting on other people. We’re still way ahead of the date when we’ll go over so I’m not worried. Yet.
Followed up on the rest of my phone calls. Did some counseling with a mother who’s daughter and son in law are working in Miami and having a really hard time of it. I’ll call the couple this afternoon.
Waded through all my email. Got some really good news about the President of my Board, Carl Barrington. Looks like they may have misdiagnosed his cancer. Doctor says he has a moderate type of cancer and can live for another 20 years! PTL!!
I never know what to think when someone tells me they have “X amount of years to live.” I count it a blessing to get every day! If you do as much driving as I do, you’d know what I’m talking about. I average at least 50 miles every day in some of the worst traffic imaginable.
I’ll head over to the mission at Azalea in a few minutes to check on the kids.
Kathy and I went to FBC Mountain Park this morning. Pastor Bill Blanchard spoke from Matthew 2 on “Wise Men Seek Him.” That’s for sure! Good spirit in one of my favorite churches!
I worked on organizing all the pictures we took this weekend at Kensington Station this morning. There were about four galleries of pictures. I have to get the pictures from the SD cards (of three cameras!), compress them using Photoshop Elements, then upload them to our site on Smugmug, then rotate the pictures that are vertical, then create galleries and separate them. We have over 50,000 pictures in our Photo Gallery. Sweet! Yesterday’s blog has some pictures from the event.
We went over to eat at Folks for lunch. Fried catfish was good!
Got home and rested and watched a show on Armageddon on the History channel. Did you know that was the location of the first recorded battle in history? Between the Hittites and the Egyptians.
Just got back from running 4 miles. I got a little Ipod shuffle for Christmas (early!) Put some music on it and ran. Fun.
Sure was a beautiful day today. And what a sunset!
Went to the luncheon for the volunteers for Bennett Ekandem at Willow Branch. Good crowd of some mighty sweet volunteers. I gave a short greeting and emphasized how important it is that our volunteers try and generate more volunteers.
Then over to Kensington Station to help with the Christmas party hosted by Midway Macedonia Baptist Church. We had a good crowd of kids and the volunteers did a great job. I really liked Doug Allison who dressed as a shepherd and told the Christmas story. The kids seemed to like their presents too.
Good day!
We decided we need to make more calendars for our trip to Georgetown, Texas for Christmas with my parents. If you want a calendar, send me an email and let me know where to mail it.
Our first assignment was to take a load of 4 computers, monitors and hardware over to Liberty Baptist Church in downtown Atlanta. Some of the Deacons came and helped us unload the gear.
Then we went to eat at 6 Feet Under–a famous fish place across the road on Memorial Highway from Oaklawn Cemetery. We had an order of Alligator bites (tough! Not nearly as good as Nile Crocodile we’d eat in Madagascar!), I had fish and potato chips.
Next stop was the ZOO! Our family is a member of the zoo so we get in as many times as we want. We hung out over there for about an hour. The lion was really roaring. Sweet! The baby orangutans are so cute you can’t believe it. Mei-Lan, the baby panda is about four foot long now.
From the animals we raced north across the Chattahoochie River up to Roswell. We went to the office of Concept 21–Roswell, where we have a mission. I needed to sign the new lease. The had most of the paperwork ready. We had to wait for about 15 minutes for them to finish up the last page. At least they had it!
What’s a day with Ashley, without . . .shopping! We looked for some sweaters for her. She found some cute stuff. We also got a device to sync up her Mac with a larger external monitor. We needed to get that so we can use her computer to make presentations.
After shopping we went to Azalea to check on the kids. Everybody had finished their homework. We hung out for a little while then piled back into the car and headed to my office at FBC Doraville. I talked with Bill Hickey who was working on repainting the metal pole fence around the educational building of the church. Also picked up the mail–always bills to pay.
Worked on my email this morning then went to a board meeting of Communities in Transformation. Toni Branyon is a partner of mine and is the director of CIT. We’re trying to help create a workable program for her. Focused on her PowerPoint presentation this morning
Had lunch with Nicholas today. He came up from La Grange to check on possibilities of doing ministry. Looks like he may work in one of our Baptist wilderness camps. Didn’t really know we had that stuff.
We ate lunch at Torerros–my usual hang out. Or what I call “mi oficina dos.” I sat down with Toni, Nicholas and Jean White and the guy sitting next to us turned around. Richard Simms! He’s a another buddy of mine who is also an apartment manager. I immediately asked him to join us.
He asked me if I knew someone who could do maintenance? I told him “Of course!” and shared with him about Bill Hickey—who I had a meeting with an hour later. Bottom line, I picked up Bill (he’s 60+ and rides a bicycle), took him to meet Richard. Offered him the job on the spot! I took Bill over to Marietta where he had to take a pee test. No drug use. That’s always good to know.
Then we went to Lowe’s to pick up some supplies for a project over at FBC Doraville. Bill is going to clean and repaint the metal rails around the main building.
We also went over to Clatie Lewis’ house to pick up four computers. Then to Azalea to check on the kids at the mission and pick up 4 monitors. Then to FBC Doraville to drop off the paint (hard to ride a bike with a heavy can of paint!) and supplies and get him a key to the outer door.
End up by taking Bill back to Huntington Terraces. Like I said, zoom zoom.
I’m at home. Just finished working through my email. Kathy is crashed out. I can hear her snoring as I type. She hasn’t been feeling well. Pray for her.
This morning I finished up writing my newsletters and getting them in the mail. That was a big job. I’m glad we had the holiday weekend to get it together.
After lunch I went to the Dollar Store and spent about $150 on gifts for the kids at Gwinnett Crossings. I just got back from delivering those gifts to Stone Mill Church. I got to visit with Tito and Lester briefly before coming on back to Chamblee.
Working on email and making phone calls now. Just got off the phone with a young man who wants to do missions. I set up a meeting with him for tomorrow after a board meeting I’m a part of with Communities in Transformation.
Called my contacts at FBC Atlanta to check on how the other Christmas gifts are coming along.
Left a message with another partner from Parkview Church that’s interested in doing a Christmas party for the kids at Huntington Village.
I had a meeting with Tito Ruiz and Steve N. yesterday to discuss work at Gwinnett Crossings. We’re going to have a large Christmas outreach over there on Christmas day with the help of Tito’s church.
Worked on getting the envelopes labeled for our Christmas mail out. I made copies of the articles, got the stamps and had the kids help me put them together. Kathy and Ashley are helping me write the letters.
Preston Chase may let us keep the mission. I talked to the manager again yesterday. Gave them information about how to get proof of our liability insurance.
