Book Drive Success

As I mentioned in an earlier post, during the month of February, our local church conducted a book drive to raise books for children to read(or look at) while waiting to visit their parents or loved ones at a local jail. We were able to collect 30 books for which I am thankful for. I went today and dropped them off and was glad that we were able to make this donation. Since the last time I was there, it seems that the number of books had dimenished , and the ones there were in terrible disrepair. There only remained 5 books that did not have the covers torn off, pages ripped out, etc. I didn't know when I went if there was going to be enough room in the basket for those we collected, but by the time I removed all the damaged ones, there was enough room. Hopefully these books will provide these children moments of joy while they are there. Additionally, we put the name and contact information for the local church on the back of each one, so hopefully we will be able to minister to some families in this way as well.

District Convention

I just received the information for the Indiana/Ohio District Convention today. For more info go here.
The dates are March 17 & 18. It will be held in Elizabeth, IN.

Baby dedications

For reasons, obvious from my last post, as well as others, the topic of baby dedications has come up. It has been a while since we have had one here locally, and quite frankly my memory, for the most part, fails me. Can anyone out there help me with the details, such as before, during, or after a normal service. Basic description, ideas, etc. Any help would be much appreciated. The sooner the better. We plan on having Anna dedicated on Easter Sunday, but also have another baby here at the local church to be dedicated soon. Thanks everybody.

God bless

Anna Jobi

Here is one of my favorite pictures that we have of little Anna. She has wonderful bright eyes. She gave us a rough night last night only sleeping about 1 hour between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Oh well, you take the good with the bad. It was her first night at home as well so, things will get better.

Anna has arrived

Just a short little post to let you know, our daughter Anna Jobi, finally arrived at 7:33 am, February 14. That's right a Valentine's Day baby. She is a real sweetheart! Thank the Lord, that even though everything didn't go quite as planned, everything turned out all right and both the momma and the baby are doing good.

Pipes Unfrozen!

For about the past week + our pipes have been frozen in our downstairs bathroom. The temp has not gotten above freezing for about 10-12 days I believe. Our toilet went first and then it kind of spread to everything else, thus necessitating us going to my mom and grandpa's to wash any clothes,etc. Thankfully, we still have an upstairs bathroom to use. Today, while we were at the hospital for Kelley to get checked, everything but the toilet unfroze. I had the water turned on so that when it began to unfreeze a little the water would start flowing and thaw the rest. By the time we got back it had basically went through all the water in our hot water heater. It is a good thing we got back when we did because the shower drain somehow had frozen and the shower was getting ready to overflow. After letting it drain a little and adding hot water, eventually it thawed out too.
It looks like the baby will be here this week. Kelley has been having relatively strong contractions since Friday(which incidentally, we spent a number of hours in a hospital that had a full maternity ward, was remodeling part of the maternity ward-no nursery that we could see anywhere, and had run out of pillows. Kelley had to lay on her back pretty much the entire time we were there, which caused her a lot of pain). Eventually, the doctor told her that it was just going to be a waiting game and that she could wait at the hospital or at home. We opted for home, since at the very least she could eat.
Sorry for the random, not very well punctuated format. Anyway now to start the second week of being off work. Hopefully, I will be able to get a number of things done. Yeah right! With the baby's arrival, I am sure that will all go out the window. Seriously though, I do have a project that I would like to get done at least a month before BTI, which would mean that I have about two months to go. This time off would be a great time to work on it, especially because as I work on it, I find more that needs to be added to it.
God bless! I hope that you are doing well!

One pizza at a time!

For a long time, I have wanted to be able to be a full-time minister for the Lord. It appears that now I will be able to, at least for a short while. Due to various circumstances, the weather and amount of work, I am going to be laid off for a little while. For how long, I do not know. The only thing that I am even close to being sure of is that it will be at least for two weeks, probably longer. I am towards the end of the first week now. So, I have freed up time. Pray with me that the Lord will help me use it to the best of His advantage. I would love for a miracle to happen and things work out so that I didn't have to go back. We are seeing good growth in our local church. Just tonight we had a second time visitor.
Anybody reading this is probably wondering what in the world all of this has to do with a pizza! Well, I found out today that my unemployment insurance is not going to work as we had hoped it would. That means a pretty good drop in money for us while I am off. Not a big deal, the Lord will bring us through. But, as I was clearing snow before church earlier this afternoon, our neighbor drove up made a quick stop at his house, and came back out. He came up to me and asked if we liked Pizza Hut(he works there). I told him that we ate there occasionally. He then proceeded to ask if we had eaten dinner yet. I told him no. He then offered to bring us a pizza. I told him that he didn't need to. He kept insisting, refering to a cake that Kelley had made a long while back that she had ended up taking to their house with a card inviting them to church. I finally gave in and told him sure. He asked what kind, and I said that cheese would be fine. He got off work at five and around 5:30 a knock at our door with the pizza. I asked if he had to pay for it. He said something about a discount and wouldn't take any money for it saying something about being neighborly or it being a neighbor thing. I thanked him and just figured it was a small little blessing from the Lord as a reminder that He is going to take care of us. What ever comes, I guess I'll just take it one pizza at a time:) If my neighbor happens to read this some how, Thanks! May the Lord bless you for blessing us!

Faith in Evidence

Oftentimes, we hear "famous" people talk about God, thank God for this or that, etc. Yet, it seems that just as often, they constantly do things which seem to cancel out any profession that they make.
Now, normally, I am not much of a fan of any kind of major league sports. With the local team finally making it to the big "Bowl"for the first time since they came to town, coverage has been everywhere you turn for the past two weeks. One thing that has really been getting a lot of coverage is the faith of these two men(the coaches). Dungy and Smith have genuinely, from everything that I can see are what they profess to see. I saw a quote from Smith from earlier last week saying that he doesn't smoke, drink, or dance. When his family made it down to Miami, they were going to celebrate with dinner. Dungy doesn't yell and make a big scene. Doesn't even swear. He happened to say that he was going to be on a certain sports show, whose name has a swear word in it. He was then asked the question, do you realize what you just said? He said, that's the last time you will hear that. I am glad that these men, putting the spotlight on faith, are who they profess to be.

Good Sunday Morning

We had a good Sunday Morning Service. It is cold, very cold out, with the wind chill below zero. I wondered if any would miss with it being so cold, but pretty much everyone made it. One of our young people didn't because the pipes at her house were frozen, from what I was told. Did I mention it was cold? We had an attendance of 14, which is pretty good. I am hoping that we can increase our average this month by the same percentage as last month. That would put us at 18. I can see it happening very easily. It seems that our youth group just keeps growing. We had one young person that came to our pizza party and then came last Sunday. She was here again this Sunday and it appears she is going to stay. She seems to be a very nice young lady. If God keeps blessing us and we keep working, we are going to run out of room soon. Pray for us to follow God as He leads us. I don't want to waste time worrying about crossing a bridge before I come to it, but I also want to be prepared. Thank you Lord for what you do!!! It may be cold and way below freezing outside, but it is warm in my heart today!

One more soul saved

Thank the Lord for one more soul on their way to heaven tonight. I preached at our once a month service at Wheeler Mission, a homeless shelter, in Indianapolis tonight. The place was packed pretty much near or beyond capacity because of the cold weather. Sometimes when preaching I walk quite a bit and I had what was probably at best, about a 10X6 section to move around in tonight. That area included a bible stand, microphone stand and an occasional foot or two from the audience. In behind the stand there was a few feet before the altar and in front not much more, if any, between it and the congregation. So I kind of felt boxed in. But the service was great. To start off someone requested a song as we were passing out songbooks and lo and behold I already had that marked to sing! I started out intending to preach on conviction and repentance, but preached on that a quite a bit more. God knew just what was needed though. At the altar call, I was exhorting on the fact that there was nothing to be ashamed of to come to the altar, but in fact more shame in staying in your seat. After the man came and gave his heart to the Lord, saying he didn't want to live the rest of his life with the condemnation, I announced that he had gotten saved and everyone started clapping. They were very enthusiastic! We then sang Victory in Jesus, as this man had just gotten victory! It is one of the favorites there so many of them know the words as well. We sang it through once and then I stood and we sang the chorus again without music. I could feel the spirit wonderfully in that place. By the time we got done singing the chorus, I really felt like preaching!!! But, it was time for them to start getting ready for bed. I just thank the Lord for one more soul saved and for His wonderful prescence tonight. I received a blessing as I am sure that a number did there as well. I thank the Lord that we have this open door of opportunity to preach the gospel there. We went once to fill in several years ago and they invited us to come on a permenant basis, of which we have tried to be there, with few exceptions, ever since.
We will be launching a book drive for the month of February at our local church. While visiting a convert in one of the local jails, I noticed that they had a basket full of books for kids in the waiting room. During the many times that I have been there, I noticed that a large number of the books, if not the majority, were in bad to horrible conditions. Covers were torn off, pages missing, etc. Seeing a number of kids there, I thought that this could be a way for the church to be of service to these people, providing something for the children, while reaching out at the same time. Though I had not gotten around to calling to jail, I had mentioned the book drive idea to our local mission leader. She let me know about a week and a half ago that she had called the jail, and that they were ok with us donating books, as long as we got rid of the torn-up ones. So, we are hoping to be able to get a number of books to donate during this next month. I am hoping and trusting that some soul(s) will be reached for Jesus through this. Hopefully we will be able to make a difference in some childrens' lives and through them, their parents' lives as well.
Pray for us as we continue to grow. As Bro. Donnie says, I have caught someone in the act of doing good. More on that in some future post. Needless to say, God is blessing us. I hope He is blessing you as well.