Urgent Need!

Please pray for Terry Martzall. He is in urgent need for his body. Please pray for him and his family at this time. God's intervention is needed.

Good news from around the region!

The Church of God was organized in Somerset, KY today with 10 members joining the church. In Corbin,KY the church mission which was just started about two months ago, if I remember correctly, had 9 in attendance. Greenup, KY broke their previous attendance record with 30 in attendance. Please pray for our region as God continues to move and work.

Revival! Jan. 1-4, 2009

Our church here in Franklin, will be in revival with Evangelist Terry Flora on Thurs. Jan. 1-Sun. Jan. 4, 2009. We invite you to attend if at all possible. If not please be in prayer with us as we look to God to do mighty things.

Are you just ironing the front?

Oftentimes, I am in a hurry while dressing in my "church" clothes. Somehow, I frequently need to iron my shirt as well. A lot of times, if I will be wearing a jacket, I will just iron the front of my shirt. I think, hey that's all anyone will be seeing anyway right? And if I have to take the jacket off, everybody knows that wearing a jacket will just wrinkle the shirt anyway.

It's fine to have that attitude when it comes to clothes, but I have to make sure that that attitude does not intrude into other parts of my life, especially the spiritual part. While it is fine to only worry about what people will see with clothing, worrying about only what people see with the spiritual is very dangerous indeed. Because it is not just what people see that matters, but what God sees. And He sees it all. Every little last piece of us.

We've GOT to have it.

Tonight, while I was at the mission, I noticed a man "walking" with great difficulty. I put walking in quotations, because it was not what anyone would normally call walking. He had crutches and it was a great struggle to move INCHES. That's right, I said inches. My heart welled with compassion. I really wanted that man to be healed. I wanted to just walk up to him and say "Be healed in the name of Jesus." Yet, I hesitated. Why? Because I didn't feel spiritual enough. I didn't feel like I had enough of "it" to be this bold.

The question is, are we ever really spiritual enough? Or, do we just need to step out in faith. My hesitation was not in the fact whether or not God could do what I would be asking Him to. But rather, was I being moved by His will that He was ready to do it right then, or was that just my human emotion overflowing with compassion. Lord help me to know!

Imagine the revival that would have taken place in MY heart, in that man's heart, and in the rest around, if he would have been healed tonight. I believe it would have been just like the lame man laying at the gate, that Peter and John, through the power of Christ, healed. He went shouting through the temple, giving praise to God. My desire is not that anyone would think that I healed him. I just want to see God's power demonstrated as He has time and time again in the past. I can, and you can, if we just simply be obedient to Him. Lord help us all.

Update on N. India

Please be in prayer for the saints in N. India. Following is two excerpts from information I have been forwarded about the work in N. India. Please note, excerpts are from Bro. Paul, therefore the grammar may be slightly difficult to understand.

____________



By the Grace of God , I return my home from mission trip and many hard ships on 26th morning. Praise the Lord. God did great miracle in the mission trip. We faced some trouble. As you know I don’t know their language , they don’t know my language, I make all my lessons in English and I began prayer for translation. By the grace of God , God gave me a translator miracle from our place. Praise the Lord, when we reached the destination when we began to start class some village elders came and object us. They suspected me , we came to convert of the religion. We told them that we are not came to conversion of any religion. After several discussions we conducted secretly.

I visited a place called safdon. To reach this place I traveled tree days by train, By Taxi, By bus, by Three wheel auto and by walk. As per the village custom if anybody visit the village the whole village will spread this news within minutes that somebody new people visited someone.

In these areas there is more persecutions for the Christians. They will pray and worship secretly. Any have God did great miracles. God has given me a great opportunity to share the truths of The church of God with them. Totally 14 persons are attended for the classes. 7 people were accepted the 29 prominent teachings and take word covenant and I organize 7 Churches. Praise the Lord . Please say loudly Halleluiah , Halleluiah. God is able. Amen.

When I teach about agnist gold and ornments one pastors women cried and she took off all her ornments gave to church. Praise the Lord. Halleluiah. Praise the Lord. I believe God will do great miracles in near future. Amen

In the evening we conducted a gospel meeting in a room 18 people were attended and five people were accepted Jesus . Praise the Lord. We tried to give baptism but there is no facility to give baptism, because it should be done secretly. Kindly pray to have one movable use and pack plastic baptism tank. If we have that tank we can fix it in the room and after baptism we can pack it.

They are very much eager to listen the word of God and seven persons are attracted for the 29 Prominent teachings. God touched them. They asked me to stay some more days. I told them God willing I will come in the month of December. They really hunger for the word of God and truths. They are stand for the Church of God truths.

Please pray for the baptism and development and growth of the churches. There is a dire need to go there often to share the truths to encourage them in spiritual way. It is very expensive, I believe God will do great miracle to go there.

I was sick because our food and their food is different, not only that there is no proper sanitation and purified water facility. Please pray for me.

Once again I’m very thankful to you for your kind prayers and Love.

_____________________________

What wonderful news!

Here is the latest update that I received yesterday

_____________________________

Dear brother and Sister, As you know I went a mission trip and accepted 5 persons Lord and saviour Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. To day I heard that three of them threatened and beaten by their families to leave Jesus and do not pray to Jesus. It is a terrible thing. I beg you to pray for them. God willing I would like to visit them once again and I need to encourage them in Jesus Christ way and spiritual way. I beg you to pray for these people and new mission fields. I never fear to go there. I am ready to go there and encourage them in spiritual way. Praise the Lord.

Philip 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain

I Corinthians. For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

_________________________

Let us pray for these dear fellow Christians that the Lord will uphold them during this difficult time.

Thanksgiving again already?

Wow! This year has flown by! It seems that the older I get, the faster time goes. Things have been going pretty good around here. It has been almost a month since we moved, and we are pretty well settled in. Jobi about got really settled into the floor last Sunday. She got to the top step of the stairs before church Sun. night, and suddenly fell backwards. Jeremiah and I raced from the top, while Kelley was racing down the hallway downstairs. She was rolling sideways and then somewhere in the middle began rolling head over heels. Needless to say, Anna made it to the bottom before any of us. She was fine, thankfully. She only cried for maybe 10-15 seconds. Kelley on the other hand was affected much longer. It didn't, however, make Anna any more afraid of the stairs. All during the service she kept saying, "I fall" in her own dialect. Later in the week when she was getting in trouble, she tried to change the subject by pointing out that she had fallen. After which, she was informed that her fall had nothing to do with why she was in trouble.

Lots more has gone on, but unfortunately, by the time I get around to posting anything, I cannot hardly remember. Maybe one of these days I will get better.

Please donate to a family or food bank during this difficult time in our economy. If God has provided enough for your needs, remember those who don't have enough.

Do you want to go to bed?

You never ask this question to my daughter in the evenings. MOST kids when you ask them this will straighten up and act right, and cry and beg to keep from going to bed. We tried asking Anna this when she gets a little fussy in the evenings and we want her to behave. Big mistake. If you are not ready right then to take her and put her in bed, don't ask. She whines more trying to get you to put her in bed than most kids do to stay out of bed! She is the only child that I have ever known of to be GLAD to go to bed in the evening. I guess we can just thank the Lord for that. Now if she will just learn to go to bed by herself.

I guess I could have just titled this all about Anna.
She has gotten very good about helping out around the house with cleaning and keeping it cleaned up. She loves to takes clothes out of the washer(the new front-loading washer is great for this), and taking dishes out of the dishwasher(now to wait until she is tall enough to reach the cabinets!), and putting things up in closets. When I get home from work, when she realizes I am taking off my jacket/coat, she immediately runs to the coat closet and opens the door and says "Mon", the closest she gets to Come on right now, while motioning with her hand. Since this house has lever handle doors, she can usually open any of the doors. We have got to get a new door handle for the guest room as it has no lock on it and she will be prone to trying to open it when guests are staying here.
She also love our office. Right now it basically just has the childrens Sunday School stuff in it, but it has double doors and she loves going in there and closing them. She did so many times Sunday and after realizing it was awfully quiet in there I began to investigate, the first time I found a little girl taking a bottle of glue out of a moving box so that box had to be moved to the garage. Next I found a little girl climbing on one box to get to an open box stacked next to it, so that box had to go as well.

Ok, one last thing about Anna. Praying is very important for meals and before she goes to bed. One time she ended praying for supper three times. She prayed for her food. Everyone else a short time later prayed. She didn't realize they were praying until they were almost through I guess, because after they were done, she insisted they pray again. When putting her to bed she often starts trying to pray before we get all the hugs and kisses.

We finally have most things unpacked, most light fixtures up(having to replace 9 that were taken),(back now after we took a little break for finger painting) and all of our furniture. We had someone give us a sofa, loveseat, and tv to replace those that were lost in the flood. Those were the last items to be moved in. We have one more desk, but will not be getting it until Joe, our former neighbor and current church attender, gets moved. I have most of the curtains up now as well. We are getting settled in pretty well.

Well that's all for now.

Strive to be all that He has called you to be.

Finally!!

We finally moved to our new house. Praise the Lord! Most things are in order, but still have a lot of little things to do. Hopefully, I will be able to get back with more info soon. Today is our first day with internet since we have been moved, so I have a lot of catching up to do with reading.

God bless

Bonfire Pic's

My lil' punkin playing with Mr. Murray

I guess the fire was still too warm so Joe decided to cook inside
Gotta finish with a good photo of myself!

Try to get some more pic's uploaded later. With 21 people we had a lot of different pictures taken. Just got to sort through them and figure out which ones are the best. Also, with it being dark outside it was kind of hard to get any wide shots with everyone in it, especially with half being inside and half outside. Hope you enjoy this little taste.

Catching up

Well, we didn't get to move in on the 15th. Our closing date, if nothing else causes delay, should be Oct. 31! We are ready to be back in our own house. Grateful that we have family that are so generous, but ready to go.

We had a good ministers' convention last weekend. Good preaching by the guest ministers. We topped it off by dedicating our new regional parsonage. We are glad to be able to provide a parsonage to our overseer. Which, please pray for Sis. Jernigan's mother. She fell and broke her hip, necessitating a quick trip back to OK for them.

Our church had a bonfire/cookout Friday night. We had a good turnout with 21 in attendance. We had 7 that had never been to our church before. There was a lot of good fellowship. The fire, after it got going was about 20-30 ft high and 15 ft wide. Way to large to roast anything on. But finally, it burned down enough to roast dogs on while still leaving the skin on your hand. We had a couple of cameras taking pictures, so hopefully, after they are uploaded, I will get some on here.

After the bonfire, Kelley and I left for the weekend. Today is our 6th anniversary. We just left for two nights and a day, but it was good to get away and do pretty much nothing, even if just for a day. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory yesterday. The prices there are in the higher range, but since you really get two meals with one order, it is worth it. I can't eat all of the lunch size portion of what I got, and they gave me the dinner size. I also got a Chinese massage afterward. At the mall there is a Chinese massage place in the middle of the walkways. Man, you better be ready for some pain. Those guys press HARD. The guys kept saying my shoulders were tense and that I really needed the massage. The real problem was I was in pain and I was tensed up because of that. But all in all I felt pretty good after it was all over.

We had a good turn out for church this morning and are going to have a fellowship time after.

Keep looking up.

Almost at the end!

We received word this week that our loan has been approved from the SBA. One more person has to sign off and then we should know for sure what our closing date is! As far as we know it should be Oct. 15th.

Please pray for the other people in this community that flooded. We had a meeting Thurs. about the city buying our flooded house and many people expressed some pretty difficult situations that they are having to endure. The Lord has really blessed us and we have not had to deal with many of the problems. Some are paying for their old house as well as renting a place to live. Some have been dropped by their insurance and they are still required to have it on the flooded house. One lady had gotten estimates for work and her insurance had given them $75,000 LESS than what the estimates were! I could only sit and just thank the Lord that we have not had these problems. We have had a place to live. The insurance has not fought us at all on our claim. And our agent has worked with us to get whatever we needed.

We will be leaving for Ministers' Convention sometime Friday. I am looking forward to seeing everyone and worshiping with them. We are glad the region has purchased the Jernigans a parsonage. It will be great having them closer. I know it will make things easier on them visiting the local churches as well. I hope to hear how things are going in the new fields in our region as well.

We had a fun day yesterday. Tried out the new donut shop. It was good! We then spent a bunch of time downtown Franklin at the Fall Festival. Checked out the booths. Saw a few people we knew. Got a bunch of free stuff for Anna. Then we watched the parade. I wasn't thrilled about most of the parade. A bunch of it was just Shriners riding around in their little vehicles. People who don't realize that Masons are their own religion should easily be able to see. One of the vehicles had Potentate on it and another had High Priest & Prophet. One good thing about the parade was that one local church had a lot of people in it. They were passing out flyers for their church. After the parade, we walked to our flooded house so that I could mow the grass. I guess the only good thing I can say about mowing grass at a house you can't live in is 1) The mower I use doens't use gas(it's a reel mower) so it doesn't cost anything other than time, and 2) It is a pretty small yard so it doesn't take too long(about 15 min.).

We had a good service at Wheeler Mission last night. It was pretty full. I guess with the nights getting colder, more are showing up. No one publicly accepted Christ, but the service went well, and a majority seemed to participate.

Keep looking up!

Moving day and other updates

As of right now, we planning on closing on our new house on Oct. 15th. It will be great to be back in our own house, even though we will miss spending a ton of time with our family. It will be nice to have some room to stretch out. My brother Jeremiah will be glad to get off of the couch. Right now we are just stockpiling the stuff we need for the new house. We have had to buy some light fixtures and ceiling fans because the people who lived there before took 11 of the existing ones. We also had to buy all the blinds and shades as well. I am hoping it will still be warm enough to plant some trees. The yard has no trees, bushes, ect. and there is plenty of room for some. We would like to have some shade in the yard. Whenever I get our laptop hooked back up to the wireless, I will try and get some pictures on here. God has really blessed us in a mighty way with this house. A lot more room and much newer for lower or the same payments every month. Having an plenty of space for the church to use is great as well.

We went to AppleWorks, our local orchard/attraction last Sunday afternoon. The girls had a lot of fun feeding and petting the animals, as well as just running around. And PUMPKIN donuts were available! These are my favorite. Thankfully, Kelley planned on getting 1/2 dozen, but accidentally order 1 dozen. The girls and I didn't mind at all. Also, while I am thinking of donuts, we noticed today on the way home from church, that another bakery opened up here in town. The one that we used to go to on Sat. mornings, got flooded when our house did and never opened back up. So, I suppose we will go for a taste test soon, and if it passes, it will probably end up our new Sat. morn. destination.

Things are going pretty well at church as well, here locally, and pretty good throughout our region from what I here. Looking forward to ministers' convention here in a couple weeks.

Be faithful to Him that has called you.

Bro. James Anders

Please pray for Bro. Anders. It is my understanding that he is having very serious health problems right now.

A House at Last

We finally have found a house! Praise the Lord!! We got word today that the bank accepted our offer on a house we have really been interested in. Hopefully, we will be moving in before our ministers' convention next month. It is about 90 years newer than our old house. With plenty of room for our family to grow in the future, and with plenty of room for the church for now. There is a bonus room that is bigger than what we have for a sanctuary right now where we are renting. God has finally worked things out for us, much different than we expected, but very wonderfully as well. Thank the Lord for His perfect timing.

Lean on Him more and more

A house hunting we've gone, and gone, and gone, and gone ......

There is NO real estate slump in this town! We have been looking for close to 2 months now. We have found several houses that we have liked. Many of them have sold before we could get an offer on, or someone else put a better competing offer on. We then found two houses that we like as well, but neither owner would budge on the price, both of which were priced about 10,000 + above other similar houses. We finally had thought we found the house that we wanted, and the night we went to see it our realtor took us to see another house as well. We looked at both, and had some trouble making a decision. One was an older(50 years or so, stone house practically downtown, just what we were looking for. However, that house needed many updates and was only two beds, and one bath on the main floor. The basement had some potential but need a lot of work. The second house was in a subdivision on the edge of town and is huge! The house was foreclosed on we believe, and is selling for approx. 2/3 value. It has about 900 more sq. ft. than our old house, but the utilities are almost even, if not a fraction less. It has plenty of room for our family to grow, and to house the church for now with no competing space. After so many houses, and so many dead-ends, we are hoping that this will be the end of this journey. It is more house than we wanted, and newer than what we wanted as well, but if it is what God has for us, we will take it. Kelley measured the distance in the van and it is only two-tenths of a mile farther, one way, for her to walk to the post office and bank as well. We put our final offer on it Friday, and are now having to waiting until after the holiday is over, and the bankers are back to find out if they are going to accept it or not.

May God bless you as you strive to follow Him.

Back from the GA and house hunting

Well, we made it back from the Assembly. It was great to be there and worship with and see all of our friends. We really enjoyed the services. The Spirit was there in great measure. I did get a little tired of the stairs to the balcony, but I guess that is what you get when you have a little girl who doesn't do well sitting in service for a week straight. I went back and watch/listened to part of the service I had to preach in. Man, I have too much of a southern twang while I was preaching. I have a bad habit of picking up speech habits of the locals after I have been in area for a day or two. Also, apparently, I have a tendency to preach with more of a southern twang when in front of a crowd. I have no idea where I picked that up. Anyway, enough about me. There was a lot of good preaching. Some of which I am going to have to go back and watch since I spent a lot of time out of the auditorium whenever Anna couldn't handle sitting still any longer.

Our house hunt is continuing. We put an offer on a house before we left for TN. We found out while we were down at the GA that someone else offered cash for the house and the bank took that deal. That is 5 houses that we have looked at, 4 that we definitely wanted, that have sold. The real estate market definitely is not slow around here, at least in the price range we are looking. We have an offer on a house right now that we are waiting to hear back from. The first offer wasn't accepted so the person made a counter offer that was only $400 less than the asking price. There is no way that we are going to pay that, so we made another counter up $1,000 from our original. We will see how things go. We are hoping and praying to get things settled soon.

Strive for the prize

New home soon(hopefully)

Ok, here is the deal on our housing situation. We are definitely not moving back to our old house. It is going to cost much more than what the house is worth to put things back how they were, plus do the additional things(filling in the basement and raising the house possibly 2-3 feet). We had found a house we really liked, but is sold before we could put an offer on it. We have now found another house and our offer will be forwarded tomorrow morning. We should know by Tues. whether they have accepted it. So, hopefully, we will be moved into a house by the middle of Sept. if everything works out. The best part of it all is that our mortgage will be under 3% interest rate! Kelley could tell you exactly, but for some reason I can't remember. We are trusting God that He will help us get the house He wants for us.

Things have been pretty busy at work and it will be nice to get away, even though still pretty busy, to the Assembly. We are planning on leaving Sunday morning after church. It will be great to see many of our friends, and to worship with all of them.

Continue to fight the good fight of faith.

Another update soon

I will let everyone know how things are going soon. We are still getting things ironed out, but hopefully will know more in detail, including when we will be a new house by the time we leave for the Assembly.

Update

Well, we are stilling trying to get everything sorted out with our house. We currently have all of our quotes and are in the process of getting things hashed out with insurance. We got things settled with our car and ended up getting our replacement vehicle, a van, today. We ended up going with a Navy blue, Chrysler Town and Country. It is going to be hard for me to get adjusted to looking for a blue van instead of a black car. Thankfully, we were able to get a great deal on it. It is very nice for the price we paid.

The Lord is continuing to bless and help us and we are thankful to Him for that.

Hopefully, things will get settled with the insurance soon and we will be able to get started working on the house. If we can just get things fixed with the foundation, electrical, and HVAC, then I can get started to work on the rest of the house. Hopefully, when everything is done, it will be better than what we started with. The house will be insulated(at least on the first floor), and some other things will be done that we have wanted to get done. I trust that some way I will have the time. Thankfully, that will all start after Conv. and the Assembly.

Which, if you are reading this, please pray for me as apparently, I will be preaching at the convention and the Assembly and I definitely need the Lord's direction. In fact, pray for me every week because I need the Lord's direction just as much if not more here, as I preach here every week.

Continue to strive for the crown

Flood pics.

Here are some flood pictures. In the first one our house is the white house in the middle. I am unsure if this was during or right before or after the crest.

Our house
This second one is where Kelley almost went under when the firemen were bringing her out. As you can see the current around the truck is coming down the alley very strong.
Alleyway
There were a number of guys locked arm in arm across this alley trying to block the current so that the firefighters could get Kelley and the kids across.
They got across at the back end of the blue truck in the picture.

Unfortunately, during this I am on an island on the other side of the brick house in the first picture. I was headed with the firefighters to get Kelley and the girls but they were worried because I didn't have a life vest. I wasn't home when the flash flood happened and had already waded through quite a bit of water to get almost to them. I was to remain stranded for about seven hours. I could of got on one of the earlier boats but I figured everyone else should go first. Thankfully, someone took Kelley into their house and found a way to get them to my mom and grandpa's. I wish I could of been with my girls but it was better for them not to have been with me as I don't know how well the two little girls and Kelley would have handled the boat ride. Especially since the most they could fit were two at a time. Katherine, the other little girl at my house Sat. is 5 almost 6 but would have still been pretty scared riding in the boat in the fast moving water. Thanks for all the prayers. Maybe if I remember to get our camera cord tomorrow I will upload some pictures.

God bless

Flooded!!!

Just to let everyone know, we are flooded out of our house right now. We are unsure when we will get to go back. I am going to try and assess the damage today if the water has gone down enough to get to it.

Keep looking up.

Nice Weekend

We had a nice weekend around here. Saturday we got up and went to the bakery downtown for breakfast for fresh donuts. I am glad we have a little bakery now. We know(sort of) one of the owners and they seem to be really nice people. I then spent most of the rest of the day getting some stuff accomplished at church. We had pretty good services Sunday, with a very good worship service Sunday night. Monday, Anna spent almost the entire day with me. Most of it outside. She just had to be with me. We worked in the garden for a good while. I tried to let her help me plant some seeds. But she just kept trying to eat them! We also went on a long walk, a good majority of which I let her walk. Normally, when we take walks, she is in the stroller or wagon. I thought she might be worn out when we got home, but no, she was ready to go. Later, I addressed some different plumbing issues, fixing a leaky faucet, shower, and our upstairs bathtub faucets. A little of this and that, just what a three day weekend is for.

We are going to be having a breakfast at church Sunday morning, and a kids day on Sat., June 7. Please be in prayer as we want to touch these kids hearts and minister to their needs.

Seek not to have inspiration, but rather revelation.

Going Good

Things seem to be going pretty good around here. We had a great service Thurs. night. Then after work Friday I was able to work some more on the front of our house. I was out there until 10 pm. but was finally able to get some more done. Sat. I got up a little after 8:00 a.m. and went and got Katherine and then we came back to the house and got Kelley and Anna and took the wagon and walked down to the bakery downtown and got donuts for breakfast. We are glad that we have a little bakery close to our house, especially one that is close enough to walk to. Of course, for us, "close enough to walk to" is a relative phrase. Kelley regularly walks a couple of miles or so a day. And we have no problem walking to Burger King, which I believe is about a mile away. The bakery is much closer. And fresh donuts are great! I spent the rest of the morning after we got back talking to our neighbor and then playing with the girls in the backyard. I set up the tent and they played in that for a while. Later, I took care of some stuff in the garden, and then scraped the paint/paint remover, off of the section that I got done the night before.
We had a good Sunday as well. I preached Sunday morning on Universal Health care. The Bible outlines the ultimate universal health care plan. His name is Jesus! After church, we walked up to BK for lunch.
Today I finally got off of work at 4:00 pm for once. I came home and Anna is dying to go outside, but it is raining and cool so it will not be happening. She loves being outside, but sometimes it just isn't possible.
Hope that you are doing well, where ever you are at.

God bless

Great Youth Convention!

We had a great Youth Convention. There were 50+ people there the best that I could figure as we had some that only made it for some of the services, and then others left early. There was great preaching, anointed singing, and wonderful fellowship. I took the whole day off Friday as Kelley was/is having back problems(keep her in prayer please) as got some new back tires on my truck as one had been consistently flat for about a week, and I kept having to work late. While Kelley was at the chiropractor's office, Anna and I stopped by and saw a couple of friends where I used to work. I thought we were stopping by to see one, but lo and behold another had started working there that I didn't know about. It was good to see both of them. We were able to leave for conv. about 2:00 pm. after a stop at the school where mom works. Of course she had to take Anna around and show everyone. We got to E-town about 4:30 pm which is much nicer than our normal work all day and then slide into service right when it starts or late. Right now it is about 10:50 p.m. on Sat. night. Anna and I just finished off some reheated cheese pizza. It was just going to be my dinner, but she had to have some. Apparently, she is figuring out what those teeth in her mouth are for. It is a little difficult typing with hands and feet, alternately, being shoved in the way. Thankfully, she is mainly sitting here without interfering too much.

Work for the Lord like you never have before.

Always a reason

Sometimes, we do grow weary in well doing. The Bible tells us to keep pressing on, but let's face the fact, we are human. In being human, there are times that we just get tired. Tonight was one of those nights. I have been sick and working a lot a hours lately, and really wasn't feeling much like going the Mission in Indy. Didn't really know what I was going to preach about. And I knew the singing wasn't going to go like normal since I am still sick. However, God, as usual renewed my desire to keep working for Him. Tonight, I got to see a man that had converted to Islam a few years back, come back to Jesus Christ. It was great. I am sure it was much better for him that me. And I know that he didn't require me to be there to do it. But, if I hadn't been there, I would have missed what God did. I would have missed God renewing me. In short, that man might have still gotten saved, but I would have missed out on what God wanted for me to learn, to experience. Thank you Lord that you don't let me wear out completely. That you always know the right thing that I need to keep on working for you.

Anna now has 5 teeth. After months of chewing and no teeth, she got two in one week, last week. She told me to "stop it" the other night at dinner. I know it was directed at me because she was pointing right at me when she did it! What will she learn next.

We had a good month this past month focusing on "Equipping Effective Evangelists" we covered some good ground in the morning and evening services on Sundays. We focused on things we need to be doing in the mornings, and in the evenings focused on some of the different people we will encounter when witnessing, and different things we need to keep in mind with each type of person.

We had a Pizza and Movie night at church last night. We watched "The Ultimate Gift" It is a pretty good movie. We had one new(well technically 3, but two were only about 8 months old) visitor. We were glad she was finally able to come. We hope to see much more of her in the future.

We are looking forward to leaving for youth convention next weekend. Please keep it in your prayers.

Home again

Well, it is good to be back home. We left late Friday afternoon and went to Sturgis, KY. We spent the night there at Bro. Shane and Sis. Christy's. Anna had a lot of fun with the two boys, though, when they were wrestling with me, we had to make sure that she stayed away as they are a little too rough and tumble for her to join in. She kept making the effort though.
Sat. we got up and went to Henderson, KY for the service we were having there. It started out as a band service, and then several other people committed to showing up so they were planning on having a service and cookout. Since it is just across the river from Evansville, Bro. Shane invited us to come down. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty chilly, and it was raining/misting a little, so they decided not to have the cookout. There was a pretty good turnout of people with it being so cold, especially since the service was in a shelter house at the state park. There were at least six non-church members, besides some kids, there plus several from the Sturgis church, us, and most of the Loyas. The best I can remember there were right at 30 people there. It's too bad the weather wasn't better so that we could have had the cookout as well.

Anna seemed like she just kept getting hurt yesterday. At the service in Henderson, right at the end, she decided she needed to mess with the keyboard. So, I let her get up there and mess with it. Then she decided to walk down the bench and her foot slipped before I could grab it. To she hit the bench and then the concrete. Thankfully, no lasting damage. Then, when we stopped for lunch, she fell against a cardboard display at the gift shop. Everything seemed fine, until we went to leave and noticed she had red on her lip. It was blood. Evidently, she busted it when she hit the cardboard. She didn't make much of a fuss when it happened, so I guess it didn't hurt that bad. Then, we had decided to stay at a hotel part of the way back, just to kind of have a break, and she decided to trying walking in the tub. We had gotten the jacuzzi so that it would be like a swimming pool for her. We only had and inch or two of water, just enough for her to splash, and she decided to stand up. I got her sat down the first time, but the second she fell before I got her. So, she bumped her head again and started crying. She was over it by the time she got washed up though. Just running around the hotel room. We got up this morning and she was wearing an all white dress with a white sweater. Amazingly, Kelley was able to feed her without any of it getting on her closes! With Anna, that is a real feat, sometimes even with a bib on, which she didn't have one on this morning.
We had a good Sunday School, and Morning Service today. God is really helping us. I am looking for great things in the very near future.

Strive to be found faithful to the one who has called you.

Busy, busy, busy

Well, I have been pretty busy since the last post on here.

The weekend after Easter we had District Convention. We attended the Sat. night service. It was very good. The Spirit was moving and working wonderfully.

Church has been going very well. We have been having good services, and I have felt very encouraged in the Lord. I am excited about the series that we are doing this month, titled, Equipping Effective Evangelists. During the Sun. morning services we are looking at things we need to be doing to be Effective Evangelists. During the Sun. evening services, we are looking at the different types of people that we encounter in our community and the different ways that they look at Christianity and things of the spiritual nature. We are hoping to have a revival later this month if things work out.

We also started redoing the outside of our house. I am ripping off the aluminum siding, stripping the paint, and repainting the outside of the house to return it, as close as possible, to it's original appearance. It is going to be a lot of work, but our house will definitely look better.

Thankfully, I have also gotten several more things done at the church as well. I hope to be able to get some things done to the outside this Sat.

May the Lord bless you like He has blessed me!

Anna egg hunting

Note: When I posted this youtube was still processing the video, so if it doesn't play now, try a little later.

Safely there and back!

Well, we drove through a snow storm for a good amount of the way to Evansville today. A normally three hour trip, took about 5 hours. But, thankfully, we made it there safely. We had a good time there and it was good to see everyone. Also, it was nice to have Kelley and Anna with me. By the time we headed home, the snow was over and the roads were almost(99.9%) cleared. Anna slept most of the way both directions and that helped out a lot.
I am looking forward to tomorrow and what they Lord has in store. He is continuing to be faithful to us here at Amity. We will be having a Missions dinner tomorrow after service to raise money for March Missions. Please be in prayer for us, that we can continue to reach the unchurched and lost.

Work faithfully for Him who has called you.

Going good.

Things are going pretty good around here. Last Tues. night we had a District rally at the Sellersburg church. I think that there were 31 in attendance. I took Anna, as Kelley had been dealing with her all day and wasn't feeling the best when I got home. It was good to see everyone. On the way back home the snow was blowing really bad for about the first 20 miles. It was pretty hard to see, but after that things were better.
Saturday I went and took my CDL test. I passed so now I have my CDL license, which will be good for work. I failed the first time I took the test in January because I did one thing wrong. On a certain part of the test, you have to get every single part exactly right or you fail. I used two wrong numbers and failed. But, thankfully I passed this time, as it is not real cheap to take the test.
Saturday night at the mission in Indianapolis went pretty well. A man came up afterwards and talked to me for quite some time about his situation, which happened to be what a portion of the message was about. Please pray for this man as he is dealing with some unforgiveness towards a man in his past that has done a lot of damage to him.
Sunday we had an excellent Sunday School class. There was lots of discussion by everyone, bar one. The morning service went pretty well also. That afternoon I replaced the thermostat on my truck that went bad a little over a week ago. The first time that I had ever replaced a thermostat, but it seems that it fixed the problem, thank the Lord.

The Multitude or a Disciple

Are you a part of the Multitude, or have you become a disciple?
People that were a part of what I call the multitude(people around Jesus) were the people being ministered to. The disciples, DID the ministering, along with Jesus. Take the story of feeding the four thousand + in Matt. 15. Verse 36 says that Jesus gave the bread and fish to His disciples, and then THEY gave it to the people. The disciples went out and healed people(through the power that Christ had imparted to them), the multitude were the people being healed.

In some cases the multitude brought people to Jesus. In John 4, we see the woman at the well, brought the men of her town to Jesus. Yet, the disciples took Jesus(in spirit) to the people.

I want to be a disciple. In fact, we all need to be disciples. We need to be SERVING rather than being served. And we must be taking Jesus TO the people. We can try all we want to bring people to Jesus. Some will come, some will not. There is no guarantee they will come. However, we can guarantee to take Jesus to them, every single time, to every single person. If Christ is dwelling in us, operating in us, then every person we come into contact with, we are taking Him to Them. They may not come to Him, but we can always take Him to Them.

Be a Disciple Today!

Wrapup of the week

Well, Anna's birthday was this week. She is officially one year old. We had a very small party Sat. with family(and one adopted grandparent). Kelley wanted to keep things very small, since we don't have a lot of room inside at our house. She did pretty good at the party, and played with pretty much everyone.
Friday night we had dinner with our neighbor and his family. We had a great time. Anna really loved the kids. At 6 months, they are a little young for her to do much playing, but she talked to them and kept pointing at them.
Church was good today. We had a good turnout at church this morning, with good discussion during the Sunday School class. The morning service went well also. This evening we had our BTI Study and followed that with the evening service. The evening service went pretty well. I had accidentally fallen asleep on the couch after we go back from eating and didn't get up until right before we left. I didn't really know if I would preach or not. One of those kind of times were I was just going to read some scripture and expound a little bit, but I guess the Lord had other plans. The message took a slight different turn, and I know at least one heart was touched. It definitely had nothing to do with anything I did, but I thank the Lord that He is willing to take what I am, and add everything, to come up with something. Thank you Lord for taking us in the direction you wanted.

Believe in God for miracles,

What's new?

Well, with Anna, it seems like everything is new all the time. Friday night she took her first real steps. She was taking off towards her "big sister". The rest of the night she kept trying to take off walking. One time while chasing big sister on her knees, she decided she should try to chase her standing up. It didn't work very well. But by the time I got home saturday from Evansville, she had taken nine steps in a row. She still has a ways to go, but it won't be long before she takes off. She already tries to go so fast it looks like she is running sometimes.
She has also learned how to say "more" with sign language. I am hoping to teach her a few more "words" so that she can communicate a little better before she gets her language skills.
Things in Evansville are looking pretty positive. I have to call about a place tomorrow to use for services. It looks pretty promising. It is about the size we need currently, and is pretty easy to find right on a main highway by the airport.
Everything here is going pretty well as well. Some positive signs for the local church here. I am looking forward to what God has in store for us this year.
Until next time, be faithful to Him that has called you.

God is moving!

I just wanted to say that God is answering our prayers here at church. A couple of things we have been praying about for quite some time. This week, it seems that God is definitely moving and working in these situations. I am thankful for this.
We had a good VLB service tonight! We had a time of prayer, and then a wonderful worship time. Oh, what does God have for us next?

Headquarters Site

Just wanted to say first of all that I really like all the news updates headquarters has been making. And secondly, if you have see them yet, get on over there to read all about it!

Catching up!

Ok, so things have been pretty busy around here lately. The most recent thing was our district fellowship. Our district, those that could make it, got together and had dinner at the church here in Amity. Afterwards we had a good service. We only had 21 people, but considering the distances people had to drive, and the fact that it was a very cold(only in the teens and single digits) nasty day, that was pretty good. It was wonderful to see everyone that came. We had a pretty good service, with a wonderful spirit, good singing, and I will leave anything about the preaching out, since I was the one given that task. I would say that everyone enjoyed this good time of fellowship. Just please pray for those members we have in our region that are spread out and not close to any church.
Anna has been growing like crazy. Just keeps getting bigger and eating more. Work has been pretty busy. Normally, in winter things slow down, but not for us. The only real thing to slow us down at this point is a lot of really cold days in a row that would make the ground freeze down deep.
Well, got a lot of things that need done, so cya.

Fight faithfully, the good fight of faith.

Houdini

We have discovered that we have a little Houdini running around. This morning Anna started out the morning by attempting to climb up one of our safety gates. She decided that the little holes in it would make excellent places for her feet to go in to climb up. Thankfully, I caught her before she got very high. Then later, she climbed out of her high chair and ended up in the floor. Non the worse for the wear, thankfully. She got out of the restraint belts and around the thing that goes on the top for her food! Yesterday she pushed the big pillows out of the way that we have blocking her in the front two rooms. And did I mention that she will take off like crazy up the stairs. We did have a gate at the bottom, but it was pushing out on our banister. We are going to have to figure out something else.
The good news is she has figured out how to safely get out of her bed. Kelley has been getting her to turn to the side and back down each morning and within about 3 days she figured it out. Now she does it on her own. Whether off the bed, the little exercise trampoline at mom and grandpa's, or the little 2-3 step down from the dining area to the family room at mom and grandpa's. Now if we can just teach her to make it down the stairs safely, we will be closer to being ok. The child is simply all over the place!
In other news, we will be having a district fellowship here in Amity next Sat., the 19th for the IN/OH district. If you are in our district, just go to our website at www.thechurchofgodamity.org for more information about it. We will be having dinner with a service following. If you are coming, please try to let me know through email(tcogpastor@gmail.com) or phone(317-403-4236) so we can plan for the meal. If you don't reach me, come any way. It would be great to see you.
Please pray for the Evansville mission. I was unable to go today, because I needed to take a CDL class for work. Pray that the people there would be encouraged and uplifted.

Continue to press toward the mark.