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.