Softball, Humility, and Diesel Performance Chips

Ministry Update

Last week we closed a great meeting on Wednesday in Semmes, AL, just outside Mobile. Though the meeting only lasted four days, it was action packed. This church is a very responsive church, especially to our ministry. Whenever we are in the area, there is a sizable group of people that follows us and can be expected to attend multiple nights of a revival meeting, even in another church. We started the meeting with Big League Sunday, which featured dinner on the grounds, a softball game in the afternoon, an apple pie and dessert making contest for the ladies, and a free baseball to every child who attended. The church was packed and there was tremendous response to the message I preached on "Excellent Christianity." Throughout the week, the altar was full almost every night, and two trusted Christ during the meeting. It was a great blessing. After preaching in chapel on Thursday morning in their Christian school, I packed up the trailer and drove straight through to NC, arriving at 12:30 Friday morning. Now we are home for a few weeks to prepare for the summer ministry that awaits us. More on that later.

Thank you so much for your prayers. It was a blessing to see the evidence of the Holy Spirit's conviction in the hearts of people responding, especially for salvation this week.

Though this is hardly ministry, the Lord did provide something for me that I have been wanting for a long time. I have been wanting to get a performance diesel chip in my truck to increase my fuel economy as I tow my trailer. The Lord provided through the gifts (green handshakes) of different people and now I have been able to purchase a chip for my truck. I hope that it will result in slightly improved fuel economy. The company claims increases of up to 4 mpg. We'll see.

Family Update

I am glad to be back in NC, although the weather has taken a turn for the colder. I do so hate breaking out the long sleeves after I have already packed them away for the summer. Thank the Lord we still had our electric heaters.

I was in my first ever pie-baking contest while we were in Alabama. I tied for third place with my "Paper Bag Apple Pie" (yes, I actually put it in a paper bag in the oven) against some stiff competition! Some of those ladies can really cook! Anyway- it was a pie baking contest, not a pie eating contest, as Paul has been wont to tell some people. If the truth be told, though, I think he would have won the eating contest had there been one! Josiah would have won the hot dog eating contest with a grand total of six consumed in about ten minutes. Better him than me.

Paul and I played softball that afternoon and I became an official redneck - at least on one side of my neck. The sun was so bright and hot - it really felt good after the extended cool weather we have had had this spring. The kids are loving the nice weather. Since we have been back, they have spent quite a bit of time learning to ride their bikes. Josiah finally learned that he has to use the brakes and not just run smack into things in order to stop. Abigail learned the hard way not to take her feet off the pedals while coasting down a hill. Both, however, are making great progress in the skill.

School will be finished next week. Somebody say "AMEN!" Josiah has really made a lot of progress and had a great year. His greatest desire right now is to learn cursive. He can already read it pretty well, and has even attempted to copy words on his own, with impressive results! I think he will pick it up quickly.

He has also been singing with me in our meetings. We sang a duet, "A Tender Heart" and he did such a wonderful job, even though he left his shoes in the pew when he came up to sing! (You can listen to the duet here.) Later, someone told me that they told Josiah what a good job he had done, to which he replied, "I was just waiting for someone to tell me that!" Nothing like a good dose of humility to keep things in perspective!

Abigail will turn four this weekend, and is so excited. Josiah was trying to help me plan some games for the event. I said pin the tail on the donkey, and he suggested "Pin the Rock on Goliath." Now that sounds like fun! Abigail has learned a lot from her big brother, and they like to play together. One of their games is the spelling game. Each spells a word, and the other has to guess what it is. The handicap is that only one of them knows how to spell. Josiah will spell a real word, and Abigail, having no idea what it is will make wild guesses. Then, after several hints, she will figure it out, and it will be her turn to spell. Sample words might be "A-T-M-R-Q" or something similar. Then Josiah will try to sound it out. It is quite amusing to listen to them. He usually forgets the sequence about halfway through the word, and of course, she can't remember it either, so she tells him what the word was. Both are happy, and I have great hopes that one day it will be a good exercise for them.

Esther's vocabulary has really taken off, and she jabbers almost constantly. She also continues to get into everything. Monday, she found a bottle of hand lotion that her sister left out and promptly helped herself. I smelled a rather fragrant aroma coming from the bedroom and walked in to find her slathered in lotion - the entire bottle was on her arms, her legs, her dress, and the carpet. She was patting her hands in the lotion, and it was splattering everywhere. It wasn't the worst mess I have cleaned up, but neither was it the easiest - kind of greasy. She is a happy little thing most of the time, so it is hard not to smile when she gets into a situation like that. She enjoys the girly things of life - lotion, perfume, nail polish, lip gloss - you name it. She just needs to learn a bit of moderation!

LA (Lower Alabama)

Ministry Update

We are in Mobile, AL for the first of two meetings in this great city.  Sunday was the dedication of the new building that the Cloverleaf Baptist Church just completed.  The dedication service was on a Sunday afternoon after dinner on the grounds.  One of the former pastors came from Michigan for the service.  Because the dedication service itself featured three different preachers, I was given only fifteen minutes to preach--a great discipline for me, to be sure.  Since the afternoon service at Cloverleaf took the place of the evening service, I took the family to another church in town for their evening service.  Josiah noted that we heard five different preachers on Sunday preaching a total of seven messages, because the church that we visited in the evening had two interns from Pensacola Christian College preaching in the service.  

This morning, a man off the street pulled into the church parking lot and asked me if I would be able to help him.  He told me that his son owned a 42-ft. fifth wheel travel trailer and needed someone to move it about a mile from where it was currently parked.  He intended to put the trailer in a high traffic area with the purpose of selling it.  I took my truck to his son's house, picked up the trailer, hauled it to the destination, and parked it to their satisfaction.  In the process, I endeavored to witness to the couple.  When they insisted that I take payment for what I had done, I refused, saying that they should come to the service that night, during which I would not prohibit them from putting some money in the offering.  The man did not come, but his wife and her sister did show up.  The sister was a pastor herself.  Usually, the presence of another pastor in a revival meeting helps the spirit of the meeting--so I was told in college and so I have found in my ministry.  This lady pastor's presence, however, seemed to be an exception to this rule.  Still, both ladies heard the Word of God as it went forth.  Both of them claimed to be saved.  I am going to endeavor to find the husband later on this week and give him a preaching CD with the Gospel on it.  Please pray for Tom that he would be saved.

Another promising highlight of this week is the Lower Alabama Pastor's Fellowship to be held here on Thursday of this week.  I am once again to preach at this meeting.  It has become one of my favorite meetings to preach in over the years.  It seems that every time I am in Mobile, I get to preach to this same group.  They are always so grateful for my preaching, although none of them has ever scheduled me for a meeting yet.  Maybe this time, things will be different.

Thank you for your prayers on our behalf.  Please continue to pray the Word of the Lord would have free course and be glorified (2 Thess. 3:1).

Family Update

Things have been busy around our house these last few weeks.  There is much talk of birthdays and weddings by our second child.  In just a few weeks, she will not only have her fourth birthday, but she is to be the flower girl in a wedding the same week!  Talk about excited!  It is almost all she talks about.  Josiah is also to be in the wedding, but he really doesn't say much about it.  I overheard Abigail telling Josiah what she wanted for her birthday.  I perked up my ears when this information was being shared, hoping to get a hint of her heart's desire at four years of age.  I was quite surprised to hear that she wanted a "pink horse trailer with flames on it!"  Sorry - not this year - or the next - or the next!  Maybe not ever.  What her plans for this enormous white elephant were, I am not sure, but she will have to be satisfied with a more ordinary, mundane gift.  How would you wrap that, anyway? 

In one of our recent meetings, we had a rather interesting experience.  A visiting lady became incensed when Paul made a comment in passing about his occasional dissatisfaction with a certain political figure.  She was sitting on the second row, nearly behind me, and she clapped her hands in the air, snorted loudly, and then refused to look at Paul the entire rest of the service.  Since it was in the very beginning of the message, she had to avoid his gaze for nearly forty-five minutes.  It was alarming at first, and then I began to be amused by the whole situation.  She was wearing an outfit of blaring purple, and I promptly dubbed her, "The Grape of Wrath."  Her behavior was as bad as some of the toddlers I have seen in Wal-mart.  The pastor told us later not to worry about it.  It was the first time she had been in church since she became angry at him over two years before about he can't remember what.  It is a sad commentary on church members when they become motivated more by politics than by holiness.  How many people would never turn on the TV again after hearing or seeing something profane?  Too few, I believe, and yet there are some who will leave a church because of the color of the carpet or some other trivial thing.   

Last weekend as we were traveling down to Mobile, Alabama, we stopped at a campground for the night.  When I took Abigail to the bathroom, I noticed that it was much lighter and airier in there than usual.  I looked up, and saw that the tiny skylight vent was open - no - it was missing!  Somewhere, it just flew off.  At least, this time it was only something small like a skylight bubble, and not a 20 foot awning.  Let this be a warning to you - never travel too close to a trailer. You never know when some miscellaneous part might come flying at you!  Paul climbed up on the roof of the trailer and rigged a garbage bag over the hole with some duct tape.  It was a good thing, too, because it poured down rain all night long.  Had we not had the garbage bag over the vent hole, we would have been flooded!  Of course, the bag did not survive the trip very well, and is now in shreds, the duct tape still clinging tenaciously to the roof.  So, now that we have a convertible style bathroom, the weather has turned cold making every trip to the bathroom very brief.  It's like having an outhouse indoors.  There was some talk of building a fire in the commode to help with the heating bill (the smoke could easily escape out the hole in the roof), but due to the sensitive nature of the smoke detector, we decided that it was a bad idea.  When the heat from the toaster oven sets off the smoke alarm, it is best not to start fires in small places.  

Tonight, I played a duet with myself at church.  The church has a beautiful digital piano, and I recorded myself playing a song.  Then for the special music, I played along with my violin!  That was a lot of fun, and very easy to prepare, especially since I knew exactly what the "accompanist" was going to do!  We will be here through Thursday, and across town next week for another meeting.  I do hope it warms up while we are here.  Goodness knows, enough of our heat has escaped out the bathroom vent to warm it up a little!  

The kids are all doing well, and we have all recovered from our recent illnesses.  Thank you for your prayers.  We know people have been praying for us, because of all the things that have happened to us during travel.  From brake locking up, to brakes not working at all, pieces of the trailer disappearing, blizzards, thunderstorms, crazy drivers - the Lord has protected us and kept us all safe.  What a great God we serve!