Gearing Up For Another Week

It’s almost 10:00. In the “old days” before Katrina, that used to be time to do some serious e-mails, internet surfing, blogging, and other cool stuff. Now it’s past my bed time. So this may be a little shorter than usual! Our main Chief of Staff around the building is David Kilbern. I will write a long post about David one day. But for now just let me say that he needs a break and is taking one … for a few days. David and Elaine are just incredible servants who want no attention called to their work. They are just doing what they have been taught to do by our Teacher. In my opinion, they are excellent students. So, that means that I will be trying to keep things moving along while David takes a break. I look forward to it. Who knows? I might paint the foyer purple or even put up a lifesize statue of myself so that people can throw rings of flowers around my neck! Being in charge could go to my head! We had some volunteers from Americorps today, and it looks like they will be helping us out as they can. We also had some newcomers from Illinois show up today. I’m looking forward to getting to know them. I think they are here until Friday. Carlos and Nathan continue their faithful work as well. Today I delivered appliances to several homes. This is a wonderful effort fueled by the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort in Nashville. If I was in charge I would tone down the paperwork they require, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to help all we can. We had 87 in worship this morning, with 15 or so visitors from our community. Very encouraging. Tommy Stewart, I wanted to tell you that the couple across the street came to worship this morning for the first time. They have lived there 50 years and never visited our assembly before today. One of the widows I wrote about in yesterday’s post was at services this morning, as well as other visitors. CURRENT NEEDS: *Volunteer workers, both skilled and unskilled. Carpenters, plumbers, roofers, electricians, sheet-rock hangers, and painters can all be kept very busy! We can use ladies to sort clothes, load the bus for bus runs, and go with us on the bus runs. *Ministers who can give up several days to come and pray with the community members, conduct Bible studies as available, and fill in on work as needed. *Youth ministers who can bring their teen groups (mature teens willing to serve, please) for one or two days on the weekends. *Small electric heaters *Pillows *Hotplates *Blankets *Buckets *Towels & Sheets *Deodorant *Laundry Detergent in boxes or bottles we can give away easily. (Note: The big 5 gallon buckets of detergent are nice, but we would rather have smaller quantities to spread it further!) *Plastic tableware (forks, knives, spoons) and napkins. The FEMA trailers come with no items such as these. *Snacks, drinks, and other foods that can be kept in our Dining Hall for workers as they labor here on a volunteer basis. *Cleaning supplies (pine sol, mops, brooms, etc.) *Delivery Truck. At some point State Farm will come get our totaled church bus and we will need a delivery truck to make daily deliveries through our neighborhoods. This is from the "I doubt anyone can help with this, but it doesn't hurt to ask" department. *Another need that has come to my attention is large print Bibles. We have a lot of elderly people here in our community, and they cannot see the small print editions. All of my contact information is to be found at www.123Jesus.com. My picture page is accessible by looking in the left hand column on this page (John's Pictures). I try to update with new pictures every few days. Thanks for reading. Good night.