A Big Stack

I started off today at the hospital and made several visits to patients. Afterwards I was going to pick up Maggy and head to the church, but the ac/heat man came to finish some work he had left undone. Maggy had several errands to run, so we did those, ate lunch, went to Lowes and bought a sink and some fixtures, then back to the house. Jason was arriving to put the grout down in between the ceramic tiles. So, I did go to the building for a while today - but it was a short while. Tonight our devotional was based on the song, "Bring Christ Your Broken Life." That's all we really can bring him. Even if you have few regrets and have lived a fairly good life, you have to admit that there are plenty of things that went undone in your journey. Even the 'good' among us (there are none, really) can only bring Christ a broken life that needs to be fixed. I read the account of the woman caught in adultery to the group. It was a good night together. Afterwards, Maggy and I spent a little time with David. His days are packed. Even if you had a few minutes with him, his cell phone rings every 3 minutes! David has a big stack of papers in front of him. Each set of papers represents a family in need of help. Sometimes it's an elderly couple, sometimes a young family with kids. Some of them need sheetrock to be placed on their bare walls. Some just want a washing machine. All of them are needy in some respect or another. Marvin Phillips gave us a great catch-phrase to describe to the community what we want to be. "This church wants to be the BEST FRIEND this community ever had." When I see David's big stack of papers and his personal notes on each one, I am reminded that we do want to befriend the helpless people of our community. We can do that because of donations of money, goods, and service by people like you. We have several who are asking about coming down for Spring Break and Summer Mission Trips. One idea David came up with was to help our community with a Spring Cleaning by collecting new lawn mowers. When the groups get here we can take an entire street and do every lawn on the street. After we're finished we can offer the mowers to the homeowners who do not have a mower and would like one. Most of us lost our lawnmowers in the storm. They can be the inexpensive ones ... most of the lawns here are very small. What kind of impact would that make on someone's heart to look down their street and see every yard looking great? I think it's a great idea! Anyone want to start collecting lawnmowers? Maybe you can buy them through Wal-Mart.com or something and have them shipped here? We haven't thought through all the details, but it's time to get that idea rolling if it has any traction! What do you think? I haven't talked about our needs in a long time. We continue to need manpower and money - just like it has been from day one. I'll another "M" to the list: materials. Sheetrock and the materials / tools needed to install and finish it are big items right now. At some point in the future we will need lots of painters, but the need for that is still small at this point. Finishing carpenters are very much in demand. At Central we can used both skilled and unskilled labor. People can be utilized to cook, clean the building, operate the clothing give away, help people fill out forms, and a variety of other duties. On a personal note, the tile floor in our kitchen looks soooo good! I'll keep you posted on how it goes! Yesterday I wrote about resuming some activities that I was involved in before the storm. Another one of those will resume tomorrow. I'm looking forward to lunch with Al Sturgeon. Al is the minister for the Ocean Springs church of Christ. He and I have had lunch together every Thursday for two or three years. We're going to give it a try. I've missed spending time with Al. He is gifted in many areas. I always am grateful that you read these posts. Thanks for caring.