Wednesday Night

This morning Maggy and I painted the baseboards we already had, and then waited most of the day for help in getting some more from Lowes to our house. I really miss my truck at times like this. David Jordan helped us out and we were able to paint a few more before church tonight. Tomorrow Danny Dodd and Dennis Daughty will come over and place the baseboards in my house ... hopefully finishing me up on that matter. While I was at Lowes, Charlie called for me to come by and pick he and Linda up from the house. I couldn't come right that minute, but they gave me a 30 minute time cushion. Well, that was the last time I even thought of it. And I didn't even think of it until he was teasing me about forgetting them. As it turns out, he got to meet a few more family members of the man they are helping ... and make a deeper contact. So, I'm glad the Lord can work some good out of my goofups. It was great to see Tammy and Ramona Matthews at worship tonight. They are friends from Monroe (University Church of Christ). I was happy when Tammy volunteered to come help paint baseboards in the morning. They brought 14 frozen casseroles, each one will feed 10 people. They also brought some other supplies for the workers. They are truly awesome people. Tonight's message was presented by Shelley Lee and Keith Rodrigues (picture to left). Shelley presented a concept about praying for people using the Scriptures. Keith presented a testimony about finding the Lord from a prison cell. I issued an invitation. The worship tonight was wonderful, and we had a packed house. Gary Boswell led most of the singing tonight. Tomorrow night Danny Dodd will speak. As is our new tradition, if a crew of relief workers is leaving the next day, we let a few of them get up and give their impressions of the week. Four from Wisconsin got up tonight and shared their hearts with us. One of them was Ed (who is pictured in the previous post with Mildred). Ed said something I thought was profound. He said he looked at our website before coming, looking at all the pictures. But it's like looking at pictures of the Grand Canyon or someplace like that. It's one thing to read about it and see it in a picture, and totally another thing to walk up to it and experience it. That's the way it is down here for most folks. You just have to see it and walk through it to believe it. It was a super night together. Tomorrow night Danny Dodd will speak to us. Then Rod Tate will be here for three days. David Williams is a new 'David' to add to our list of folks named David here. He is here from Kentucky and simply plans to do evangelistic Bible studies. I was naming some people he should meet. He agreed to do so, but informed me that that was not necessary. He would be happy to just step on down the street and start meeting people. Isn't that awesome? I look forward to getting to know him. I'm sad to see the group from Wisconsin head back home. They are a super group of kids. I regret not getting to spend any time with Jeremy Rush. His family was here and they were such encouragers. I wish him well in his work on campus and know that he will bless many people. We do not accept money for our work as volunteers. However someone gave money so that the team from Wisconsin could buy some ice cream cones for the group. They did not spend it all because one part of the group didn't go. One of the members of the team came to me tonight and donated the money to the church. I was very touched by that. He could have claimed his ice cream money for later ... or they could have kept it and no one would have known. He could have done any number of things with it ... but he said the group talked about it and decided to donate it to the church. In the scope of things it wasn't a big amount, but to me (and I think to the Lord, it was HUGE). To the Right: Gary Boswell leads worship tonight.