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| This past Wednesday we enjoyed a good
service with Victory Baptist Church in Roanoke Rapids, North
Carolina. This was an unscheduled meeting, but the people warmly
received us and the pastor graciously allowed us to share our burden
and calling with the church. We are thankful for each of these
unique opportunities we are given. On Thursday morning I had the
opportunity to go soul winning with the Pastor of this church and we
had one man who accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. That
same evening I went on visitation with the Pastor of Faith Baptist
Church (the church from Sunday) and we visited a family who is going
through a great trial. God was certainly involved in this
opportunity and put everything in place for the people to be
encouraged and edified through this visit. The family still
needs a great deal of prayer as they face a long road ahead, but I am
thankful that the Lord allowed me to participate in His sovereign plan
in this way! |
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| For the past few days we have been
staying at Faith Baptist Church in Emporia, Virginia. The pastor
has been very kind and welcoming, and has allowed us to utilize full
RV hookups at the church. So far this month we have stayed for
about 10 days at different churches, saving around $250 in hookup
fees. This is a blessing! We were able to participate in
both services at this church yesterday, and also a fellowship potluck
after the evening service. All of the people were extremely
friendly and it was certainly our pleasure to be here. |
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| Pastor
Kinsey has been used to develop a vibrant church that is actively
doing their part in fulfilling the Great Commission. |
Parking
the RV was a trick, because we had to go under power and phone lines
that hung at around 12.5' (our RV is 13'). I had to climb on top
and lift them over the AC with a 2x4 board. |
The
church has already undergone one expansion to make room for the
Christian Academy, and may have to do another due to the increase in
regular church members. There were 105 present the day we
visited. |
Between
the church and the parsonage is this nice playground area. Our
children certainly enjoyed having the run of the place while we were
there. |
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| We have enjoyed our time with Corinth
Baptist Church during their 2006 missions conference. The people
are extremely friendly, and the church has been blessed with wonderful
facilities. We have been staying at the church and one morning I
was asked to come and speak to the kids in their academy, who had been
asking "what is a missionary?" The teachers had been
trying to explain it using flashcards, and then remembered we were
right outside. It was a blessing to me, and I pray it
helped the children as well. |
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| This
is the largest church we have been in yet. But, the people were
just as friendly. These new facilities were just completed in
the past few years and provide an excellent opportunity for them to
serve their congregation. |
This
is the side of the fellowship hall -- the smaller building on the left
in the first picture. |
We
were able once again to hookup to full connections at the church,
saving us RV hookup fees. We parked beside the bus garage this
time. |
They
have their own well-designed baseball field complete with homerun nets
and outfield lighting. |
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| "See
the world as it is" was the theme of this years conference. |
The
foyer to the church served as the main display area for
missionaries. Even with 12 missionaries scheduled, space was not
a problem. |
The
sanctuary was beautiful. This is an early shot, with all of the
lights turned down low, while they are still waiting for the people to
arrive (flash used). |
Same
as the previous photo, but without the flash. See how the
inlayed ceiling lights look like stars!! |
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| The
gymnasium also doubled as the fellowship hall for this week, for the
expected 200 people they were going to feed each night. |
This
14-year old young lady was an excellent harp player. We were
blessed to hear her music almost every day of the conference. |
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| The past couple of days have been very
nice, with us being able to stay at A. H. Stephens Historical Park in
Georgia. It is an out-of-the-way kinda place, and has been very
quiet (most of the time) since our arrival. This is just a
mid-week stopover between meetings, but we thought you might like to
see some of the pictures of the park. The State Parks are always
the cheapest and usually the nicest......now if they just had sewer
hookups....... |
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| This
"fire tower" was located directly beside our campsite.
The sign on the next picture describes it more. |
The
sign says it all. |
This
is the administrative office and camping pavilion. The lake was
very calm and very beautiful. |
Watch
where you walk at night. Armadillos abound in this area.
They're shy little guys though....we chased this poor fellow for quite
a while, trying to get his picture. |
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| The
entrance to the park. We tried following the directions to get
here, but were stopped by a 12' 8" bridge (our camper is
13'). A friendly cop showed us another way! |
The
main A. H. Stephens home remains much as it was in his day.
Don't know who A. H. Stephens is? Look it up. It's kinda
interesting. |
A
statue in memory of Mr. Stephens. |
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| Last night we enjoyed fellowshipping with the people of Trinity Baptist
Church in Martinez, Georgia. The trip here was not all that fun, as it was pouring rain and we had to go
through rush hour traffic in Atlanta, but we made it safely, and that is what is important!! The meeting went
very well, and we can only marvel at how God is working through this deputation process. Today we will be
moving over to A.H. Stephens Historical Park and will leave there Saturday to head to Loganville for a
Sunday - Wednesday mission conference next week. Everything is going well, and we have no real requests at
this time! |
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| This
is a view from the main church parking lot, looking at their
"small" building, which houses the gym and youth program. |
This
is the main church, which is rather large, and quite nice. The
church building is not the only nice thing here though -- the people
were very friendly and welcomed us for this meeting. |
We
were able to hookup to full connections on the backside of the
church. Parking was interesting given the location of the
hookups, but we finally made it. |
On
Wednesdays they meet in the fellowship hall, for a more personal
time. It's empty now, but in just a few minutes it will be full. |
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| It's
getting closer to time to start so we're "hanging out"
around the display, greeting people as they arrive. |
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| We got a call from our realtor today
and we have a buyer interested in our house!! We've been praying for
this for a while. They don't want to close until on or after October
15th. That's a blessing too, since we're scheduled to be in our
hometown from October 8th through the 24th, which would allow us to
close while we are home! Please be in prayer that we will be able to
come to terms and get a signed offer on the house, and that the
closing will go smoothly. |
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| Well, since our last writing we have
had 3 more meetings. The first was the missions conference at Pastor
Sellers church. It was quite a blessing! This small church has
decicated themselves to missions. Their faith promise this year was
almost 2.5x what last years was, and the amount itself is very good,
especially given that it is a small, rural church. The people were
warm and receptive to our ministry, and we are thankful for the time
spent there. This Sunday we had two meetings. The first, at Bible
Baptist Church, was another small church. 4 in Sunday School and about
10 or so in the morning service. But again, it was a very generous
church and we enjoyed the time we had together. The evening service
was at Oconee Baptist Church, which was slightly larger with about 50
people. We enjoyed some good music and another warm reception. We also
saw some people that we met at a camp meeting earlier in the year, and
were able to get reacquainted. We are thankful for all of these
meetings, and for the indications that most pastors are giving that
they will be taking us on for support as soon as the funds become
available. The Lord has been blessing and things are going smoothly.
Truckschooling is rolling along and we haven't had any breakdowns or
accidents. |
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| Milledgeville
Baptist Church |
The
MBC church bus. |
The
MBC church sign. |
We
enjoyed delicious, abundant meals each night of the conference at the
local community center. |
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| Addie
makes friends wherever she goes. She is seen here with two of
the pastor's daughters. |
Braden
is hanging out, waiting for the meal. |
Chad
Sellers is the pastor at Milledgeville Baptist Church. |
The
ladies prepared wonderful meals each night. |
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| I'm
just hanging out and chatting with Luke Shelby, missionary to Kenya, while we wait
for the meal to be ready. |
This
small church only had about 9 people in the morning service, but they
are growing and were very generous to us during our visit. |
Oconee
is a 3-year old church already running about 50 in attendance.
They are very faithful to missions and welcomed us warmly during their
services. |
A
new church with room to grow and a heart to win souls. They will
be used mightily by the Lord. |
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| This will be a long one! We had a
couple of good meetings this past Sunday, both of which were
"walk-in" meetings (ie: unscheduled). The first was the
church I visited on Wednesday, and dropped literature at. It was a
very good meeting, and we had an enjoyable lunch with the Pastor and
his family at the church afterwards. The second was another church I
had visited and we just stopped by for services that night. They were
very friendly as well and allowed me the opportunity to briefly
present our ministry. We thank the Lord for these openings. Today we
are in Milledgeville, Tennessee for a missions conference with Pastor
Chad Sellers. One of his members has allowed us to park our RV at
their home, saving us about $100 in hookup fees, as well as almost 2
hours of driving a day (as the nearest RV park was quite a ways away
from the church). We do appreciate this hospitality. If all goes well
we will have the opportunity to go out visiting with another church
while we are here. Pastor Sellers is trying to get that set up, so
please pray that we can, and that the people are receptive that we
have a chance to talk to. A final praise, I was able to get 3 more
meetings scheduled today, and they fell in line geographically very
well with existing meetings. |
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| This
newer church is meeting in a renovated house. They are working
on a new building currently. |
The
people have made good use of their limited facilities - and keep
everything in top order. |
Zion
Hill sits atop a hill and we didn't think we would make it up, even in
our truck! Here is a pic of their van. |
Zion
Hill Baptist Church |
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| Milledgeville
is a small rural town in South Central Tennessee. |
Mr.
& Mrs. Roberts, members at Milledgeville Baptist Church, let us
set up our home in their front yard. They went well out of their
way to make us feel welcome. |
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| We had an opportunity to view Helen,
Georgia today. It is the local tourist attraction. It's a
town that was built to resemble an Alpine village. It's free to
get in and walk around, just like any other town. It's very
pretty, but there's not much to do unless you want to shop and buy
stuff. We tried some of the German food, and we think we'll
stick with our good 'ol American food (and Mexican too!). |
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| The
local town hall. Never seen one like that before! |
One
of the many shops lining the main street. |
A
closer view of the shop and fountain. Everything was very
detailed and very well maintained. |
At
the end of the street is this large windmill. |
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