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| Today's post comes to you from Swannanoa, North
Carolina. Thursday we made the relatively short trip up here
from Iron Station, North Carolina. The next day (yesterday) I
rented a car and drove to Bessemer, Alabama for a meeting with First
Independent Baptist Church last night (1 night of their mission
conference). Today I drove back here to North Carolina.
So, it's been a busy couple of days. But, the Lord has been good
to us recently and He has blessed during this trip as well. The
meeting went very well and the church already notified us they will
begin supporting our ministry next month! We also received
notice on Thursday that Albemarle Baptist Church in Charlottesville,
Virginia voted to begin supporting our ministry as well.
Finally, we were notified that the church we were with this past
Wednesday, Victory Baptist Church in Rockingham, North Carolina, would
be discussing support for our ministry this coming Sunday, so please
be in prayer with us that they would partner with us in this
ministry. With the two that have already voted to begin support
we find ourselves at 55.13%. Tomorrow we have a morning walk-in
meeting here in Swannanoa (our scheduled meeting had to cancel at the
last minute) and then we have an evening meeting scheduled in Pigeon
Forge, Tennessee. Below are a few photos from recent
meetings.
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| Sanctuary
at Victory Baptist Church in Rockingham, NC. |
Missionary
display board at VBC. |
Pastor
Edwards watching one of their youth sing during the service. |
Sanctuary
at VBC. |
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| VBC
road sign. |
A
small flowering cactus in the woods outside of VBC. This is a very
common plant in Texas. |
Our
display beside another missionary display at FIBC in Bessemer, Alabama. |
The
other two missionary displays. |
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| Sanctuary
at FIBC. This very small inner-city church has an amazing
faith-promise missions program. |
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| Today we find ourselves in Iron Station, North
Carolina. We drove in Sunday afternoon from Pipestem, West
Virginia where we had the opportunity to visit with Melissa's family
during their annual reunion. Yesterday evening we enjoyed
services with New Grace Baptist Church here in Iron Station.
Today we've been busy taking care of the day-to-day necessities of
life while the children enjoyed a few hours to play! Nothing
much to share in the way of news, so I hope you enjoy the photos
below.
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| The
kids enjoy a game of "National Park Monopoly" during the
reunion. |
All
us "older" people sitting around talking. |
That's
me to the left and to the right is Melvin Anderson, Melissa's grandfather. |
The
family rents this house every year for the reunion. |
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| Melissa
with her grandfather. |
August
plays on the playground at Pipestem State Park (where our house was
parked). |
All
3 kids play. |
Another
shot of August. Melissa was trying to get a good shot of the clouds
in the background, as it was a beautiful day! |
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| New
Grace Baptist Church in Iron Station, North Carolina. |
To
the left is their main sanctuary. Our RV is parked right up against
the building. |
We
are literally about 2-3 inches from the building....I had to get that
close for the power to reach, but it all worked out. |
The
kids enjoy the playground behind the church building. |
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| Well, we've already put out one update today but I didn't
want to wait to share some good news with you! Just after
10:00pm tonight I received a call from Bro. Jeff Shue in Texas.
He let me know that he made it out to our house today in Rio Grande
City and was able to verify that all of the water is now
working! As of Monday the plumber had not received the money to
start the work, but here it is Friday and everything is 100%
complete! That was the last major thing that needed to be
accomplished prior to our arrival in July. We thank God for
allowing all of these preparations to be completed and look forward to
the next 9 weeks as we finish up the remainder of our main deputation
travels.
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| Greetings from sunny, cold, West Virginia! We had a
wonderful Wednesday night service with Victory Baptist Church in
Staunton this past Wednesday. The people were extremely friendly
and the service seemed to go very well. As an added blessing,
before the services Pastor Ogden and I were speaking about the padded
chairs they have and I mentioned we would be purchasing some in Texas
for our ministry. He immediately told me NOT to purchase them,
that they could give me all that I would need. So, in two weeks
we'll be back in his area and will be picking up 20 folding padded
chairs to take with us to Texas! God always supplies.
While in Staunton we also took the opportunity to hike up Crabtree
Falls (pictures below). We didn't make it all the way to the
top, but we got close (the trail got a little dangerous for our
youngest children). On Thursday morning we stopped by Rule RV in
Staunton to get our house inspected (no problems!) and then made the
relatively short drive up to Pipestem State Park in West
Virginia. We will be here for a couple of days to visit
Melissa's family (they have an annual reunion this time of year) and
then head to North Carolina for a meeting this weekend.
Yesterday we took the opportunity here at Pipestem to enjoy a short
horseback trail ride and also visit their nature center. The
children are certainly enjoying their summer break so far, which is
good since they'll lose a couple weeks of it as we travel to Texas and
try to get settled in our new home! One final note. We
also received word yesterday that one of our supporting churches
doubled our monthly support, bringing us a little closer to 100%.
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| Entrance
to Crabtree Falls. |
The
kids check out the lowest of the falls, near the entrance. |
These
beautiful Rhododendrons were everywhere! |
Missy
and the kids as the climb part of the trail |
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| Another
of the waterfall sections, this one is a little higher up than the first. |
More
of the falls. |
And
yet more falls....it keeps going, and going, and going... |
Addie
learns about ferns and how they use spores rather than flowers to
reproduce. |
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| Looking
back down some of the falls. |
Missy
and the kids looking at another section of the falls. |
And
here is another section. |
Looking
back down the falls. |
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| I'm
trying to get a shot that shows our height, but the background is too
washed to see the mountain ridges. |
We're
pretty close to the edge here. |
This
neat little cave was alongside the trail. |
This
fall was the highest we got. We're pretty close to the top, but the
trail is very wet and steep and we decided to turn back. |
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| That
evening we enjoyed a wonderful meal with Pastor Ogden and his family. |
Braden
looks over the letters from the other missionaries supported by Victory
Baptist Church in Staunton. |
The
main sanctuary. |
Braden
and Addie work on setting up the display. |
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| Part
of our group as we wait to get saddled up for our ride. |
Melissa
had wonderful timing with this shot. I tried to delete the picture,
but she wouldn't let me. |
Braden's
up and ready. |
Okay,
can I go now? |
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| August
heads to his horse. |
And
he's up. |
Addie's
ready to go. |
This
is Melissa's horse. Since she had the camera this is the only shot
we have of either Missy or her horse. |
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| Walking
along the trail. |
More
trail shots. |
A
short break while the guides recheck everyone's saddle straps. |
More
walking. In these fields we also saw wild turkey and deer. |
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| An
old cabin that has been moved up to the nature center. |
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| After an uneventful 9 hour drive we arrived safely late
this afternoon in Staunton, Virginia (from Dalton, Georgia). The
weather is certainly different. It was going to be around 80
today in Dalton, but it's sweater weather here in
Staunton.....brrrrr. We are staying on the grounds of Victory
Baptist Church and will be enjoying a meeting with them tomorrow
evening. I have some photos of the church below, as well as one
of a gas pump from our trip today. Why a picture of a
pump? Read the caption and you'll understand!
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| Street
sign for Victory Baptist Church in Staunton, Virginia. |
Main
building with our house parked in front. |
Addie
and August made it out to the playground for a little while. |
One
of two fuel pumps we had the unfortunate privilege of seeing today.
This was our first stop of the day.....and it took a mere $165 to fill the
tank ($4.47/gallon). The second stop wasn't much better at $124! |
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| We had two very good services yesterday. We did not
have a meeting scheduled for the morning, so we "dropped in"
at Maranatha Baptist Church near Dalton, Georgia. I had spoken
to this pastor a couple of times and wanted to take the opportunity to
meet him. The services went very well and the church was very
welcoming towards our family. Pastor Young indicated publicly
that he would be trying to get us back for a "regular"
presentation at some point in the future, so we praise the Lord for
that opportunity. For the evening service we drove up to
Harrison, Tennessee to meet with Lakewood Baptist Church. This
was also a very good meeting. The people were extremely friendly
and interested in our ministry. In fact, several members were
"retired" missionaries and were familiar with the Rio Grande
Valley and the pastors already working the Brownsville and McAllen
areas. We had a wonderful time of fellowship with them. In
other news, God answered a prayer from yesterday with a YES. I
don't always do this, but I was praying specifically yesterday that
one of the churches we had visited would take us on for support that
day. I received a phone call a few minutes ago from Grace
Baptist Church in Woodstock, Virginia that they voted yesterday to
join with us in this ministry! With this addition we are now at
51.81% support. Progress on the bus repairs continues and looks
to be on schedule, as do other preparations for our arrival in
Texas.
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| As the kids are now officially out of school (the 12th was
their last day) we have the opportunity to partake of a few
"field trips" before we head to Texas in just a few short
weeks. Yesterday we visited the Georgia Aquarium. This is
the largest aquarium under a single roof in the entire world. I
believe it may also be the only aquarium that has Whale Sharks on
display. It was a very interesting museum and also rather
educational. We especially enjoyed watching them feed the whale
sharks. We've included a number of photos from that trip
below. Today we are back to "regular"
activities....I've got a variety of things to do, we all had Spanish
classes today and Melissa is busy with grocery shopping, laundry,
cleaning and other tasks. We have a meeting scheduled this
weekend up in Tennessee (just across the border) and are looking
forward to that.
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| The
entrance to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. |
As
we entered the aquarium they took our family photo -- of course, the
background was green when they took the photo, so..... |
These
"walls of fish" were on both sides of the entrance inside the
Aquarium. The fish just swim in laps around the wall....over, and
over, and over, and over again. |
This
is the main "lobby" of the aquarium. Their are wings off
of this room with all of the major displays. That blue wall changes
colors every few seconds...it's kinda neat. |
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| Stay
away from the jellies! Some of these were up to 10' long! |
Another
shot of a jelly. |
One
of many displays of various fish. This one was getting a bath by a
diver. |
The
tunnel is really neat. From here you have fish on three sides of
you. This is their main tank, which holds over 4 million gallons of
water (I think). |
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| One
of the many fish that swam over us. |
A
shot of one of their 4 Whale Sharks. There will be some
"reference" shots to give you a good feel for how big this guy
is. |
Another
shot of the Whale Shark. |
And
yet again.... |
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| A
different type of shark swimming by. |
This
is one of the large groupers that they have in their main tank. |
The
fish staring at you (below the whale shark) is the same size as the large
grouper in the previous picture. It gives you an idea how big that
shark is! These are still young and therefore small....only about 16
feet long. They get up to 40-50 feet long! |
Another
shot of the main aquarium from a large observation room they have (about
25' tall and 60' wide). |
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| And
again... |
A
different shark comes swimming by. |
Another
whale shark, along with some other fish. |
Two
whale sharks coming towards each other....there are 4 in the tank, and
they designed it to eventually hold 6 FULL SIZE whale sharks. |
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| This
crab was HUGE! He was probably close to 2' across. |
One
of their beluga whales. |
This
guy is a Dragon Fish. He really did look like what we commonly refer
to as a dragon. |
One
of the seals swims by Addie. |
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| He's
up on a rock and calling out. |
Another
seal swims by. |
And
yet another. |
This
guys checking out what is going on outside. |
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| And
so his buddies come and join him. |
One
of their small penguins. |
A
much better shot of him. |
Here
they are all up on the rocks. |
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| And
the Aquarium's newest exhibit -- August and Addie. |
Another
shot of a beluga whale. |
Not
sure what these are (possibly Gar), but they were pretty neat looking. |
Another
new exhibit featuring August and Addie. |
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| These
small crocs were just hanging out, not doing much. |
The
otters were all sleeping in a large pile...too bad, I love watching them
play in the water. |
This
"hands on" exhibit lets you play with Sharks and Rays (the water
is about 2-3' deep). Unfortunately, the glare in the photo means you
can't see the critters. |
Addie
goes for a horseshoe crab. |
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| Braden
turns the lighthouse in the background. |
August
& Addie will be coming down the slide and out of the mouth of the
whale on the far side of the room. |
August
just came out, but some guy got in the way of the photo. |
There's
Addie. |
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| Now
we wait for Missy and Braden to come back down and join us. |
Braden,
August and Addie check out this boat. Addie looks like she is
holding on for dear life! |
August
and Addie got their photos taken with this fish, but they never sent the
photo of Addie. |
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| Today was another travel day. I wasn't looking
forward to driving, as it's been two weeks since we had a day like
today (scheduled 10 hour drive). But, I guess having not driven
for a while was a good thing, because the trip seemed to go by rather
quickly. We are now in Dalton, Georgia, having arrived here
around 4:30 this afternoon. We are looking forward to a meeting
tomorrow with Kings Highway Baptist Church in Calhoun, Georgia and
then with Lakewood Baptist Church in Harrison, Tennessee on
Sunday. This past Sunday morning we had a walk-in visit with
Fremont Stree Baptist Church in Crawfordsville, Indiana. To
explain the Sunday evening meeting you have to go back and read the
update from 5/6 again. In that update I mentioned a church we
were visiting that was holding revival services. I attended by
myself Monday and Tuesday and then Melissa and the kids joined me on
Wednesday. That evening the pastor invited us to come back
Sunday evening and present our ministry to the church. So, we
did just that. It's another one of those special meetings that
is clearly evident that God was directing us in it! We praise
Him for giving us that opportunity. One last update regarding
the water at our home in Rio Grande City. I called back on 5/8
to speak with them about scheduling the water to be turned on (to see
if I could do it now, somehow, versus waiting until my arrival in
June). The same lady I spoke with the previous day answered the
phone and transferred me to another lady who actually handles the
activation of the water lines. When I gave her the address her
response was "Oh, you're in for a whole world of
trouble." That was not a good start to the
conversation. She informed me that the water meter had indeed
been ordered and installed. However, the water had never been
connected from the meter to the house, which is the home owner's
responsibility. She also informed me that the meter was not
close to the house, and therefore would cost more to have
installed. She did recommend a few plumbers that I could contact
to have that work done. That's all the bad news. The good
news is that I was able to reach one of those plumbers who was already
driving in the direction of our house, so he stopped by and met with
the county water inspector at the property. They figured out
exactly what needs to be done and then gave me a quote for the
work. The entire bill will be $950. When we purchased the
home we anticipated $1,000 for the water alone (plus sewer), so ending
up with a final bill of $950 is not too bad. We are very
grateful to at least have a firm understanding of the situation, and
have already contracted the plumber to begin the work, which should be
completed in the next couple of weeks. Shown below are photos
from our most recent meeting, as well as some from a conference we
attended in Charlottesville, Virginia about a month ago (we had to
wait for the photos to be emailed to us, and then I've been slow
putting them out here as well).
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| Missionary
display board at Calvary Baptist Church in Crawfordsville, Indiana. |
Main
sanctuary at CBC in Crawfordsville. |
Melissa
with Lora at Colonial Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. |
Our
family at CBC. |
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| Pastor
and Mrs. Leake at CBC in Charlottesville, Virginia. |
Our
kids enjoyed getting to know many of the children at CBC throughout the
week. |
Addie
stands still for 1/2 a second to pose for this shot. |
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| It's always amazing to me how God chooses to meet our
needs. Yesterday I mentioned that the plumber in Rio Grande was
not going to be able to get our water connected for us. I had
not yet heard from the plumber he was referring us to so I called the
county water service again to get more information on having the water
connected, and primarily to see if they could recommend a
contractor. The lady that answered asked me to let her do some
checking and to call her back in an hour. When I called her back
she had some good news! First, she had found that the property
does have a septic system installed, so we will not need to connect to
the city sewer system. Second, she found that a water meter was
ordered in September of 2006 by the previous owner, so the property
should actually have water service already, which will just need to be
activated! This is not all 100% guaranteed yet, but if that is
the case it will save us quite a bit of money (over $1,000).
The only hindrance at this point is that I have to go in person to
have the water turned on, so it will not be done until I transport our
"stuff" down in June (I planned on staying at the house
during that trip), but that is a very minor inconvenience in relation
to what this could have been. We thank God for His wonderful
provision once again in this instance!
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| The meeting in Loxley went extremely well! I arrived
on Tuesday and participated in their services that evening and then
presented our ministry on Wednesday. I had a wonderful time with
this church family, and especially enjoyed a day out with the other
missionaries, the pastor and one of their church members on
Wednesday. I arrived back in Indiana on Thursday. Sunday
we had a very long day. We drove about 1.5 hours to the morning
meeting in Chrisman, Illinois. We had a good service with this
church and then enjoyed a meal with several of the church families
afterwards. Unfortunately, we were limited on time as we then
had to drive just over 3 hours to make our evening meeting in Kokomo,
Indiana. We had another wonderful service with this church
family. Following that evening service we made the 2 hour drive
back to Crawfordsville, Indiana where the RV was parked. So, a
long day, but a good one! Yesterday I spent much of the day
lying on my back under the RV trying to repair some damage. A
while back we had a holding tank repaired and they had to cut open our
enclosed underbelly to get to it. Unfortunately, their patch of
the underbelly did not hold, so we found it dragging along the road
when we arrived here in Crawfordsville. It also allowed one of
the wiring harness to hit the road, so some of the wiring was stripped
and severed. I fixed all of the wiring yesterday and also was
able to devise a way to repair the underbelly as well. I also
took the time to fix the tailgate of the truck which has never wanted
to open easily since we purchased it. I'm not much of a
mechanic, but I'm certainly learning how to do a lot of these kinds of
repairs now! This past Friday Melissa was doing laundry at the
local laundrymat and saw a flyer for revival services at a Baptist
church here in Crawfordsville. I couldn't find any information
about them in my records or online, so I called them to see what
"kind" of Baptist they are. I was told that they are
Fundamental Independent Baptist. So, I sent a letter that day to
the pastor letting him know I was going to try and stop by and
visit. I was able to visit last night during their revival
services and was greeted very warmly. Pastor was expecting me
and seemed very interested in our ministry. He even mentioned
that he wants to keep in contact with me and is interested in having
us come back. These providential meetings are a special blessing
to us. I spoke with Alicia Gilbert at the Independent Baptist
Language School of South Texas yesterday and things seem to be on
track for school to begin August 18th. That's good news.
Unfortunately, I also spoke to the plumber yesterday and he's not
going to be able to get our water running, as he is a bi-vocational
pastor and has been to busy to make it out to the property. He
is, however, referring us to another local company run by a fellow
Christian and hopefully they will be able to get this work completed
for us in a timely manner.
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| Pastor
Enfinger (seated) at Lighthouse Baptist Church in Loxley, Alabama, with
two other church members before service. |
A
Rock of Ages missionary was presenting his ministry on Tuesday evening. |
Our
display, minus the backdrop which I can't take with me when I fly. |
They
served delicious meals every evening! |
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| Their
fellowship hall, where we ate each evening. |
Braden
shows off a nice sized catfish which he caught in one of the ponds. |
Our
underbelly is lying across the axle and dragging on the road. |
Another
shot, also showing the wiring which drug along the road. |
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| Street
sign for Horace Baptist Church in Chrisman, Illinois. |
This
entire area is "corn country" and they were busy working Sunday
morning while we were driving in. |
Horace
Baptist Church main sanctuary. |
Missionary
display board at HBC. |
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| Melissa
and I speak with Pastor Cook while getting ready for the morning service. |
August
in his Sunday School class. |
Fellowship
Hall for HBC. |
Addie
in her Sunday School class. |
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| The
life of a missionary and his fuel (the coffee cup). |
Missions
display board at Victory Baptist Church in Kokomo, Indiana. |
Flags
on display at VBC. |
Street
sign for VBC. |
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| Main
building for VBC. |
Addie
helps setup our display. |
Some
birds built a nest in Addie's bike basket while were out on Sunday.
They sure work fast! |
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