These are pics of part of what we painted on our trip last week. Not going to win any awards, but not bad.
Did I make them big enough? Do they need to be bigger (after you click them)? Let me know.
Category: Stuff (Page 56 of 65)
Laddies and Gentlemen…meet Bishop Paxton Thompson (I think that will be his name)! This morning we went by some friends’ house and bought a dog from them. (You can click on the thumbnail above for slightly bigger pics) We had been talking about getting a dog for a while. Looked at some at a local flea market, nearly bought one, but backed down. I’ve heard some awful stories about pets bought from a flea market. But came to find out that some friends had the exact same breed of dog who’d just had puppies not too long ago.
After visiting a few times, we were pretty much decided on getting a dog from her…and we did today. Part of me wonders if it is a little early (it is just over 5 weeks old) to be grabbing a dog. Books I’ve read say it’s best to let them stay with their litter mates/mom until 7 weeks. But all the pups (there were six) were going to be gone this weekend anyway, so what did it matter? We were intent on getting a girl, but ended up with a guy when two of the three females were already gone, and the last girl’s coloring wasn’t as nice (is that shallow or what?). But anyway, here we are now with a new puppy!
Tonight should be interesting. I expect quite a bit of whining and all. Hopefully the dog will do better than I expect. Now my prayers are for my daughter…or maybe I should pray for the dog’s safety. She thinks he’s a splendid cross between a stuffed animal and a Gumby “bend-it-like-you-want-it” type of toy.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about him later.
Finally he sighed and said, “Well, if there was a God and he had a church – they would care for the poor, heal the sick, and they wouldn’t charge you money to teach you the Book.” I turned around and it was like an explosion in my chest. “Oh, God,” I just cried out, I couldn’t help it. I thought, “Oh Lord, they know. The world knows what it’s supposed to be like. The only ones that don’t know is the Church.”
Follow this link for the rest. It’s a great little excerpt from John Wimber.
1. Do you remember your first best friend? Who was it?
Not really. I had friends, but not a “best friend” when I was younger.
2. Are you still in touch with this person?
See above.
3. Do you have a current close friend?
I have a few close friends. Not really a “best friend”. There have been different times in my life that I’ve been closer with a friend than any other. But right now I’d have to say that my wife is my best friend.
4. How did you become friends with this person?
We worked together two summers at Camp Lake Stephens. She had a huge crush on me back then.
5. Is there a friend from your past that you wish you were still in contact with? Why?
None that I’ve lost contact with. I actually should keep in better contact with the friends I have, though.
Let me start off by saying that if you take a group of teenagers to stay a few nights together in a hotel, even if they are awesome kids and don’t really do anything “bad”, it is never a good idea to have your guys share connecting rooms above the front desk and hotel offices! There has not been a night that the hotel hasn’t sent someone to tell us to quieten down. But I don’t think we’ve been that loud even.
Last night a lady came up and asked us, pretty pointedly to quieten down. We complied and thought we had the situation calmed down. Then about 10 minuted later the security guard comes back up there saying he’s not getting to daydream on his golf cart out in the parking lot because of us. I asked him had we not gotten quiter since the lady had spoken with us. I don’t think he knew either way, but he said that next time he had to come up there he was going to have to wake up whoever was in charge of all of us to get us quite. All of the guys were about to explode with snickers….I think I did quite well holding them in myself. So he repeats himself a few times and the snickers start sneaking out. One guy is actually laughing in his face. The reason for the laughs? The person in charge of them all is me! I kept wondering if I should told him or not. But I didn’t. It was funny though. But I didn’t think we’d been loud and I didn’t want to push the issue at that time.
But…early in the day we had a full day. We got an early jump on the day and pulled out the colored paint. We sketched out a rough draft of what we wanted the mural to look like, then went to work. To be honest, it turned out much better than I expected it too. Everyone agreed. But it had a huge “PRAISE THE LORD” over on the left side, then some little brown kids with cornrows in their hair in bright clothing, big fat flowers, and a huge yellow cross with a blue heart in the middle of it. Again, pictures were taken. We put some random stuff on the back wall as well.
We were all proud. We even had people honk and shout “Looks good!” as they’d zoom down the road. Once while we were painting we heard a hugh skreech of tires and then a big splash. We all looked up in time to see an old Lincoln come sliding sideways into the parking lot, a dozen yard from where we were. There was almost a car accident and a car swerved into the front lot to avoid a crash. But one of our guys thought it was a driveby and the driver was about to pull out a weapon or something. His legs were shaking for over 10 minutes because of that.
The kids started coming in while we were finishing up painting. We left for a quick lunch before returning, all in our swimsuits. After a loooooooooong ordeal trying to get 30 of their kids paired up with the 15 of us, we all loaded up and went to Rapids on the Reservoir, a waterpark just outside of Jackson. These young innercity kids hardly ever get to experience anything like this, so we provided a way for them to have the opportunity. It was a circus! Some of the kids were fine. Some liked to fake drowning. My two kids I had were opposites. One didn’t want to get in water over his ankles, the other wanted to do the big slides. But James lossened up and enjoyed the Lazy River and the Wave Pool and D found a tube to float in the Wave Pool as well. It wasn’t that bad for most of us, but some had some really tough kids to keep up with. It was a draining experience, but we all had fun.
Right now it’s Thursday morning and everyone is sleeping in. We’ll get home a litle earlier than we’d expected, but that’s all good. It’s been a good week. Really has. I’ve been impressed with the work effort of our students. No one really slacked at all. Even the cheerleaders were amongst the hardest workers!
Wow. Bobby Hall to the Tupelo Fire Ants. Who would have thunk it? So now former high school coach (Amory, Louisiville, Wayne County) and Northeast Community College coach has decided to take up the NIFL as his next challenge.
I can guarentee they won’t be taking 57-15 beatings anymore. Looks like the Fire Ants just got back in the football business. This should be interesting…very interesting.
First of all, it’s amazing the things you’ll watch when you’re together with other people in a hotel room. The most random stuff that’d you’d skip over in a heartbeat watching television at home, you’ll sit and watch and say “look at that!”.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was a good day. We started off the morning by sleeping in just a bit, but after breakfast and a devo in our room about being God’s hands to the rejected and “looked-down-upon” by the world, we all loaded up and chugged over to Lizzie’s center again. We were told we were going to hang with the children some more but we were going to do a little painting first. So I took a few students with me over to The Home Depot and bought paint and supplies while the rest of the crew stayed behind to design a mural we were going to paint on the outside walls.
After the eternity it takes to get The Home Depot to mix paint for you, we made it back and unleashed 15 brushes and rollers on the walls. The sun was out in full effect and made for a very stinky group. But most everyone worked pretty hard. [again, I have pictures I’ll be able to put up in a few days]. We were told to get a burgandy color which immediately translated to MAROON in my head. And I think it was mostly maroon except for the one can of paint that looked like Pepto-Bismol.
Some of the kids got there and played Monopoly and other games while some painted. We worked through lunch and post 2pm. The plan was to go eat lunch, then come back, but we decided to take the rest of the afternoon off and get an early start this morning. So we had our group meeting time last night and are about to leave out again this morning to finish the mural, then go to Rapids on the Reservoir. This should be interesting. Thirty inner city kids set loose in the huge waterpark. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep up with them all.
We’re here on a mission trip in inner city Jackson right now. We spent the morning travelling, but then we at lunch at Fazolli’s before heading over to Lizzie Cooper’s place. You know that she runs the center in inner city Jackson. If the word “ghettolicious” was ever to be used, it’s where she is. Anyway, we spend most of the day cleaning up her place. Mopped, scrubbed, rubbed, folded, sorted, mowed, weed ate, etc. Then she brought the children in for a few hours while we played with them.
It was fun. The children all come from terrible home situations though. Stuff you’d never want to believe was possible. Every kind of abuse you’d think of. Moms having boyfriends in and out of their beds like most people change the channel. No love at all. So they’re desperate. But I took lots of pictures, so hopefully I’ll have some to upload in a few days.
I think it’s doing our kids good to be here. Tomorrow we’ll hang out more with the children. But I’m hoping that God will really show Himself and His truth to our teens this week.
Maybe more latter if I get the chance.
blah blah blah
1. What were your favorite childhood stories?
The Uncle Remus stories (I guess they’re politically incorrect now), Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, Harry the Dirty Dog, Horton Hears A Who. Those were the ones I had read to me. I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, then I got into the Dragon Lance series (it still rocks)…then it was all Fantasy and Science Fiction for quite a while.
2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?
The ones above, but there are so many good ones that are out now too.
3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?
Nope. Other than they don’t take as long to read.
4. How old were you when you first learned to read?
I remember reading a little in preschool. But maybe I was just repeating the words to books I’d read with my mom. But I know for sure I was reading in Kindergarden. So 4 or 5.
5. Do you remember the first ‘grown-up’ book you read? How old were you?
I read some Stephen King and some Jean M. Auel stuff in 6th grade. Maybe that King stuff messed me up.
I run a message board over at MissSportsTalk that covers Mississippi high school sports and a little bit of college stuff. I’d recently moved to a new host and had things working pretty well. There was only one slight thing that I wanted differently. And Steven who owns InsiderHosting did an amazing job at getting it set up like I wanted. The few times I’ve had a question about anything, I’ve either been able to fine Steven on AIM, or the response when opening a trouble ticket has been under 30 minutes. If you are looking for a great host at an affordable price, check out InsiderHosting. Yes, you’ll be able to find cheaper deals out there, but the customer care is amazing.
Now I’ve just gotta figure out my cookie problems with the board. Sometimes the work, sometimes they don’t. Sheesh…
