Monday, January 12, 2009

God has blessed and things are going great!



Wow! I can say it backwards! Wow!
What a day yesterday at church! We had a lot of visitors yesterday at church and a lot of returning families that have not joined yet. We had some come down during both services in prayer for different needs and that is always encouraging to see people responding to the Holy Spirit's movement in their lives.

One of the things that was on everyone's mind was the fact that Sunday evening was business meeting and the church was going to elect deacons, something they have not been able to do since 1979.

There was an attempt to elect deacons a few years ago, but it turned into a mess and the church wisely waited until another time.

To be honest, I had a good feeling about the meeting, but was still a little nervous about how the process would take place.

We had been praying for months, I had preached the appropriate sermons. I was VERY plain and to the point in all of my messages concerning the qualifications of a Deacon.

Yesterday morning, the day of the business meeting, Karen gets up and tells me that she had a dream that we had elected deacons by secret ballot on pieces of magazines and that after the vote was counted, we had a 12 year-old kid from across town and Tyler Perry as our new deacons (Tyler Perry is a black comedian a.k.a. "Madea")! Wow! What a dream!

The church had voted to add four men to our deacon roll and Sunday evening, after all the nominations, (we had eight, but four removed their names) we had four very qualified men and the church voted to accept these men and I was just thanking God for a wonderful business meeting!

So far in my ministry at Promise Land, all of our business meeting have been wonderful and all have brought honor and glory to God. The main thing we have discussed in our business meetings is our building efforts and our mission efforts and I am still thanking God!

Always moving forward for the cause of Christ!

Michael

Friday, January 2, 2009

A Look Forward in Time in 2009 !!

These are not resolutions, but probable hopes and probable mishaps:

1. I will lose 25 pounds, but probably will find it again.

2. I will get more gray hair and my Bro-in-laws will get less hair.

3. I will write my congressman, because my checking account needs a bail-out.

4. I will be too busy this Spring (going to the Philippines and preaching revivals) and I will use it as an excuse to not finish my thesis.

5. I will enjoy more time fishing than I did last year (maybe this is the reason I will not finish my thesis)!

6. President Obama will find out that the job is harder than he thought.

7. Our nation will slide even closer to Socialism, but if we are going to spread the wealth around, can everyone get a new Chevy truck?

8. Did I mention that my checkbook needs a bail-out?!

9. That Jesus will come back in 2009, of course that would mean that Jesus is a "Pre-triber" and we know that is not the case!

10. On a serious note, I do know that Jesus is coming again and I don't care when it is, but the sooner the better.

Have a Happy New Year and may God Bless You and Your Family!

Guadalupe Trip




Bro. Adrian Neal invited me to go hiking with him in the Guadalupe National Park in West Texas earlier this month. I started walking and trying to get in a little better shape because to hike to the top of Texas, consisted of a nine mile stroll with a 3000 foot elevation climb.


I told Adrian that I would love climb 300 sets of stairs over rough terrain. LOL


We made the 13 hour drive from Huntington TX to Guadalupe NP Monday and started strolling up the mountain at 8am Tuesday morning.


We had to go around one mountain just to get to the mountain we wanted to conquer. It was not long until I could tell I was not at 189 ft elevation that was at the Promise Land, but thank the Lord, it was not too bad.


Every time one of us would start sucking eggs and blowing like a horse running the Kentucky Derby, one of us would say, "This looks like a great place for a picture." Which of course, was an excuse to catch our breath.


We made it to the top of our casual walk through the wilderness in about 4 hours. We reached the summit marker about 12:20pm.


Underneath the summit marker was an Army lock box which contained the summit register. Adrian and I both signed the register and put our comments about our journey.


One of the highlights of the hike was encountering 4 Bighorn Sheep. One was fairly mature with horns that almost made a complete circle.


We made it back to camp in about three hours, fairly tired and a little hungry. After supper we drove around the park and ran into another female Mule deer (Adrian ran into one earlier that day).


The stay at the campgrounds was another story, we had a popup camper, but with 30mph winds and 35 degree nights we were a little cold in the mornings. We had a generator and a heater, but the camp had a rule that generators could not be run from 8pm to 8am. I broke this one every morning, because I had to have my coffee and all we had was an electric coffee pot!


Wednesday morning we headed out for Carlsbad Caverns and had an adventurous morning hiking through the largest caverns in North America. They were very impressive.


Looking forward to our next hike!