Don’t be Late

Ministry Update

We had such an exciting close to this meeting last night! The meeting was destined from the beginning to be a meeting of firsts for my ministry. It was my first two week meeting, though it had been originally planned as just one week. Last night, I preached a message about Levi from Mark 2:14, finishing not long after 8:00. At 8, several more visitors began pouring in as I was preaching. When my message was done, I began to pray about what to do. It was quickly obvious to me, the pastor, and the men of the church that I needed to preach another message right then. I had been struggling between two messages, unsure of which one the Lord wanted me to preach that night. In the end, I preached them both. As far as we know, the visitors were late because of work reasons, but the Spirit of God seemed to make it plain that I needed to preach a second time in that service. It seemed that it was during the second message that many broke. At the invitation, the altar was flooded with people broken over their sin and getting right with God. One came and received assurance of her salvation after her raising her hand for prayer. After a lengthy invitation and testimony service, we finally dismissed the meeting to the fellowship hall for yet another dessert fellowship. The service had lasted 2 ½ hours. There were some in the church that wanted to go another week.

While next week is a week off, it will still afford its opportunities. I am to preach for Bro. Scott Townley in Lighthouse Baptist Church all day tomorrow, and on Friday I am to preach a youth rally for Bro. Mark Thrift in Humble, TX. We thank all of you for your prayers and we invite you to rejoice with us in the blessing of God upon this last meeting.

Family Update

We had a great close to our meeting last night. It was so exciting to see the Lord working in hearts and to see specific answers to prayer! The Spirit of God was touching hearts and Christians were broken over their sin. We closed the meeting, but the Lord has just begun a tremendous work of revival in this church. What a blessing! As exciting as it has been, I must say that I am thoroughly worn out, and ready for a few days of rest! Thanks to all of you who have prayed for this meeting – it truly has been great!

Yesterday, Paul and I had the rare opportunity to go on a date together. The pastor’s wife kept the children and we took off for the afternoon. We ate lunch together and went to the mall, not really to shop, but just to spend time together. After that, we stopped at a piano store. You can imagine the time we had there, drooling all over the beautiful instruments. We played for a while on two Yamaha grands that were side by side, and, just out of curiosity, asked the salesman how much they cost. The one I was playing was in the neighborhood of $40,000, and the one Paul was on was around $50,000! After we left, we laughed about the fact that one of the pianos was worth more than our truck, and the other was worth more than our trailer! I don’t know if that kind of money has ever sounded so good before! Ha! It certainly was fun to “exercise” our talents on such fine instruments!

I have done just a bit of scrapbooking this week, and hopefully, I will get more done next week since we don’t have services every night. Today, I am catching up on laundry and housework, and just letting the kids run outside. They are having a great time out in the clear sunshine and warm weather. I am not sure if I am looking forward to going back to the cold areas of the country – I am getting used to this “summer weather.” Seriously, we do look forward to getting back to NC and seeing all of our church family and friends.

We will be here in Houston until Friday, when Paul will be preaching a youth rally, and then we will head to Heber Springs, AR for Sunday services. After that, we will be on our way to King’s Mountain, NC! Please pray that the Lord will give us safety on the roads, and economy of time while traveling.

Sarah

For three weeks solid, we have been in meetings where we ate with the pastor and his family every day for at least two meals each day. Suffice it to say, that after this eating schedule, plus a plethora of dessert fellowships after the services, we have become severe victims of Southern hospitality. Please be careful about complimenting us when we return. For example, if one of you says, “My, the Lord has really blessed you and the family,” you might get a glare in return: your comment might be construed as a fat joke. There have been times during the past three weeks that we have longingly looked toward Ethiopia as a possible mission trip opportunity, but we don’t have quite enough frequent flyer miles to get there economically. We are considering the possibility of rowing across the Atlantic in order to lose some of the weight that we have gained. If any of you have any rafts that you could donate for the cause, please let us know. In spite of our troubles, I have vetoed the option of girdles. I am afraid that we just could not preach or sing in them – can’t breathe. While Sarah is considering the options of a duct tape mouthpiece, I personally have begun to implement an exercise program that shakes the trailer until the family is seasick and makes the Green Berets look like Cub Scouts. Sarah’s plan for the family’s sustenance calls for nothing that cannot be picked up with chopsticks this week. Next week, we will eat nothing larger than what will fit through a coffee stir stick. A report on the results of this program will be forthcoming.

Sarah has done a great work this week. In all, she has done 12 specials (vocal solos) and 14 offertories in two weeks time.

Paul