...too small a thing...

Looking to the Future

It has been several days since I have written because I have been in a conference at Burnt Hickory Baptist with Missionaries from the Moskito People of Nicaragua. We also had IMB personnel there to help all of us who have been working the eastern area of Nicaragua and Honduras the last 10 years a new vision and strategy. The work has been blessed of God and the Moskito Indians have experienced an indigenous church  planting movement that continues. The new strategy is for the churches that have been involved to begin to take a more involved role by becoming focused on one particular area of the work where they are already familiar and relationships are established. The IMB calls this SC (strategy coordinator) churches, It is a new concept somewhat but is brilliant in so many ways. I will not go into the many particulars of the  plans but let this idea sink in to your head as it  is a key  to this strategy. (I think some may forget this from time to time.)

The International Mission Board does not send missionaries ---Churches Do.   

The IMB is an equipper and trainer and a facilitator of missions. Missionaries come from the people who are in the church so keep on equipping IMB, give every new method and every opportunity and every available resource to the people who are the senders of the missionaries --The Churches. 

The  photo is special  as  Dan and Amanda Titus and their family are recognized for their work for two years in Nicaragua. Dan worked in the Mining area of Eastern Nicaragua and has been instrumental in opening up the work with the Mayagna People a small people group of about 15,000 indigenous people who live in the rain forest and have little contact with the modern world. Dan and his family will continue to be involved in the work in Nicaragua and under this new strategy will likely be key leaders to help churches in taking on more direct roles of leadership. Dan

No Grass Growing Under Their Feet

Brian Davis and Bethany Haegle are on the move in Europe. Pray for then as they are supervising four teams of freshmen college students on mission in four different countries. IMPACT 360 is an amazing ministry for young people to solidify their worldview in Jesus Christ, and part of doing that is the month long mission trip which the students are a part of in eastern Europe. I am so proud of my son for the leadership I see and him and his passion for missions. The picture is from 2005 on a mission trip to Rosita, NIcaragua. Brian also was a part of a Mission Team Inc trip to Lesotho, Africa last year. He looks lost in thought, but pray he does not get lost or left over the next few weeks. I have attached a copy of his email which explains a whole lot better than I can what he will be attempting to do over the next several weeks.

The following is his email to me dated January 21.......

Spirtual Remodeling

God has blessed Kathy and me with a beautiful home. If you have been reading this blog, I have written a couple of articles about all the work I have been doing in the middle of a very busy time  of work.  I wrote  about Remodeling   Rampage a week or two ago and even when it all started before Christmas. Well, add another coming chapter because yesterday as I took a shower the bottom of my cultured marble shower cracked all the way across. Now I am faced with tearing out all of our master bathroom (and I do mean tearing out) to fix this. The tub and shower have to be completely torn out just to get the shower pan out. Here is the big one. We have house guest coming next Thursday for 3 nights for a mission conference and then a couple of days after that we have a missionary family of 4 from Africa coming to stay for a week. I am very thankful......

Mission Team Inc Celebration Banquet

The first annual Mission Team Inc Celebration Banquet will be at 7:00 PM on February 1, 2008 at Burnt Hickory Baptist Church in the Radiate Auditorium upstairs. If you have not made reservation but would like to attend, please call Scotty at 404.403.9311 or send you can email him at scotty@missionteaminc.com

We will have barbecue and a short program. Highlights of the year and what we will be doing in the future will be part of this night's activities. There will be a good time of fellowship and fun as we celebrate the Mission work of MTI. Y'all come and bring a  friend with you!

My Crazy Family

 What a great time we had at Christmas this is the Family Photo In Crazy Mode!

I Know they look crazy because they are.      But I love them and proud to be a Davis

Remodeling Rampage

I feel a little like this guy. The Lord is doing great things and I am busy in the middle of it fixing stuff. I wrote about the bathroom downstairs back in December.  It is almost done.  I still have to  run  the baseboards and paint them and do a little sheetrock repair. Then clean it all up and I will be good to go. But we have planned for months to paint Brittany's room so now we have her moved out and are in the middle of painting it. So Praise the Lord I always do like to be busy and the days right now are really busy. All this and here are a few more tidbits that need attention:

(Copyright Gospel Communications International, Inc - www.reverendfun.com)

Long Ride for a Steak

Last night was kind of crazy for Kathy, Brittany and me. We went an a quick road trip to Hamilton Georgia to eat supper at Hunter's Pub. This redneck looking place seemed the most unlikely spot on the planet to make us get in the car and drive 100+ miles just to eat supper. And it really was not the reason for the ride.

Our son Brian works for IMPACT 360 which is sponsored by Chick-fil-A and is a tremendous ministry for young first year college students. Brian will be leaving for Eastern Europe for a month on Friday. We really wanted to see him and pray for him before he left. So here is the real reason for the insanity to drive two hours, eat supper and turn around and drive back home. We had a great supper with Brian and Bethany Haegel who does the same job Brian does only with the ladies.

These two young people will have a huge responsibility as they try to keep up with 13 young people doing ministry in 4 countries in Eastern Europe for the next month. I will keep you posted and update their progress over the next few weeks for you here. You  can read for yourself at the IMPACT-360 Blog page Pray for them as they go tell the good news of the Gospel.

But I gotta tell you - this Hunters Pub place was great. Look out Ruth's Chris - these guys really have something going even if I did get my tea in a plastic cup. The steak was out of the world.

Happy Anniversary

My wonderful Parents have been married 56 years today. What a blessing! They love each other, take care of each other, and worship God with each other. They are a great example of what to do in marriage and I am so proud of them.

Rush vs Huckabee

                                                                                                                                                                           Two men.

Both of these men are conservative by what I read and see. But here is the rub. Rush Limbaugh I have been listening to for a while. I like his brash style and listen to hear him bash the liberal folks and bring out stuff that I know is going on in Washington. Huckabee is new to the national scene. I started back in late October looking at his web site. I wrote a blog on Huckabee on November 25 and titled it It will Be Interesting. Now here we are in January and Rush is not really anti Huckabee but he just says Huckabee is not a conservative. Rush says he is offended that people are comparing Huckabee to Regan.

Well all this in mind I did a little digging this morning .... 

What is the The Best thing to do First

How did you bring in the new year? My first moments of 2008 were doing something I love but might seem strange to some. I was walking an apartment where we were approaching a unit that had a domestic fight going on inside. Of course I was doing a ride along as a chaplain with a very good officer and friend.  So I spent the first 7 hours of 2008 trying to help where we could and seeing a few folks who celebrated with too much alcohol get home or if they were dumb as a brick and trying to drive head to the jail to sober up. Sadly I saw several that will likely not remember the first hours of 2008. Chaplain Ministry I do love and God continues to bless me as I try to be salt in light in the world of blue.

2008 has just started and I would like to do a lot of things this year. I can only do one thing first then I have to start prioritizing and deciding what gets done next. So how do I decide what to do first? How do you decide? Should we not have a strategy to get stuff done. Sometimes it is stuff we really do not want to do. My first 7 hours were in a police car doing ministry. My next 3 were sleeping as I have to do some of that. Then I spent about six hours on someting I really am not excited about. To follow up from a couple of weeks ago as I blogged about a Christmas Catastrophe on Dec 16th about the sewage backup and the flood in the basement. This problem has become a priority now for 2008.  I had ripped out the some of the carpet and deodorized what it left. I had used baking soda and cleaned carpet. Now to start the new year I have scraped up the old vinyl floor in the bathroom that was a major job. I had to  pull out the cabinets the sink and the toliet. Now I am ready to put in a new floor. This needs to be done as I have a mess.

So deciding what to do became a matter of cleaning up the mess. As I thought about this what other messes do I have I need to clean up. Well I will not list them here but let it be known I do have other messy things in my life I would love to clean up. The first of the year is always a good time to start cleaning them up. I will give you one. I have done a miserable job over the last year or so in keeping up with my millage for the Ministry but I am determined to do better this year so I am putting this first. I am starting over with reading the scripture through this year so Jan 1 is the time to start.

I hope you are prioritizing the stuff in your life that is important. Happy new year. I wonder if should have said that first?