Ten Things

Other than a short post about my wife’s out patient surgery almost two weeks have gone by since I’ve written anything about what’s happening with me. In order to catch up I’ve devised a list of 10 things that I would have posted about had I been writing. Here they are in chronological order:

Doing The Cross Trick
Lest you should think I’m being disrespectful to Christ or the gospel I’m referring to a very effective object lesson I demonstrated as part of the children’s sermon a couple of Sundays ago at church.

I first saw this demonstration during one of the evening gatherings at I-fest last July. The trick involves iodine, used to represent “pure sin” poured into a glass of clear water which represents our souls before sin. I used a gold plastic cross (with a chemical powder hidden in some small holes in the back of it) to stir up the water full of “pure sin.” The water becomes clear symbolizing what Christ’s work on the cross does for us if we believe in him and repent.

The children were fascinated by the demonstration. The children’s sermon was also enhanced when a 3 year old little girl named “Shelby” stood up and recited from memory John 3:16. I now know the effectiveness of this illusion and will use it at every opportunity in the future.

Local Church Burns Down
January 20, 2009 will be remembered in history as the day that the first African American President of the United States took the oath of office. But for me and the members of Pleasant View Baptist Church that day will be remembered as the day their church burned down.

Pleasant View is the church that I wrote about in my December 27, 2008 “Catching Up” post. It’s hard to believe that less than a month after I experienced such a blessed time in that building that it’s now gone. The fire was caused by a defective furnace. The church plans on rebuilding. Because of how that church blessed me last month I plan on doing something to help them with their new building. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do but I will do something.

Change In Work Schedule
My job at ShopNBC is going very well but there is going to be a change. As a matter of fact the change has already started. As of this past Monday I’ve started training to expand my job from “order capture” to customer service. This means in addition to taking orders I’ll be handling customer’s complaints. There’s no doubt that I will have little free time while at work once I get back on the phones. From what I’ve seen and heard from my coworkers already doing this job you stay pretty busy, the customers are rather rude, and it’s pretty stressful. I hope my experience with customers in the past help me handle the job better than some of my coworkers.

Also after 2 weeks of training I will start working a “permanent” 4 week schedule. I’ll write more about that once it begins.

Rapid Reading In January
In the first month of the year I’ve once again caught the reading bug. Due to a combination of free time at work and a high interest in the subjects of the books I managed to read 5 books this month. I read 2 books by my favorite preacher, John MacArthur, Steve Martin’s autobiography, and the first 2 books of the “Oz” series by L. Frank Baum.
With the change in my job I don’t anticipate keeping up that pace but I definitely have gotten back into the habit of reading again. I’m going to do my best to keep it up.

“Lost” Is Back!
It’s been nearly 9 months since the 4th season finale of my favorite prime time series aired last May. After the long absence last Wednesday ABC’s Lost, made it’s 5th season debut.
If you are not a fan of this show I can’t begin to explain the complex continuous story line of the show. Just let me tell you that it has intriguing characters, adventure, mystery, and time travel; all things that I really like in any from of entertainment.
I can’t get enough of this show. I wish a new episode aired every night of the week. There are reruns on cable every day so I guess I’ll have to be happy with that in between Wednesdays when I get to see a new episode.

Future Ventriloquism Shows
After not doing getting any immediate results from the posters I distributed advertising my ventriloquism I was a bit discouraged. But this past week I got a call from a teacher at a local elementary school. I've been booked to do a 30 minute show at a rally being held just before the kids start 2 weeks of testing this spring I'm excited and have already started planning what I'm going to be doing.

In addition to getting hired for my first paid vent job I've also scheduled my first ministry appearance of the year as well. On March 2 I'm going to do a vent show for the "Mom Time" group at my church. I've been "dropping" in on their meetings every so often for the past 3 or 4 months. They are very friendly to me and I know there are people there who like my ventriloquism so it will be an easy gig.

Magician’s Connection
For some time now one of my biggest concerns about bing a ventriloquist is being the only one I know if in the area. For months I've been praying to find a way to somehow connect with other vents or other people who perform for a living, such as magicians.

The answer to that prayer came last weekend. I received a call from a guy, named Steve, who is a part time magician. As a matter of fact his full time job is with the same company my wife works for. When he called he told me that he saw my advertising poster in a local Teacher's supply store. He said although he's a magician mostly he's interested in ventriloquism. He invited me to go with him and a couple of his friends to a meeting of local magicians down in Nashville next month.
I told him I'm interested in going. I hope this turns out to be the connection I've been looking for.

Paula Goes Back To Work
After having 5 days off because of hand surgery my wife went back to work this past Monday. She's healing well and has started getting the use of her finger back. The doctor told her that she is developing scar tissue and needs to do some physical therapy to prevent it. She starts that next week.

Ice Storm Makes A Mess
On Monday night into Tuesday morning our area experienced an ice storm. Our town was close to the ice/rain line of the storm. Everything but the roads were covered with at least 1/2 inch of ice by the time we woke up Tuesday morning.
There were limbs down off the trees all over the place. A rather large limb fell off a tree in our front yard and landed on Paula's car. The end of the branch hit the top of her driver's side door causing a couple of dents and some chipped paint. A couple inches closer and it would have taken out the driver's side window.
About 7AM Tuesday the ice turned to rain. Although there was a lot of precipitation it remained rain until early Wednesday morning. The storm left our town blanketed in about an inch of powdered snow .
The area to the west and north of us got the storm a lot worse than we did. There were widespread power outages and the schools were closed for the rest of the week. There are a lot of people living in shelters or with other family members because of having no heat. People from our church are still without power as I write this. Please pray for those effected by this storm.

James Mission Nearly Over
I've saved the best news for last. As of this week James' mission in Iraq is over. He's now just biding his time as he waits for the military to transfer and transport his unit back to the good old USA. He'll spend a couple of weeks at Fort Dix in New Jersey before he can come back to us. But as of now he should be home by February 13th. Continue to pray for him and for those young men and women who replaced his unit.

So there are my 10 things to catch you up on what's going on with me since the middle of the month. I hope it wasn't too long or boring. If nothing else this post has gotten me back into the habit of writing again. Till next time, God Bless.