Operation Christmas Child 2010

I'm sitting at my desk late Sunday night (early Monday morning?) after what has been a very satisfying day. We finished our stewardship series of messages this morning in worship at both churches. I followed that up with a short nap with my ten month old foster son and then went on to the Quinton church to begin setting up for our Operation Christmas Child shoe box packing party. I was ecstatic to find that a lady from the Hancock's Bridge church had spent the early part of the afternoon bringing all the supplies down from the sanctuary and organizing everything. This made set-up very easy and saved me a lot of time (Thanks Kathy!). At 6PM folks started showing up and packing boxes. In 2007 we packed 89 shoe boxes - a great number for our first time. The following year we upped the ante to 139 boxes - amazing! Last year we were off a bit with only 96 boxes, but we've hit our stride again this year with 134! It warms my heart to the core to see so many people from these two communities respond to a ministry that is as wholistic as OCC. You see, every kid who receives a shoe box gift also gets the Gospel story in his or her native language. Evangelism and service working together - just like it ought to be. Anyway, big thanks go out from me to all the Quinton youth members and all the adults and children who came out to pack shoe boxes tonight. Your service is a blessing and will continue to bless people through these gifts for months and years to come. Thanks also to everyone who donated shoe boxes and items to pack in the boxes. Check out the Hancock's Bridge or Quinton church facebook pages for pictures from tonight's packing party. I personally feel blessed to be called your pastor today.

Oh yeah, and the Eagles beat the Giants to take first place in the NFC East. Life is good today.

Been a little busy

OK, it's done... for now.

I've been really busy the last few months with some serious paperwork. Finally turned everything in on the 1st and spent the last couple weeks just deflating. The next big step in that process is a couple days of interviews in March so keep me in your prayers for that.

Right now I'm starting to gear up for Advent and Christmas, preparing for church conference, planning the Operation Christmas Child shoe box packing party and doing a little pleasure reading. If you happen to like suspense/action stories, Ted Dekker is one of my recommendations. He writes Christian fiction and reminds me a lot of Dean Koontz. Right now I'm in the middle of ADAM by Dekker and it's very good.

I have seen a couple of movies over the summer and into the fall and I'll try to blog a little about them if I get a chance in the next couple of weeks.