Wisdom?

Another week has flown by. Hope yours was filled with blessings and surprises. We finally got some much needed rain and cooler temperatures in this part of country. Is the weather good in your town?

We started off last Saturday by preparing breakfast in our new kitchen. It was awesome. Joey grilled the bacon on our new stove, John W cooked the pancakes, James cut up the oranges. It may be just me, but I thought everything tasted a little better coming from our new kitchen! We were preparing breakfast  for a Sunday school group from Grace. Lots of folks showed up and worked hard all morning long. The group divided into two and some cleaned all the pots and pans and appliances in the kitchen. The other group worked across the street and continued the demolition of the Bright House II. By noon, they had filled up the second dumpster! Amazing group of people. Thanks to John Williams for making it all happen.

Mr Scott drove us around to make our visits. We first drove over to the JJ house and found Dave and his crew working, so we stopped and visited. We then made our way to Turner. He is doing fine. Richard is back and had a story for us as usual. Dale has moved back into the woods. Mr Matt helped Dale secure the tarps to keep out some of the rain. We gave him a few items to keep him going. We drove by Smokey's old camp and there was no one there. We finished our visits by checking in on Smokey at his new apartment.

Monday had been a day of rain. Joey showed up in the afternoon preparing for the arrival of the kids. I said to Joey, they won't come. Guess who showed up! No one had a rain coat or umbrella, they were wet, but they came! They came Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. Wednesday was a beautiful day, so games were played outside. Ms Abbie helped out by turning the jump rope for the kids. Come by and join in on the fun. Don't forget BCM folks will be at the center Monday evening, come by and meet them all.

Tuesday afternoon, Joey and I went by to see one of our long time friends, Curtis. Curtis has been around for many years, going with us on our Saturday visits, helping us cook breakfasts, coming by on Thursdays. Unfortunately, Curtis has cancer, and we found out, the hospital has released him and told him to go home because there is nothing more they can do for him. Tuesday was Curtis' birthday, so Joey and I took Curtis to the grocery store to get his favorite flavor of ice cream, strawberry and bought him some fried fish they had just cooked up. It is sad, to see this bright eyed young man, always had a smile, coming to the end of his life, keep him in your prayers.

Tuesday evening, we had to put more chairs in our circle for our mens Bible fellowship. What a blessing to have such a diverse group of men, coming together to talk about God and what He means in their lives. Mr Matt read from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1 starting in verse 18, talking about wisdom. We talked about there are two kinds of wisdom, wisdom of the world and spiritual wisdom. A question was asked, would you rather have youth or wisdom?

Thursday started off with a challenge, but as always God provides. About an hour before chapel, our piano man called and said something came up and he was not going to be able to play. I began to freak out because the piano man was to play a couple of hymns for Brother Bob. About 30 minutes later, as I was wondering what we were going to do, guess who walks in? Gus! He drove all the way from Longview, to play and sing if needed! I said thank you God! I told Brother Bob, Gus would sing a couple of songs and then he would have to lead us in the singing of his hymns because Gus did not know the songs. Well I was wrong as usual and God was right all the time! The second song Gus sang was one of the songs Brother Bob wanted to sing. So we all got to sing the song and have Gus play for us, isn't it amazing how God works!

What a treat we had in hearing the Word from one of God's mightiest players. Beth's dad, 94 years old, preaching for over 60 years, has not lost a beat. What passion Brother Bob has for the Lord as he talked about the Holy Spirit, forgiveness and his Father. Beth, please tell your dad how much we appreciated his time with us and if he ever wants to come back to let us know. Next week, Pastor Eddie and his wife from New Star Baptist church will be leading worship, come and hear what God is up to.

Ms Judy prepared a feast for our evening meal, serving over 125 folks. Ms Lisa and Momma T, helped out Ms Abbie in the food pantry to learn about our challenges there. New friends of Noel joined us and helped serve and clean up.

Be sure to stop in the hallway of the center as you make your way into the fellowship hall. Ms Lisa has gone above and beyond in putting together all our pictures from years past. You forget or at least I do, where we have come from, our humble beginnings, our friends, our children who have grown up. Wow, unbelievable, humbling to see these smiles displayed in such a unique way. Thank you so much Ms Lisa for all your hard work.

Got a phone call from one of the pastors at Grace, Warren Clifton. He is organizing a motorcycle ride for a group of folks this Saturday. They will be starting at Grace and their first stop is Common Ground. Joey and Momma T will be around to show them what God is doing in our part of the world. Please keep an eye out for Ms Abbie, she may jump on the back of one of the Harley's and we may never see her again!

As you all saw, the JJ house is coming along nicely. With the rain we had, the build was stopped for awhile, but now they have jumped up the pace and we now have a roof on the house. Very exciting to seeing it all come together. Great job Dr Phil.

Prayer concerns, Momma T's dad. Running tests to determine what is going on with him. God's direction for our challenges on Thursday evenings. Continue to lift up William and his challenges. All our outdoor friends.

Been thinking about the word wisdom and our discussions on Tuesday evening. Worldly wisdom and spiritual wisdom. One leads to death, one leads to life. Wisdom is something you have to work at, especially spiritual wisdom. We think if we show up on Sunday for an hour after 45 years of doing the same thing we will be wise in our spiritual walk. But we talked about, you have to work at obtaining spiritual wisdom. You need to pray, you need to read the Word, you need to listen, every day, every hour to develop a relationship with Jesus allowing us to become wise in God's Kingdom. Don't you find yourself, as you do this over the years, a peace within you, a joy not thought possible, a longing for a closeness with God, wanting to share this new found life with others. As Brother Bob said so eloquently in chapel, we serve others not because we are suppose to but because we want to. We serve, because of God's lvoe for us is so unimaginable, we can't help ourselves but to lvoe others.

Hope this week, you grow in your spiritual wisdom. Hope you find time to read the Word, to meditate on it, to listen to the quiet voice telling you, I lvoe you and there's not a thing you can do about it! To seek out those who do not yet know this lvoe and show them there is another way, a better way, a way that will bring life, eternal life.

Have a great weekend and a great week. Amen.