Umm....I'm Sorry?

I know...it's been a long time. My deepest apologies ten times over. I have either been too busy to update, or I just didn't feel like it, so I haven't posted anything in over two weeks. I am not going to try to post something for every day, but I will try to do a little back posting to help you know what is going on. For those of you who check this blog often, I'm sorry to have disappointed you.

The FULL California Experience!

Today was, shall I say, more than eventful! We started out the morning meeting at the church at about 6:45. We worked till about noon on tearing of the roof and laying tar paper. (For all of you roofers out there, they used staples to put on the shingles...a big no-no for tear-off. It took us at least twice as long to tear off because we had to go back and pull all of the staples because they do not pull up with shingles like roofing nails do. Please...always use nails.) We, of course, took a breakfast break and ended the job for the day with lunch...after all...we are Baptists; we've gotta have food!

Mr. MacDonell in DESTRUCTO mode

Sorry, I just thought that this was a cool angle!

Marcus (as I like to call him) pulls up a stubborn staple.

Luke Estrido diligently at work.

Josh, Me, and Jake, as we near the end of the tear-off job.

The roof at the end of today's work. We ran out of tar paper. :(

After we finished, the MacDonells took Mark and I out on the boat again for a little refreshment. Since we were planning to finish the roof tomorrow morning, Mark was just going to spend the night at the MacDonell's with me so that we wouldn't have to make the trek back to their house after we did the boat trip. We had a great time again, and this time, I remembered my camera! I will try to get some of the video footage I took posted soon.

Jake was showing off some of his wake boarding skills.

When we went to return to the MacDonell's house, the road was blocked by the sheriff...indefinitely. They were trying to get their next-door neighbor to come out of the house; we think there was some domestic violence problem or something. There has been quite a bit of this kind of trouble in this area lately. Anyway, we were unable to get to the house, and we were all in our boating gear, so we took a late trip to the Golden Arches for dinner, and then headed off to the Labin's house. They just couldn't get rid of me! We had a good time of games and fellowship, and actually ended up spending the night here at the Labins. I don't think that we are planning to do the roof job tomorrow anymore, since it is midnight and all the clothes that we have are our boating clothes...not exactly roofing gear!

I guess since this is a backpost I can tell you that the man didn't end up coming out of his house until 2:30 in the morning! Good thing we decided to stay at the Labins!

Now I feel like I can say that I have had the full CA experience, policemen and all!

Preaching Opportunity!!!

We had another good day in the Lord's house today. Pastor Labins preached on "Our God is Able" in the morning service - a good challenge from Ephesians 3. I had the opportunity to preach in the evening service - praise the Lord for His enabling! He blessed the preaching of His Word in direct answer to prayer, and I was thrilled to know His presence as I preached from I Cor. 6:20. The whole thrust of the message was "Christ was willing to pay the price for you. Are you willing to pay the price for Him?" After the service and much fellowship, I headed off to spend the night with the MacDonell family. By the way, we decided during our extensive fellowship time (till about 10:30 P.M.) that we would meet at the church at 6:45 the tomorrow morning to start the roof job on the modulars. The MacDonell's live about 30 minutes away, so there is just enough time for a short nap before it will be time to be up-and-at-em again!

Camp & Carpet Laying

Spent Monday to Saturday morning of this week at CastlePoint (in Lucerne, CA) for teen camp. I spent most of my day laying carpet in some of the rooms that they are remodelling...they definately needed it! God enabled in laying the carpet, especially as there were some rooms where I had to piece together several smaller pieces of carpet to get enough for one room. I was able to lay carpet in five rooms.

There were 70-80 campers this week, with 9 of them being from BBC. Mike Shrock was preaching two times a day, and God did a work among many of the young people. One of the highlights of my week occured on Tuesday night, when I was able to lead a young man by the name of Anthony to Lord. Wednesday night I got to play for Mike Shrock again, which was, of course, quite fun!

The week was very tiring, but also very rewarding, and I am praying that the work that the Lord did in the hearts of several of our young people will be a lasting work which will result in more fruit for eternity in their lives.

Today Brother Shrock preached in all of the services, and I had the opportunity to accompany him as he played his trumpet. That was really fun! A large group of us from the church went out to lunch together with the Shrocks. Then I went to Eskaton, an assisted living facility, to help with service, where I played piano and preached. I preached on Psalm 23, giving the gospel to the unsaved and encouragement to believers. The Lord gave utterance. One man, by the name of Jim, who we went to visit in his room afterwards, was weeping as we sang a hymn with him. I don't know if he is saved, but the old hymns were so precious to him. This experience was a definite rebuke to me. How much I take for granted!


At 5:00 I got to practice baptizing, which was quite the experience! It was a very helpful time. I also got a group of men in the church together to sing a special in the evening service. It was not the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, but it was a great encouragment to see a group of men willing to serve, even in an area that they knew they were weak in.

Saturday

Today we started out with a men's prayer breakfast, which ended up going quite long. (Praise the Lord!) After this we went to pick up Mike Shrock and his wife, Lori, from the airport. Brother Shock will be preaching at church tomorrow, and all week at teen camp at Castlepoint. On our way back from the airport we stopped by the train museum in Sac. It was a good museum, and it was funny to see Brother Shrock climb around on the trains.

I got a few nice shots as we drove through Sac.

Work...then Fun!

Spent all morning and part of the afternoon moving a woodpile from one section of the yard to another - it is definitely in a better location now. Mr. MacDonell, Jake, and Josh came over to help us, as we were also turning the lawn (or what was supposed to be lawn) over.

We even found a little tarantula while we were working.

Mark did some of his bike tricks after we did our work. I got some of them on video.




After we finished the jobs, the MacDonells took Mark and I out to go wakeboarding on their boat. That was A LOT of fun! Unfortunately, I left my camera in the truck so I didn't get any pictures of the event, but I got a few of the lake afterwards. It was quite refreshing!