Boot Camp

A week long training for new home missionaries was held at the Home Missions office during the week of October 19. Seven new church planters attended.

Pictured above (from left to right) are Danny Elliott (Quebec), Brian Williams (New York), Barry Long (Colorado), Josh Bennett (Arizona), Donnie Burke (Colorado), Jeff Goodman (Arizona), Richard Atwood (Home Missions Staff), James Kilgore (California), and Larry Powell (Home Missions Director).

The discussion was informative and encouraging. Two missionaries on the field - Howard Gwartney in Arizona and David Sexton in Virginia - talked to the guys by webcam over the internet.


Here's pizza one day at the office.

Here's supper one night at the Atwood's house. Sandy Atwood makes great lasagna. That's Emily, Lauren, and Leah Williams near the front of the picture.

Of course, we had snacks to hold us over between lunch and supper.
Besides great discussion and good fellowship over food, some of our best times was the prayer together. We had times of laughter, but also times of tears. These are all sincere men with a great burden to reach unsaved people and build a new Free Will Baptist Church. I felt honored to spend a week with them.

ALBUQUERQUE IN AUTUMN

This past weekend (October 9-11), Sandy and I went to New Mexico to visit Mark and Khristi Shores.

We spoke at a Marriage Seminar at their church on Saturday. Here's some of the group:

Sandy and Khristi are doing a little cleaning up.

On Sunday, Mark leads the singing while Khristi plays the keyboard.

The church auditorium and fellowship hall. They have worked hard to make it nice.

From the outside:

The Shores son Josh is in the middle. He is deputy with the county Sheriff's Dept. He is also an eligible bachelor. (Josh, you owe me $10 for putting that in there. ha)

This was also the week of the Balloon Fiesta. It is called the largest ballooning event on earth, the most photographed event on earth, and the largest annual international event held in the United States.

Mark, Sandy, and I got up on Saturday to see the balloons take off. Here's a flying cow:

I counted about 400 balloons in the air at one time.



We had a great weekend with the Shores and the church folks. Pray that they will be able to find a bigger building so they can continue to grow.

Oakland in October

Tim Osborn and the Faith FWB Church in Oakland, Tennessee had an Operation Saturation and participated in a town festival on the same day (October 3). Here's the church's booth.

The Faith Praise Team sings to the early morning crowd

Ken Akers (Masters Men Director) and my wife, Sandy, and I went down for an Operation Saturation. Here is a group from Grace FWB Church in Nashville with Pastor Jamie Lane. We appreciate them driving 3 hours to help.

Tim Osborn was in charge of parking and was riding around in his buggy all day. He does a good job of connecting with people. Between walking around door to door and riding around with him, I got a sunburn.

By the end of the day, Micah Osborn was getting tired. Next to her are Jordan and Emma Osborn.

The church meets in a school. Like a lot of new churches, they have to haul their chairs and equipment and set up and take down each Sunday. Here's Seth Osborn before church.

Free snacks and drinks before church.

The Praise Team leads the morning worship.

Between the two events, a lot of people in Oakland heard about the church.