Mood:  a-ok

Tomorrow's it! It's the first day of the New Thru 30 Challenge! Are you ready. Some of you may have already started. Really, if you have been using the plan, you know that it officially started yesterday, but the first day of reading is tomorrow. But, I decided to get a head start, and I read the first day today so I could have a full day to think and pray about it before I blog about it.

Now comes the "Shhhh! Don't tell Angelfire" part. I've begun a new blog! In fact, the above picture is the header for my new blog. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but it's started. Angelfire has been great to me, and I probably will never completely leave it, but I have been having some technical problems with it lately. If you have noticed, I haven't added any links on the left for quite a while. That's because for some reason the blog platform won't let me. The place where I go to add the links etc. is all messed up. I don't know if it is Angelfire's fault or my fault, but even after contact with Angelfire, it still isn't working. That's one of the biggest reasons for starting the new blog. It isn't all the way up yet, but I am going to start out by posting my thoughts from New Thru 30 on it. We'll see where it goes from there. I would love for you to visit me over there as well. The address is http://familiesagain.blogspot.com/ . Please come over and visit! At least for a little while, I will be posting a link here every time I post something new there (did that just make since?). For right now, unless I say otherwise, this will be my main blog and I will point you over there when I post something new. When you visit the new blog, you'll see that I should have posted a "Pardon Our Dust" sign because it is still "in the works", but thanks ahead of time for visiting and being faithful readers.

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Mood:  chillin'

One of my New Year's resolutions was to set aside one blog day a week to tell you about our ministry at Good News Ministries and about the ministry of the mission that we are under BCM International. I am planning for Sundays to be that day. I have already shared three short videos about BCM's core ministries, but today I wanted to be a little more focused as to one thing that BCM does.

Although BCM is a small mission compared to some, it does a tremendous work with disaster relief and special projects. About three years ago, Christmas day 2007 to be exact, Hindu radicals destroyed many Christian churches and the homes of many Christians in Orrissa, India. As you will see in the following video, the Christian's there continue to be persecuted. This video will tell you a little about what BCM is doing to help the persecuted Christians there.

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Mood:  mischievious

The Redhead Riter and her husband have been so faithful in posting something for my Men's Monday Meme, that I wanted to repay her by posting on her meme. Besides, hers is fun. It's called Tell the Truth Thursday (OK! I know! I'm a couple days late!). She asks a question, and you have to tell the truth no matter what - even if it's a ticklish subject. Well, this one is easy for me, because I ALWAYS tell the truth! I would never lie about anything, even if it was a "ticklish" subject. Of course, if it were too ticklish, I just wouldn't answer it for that week !

This weeks is about the "L" word...Lying! The question is: 

What is the biggest lie you ever told your parents?

Hmmm. The biggest lie that ever told my parents? That's a toughy. I really didn't lie a whole lot when I was young. Honest! If it were something I didn't want to tell my parents, I usually didn't lie. I just didn't tell them the whole truth. So my sin was more the sin of omission. 

I remember one time my cousin had come to visit. We totally destroyed my room. When our parents said it was time to clean up, we cleaned up. The floor was perfectly clean. We stuffed everything under the bed and in the closet! It didn't work. They figured it out and we got into even worse trouble. 

That's the type of dishonesty I got into. Nothing spectacular. I was the baby of the family. And when I say baby! I mean BABY! My sister is 15 years older than I am and my brother was 10 years older than me. My sister got married when I was six years old, so I hardly remember a time without my brother-in-law being around. It was like I had two sets of parents and an older brother who was a fantastic older brother. I was truly spoiled. I didn't have to lie. I got almost whatever I wanted and got away with murder!

Really, although I was probably spoiled more than other kids, my parents did set boundaries and raised me to be basically honest and truthful. Except, of course, for those little sins of omission. There were, however, other areas in my life where I wasn't so angelic (I know, you can hardly believe it). Thankfully I don't have to answer about any of those subjects. Let's just hope that The Redhead Riter doesn't post any questions about those in the near future. I may have to have a chat with Redhead. Maybe drop her a few hints on questions for the future. Safe questions!

Please stop on over to The Redhead Riters blog. She does an excellent job. Just click here, on her "Tell the Truth Thursday" banner, or on any one of the hi-lighted links above. If you have a blog, you should consider participating. It really is a lot of fun. Honestly! Would I lie to you? 

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Mood:  a-ok

I posted about Mom a few days ago. She did get a little better. There were some days that she did know me, then some days that she wasn't sure. There were even some odd days. Like today when we went in to say goodbye. She waved as we walked in as if she knew who we were. After we got done saying our hellos and giving our hugs, she even asked if we were on our way home. She even made the statement that the boys were getting so big. Later, though, she began to stare at Sarah so Sarah asked if she knew who she was. Mom said "No". Then I asked if she knew who I was. Again she said "No". We patiently explained who we were and when I said I was Timmy her youngest son, she said "I know you" then we asked "do you remember where we live?" To which she said "Tennessee!" So, sometimes she is very lucid and other times she is very forgetful. And those times can come and go within minutes. It is still hard, but encouraging that she does know us at times.

We finally got on the road about 1:30 pm during a snow shower. Our travels so far have been fairly uneventful except for us loading the topper to heavy on one side. It kept making us feel like we were going to tip over so we made a stop to repack the topper more evenly. The late start meant only making it to just outside of Washington DC. We are staying at a very nice Holiday Inn with wonderful service. They even gave us free breakfasts when they found out that it was our first time staying there. The wonderful heated pool was the icing on the cake. 

Must get to bed though, Another long day tomorrow. We are going to try to make it as far as Grandma's house outside of Knoxville. It should take us about 8 hours or so. I'm sure there will be more adventures to tell you about in my next post!

On the road again. I just can't wait to get on the road again.

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Mood:  happy

Recently my friend Kees sent me a video of Steven Van Kranenburg, a Christian worship leader, meeting his sponsored child for the first time. It is a very touching video that I think exemplifies what Compassion International is all about. Here it is:

I also wanted to give you an update on Mwende Mumbe, our Christmas Child. As of the writing of this post, we still have not found a sponsor for her, but Compassion has given us until the end of January to find a sponsor before our Christmas Child's portfolio goes back into the hands of Compassion International to continue to try to find a sponsor. Although I know that God has a specific sponsor for Mwende, and that she will be sponsored in His timing, nothing would thrill me more than to be the one to find the sponsor for her. Would you please continue to pray for Mwende? Pray even for your possible role in sponsoring Mwende or another child. Remember, I have several copies of her portfolio that I could send to you if you request it. Sending the portfolio would not obligate you to sponsor her, it would just give you more information about her so that you can pray more specifically. Here is the link to my previous post about Mwende. If you feel that God is leading you to perhaps sponsor her, or if you would like for me to send you the portfolio, please leave me a comment below or you can email me at tink38570@yahoo.com. Thanks for your continued prayers.

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