Visitors from India

Thursday, April 27, dear Christian friends from India paid a visit to Winona, Mississippi. Two of the Gootam brothers, their respective wives and two young ones joined sister Betty Choate as well as Martha and me for supper at our local Mexican restaurant. The food was good—as always—but the fellowship was even better and sweeter.

Otherwise this week, Martha Lynn and I labored tirelessly, though exhausted and aching, to interweave some of her household belongings from her abode in Ocala, Florida into our Winona residence. Who would have thought that an 8×10 trailer and a van load of miscellaneous items could have created a warehouse out of multiple rooms while trying to sort it all out? We can move through the home once more!

Tonight (Saturday), we are in a motel room in Tupelo, Mississippi. Tomorrow, Lord willing, we will worship with the Bear Creek, Alabama Church of Christ in the morning. Tuesday and Wednesday, we expect to assemble with other missionaries to India at the Hamilton, Alabama Church of Christ, and on Thursday and Friday we plan to commune with other missionaries to various sites abroad who will be gathering for the annual World Evangelism Missionary Retreat. This year, it will convene in the Florence, Alabama area.

In the meantime, I’m still working out some kinks in volume 92 of The Voice of Truth International with printers in India. Yes, the April issue of Gospel Gazette Online is still a no show, but I have good intentions. Finally, I skimmed through months of newspapers, etc. that had piled up while we were out of town. Goodnight world; it’s time for me to get a little shuteye.

Over the Past Several Days

It has been a while since my last blog entry; several days have passed between then and now. Over the past several days, Martha and I made our way back to Winona, Mississippi from Ocala, Florida. We discovered that pulling an 8×10 trailer packed to the utmost and loading the van from window to window and from floor to ceiling exacts a terrible toll on the Pacifica’s gas mileage—dropping to as low as 15 mpg from the usual of up to 28 mpg!

Friday, April 21, we drove into the driveway of Sadie and Therman Hodge of Meridian, Mississippi around 9 p.m. Saturday was a pleasant repose during which we visited with these dear Christian friends. Sunday morning, I spoke during Bible class and a.m. worship for the Union, Mississippi Church of Christ. After lunch with several of the members at the local hospital cafeteria, Martha Lynn and I proceeded to Winona, arriving at our residence at about 3 p.m. Not long after disconnecting the trailer from the car, we headed to the West President Church of Christ in Greenwood, Mississippi for evening worship, and as it turned out, to their Gospel meeting already in progress.

Monday, Martha and I proceeded to the office, whereupon we canvassed weeks’ worth of mail and prepared to send off the Rushmore Newsletter. The newsletter went out later in the morning.

We devoted ourselves on Tuesday and Wednesday to trying to put our house in order, and we’re not done yet! One bedroom and the living room look like warehouse space with everything stacked therein, and the laundry room is impassible! Two bedrooms, the den and the kitchen have been tamed, with the culling of a daybed, a full size bed and miscellaneous smaller items. Once more we visited the West President congregation to attend its Gospel meeting in lieu of midweek Bible class.

Maybe Thursday we will be able to complete the basic and fundamental straightening and cleaning of our Winona home. Being absent for months as well as construction mess from repairs while we were gone have added to the task at hand.

Looking ahead, Sunday coming, we will be with the Bear Creek, Alabama Church of Christ in the morning. Tuesday and Wednesday, if our Lord wills, Martha and I will attend the annual India Workshop, this year hosted in Hamilton, Alabama. Wednesday night, we will travel to Florence, Alabama for the annual World Evangelism Missionary Retreat to be conducted on Thursday and Friday. This year, these two events overlap each other.

Gospel Gazette Online is running late, still; the April edition is not complete yet. Our calendar is slowly filling up with spotty appointments through October 20. The busyness with which we have shrouded our lives can get a little hectic, sometimes frustrating and often stressful. The yard is crying for attention, which I cannot give it right now—more pressure. Some sprigs are a foot high, and grass has grown through the carpet of pine needles to form a mesh blanket across the lawn. The 20 or so mature pines have contributed branches and pinecones as well.

Volume 92 of The Voice of Truth International was recently prepared and provided to the printing company in India. I get bored easily, and so I like to keep busy, but a little respite is certainly needed—and soon!

We Escaped!

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Right in the middle of too busy and not enough time to finish the ever expanding “To Do List,” Martha Lynn and I briefly interrupted our busyness for four days to ourselves away from everything—mostly. We escaped Ocala, Florida on Monday, April 10 and headed for Ormond Beach, Florida. Happily for me, the journey was only about an hour and a half to our destination due east to the Atlantic Ocean. We stayed in a reasonably affordable beachside hotel that permitted us easy access to sand and surf. Being the off season for tourists, traffic was no challenge and few people populated the sandy strip that we frequented days and evenings. Especially Martha is enamored with water, particularly the salty sea.

We tried a few restaurants with which we were unfamiliar, some of which we do not plan to visit again, some that were above my pay grade—too expensive for me—and some to which we hope to return someday. One day, we visited an historic lighthouse compound—one of the tallest remaining such maritime structures in the United States. Not far from there, we also toured a small marine museum where we saw stingrays, an octopus, crabs, fish and rescued tortoises that are being recuperated from boating injuries. In addition, Martha and I walked along a paved path and wood bridge through dense tropical, seaside vegetation. That’s when we happened upon a furry critter—a raccoon—which decided to give us the right of way as it scampered into the underbrush.

It was our pleasure to dine one evening with good friends and Christians Gayle and Bruce Daugherty as well as with Judy and Emanuel Daugherty, Bruce’s parents. The following night, we assembled with them and other saints at the Beville Road Church of Christ.

Lastly, before leaving paradise for Ocala once more, Martha Lynn and I walked along the Boardwalk and pier in Daytona Beach. The excursion was pleasant enough as we strolled the famous spot, but these days, other locations such as one finds in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and I’m told in Branson, Missouri, outshine the Boardwalk. Martha, though, remained mesmerized by the rolling ocean waves.

Upon our return to Ocala, we lingered before driving to Martha’s Florida home. We got a bite to eat, after which we showed pictures of our South American mission trip to some church members. Of course, we stopped by a grocery store, too.

Martha Lynn and I enjoyed our time together away from pressing responsibilities for a while, though we felt awkward wiling our time away instead of attending to the “To Do List.” We are not good at down time and had to work at it somewhat. We did interact with some brethren via phone and email regarding ongoing matters that refused our inattention. However, for the most part, we took a hiatus from our usual “work” in some semblance of our honeymoon. Knowing what we each lost in the passing away of our respective spouses—Bob and Bonnie—we fully intend to the best of our abilities to make our marriage the rest of our lives our honeymoon. Together, Martha and I hope to help each other make our pilgrimage to heaven and serve the Lord the best we can in this life along the way. Back to work, now!

Providence, Maybe

Since Martha Lynn and I arrived in Ocala, Florida the evening of Sunday, March 19, the days have come and gone with a flurry. We have camped out in Martha’s Florida home and upended somewhat the lives of her son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren as well as ourselves as we all dwell together in the 3-bedroom ranch-style house. In addition, we have experienced a plumber’s dream come true as both bathrooms, the kitchen sink and the septic tank have all cried foul at the same time! If the residence were a boat, we might sink with the kitchen and bathroom leaks, and I don’t believe that there’s supposed to be a brown spring gurgling up in the yard either.

We have assembled with brethren of the Central Church of Christ and the Woodland Place Church of Christ in Ocala; the Wildwood, FL Church of Christ; and The Villages Church of Christ in Lady Lake, FL, too. The Woodland Place congregation and I pondered if God’s providence was unfolding as its preacher was unexpectedly unable to be present the day Martha and I happened to show up for Sunday a.m. class and worship; I taught class and preached. The church and I stopped short of supposing that God’s providence might also have been behind the two flat tires the preacher suffered hours away from Ocala.

Finally tonight, Rebecca and I were able to complete corrections for the March edition of Gospel Gazette Online. Thus, I published it to the Internet and sent around 1,800 notifications to subscribers around the world.

On a disappointing note, FedEx did it again—again didn’t do what it claims to have done! Once more this particular freight company claimed to have delivered packages to me, which in fact it did not. The packages apparently were delivered somewhere—where I know not—but they were not delivered to me at our Florida address. Remarkably, the useless phone menu answering system at FedEx and two different FedEx employees all tried to convince me that I had actually received the three boxes of printed material (i.e., Rushmore newsletters, etc.) and that they were on the front porch—on which I was standing while talking to FedEx employees! Then, he asked me, “Have you checked with your neighbors?”—throughout the subdivision of the extensive bedroom metropolis of Ocala! Within two days, FedEx hopes to get back to me about the packages. I hope that my poor little packages are safe and dry—as we experience relentless rain and thunderstorms!

Martha and I postponed our long anticipated couple of days to ourselves away—whatever that means—until next week because of doctors’ appointments this week. However, amid a frustrating moment or two yesterday, at Martha’s insistence, we drove to the shore of Lake Weir. We walked on the beach, and yes, Martha strode barefoot through the sand and waded all the way up to her ankles in the little waves of water. Cautiously, we scouted out the menu and prices for a possible supper meal at Gator Joe’s there at the beach.

We dined on the deck above the sandy shore at water’s edge. The wind from the lake blew our menus away twice and knocked over Martha’s glass once; other debris occasionally flew from table to table and from patron to patron. I never before over the years in my dining experiences had to hold down my wax paper in my plastic serving basket to devour my victuals! It was great, though! It was just what we and especially I needed. You guessed it, upon my first experience to eat alligator, I found that it tasted just like chicken—peppered chicken. Not sure about ordering that as my entrée, I sampled Martha’s supper and ordered a very tasty fish dinner for myself. We’ll be back.

Back at the makeshift office, sometimes the dining room table and sometimes atop our bed with computers on our laps, we work at a myriad of matters (e.g., Gospel Gazette Online, The Voice of Truth International, etc.). Martha was quite proud of herself, as was I of her, too, as she completed another good article for use in one of the publications we publish or for which we write. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Martha’s like a sponge, a fast learner on everything new with which I acquaint her from mission work to publishing. She’s truly my helper in every aspect of my life.