Morning Refreshing

Hi,

I just have a story that i want to tell. I hope that it'll be encouraging to Paul! Dess was asked to arrange some songs by CD for Wednesday's morning refreshing. She picks out songs and then writes the lyrics on a big piece of paper so the crew can sing along. One of the songs that she picked was "The Prodigal Son" by Paul Butler. I think it was the debut playing of the song in Louisiana. The crew liked it and clapped along to the music (which they don't often do). I just thought that it was really neat to be praising God along with Paul.


Okay so that was my main point on blogging tonight. I haven't had anything really exciting happen to me lately. But i guess i can talk a bit about what's been going on. Something strange happened at Friend Ships over the weekend. It was Saturday afternoon, around 4:00pm and Stuart, one of the crew, came back to the property after a bike ride. He heard some loud music coming from one of the ministry mini-vans. When he went over to the van to see why the music was on, he found a kid from the neighborhood just sitting in the van, listening to music. Someone had left the keys in the van, and for some strange reason, this kid happened to come into our property (all the gates were locked) and he found the van with the keys in it and decided to play some music. Well, he took off with the keys. Later on, Josh, another crewmember went out to look for the kid (who was probably about 16 years old) to see if he could get the keys and let him know he's not welcome. He found a kid who claimed that it was his "twin brother" who'd been on the property. Josh couldn't get anything out of him, so they left it alone. I don't know what this kid was thinking! Why would he do that?!?! It just doesn't make any sense to me. Then on Wednesday i went checking around to make sure we didn't have anymore keys left in vehicles and i found the CB radio was left on in one of our semi trucks. I assume that this kid had been in it too and had thought that it was a normal radio. So, security at Friend Ships has been beefed up again. Today Tim and i have been putting up vinyl along our fence. We used to have it up, but had to take it down when hurricane Rita came through so it wouldn't tear out the whole fence. It makes our property look more like a military compound because the vinyl is a dark green color. But the good thing is that people can't just look in and see what's going on anymore.

Let's see, i guess i can talk about our Canada Day/4th of July celebrations. Well, i guess celebration isn't the right choice of words. On Canada day we went to the indoor football game that i've mentioned in a previous post. No one really acknowledged that it was Canada day and no one in the States has ever heard of Canada day. They just don't get it. Then on the 4th of July we drove to Houston to see Chuck and Janet. Chuck was being released from the hospital that day from surgery. He had some problems with his veins or arteries in his legs. They cut him up good. We went to be a support for both Chuck and Janet. Chuck was doing well. He was pretty weak because his hemoglobin count was low and he was hurting from the surgery, but he handled himself really well. Janet was a little bit emotionally fatigued. She'd been going through a lot during the surgery, worrying about the procedure and the future. Dess and i were able to just help relieve some of the stress. We spent about 4 hours in Houston with Chuck and Janet, then we headed back for Lake Charles. We picked up some Taco Bell went back to Chuck and Janet's apartment (they were letting us stay in it while they were in Houston) and crashed out. We didn't see a single flash of light in the sky from a fire work. I guess we just aren't that patriotic.

Life is going well as a whole. We are going to get an extra day off next week because we've been working so hard! That will be a nice break. I'm still waiting to get my new glasses. They were supposed to be ready today, but when i called the eyeglass store they said i'd need to wait until tomorrow. I'm looking forward to having a new look, a stronger prescription and no scratches on my lenses.

That's all for tonight... until next time.