Updates!

Haven't posted anything new lately, so felt it was time to do so. Enjoyed a great Special Assembly Day last weekend in Cookeville, TN. Guest speaker was Leon Weaver Jr. from Brooklyn. Wonderful teacher. We used a new all-digital sound system for this assembly.. man was it nice. Very simple, excellent sound. That's saying something for this particular arena, because its basically a livestock auction arena. The floor is dirt, then they put this "grass" carpet over it... you know the stuff I'm talking about. Funny thing is... only occasionally do you catch a whiff of the normal day-to-day activities there. Since the sound dept. always sets up on the floor, we always freeze... it's cold. The only heaters are in the ceiling... works pretty well for general seating areas, but the floor is cold. They have these big-ass fans to circulate the heat... in fact their brand is "Big Ass Fans". Look it up.

Once again, we are experiencing grief in our area. Yesterday I heard of the untimely death of a young sister in the Nashville area... she used to be in our congregation, and her mother still is. Thankfully she has a large family who will support/comfort one another. Also, a dear brother in our "sister" congregation recently had a stroke and will likely not recover. He has been a long-time hard worker in the RBC in this area, helping to provide Halls for many brothers and sisters.

I recently gave a local needs talk regarding how that we needed more brothers to reach out to serve as MS's. We have 11 e's and only 5 ms's, (and their avg. age is about 60). As a result of these numbers, and with so many elders having to do ms's work, our shepherding had begun to suffer. While it got through to a number of brothers who vowed to step up their involvement in the ministry, one was irritated by it... too bad. Hope it wasn't the way I delivered it.

On to more positive things...

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we did some cool stuff. We went to Mammoth Cave with the Nichols... This would no doubt bring back fond memories to Sean/Amy!! After a really long cave tour, we settled in for a fantastic buffet meal at the Mammoth Cave Hotel. Photo is above... couldn't move photo around to here... oh well.

Then, a couple of days later, we took the Smart's, who were celebrating an anniversary, to breakfast at the Loveless Cafe, and on to a day driving down the Natchez Trace. We stopped along the way to enjoy the scenery... hikes, waterfalls, old towns, etc. It was great! We had apicnic together... good food, a little wine. Later, we brought them back to Nashville's Arrington Vineyards, where we watched the sun set, and enjoyed wine-tasting and an outdoor fire. Mmmm... cozy.

Once again... photos for these events are ALL at the top. Why can't I move them to a more appropriate part of this post!!!!? Oh well... that's all for now.

Love each other... Take care of yourselves.
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