Again...

Here I am again...

I had no difficulty sleeping today - waking up shortly before the alarm went off. Sukiey left me alone and didn't bother me. I think she's realized that Mom is working nights and sleeping days right now.

When I came in tonight, Ignacio pointed out that Vicki had left some things for me. One was my Avon order and the other was my certificate from the class I took last week. I earned 14 hours of education credit as a result. Don't know what that does as far as possibly getting me a raise.

I had e-mails complimenting me on the photos from the EE Banquet - they were pleased.

Not much else to note right now...

Updates...

Some time has passed between the last entry I made prior to the entry concerning the EE Banquet. So, let me bring things up to date...

Since that time, I've had a couple of doctor visits - of the checkup variety. Nothing serious there.

I've also been enjoying Sukiey's company and companionship. She is a beautiful, sweet and loving cat.

Saturday morning (5/13) became real interesting...Chris woke me up to get ready for the newspaper gig. Well, I walked out in to the living room and noticed a piece of paper on the floor by the door - it had been pushed through from the outside. I went and picked it up and read it - it was from my neighbor directly below.

I was on the phone to Chris - got a problem! The problem was that my bathroom was leaking into hers. I went and tried to turn the valve off but couldn't because I wasn't strong enough. Chris came up and brought Malcolm with her (the security guy). He got it turned off, then went and talked with the lady downstairs; then he went to notify the manager.

I called the answering service and set the wheels in motion for maintenance. A plumber showed up and checked the bathroom out - he thought it was the valve, so he replaced it; that didn't correct the problem. Turned out the tank was cracked. So - he headed off to Home Depot to buy a new toilet for my bathroom.

The manager stopped by before leaving to go to her standing beauty shop appointment. She was glad to know things were being taken care of.

The plumber came back and changed out the toilets and got everything put back together, then a maintenance guy came with a wet/dry shop vac and vacuumed the water up off the bathroom floor. He also checked out the downstairs apartment and said it would have to wait till Monday and it dried out.

Since I had cleaned out the bathroom, I found that I had space for Sukiey's litter box, so I moved it there and showed her where I had put it. I wanted to use the closet space where I had the litter box for storage. Sukiey has accepted the change in the location of her litter box.

Sunday evening Chris and went to Wal*Mart and one of the things I got while there was a new bath mat. It has a rubber back to it so Sukiey can't push it out of the way like she could the old one. It's also "animal themed". I like it and Sukiey hasn't tried to claw it.

Well - starting this week (Monday) James and I began working nightshift and will for the next few weeks. I'm not super thrilled, but I'll deal with it. Sukiey seems to be figuring out that I'm working nights - when I came in this morning, she was hyper and excited to see me, but settled down so that I could sleep.

EE Banquet 5/9/06 - a selection of photos

Our faithful leadership:

Dot Gamblin, Vic Holsapple & Ronnie Falvey

The Trainees for the Spring Semester, 2006

Ken Sims, David Townsend, Debbie Wall & Ronnie Falvey

Ken Sims

David Townsend & Debbie Wall
ENGAGED!!

Evangelism Explosion 5/2/06

I have no comments to add except that I had to miss the final visitation night because I had to have emergency dental surgery earlier in the day and was in no condition to attend and go on any EE visits.

Dear EE Friends,

Tonight was our last night for " on the job training". The semester seems to have gone by very quickly. The feeling tonight of all of the teams was so genuinely expressed when one group said, " We love doing this and will miss it. Can't wait til next semester!"

Tonight we had a great evening! Seven more people accepted the free gift of Eternal Life !!

That makes the grand total of 93 Professions of Faith this semester. What a joy!

Eric, Rick and Jenny met a 15 year old guy in Clinton tonight named Konrad. After hearing the Gospel, Konrad prayed to receive Christ. He was so thrilled and could not wait to tell his mom. He does not have a church home, so we will pass his name on to our Jr. Hi Minister.

Betty, Bill and Kendra Sue led Jocelyn and Dewane to Jesus. They are 20 and 18 years old. Dewane is a member of the CLC and Mission First. They are potential members for us.

Bob M, Bob W, and Karen were going door to door and led Johnny to Jesus. Johnny attends First Presbyterian and is 80 years old... Wow! Don't you know he will sleep well tonight!

Ladd, Linda and Hank met Tamethia as they went door to door. She was lost, but now is saved.

Terri, Chris Mills, and Jamie met James tonight at Methodist Rehab. James is 45 and opened his heart to Jesus too. He is a member of a Baptist church in Rolling Fork.

Ken B, Linda and Jared met Mary as they went door to door. Mary was 73 and lost, but after hearing the Gospel, she prayed to receive Salvation. She is a member of Antioch Baptist Church in Pearl. As the team was leaving her house tonight, she said to them, " I am so glad you came here tonight!"

In addition to the seven who received Eternal Life tonight, nine others were given assurance of their Salvation after hearing the Gospel.

It is so sad to see how many people know so little about what Christ did for us on the cross. Getting this message out to people who have not heard should be heavy on the hearts of all Christians.

Next week will be our closing banquet, and we will be finished with the training for this semester. If you know of someone who would like to participate in the fall, please pass the word around. We will invite new people to join us during the month of August with a informative banquet and sign up opportunity. The first real night for EE will probably be immediately after Labor Day in September. We will finish up the fall semester close to Thanksgiving.

Evangelism Explosion is a program that I wish our whole church would be on fire to do.

It is thorough training in sharing the Gospel. It is challenging. It is rewarding. It stretches us out of our comfort zone. It is bonding with other church members participating. It is exciting, and God's presence is so real. His blessings are so abundant.

He does not ask us to do more than we are capable of doing with His help, and we learn to lean on Him for everything.

What else could we do on Tuesday nights that would be more exciting or better than this ?!?!!

We will have at least 50 trainers ready now for the fall semester. That means we can handle as many as 100 or more new trainees. Pass the Word around. We will be ready.

"Now unto Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever! Amen ! Ephesians 3:20

With a grateful heart to you who faithfully prayed for us this semester.

With His Love,

Dot

Updates

Gee whiz...I didn't realize it had been so long between entries.

Here goes with my trying to get caught up here...

Sukiey went to the vet on the 27th and got her final booster of the feline HIV vaccine. She was well behaved and they didn't even take her out of the cage to give it to her.

Later in the day, Chris and I picked up her friend Ouida and went shopping at Wal*Mart in Pearl. Then, we took Ouida home and stopped at Krystal for dinner on our way home.

I got over to the Clark Building around 8:45 a.m. and circulated – checking to be sure everything was “on go”. Gary had his grill set up and ready to go in the corner of the parking lot. I went in the Data Services Conference Room – which is where the folks who were going to make the hamburger patties and cut the sausage up were to meet. They weren’t in there yet, but I left the box of gloves that I got for them.

Then I went up to Myra’s office to talk with her and also stopped in Claude’s office for a few minutes. On my way back down, I went by the DS Room again and they were in there and had started work. I had my camera along – I took a few pictures. I went on out to check with Gary, the chef, and he was manning the grill – getting it ready. I got shots there. Then I went in to check with Kathy and Michele – and from there up to the 12^th floor of the REL to check on the status of the ballroom.

Things kind of got fumbled. The lady over at Finance and Administration who handles the reservations of facilities wasn’t in that day; she didn’t leave instructions for her people about our plans, so we had to make them track her down and find out what to do. Their folks came over and got us set up after we ran another group out of there who shouldn’t have been using the room in the first place.

Once all this was done, things settled down and the rest of the cookout went off without a hitch or glitch. The sausage and hamburgers and other fixings and desserts and stuff were brought up and the line formed – some 65-70 people showed up out of a 90+ membership – and the food was devoured, although there was more sausage leftover than expected. We received a number of positive comments regarding the job we did in putting the cookout on and they were pleased with how we did it.

Around 1:30 p.m. I left and went home and took my LSU jersey off and hung it back up. I stayed around the house for the remainder of the day and that was about it. Chris called me around 10 p.m. and said that we didn’t need to be at the newspaper site till 10:00 a.m., so Saturday morning we stopped at CVS and dropped in my refill requests and a roll of film to be processed.

Chris was going to attempt to visit someone she knows who is in the Flowood Women’s Jail and I sat in the car while she went in, but she came back pretty quickly saying that there were no visitors allowed on the last weekend of the month. Well – this was the last weekend. Then we stopped at Krystal for breakfast and got to the newspaper site at 10:00 a.m. We got started – I did 2 routes and that was all I could handle. I ended waiting on Chris to finish – and we were there till 7:00 p.m. I wasn’t a happy camper – since it was pouring down rain.

Sunday morning Chris dropped me at Church and picked me up afterward – and we went to CVS to get my prescriptions and hers, plus the photos. Later in the afternoon we went to Walgreens to see about some stuff they had on sale, but they were out of stock on it. We came home and I went up to my apartment and retired for the night.