What's Been Happening Lately!

It's been a while since my last post so I thought I would "catch up" and mention a couple of things that have happened lately that continue to help confirm, excite, and encourage me in what I believe God has called me (and others) to do! One thing is that I finally received a box a week ago that I had ordered from the Pocket Testament League. The box contained the 30 little booklets that serve as a tract but also have the book of John in them. I first saw these booklets when my son Andy, my daughter-in-law Ashley, and I went to the SBCV Evangelism Conference at Green Ridge Baptist Church here in Roanoke March 11. Andy showed me the booklets and I thought they were really good to hand out to people, especially since they had a colorful cover to them and were "eye-catching" in that respect. Then I forgot about them until we all went to our second weekend of Basic Training in Hopewell, Virginia at the end of March when a pastor who I had met at the first training session named Barry Ginn gave me a few more of them from his pastor's study. It was neat being reminded of these booklets again and between seeing them again plus the fact of being encouraged to share our faith from the Basic Training sessions, I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and give them away. I ended up giving three of them to the maids who were working out in the hotel hallway. It's amazing of how God gives you new boldness and blesses you to step out and share with others. I even got online before I left the hotel and ordered some more booklets to give out from the Pocket Testament League who offers all types of them with different covers, etc. It turns out they are about a dollar a piece so I couldn't immeadiately pay for them, but then learned after being put on a list that someone was willing to "sponsor" me and so this past week I got a box in the mail from the Pocket Testament League that contained the 30 booklets that I ordered so that was encouraging and so now I have more to give out to those that God crosses my path with who are willing to listen and accept them. This may sound like a simple thing but still was a big blessing to me to see how God has blessed so much in the past few weeks especially. And we continue to be blessed with our Tuesday night Bible study and it seems folks enjoy coming and learning more about God's Word. The past few weeks we've been doing a very simple yet effective means of studying the Word in that we've been taking one verse and then writing it; paraphrasing it in our own individual words; then sharing how we can practically put it to use in our lives. After talking about sharing our faith with others a week or so ago, I was able to instantly put this to use as I was outside walking our kitty cat Tory (yes, we walk our cat on a leash) and it so happened that one of my neighbors was outside working on her car and needed a jump to start it. Just that little incident gave me a chance to share my faith and learn more about one of my neighbors. I just thought it was so neat how God instantly answered my prayer on wanting to share with someone. He sure answers our prayers fast sometimes!