A Woman Named Irene:

When someone is born into this world, there is a small group of people that are very interested in that person’s birth. Those people are the parents of the child, and of course the immediate family.

Sometimes; there is a person that comes along that really leaves a big impression on our lives, and a lot of people pay very close attention to that individual. Irene; was just such a person.

Born on Saturday, August 20, 2011 at 6:00 PM in the area of French Martinique in the Caribbean Sea; at first, they named her TS, but even in her infancy, people were taking notice of her. It was not long before millions of people were watching her every move.

Monday, August 22, 2011 Irene became a Hurricane; She was in the process of moving through the Caribbean and heading for the United States.

So why am I writing about a hurricane on my blog? Well; my youngest daughter, husband and their three children had left for Disney World in Orlando, FL. on Friday, August 19^th for a week’s vacation. The ironic thing is, that when they got married on August 12, 1995, while on their honeymoon, they were chased out of Florida by another hurricane, so I was very interested in seeing and tracking hurricane Irene, and what she was going to do.

On August 25^th, my oldest daughter went to visit her aunt and cousin in Durham, NC. She was going to be there for five days and will be returning home on Monday, August 29^th.

So here is the overall picture; I have two children and they are both in other parts of the East Coast of the United States, and this woman called Irene is going to be affecting them, and I cannot do anything about it. As a parent, I can only watch and advise them as to what is coming up the coast.

As it turns out; my youngest and her family came home on Friday, August 26^th and Irene was to come into town on Saturday the 27^th and start messing with all of us. This woman was not even one week old and already she was affecting over 65 million people. How’s that for a captive audience?

Where my oldest daughter was in North Carolina, was only glanced by Irene and I was glad about that. Now today; my oldest is coming home and I sure hope that the airports are all operating, as over 13,500 flights over two days were cancelled. According to her airline and flight number, she will be coming direct to Boston. It will be good to get her back home as well.

Now; let’s look at some additional information about Hurricane Irene. First off; I cannot put into this blog the amount of damage Irene caused. She came up the East Coast as a category 3 (if I remember correctly) until she hit the Outer Banks of NC. When she left, she had been downgraded to a category 1, but even at that, she was to be taken seriously. The biggest problem was that Irene extended over 250 miles out from the eye of the hurricane. Ironic; as I type this blog entry, I just received a bulletin on Tropical Depression #12 that has developed in the Eastern Atlantic, near the Cape Verde Islands. Hum; here we go again.

Anyway; as Hurricane Irene came up the coast and approached New York City, there was great concern due to the potential of this storm doing serious damage in NY City. The center of the storm was going to track up the Connecticut River Valley; that put most of the heavy rain to the west of the eye, and the full force of the wind on the eastern side of the storm.

Talking about her track; let me fill in some of the details of where she had been and where she was going.

Sat.      8-20-11; French Martinique

Sun.     8-21-11; U. S. Virgin Islands

Wed.    8-24-11; The Bahamas

Thurs. 8-25-11; Nassau

Fri.       8-26-11; East of Daytona Beach

Sat.      8-27-11; Outer Banks of NC

Sun.     8-28-11; 4AM; Atlantic City, NJ

                            10AM; Bridgeport, CT

                             1PM; Holyoke, Ma.

At my home in Dracut, Ma., it rained off/on of varying intensity as well as gusty winds, but we were safe and no damage. That cannot be said of everyone. As I write this blog entry, there are still hundreds of thousands of people without power, including my daughter’s house where she will be returning to, later today. I hope that it is fixed by then.

All I can say is; Good-by Irene, it was not nice to have you pay a visit. You will be remembered from all the damage and heartache that you left behind.  

Go Play:

My how those words "Go Play" come back to memory, as I think back to the days when I was in grade school and also Junior High. I can remember shortly after getting out of school for the summer, when I could not find my cousin or anyone in the neighbor to play with. I would come into the house and say to my mother; "I'm Board or I have nothing to do." You had to be careful about saying that you had nothing to do, or mom would find some unwanted chores for you to do. You know; the kink of things like, clean the yard, clean the cellar or attic or help her paint or wall paper a room in the house.

At the very thought of being assigned one of those things to do; I would retreat to the outside and keep myself occupied rather than face the alternative.

So; why am I blogging about this? Well; I know that we are really into the Summer and I understand that the kids will be heading back to school in the next 2-3 weeks, depending on where you live. But; during the course of this summer, I have heard the same words that I announced to my mother some 50 +/- years ago; "I'm Board" coming from my grand children, as well as other children that I know.

So I began to think about this issue as to why children of today become board so quickly. When we were young, and mom told us to "Go Play" we would go and play outside with the kids in the neighborhood and start playing the games that we knew, like...

• Kick the Can
• Hide and Go Seek
• Capture the Flag
• Cowboys and Indians
• Build a Fort or Tree House
• King of the Hill
• Chinese Checkers
• Checkers
• Monopoly 
• And the list goes on......

Sometimes, mom would tell us to go to the Library and get a book to read. I can remember looking at the books and wonder about the places that I would read about.

Today it is so very different; the kids of today do not have to read about a particular place on planet earth, they can just Google it and read, see or hear about any place that they want.

The games that the kids have today are like something that we thought would have to be light years into the future; games like.......

• Video games to numerous to count
• Play Station 1,2,3, to a Zillion
• X-Box
• iPad, 1,2, and 3 on the way
• iPod  1,2,3rd Generation
• iPod Shuttle (the only Shuttle I played with; looked like a space ship made out of plastic)
• iPhone; 8 Megapixel Camera or Video Recorder; (All I had was a Brownie Camera or Polaroid, THAT YOU HAD TO GET THE FILM DEVELOPED) Sorry for shouting, got carried away
• Cable TV or Sat. TV; (we had 3 channels)
• And this list can go on for ever......

I seems that even with all the toys, gadgets, and do-dads of today, young people want to be either on the go or entertained for every moment of the day. I think that they just need to STOP for a moment and enjoy and explore what they have available to them. All of the electronics of today have made our world a lot smaller, so they can reach out and take hold of it like never before. We can even go to the final frontier.

Board or Nothing to Do; Nooooooooo Waaaaaaaaaay:

Just my thoughts: 

A Good Day at Father's House

Hello to everyone:

It has been a few days since I last posted anything to my blog, so as I sit here tonight, I thought that I would tell you about my day at Father's House, otherwise known as Church.


I taught Life Application Class this morning on the subject "Individual Apostasy," which as Christians, we need to be alert that this very dangerous condition does not creep into our lives and lead us away from our relationship with Jesus Christ. It can happen ever so slowly that we will not even realize it. The way to avoid this issue is to be in the Word of God, each and every day, and to maintain our prayer life at peak performance. Living our lives to the fullest in the Lord.

It was also my turn in the Pastoral Staff rotation to Preach in this mornings service. The title of my message was "No Weapon that if formed Against You, Shall Prosper." My Test was taken from the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 54:17 (KJV)
No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

I used a lot of power point slide to illustrate the various types of weapons from both the past and present, that can and have been used against the human race in times of conflict. I also mentioned the Spiritual weapons that the enemy of our soul can and will use against us in our Spiritual walk with the Lord. 

Someone had written something on my Face Book Wall, that I used in today's message and I will also share that with you. 

·         WHEN YOU CARRY A BIBLE, THE DEVIL GETS A HEADACHE

·         WHEN YOU OPEN IT, HE COLLAPSES

·         WHEN HE SEES YOU READING IT, HE FAINTS

·         WHEN HE SEES YOU LIVING IT, HE FLEES

The best part of the message today came at the Alter Call that was given, when 5 0r 6 people came to the front of the church to ask Jesus Christ into their heart, to forgive them of their sins, which we were all born into. Those who came forward today really made my day, and I am sure that it touched the Heart of God as well.

Blessings:

 

Christian Humor

Hello to all:
I wanted to share with all of you, some Christian Humor that was sent to me. The only way I could figure out how to accomplish this was to make a word doc out of it and place it in my Drop Box; so here is the link, take a look and I think that it will bring a smile to your face. Heaven knows that we all could stand a good laugh.

"http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25329956/CHRISTIAN%20HUMOR.doc"

HEARTBREAK

I have been told that blogging is a place where you can share your thoughts or just vent. I am not sure what category this posting falls under, but I feel that I just want to speak out about the heartache and heartbreak that I have felt over the last several days.

Some of you that read my Blog know that I was in the U.S. Navy, and was Honorably Discharged 43 years ago. Even though it's been that long, I still feel a very strong bond with all Military Personnel. Every day when I hear of another person being killed while serving his/her country, I feel the pain of loosing another citizen of this great nation; knowing that there is a family somewhere that has lost a friend, father, mother, brother, son, daughter, uncle or aunt or any other type of relative. They will never see their fallen soldier again; the unborn child will never be held by their father who has been away. My heart goes out to each and every one of them. I know that war is not an easy thing to talk about, and we know that it brings death to our doors; those who are deployed have fears and anxieties, but still they go to serve in the Arm Forces of our country. There have been recent days that I have almost come to tears thinking of those whose lives have been cut short.

It really hit me hard a few days ago when word came by way of the media about the chopper that went down in Afghanistan over last weekend. A total of 30 military personnel were lost, 30 of which were Americans, and of those 30, 22 were Navy Seals. We cannot ever begin to understand the heartache that those wives and family members are feeling, and the fears of "who will take care of them now."

My heart also broke for the mother in Littleton, Ma. yesterday accidentally ran over her 10 year old daughter lying on the driveway playing with a pet bird. My heart aches for the loss of a child and the untold horror that, that mother feels knowing that she caused this.

In all of these cases; my heart cries out to the Lord Jesus; Send you comfort Lord God to all those who have suffered loss of a loved one. Provide for their needs; hold them in your loving arms, and give them peace. Also; and most of all being a Pastor, I am concerned where all those who have perished, will spend eternity. The only way that an individual can be prepared for that is to surrender their life; not to the enemy; but to Jesus Christ and ask Him into your heart to be your Lord and Savior.

Blessings:   

Busy Weekend

Busy Weekend

For most folks, Friday night begins their weekend. A time to leave work and not think about it again until Monday morning.

Not true in my case; I work every weekend, but my weekend off starts on a Sunday Night after the prayer service at Lowell Assembly of God.

This past weekend was very busy due to the Intercity Outreach being performed by three churches. They were the Lowell Mission Church, the Ebenezer Assembly of God and the Lowell Assembly of God. These three churches have worked together in the past to reach out to the children and parents in and around

This year was no exception; I would guess that there about 100 +/- children plus many adults which made for a great and busy day. The children received the message of how Christ loves them, they also received free gifts, and there were also four new bicycles given away to four lucky and very excited children.

Sunday was also busy with the Life Application Classes (Sunday School) for all ages, Morning Service, Evening Prayer Time and Communion. So it was a busy weekend.

Thanks to Rhea Gordon and Lowell Missions Church for the pictures

Here are some of the pictures from the Outreach…….Enjoy!