Here One Minute...Gone The Next!

Well I stopped by to see my parents after work today. I was only going to stay a few minutes because Crystal, Grace, and I bought tickets to see Tim Hawkins at a nearby church and wanted to get there early. Not ten minutes into my visit, the main topic of conversation being the weather, the wind picked up and as we were looking outside we saw a mobile homes roof lift off two houses down from us! It wasn't the main roof but one of those additions. The roof just up and flew away! My dad said that no one was home, they were away. I knew that roof had to have hit someone else's mobile home so I went to look. Sure enough it had crashed into a home two houses down. No one was home; the damage was minor. Then I noticed the AC running in the home that just lost its roof. I knocked loudly on the door and sure enough an ederly lady opened the door. She was on oxygen; a sight that instantly reminded me of Peggy, my mother-in-law. I ask her if she was O.K. and if there was any damage in the main structure of her home. she said no and she was fine. She said her husband was at the VA Hospital though and would not be home until late but that she called her daughter and she was leaving work. I didn't realize it at the time but she was in shock and didn't break down and start crying until her daughter arrived about an hour later. I started back for my parents but my conscience stopped me behind the house in between the one that lost its roof and my parent's. Neighbors of my parents, John and Dixie Miles are very active in a local Baptist church and Crystal and I had been over to their house to talk with them about joining it. I stopped as I was walking and Dixie said Hi to me out the window. I said, "Did you see what happened?" Anyway to make a long story short I went back to check on the lady again...Dixie came out and we started picking things up and bring them in to the main house so they would not get rained on. Dixie said she had some tarps because her husband John was a member of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Team.

After tarping the home I stopped to say goodbye. Her daughter was there by now. I had noticed a Bible and some crosses on the wall and a organ with a hymnal on it. It appeared that she had some church background. I was in a hurry to go and said to the daughter, "I notice your cross necklace and see the Bibles in the house. It seems that you know of God do you know where you will be spending eternity? After all this life is temporary and you never know-- (looking to what use to be a roof) -- what could happen or when we will leave here a stand before God. So where are you both are going to wind up when you leave here?"

They said, "Heaven."

I asked why they would be going to Heaven. They both answered that Jesus was their Lord and Savior. I was soaked to the bone and covered with dirt and wanted to go home my wife was already calling me wanting to know what I was doing and why was I late. I told them that I just wanted to make sure that they knew where they were going to spend eternity before I left because things here were very temporal and that the only way to heaven is by trusting in Christ alone. They thanked me again for my help and I left.

Mission: Europe

I was blessed to be given the opportunity to teach a one day Evangelism class in the Netherlands at Cross Culture, Calvary Chapel. This class was based on a combination of the Basic Training and Crash Courses of Living Waters, Way of the Master.


The church has about 45 regular attenders and 15 people attended the class after the regular church service this past Sunday. They graciously put together a great lunch and then we jumped into the class around 12:30. The class lasted until after 6 PM. It was great!



The trip started with a flight from Melbourne to Atlanta, where I was able to witness to a man who spoke little English – I gave him a Good Person booklet and he reviewed it a couple of times on the short flight.

Then on to the Atlanta – Amsterdam leg. The man who sat next to me was an economist/professor on his way to Ghana. Each time he tried to get into a discussion about politics, I turned it back to him and the idea that politics don’t matter because God is in ultimate control. He wanted to talk about banking and stocks and socialism. I asked him what he thought about God. I really never got an answer that made sense. I then proceeded to tell him that money is worthless – I had put money ahead of everything and made it my god. I told him how it was there one day and gone another. God restored all.

I think he was now listening and I started to take him through the good person test. He listened but it did not break through his pride. I left him with a few things to read.

After the class in the Netherlands, I went onto Oslo for work. The man next to me (don’t you love how God sorts this out!) was a horse foot specialist. Yes I admit I had never heard of this before. He told me how complex the horse foot is, I agreed and asked him how he thought that complexity was created. He mentioned how he always has this conflict that he believes God could have created all but as a scientist, he has a hard time reconciling it.

Then he mentioned that there are records that show the horse used to have 4 toes, not one. I said, "...interesting but what happened to the “evolution” of this foot – did it go to 3 then 2 then 1 toe? If so, where is the transitional creature fossil?"
He was like a ping pong ball bouncing from creation to evolution. He told me that he had a Catholic upbringing and never read the Bible. I told him that God wrote the Bible for man to read for himself, not to have someone else read it to them.
We landed and I gave him a 'Why Christianity' book and he said he wanted to remain in contact if he had questions.

What Gospel Are You Sharing?

This sermon from our pastor, John Forsythe was so refreshing!

Like a drink of cool water...


check out the website at http://ccsurfside.com/SurfsideWeb/Pastor_John.html