Preparing For A Big Weekend!

We have about thirteen things going today but we hope to have a service in our Summer Revival Series this evening IF we can swing it. I reckon we will have to wait and see how it falls together.

One thing that I know for sure is that we did have service last night at Dryden Rd. Bro. Russell McDonald preached at Dryden and it was great. He and his son-in-law were there and it was wonderful to see them. We had a big crowd and they responded very good to the preaching.

Odie snapped a few pictures and I will post them below.

This weekend should be a full one. Saturday afternoon we plan to gather with family and friends to celebrate my Mother's 80th Birthday! That should be a great day! 

Then we are supposed to preach at Corwin church for Pastor Randy Brown on Saturday night and Sunday. We are looking forward to that. I think that is enough for me.

Thank you for stopping by for a few minutes.

Davy

Prayer And More For Friends

KJo and I are on a mission. A mission rooted in friendship. 

Bro. Ricky Boler from White Plains Holiness  Assembly near Sebastopol, Mississippi was told recently that he has cancer. They want him to have a major surgery sooner rather than later. 

He has the responsibility of his family, his business and the church. Adding in cancer surgery is more than he can juggle right now.

I can only imagine the emotional weight and turmoil.

He asked me to consider coming to the church the next three Sundays and the two Wednesdays in between to lift part of the load. I told him we would pray. 

I went to my study to pray about it and decided to send a text to a few of my mentors and closest friends and ask their opinion. I wrote the text, read my own words and answered my own question. 

It is if the Lord spoke to me and said, You do not need the leading of the Lord to be a friend. That was all it took and we have been working this week on getting things ready to go.

I had weekends scheduled and I needed to make arrangements with those pastors to move those dates to the future. They all understood and were gracious to me. I do appreciate that very much. 

I had committed to myself that I would not travel that far this summer and physically it is probably not the best thing for me. So we are traveling as gently as possible and praying. 

We traveled Thursday, we will travel today and perhaps even finish up this evening. If I can be wise, I will finish it up on Saturday.

Please pray for Bro. Ricky Boler, Sis. Tanya, the rest of his family and the church. Also pray for us that we would be filled with strength and anointing for the task ahead. 

Once we arrive and get through the first Sunday, we should be able to rest up some next week if all goes well.

Thank you for reading and thank you for praying. 

Davy

Home Again

It is nice to be home again. 

Kelly and I arrived home from Indiana right on time. Odie had been to eat with my parents and Steve, Karen and JoJo. They arrived at Odie's just after us so we were able to see them all for a little while. It was super to see some of our family. 

Do you care to venture a guess where they had been to eat?

Any ideas? Do you need another hint?

Yup, you got it. The best salsa drinking place that I have ever been to, Acapulco in Lebanon, Ohio. 

It was wonderful to see mom and dad, Steve and Karen and it was really good to see JoJo too. If you do not know, she is Steve and Karen’s oldest granddaughter and she pretty much captured everybody’s heart from the very beginning. We love having her around.

It was also very nice to see Odie again. I told her that no one at either church in Indiana had even ask about her, but of course, that is not true. Everyone at Evansville and Mt. Vernon missed her being with us and we missed Odie being with us too. 

We have been gone preaching three weekends in a row. We had planned not to travel and not to even preach this weekend, but attend our home church and enjoy our pastor’s preaching. 

However, we are in the midst of a change of plans in order to adapt to a health emergency that is going on in the life of a friend in another state. 

Our plan should be more clear in the next couple days and I will give you the details and have you praying for our friend, his family and his church. 

Tomorrow I have a new Word For Wednesday ready to go at 6 AM Eastern time. I hope you will enjoy it and share with others.

Thank you for praying for us. We appreciate all of you. 

Davy

Coming Wednesday!

An Important Trip Today

This is an important weekend for us. Today, by God’s grace, we will leave home mid morning and travel about 200 miles south to London, Kentucky 

We are scheduled to preach graduation tonight for the school at London First Pentecostal Church. Our plan is to stay over and preach both services Mother’s Day. 

We have always enjoyed the churches in the London area. We love being with Pastor Jarvis, his wife and the Saints at London First Pentecostal church. It is a joy to be there with them and that makes this weekend special on its own.

However, being with them is special for more reasons than that. When I had a stroke on December 29, I was loading sound equipment into the BoggsMobile. We were preparing to leave that afternoon to be in place to begin revival December 31 for Pastor Jarvis at London First Pentecostal church.

That makes them the first of many churches we had to cancel because of the stroke. When Pastor Jarvis realized I was preaching again, he text me and asked me to preach these services and I was honored to make that commitment. 

We are excited to go to London and finally make our scheduled first stop of the year. It is not the same as revival, but we are very happy to finally be going there. 

It would be more like a full circle if we were taking the bus, but it is a little early for that so the jeep will head south in a few hours. We sure appreciate those of you that pray for us in our travels and preaching.

May God bless you all today. Thank you for reading.

Davy

Recovery Tour - The Plan Has Begun

Today is April 1, but this is no joking matter. OK, Here we go! We have begun the first leg of our Recovery Tour.😍

KJo and have commenced the next step in our loosely held plans that I wrote about in early March.

-Travel outside the area for single services or maybe weekends, building endurance and confidence. I also need to discover if I am able to travel extensively. 

Travel will also depend on my outpatient therapy schedule. As long as therapy is helpful and as long as they keep me going back, I want to take advantage of it.

Therapy is completed for now and we are ready to test the waters to see how I can handle the traveling. We jumped in the Jeep to travel and preach a few Sundays before coming home to preach in several local churches that have kindly invited us.

We have visited churches this first weekend and plan to visit 3-4 more over the next two weekends, but not preaching at all of them. The rest of the days we are relaxing as much as possible and visiting with friends. I am hoping I can sleep better than I have in the last 13 weeks.

I plan to keep Mile Markers and A Word For Wednesday current as much as possible. As long as we have access to good internet, we should be able to do it.

We sure appreciate you praying for us as we spread our wings and try to discover how wobbly our flying might be.

Davy
Coming Wednesday at 6:00 AM Eastern

Change Already? Yep!

Wow! Things sure change fast around here.😍 This was the first major paragraph in yesterday's Mile Marker.

If nothing changes, Speech therapy and Occupational therapy will end on Wednesday, March 27 IF not before. Physical therapy will pause on March 27 for a few weeks. I will go back toward the third week of April and they will evaluate how I am doing at that point.

The only accurate part of that paragraph was three little words,  IF not before. Lol! Everything changed in two hours on Monday morning.

Occupational therapy and Speech therapy decided that I have met their goals for me and they both discharged me Monday. That was my last day of each. I have had 28 days of each category of therapy spread over two months. It has helped me tremendously.

I will have one more day of Physical therapy on Friday of this week. That will be my last day for now.

As soon as I can pull it together, I will try to post pictures of all of my regular therapists and write a little more about my therapy experience. I am very thankful that therapy was available to me!

That is all for today.

Davy

Look for our Word For Wednesday tomorrow morning.

Plan Wisely and Hold On Loosely - Part Two

Last Friday I wrote about my passion for planning and the potential for problems when my careful plans are psotponed. IF you missed Friday's Mile Marker, you might better understand this one if you read it although I believe today's can stand alone.

I mentioned to you again that the Lord has been amazingly kind to me by planting peace and contentment deep in my soul over the last 10+ weeks. I would be going crazy right now, stark raving mad, if the Lord was not helping me.

That does not mean that I am not antsy to go, I am sitting on go this moment. But I am not descending into despair over my carefully made plans being indefinitely delayed. 

I am still making plans but I am aiming for wise plans that I can hold loosely. These are my new loose plans for the near future. I have categorized them in order, but the items may not happen in this order or at all. I am OK with that.

1. We warm up my vocals and practice singing nearly every day. I am also using my speaking voice recording A Word for Wednesday episodes.  At some point, I intend to incorporate a full online type service into our practice. 

It may be recorded or it may not, it may be published and it may not. The main thing is to see if we can sing and I can preach a service right here in our home. 

2.  If that works, then I intend to preach single services in the local churches that have invited me. It would take me a few weeks to preach services in several churches and that should give me an idea of what I am capable of at this time.

We are well acquainted with these churches and they would certainly understand if I needed to stop halfway through a sermon.

3. Travel outside the area for single services or maybe weekends, building endurance and confidence. I also need to discover if I am able to travel extensively. 

Travel will also depend on my outpatient therapy schedule. As long as therapy is helpful and as long as they keep me going back, I want to take advantage of it.

4.  IF we travel a bit, it will be in the Jeep. I intend to take the bus to Jeff Rowe in Vonore, Tennessee for a few weeks at some point. While it is sitting still, would be a good time to be in his hands to work on a few things.

Traveling without the bus, especially IF I am not able to eat in restaurants yet will present a whole new set of challenges.

5. If the single services and weekends and travel go well, I will probably preach a few partial week revivals closer to home that were previously unscheduled. 

6.  Once I can preach a few revivals in a row and handle the travel well, it will be time to consider climbing on the bus and continuing our scheduled revivals, wherever we are supposed to be at that time. 

Kelly and I executed a plan similar to this after I had been sick with COVID in 2021 and it seemed to work well. I am holding this plan very loosely and I am willing to adjust it as needed and as directed. 

There is one potential obstacle to this loosely held plan. The right side of my body still feels like it is completely asleep. I am not entirely sure, that I can get past steps #1 and #2 in this condition. 

I am sincerely asking you to pray for us. Thankfully, I am walking, talking and swallowing better. There is nothing that doctors can do or therapy can do to eliminate the numb like feeling. 

I am trusting God’s healing process and believing Him for a miracle to fix this. God is able to do a miracle. Thank you for praying.

Thank you for taking this journey with us.

Davy

Coming tomorrow:

Plan Wisely and Hold On Loosely - Part One

If you know me well at all, you know I am a planner. I live and die by the plan. I like to know when, where, what and sometimes why. 

The plan is not sacred to me. It is not totally unchangeable. I am willing to adjust the plan, tweak the plan or even pause the plan. However, I must begin with a plan and keep some variation of a plan in motion, if possible.

Scrapping our well made and thought out plan for months at a time is obviously challenging for me. I imagine that some of you understand that well.

We had planned to be in Mississippi this week, then Alabama, then Georgia, then Virginia, then three weeks in West Virginia and then nearly two months in Virginia.

We were looking forward to camp meetings, revivals, Easter sunrise service, Homecoming revivals and generally experiencing great fellowship and wonderful services. 

Obviously, this current health crisis postponed my plan. An interruption like this would normally cause quite a bit of disturbance for me emotionally. 

However, I have mentioned before, that the Lord has enveloped me with beautiful peace and contentment during this time. I am extremely thankful for the Lord’s specific help in this. 

That does not mean that I am not antsy to go, I am sitting on go right now. But I am not descending into despair over my carefully made plans being indefinitely delayed. The Lord gets all the credit for that. I would fall apart on my own, no doubt.

Therefore, since the original plan has taken a detour, the planner in me has been percolating a new plan. It is not a solid plan, in fact, it is a plan I am purposely holding onto very loosely. I am pretty happy with myself for that.😇

First of all, I have no firm idea when I can implement my new plan or when I will return to weekly revivals all over the US. I am determined to take time to heal and the pastors I have spoken to on my schedule are supportive of that.

I am trying to Plan Wisely and Hold On Loosely! I will tell you more about the current plan on Tuesday by His grace. Today the plan is to go to therapy. Thank you for being here today.

Davy

What About A Word For Wednesday?

Our most recent episode of A Word For Wednesday was posted on December 27. I fully intended to post the first episode of 2024 on Wednesday, January 3. I already had some notes scribbled down for the first few weeks of the year and I was looking forward to recording them

December 29 was a giant game changer, of course, and since then I have not worked on A Word For Wednesday at all. There have been a few weeks when I probably had the voice strength to record an episode, but I have not done it. 

The reason is this. I need voice strength, strength in my body, time to record, edit and upload and last but not least, I need good material.

I have ideas in my head and notes written down for a few episodes, but all the other ingredients listed above have been in short supply. Once I begin again, I would like to make sure that I record and publish every week if possible. 

I do plan to get back to it in the near future, by God’s grace. As I write this for February 14, I cannot imagine new episodes beginning in the next couple of weeks, but maybe within the next 30-60 days or so.     

I would love to have at least four episodes recorded, edited and uploaded before I begin making them live for you to view so that I will have a little cushion for a week when we are too busy with recovery/therapy or too tired or whatever the hindrance.      

I hope that those of you who have been regular viewers of A Word For Wednesday or even occasional viewers will be patient with me. I am anxious to begin as soon as possible. 

We have had 149 episodes of A Word For Wednesday since January 2021 and if the Lord will help me, I would like to continue for many many more if we have an audience.

I will be with you as soon as possible. Thank you for reading today

Davy 

A Day of Therapy

Yesterday we were back at the hospital/rehab for a day of outpatient therapy. I am scheduled for several weeks of therapy two times each week. Thankfully, it is only ten miles away.

Each therapy trip involves three 1 hour sessions. There is one hour of physical therapy, one hour of occupational therapy and a third hour of speech therapy.

I would not say that it is completely enjoyable, some of it is plain hard work. However, it is all necessary to try to get the use of my body and voice back to normal. I look forward to each session.

The physical therapist is working on helping me walk by strengthening my right side and working on my balance and dizziness issues. Incidentally, they checked last week to see if the dizziness might be ear related. It is not. The problem is directly stroke related.

The occupational therapist is mostly working on the manual dexterity in my right hand and the balance and dizziness issues as they affect the day-to-day things I need to do. They are also tasked with getting me prepared to drive again in the future.

The speech therapist is working on helping me swallow better, expand the type and texture of foods that I can eat and the quality of my voice. My speaking and singing voice has been greatly affected, and they are helping me with that the best they can.

All three of these descriptions are only general characterizations of much more complicated processes. The therapists are optimistic that I will gain back much of what I am lacking now, but there is no guarantee. 

Much of the progress depends on how diligently I work. Therefore the therapy continues each day at home. I break it into 3 to 5 sessions each day. 

Very early in the morning, I work on my hand and arm. A little later in the morning I work on a lot of the balance and strengthening exercises and activities. Early afternoon I work on a lot of breathing and voice exercises. Later in the evening, I go through random exercises of all kinds that come to mind.

So literally every day is a day of therapy. As my brother Steve said, This is now my job. I say it is a job I want to do well.

Kelly and I are so thankful that we have these professionals to guide us because we would absolutely have no clue what to do.

Ultimately we are thankful that the Lord has stood by us and is helping us daily. We are experiencing and expecting divine intervention as we move through this process.

We appreciate God’s people very much for encouraging us and praying for us. We have always valued you and we realize that value more and more each day.

May God bless you, our dear friends. Thank you for reading today.

Davy

Posting Plan The Next Two Weeks

Real time update: KJo and I made it to Nigeria Wednesday. Our plane landed early at 3:35 AM Eastern Time which was 9:35 in Nigeria. It took us about two hours to exit the plane and work our way through customs, immigration and baggage claim. Two hours after that, our friends were depositing us in the hotel.

This is our posting plan for the next two weeks.

I am writing this while still in the States. By the time you read this, we should be preaching the first services of the Minister's Conference in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria, West Africa. I am supposed to preach three times on Thursday and seven times in our first 72 hours in Abeokuta.

That pretty much sets the course for the whole trip and we are fine with that. We might as well stay busy while we are there. In a few days, we will be home and I will be wishing I was back in Nigeria.

I have no idea if I will have time to post each day or any internet to post at all. Some years we have passable internet, some years we have none at all. It may be that I can not post. If that is the case, then Odie will take over as much as she can.

IF I do have internet, then I may post more than once a day. When you read each day for the next two weeks, check to see if there have been previous posts that day. The posts could show up at any time because Nigeria time is six hours ahead of Eastern Time in the USA.

Thank you for checking in and thank you for praying for us. We need and desire God's help.

Davy

The Weekend Dispatch 10/30/2023

The last night of revival at House of Prayer in Tusla was wonderful. We are praising God for His help in the final service and the whole week. We appreciate Pastor Bill Parks and all of his fine congregation.

We have some pictures from Thursday and Friday.

Saturday afternoon we made the short trip from Tulsa to Claremore, emptied our tanks and got set up in the rain. In the evening we carried in the sound equipment and got a soundcheck.

Sunday morning was Pastor Appreciation for Pastor Jimmy Millikin here at Westside Holiness Church followed by a fantastic meal. It was a wonderful day and we loved being a part of it.

The Sunday evening service was a super finale to the wonderful weekend. Wow! Thank you for stopping by to check on us.

Davy

Schedule Note From Davy:

Pastor Phillip Horton from Richlands, Virginia passed away Friday and his funeral is scheduled for Monday. Pastor Jimmy Millikin from the church here in Claremore has a long history with the Richlands Church and He will be attending the funeral Monday. We will not be having revival service tonight while he is gone, but we plan to crank back up again Tuesday night. If anything else about this week changes, I will let you know on Mile Markers.