Merry Christmas Eve 2016

 

Hello my friends, this is Odie on Christmas Eve 2016. Today we are in Hillsboro enjoying being with the Morgan crew. We will have pictures and a report of events later. I can assure you that we are having lots of fun and eating way to much delicious food. 

Now lets walk down Christmas memory lane.  One of my favorite Christmas memories is from the year of 1999. I do not remember if we have blogged about it before. It is so funny now, but I did not think it was funny at the time. 

I was 14 and we lived in Kansas at the time. We stayed in Wichita for the holidays and I was very enthusiastic about waking up very, very early to open gifts Christmas morning. I would have started earlier but my parents told me I could wake them up at 7:00 AM and NO earlier to begin our Christmas festivities. 

So I slept soundly all night. Then "according to my clock" 7:00 AM rolled around. I always got up at 7:00 AM Monday-Friday for school and in December it was pitch black outside. But when my alarm went off at 7:00 AM Christmas morning of 1999, the sun was shining bright outside my window. 

What in the world?

I immediately knew something was not right. I walked into the living room on my way to wake my parents up. I looked at the clock in there and it was Not 7:00 but really 9:00!

What happened? Well, my parents came into my room after I was asleep on Christmas Eve and moved my clock back 2 hours. I was confident I was getting an early start on Christmas and they were getting 2 extra hours of sleep! 

Can you believe my parents did that? Believe it, this really happened. I have no idea what possessed them to prank me so badly!

I still think it was a nasty trick. I will admit it has given us lots of laughter over the years and is a favorite Christmas memory. Now I enjoy sleeping in on Christmas morning. 

Tomorrow we will be up early for church at Dryden Road. If you are looking for something to do tomorrow. I would like to invite you to join us at Dryden Road Pentecostal Church. It is located at 3201 Dryden Rd, Moraine, Ohio and service begins at 11:00 AM. 

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas! Thanks for reading!

Odie 

A Special Visit From Dear Friends

Wednesday we had a short visit from dear friends all the way from western Missouri. Bro. Mitch and Sis. Lynn Boggs were in Ohio/Kentucky for a few days with their family and they graciously carved out some time for a visit with us. They made our day by stopping in.

We met Bro. Mitch and his parents and extended family many years ago and we hit it off with them all immediately. They instantly became an important part of our lives and they have proven to be life long friends. I believe it was God's will for our paths to cross.

Bro. Mitch and his family visited several of the City Reach campaigns and they were a great encouragement to us in the work. It has been great to see them on numerous occasions over the last year plus.

We were totally unaware that we would be seeing them again this year. When Bro. Mitch text us and told us they were in the area, we were thrilled. They had things scheduled for their family and we had Christmas services Tuesday and Wednesday but they made the time to see us and we appreciate that very much.

They snapped this picture outside the barn and sent it to us.

This is not the first time that Bro. Mitch and Sis. Lynn have been to the Lazy OD Ranch. They brought part of their family in May of 2015 and put a badly needed roof on the barn. That visit overlapped a few nights with tent revival so they got in on that too. It was a super great visit.

Here they are then.

Bro. Jason Fellers and his family came and worked hard on the roof as well. It almost did not seem right for them not to be here this time too.

The barn looked like this when they came in May 2015.

And it looked like this when they left.

The old roof was original so it was at least 33 years old. It leaked in 3-5 different places when it rained and then 3-5 different places the next time it rained. Needless to say, it was in bad need of replacement. I am happy to say it does not leak at all now, nor do I expect it to leak for a long many years.

Bro. Mitch and Sis. Lynn did not come to see us Wednesday by themselves. They brought all of their children and grandchildren to see us too. I believe there were 16 of them in total if I counted correctly.

It has been a while since we had seen the older children and it was very good to see them all again. These folks are near and dear to our hearts and we love them very, very much.

It would have been awesome if they had time to stay longer but they were enjoying a family vacation and they were on a tight schedule. I know they will be back by the grace of God and there is a chance we may get to see them on our way through there next week.

Thank God for good friends! This will probably be the last time I write before Christmas day (Odie will probably write tomorrow) so please have a safe and very merry Christmas. God bless you all.

Davy

Wednesday Night In West Harrison, Indiana

Wednesday included salsa, a short visit with great friends at the barn and a great Christmas service for Pastor Wade Hicks and the West Harrison Pentecostal Church in West Harrison, Indiana. Let us start with a picture of the salsa first! 

Oops, there is no salsa in the picture but I promise there was plenty of salsa on the table.

Before we went to lunch we had a few visitors. I will tell you more about that another day.

Early Wednesday I turned on the block heater in the bus engine since the temperatures have been so cold lately. I left it on all day and when I cranked at 2:30, it turned over and started without any hesitation at all. I like that a lot!

I had not started the BoggsMobile since November 15. I believe that is the longest time we have ever went without starting it and running up and down the roads, but we were gone 25 of those days. We will be headed west in a week and I wanted to make sure everything is in good shape.

We pulled out of the barn a little before 3:00 PM and hit the road.

We lost about 10 minutes in a traffic jam on the west side of Cincy due to a traffic accident but we still made it to West Harrison in plenty of time.

Kelly Jo and I carried everything inside and set up the sound system and we were ready to go early as planned.

We had another wonderful Christmas service.

It was a sweet service with a powerful conclusion and we were rejoicing by the time it was completed.

I know that God really helped some folks, including us.

Pastor Wade Hicks and Davy

Sis. Chrissy Hicks took the next four pictures from the congregation.

Pastor Brian Hisle and his family came to be with us Wednesday night. We were with them on Tuesday so it was a special treat for them to make the very long drive down to be with us a second night.

West Harrison was supposed to be  our last night of Christmas singing but our Pastor asked us to sing for Christmas service Sunday morning. We were going to be there anyway so we are very glad to accommodate Bro. Bennie. If your church is not having service Sunday morning, come be with us at Dryden Rd. Sunday at 11:00 AM.

Soon we were all packed up and on our way to Frisch's for fun, food and fellowship, not necessarily in that order!

By midnight we were backed into the barn and hooking up to utilities. I am very happy to say the BoggsMobile performed flawlessly for the 115 mile round trip. That really makes me smile!

Today the girls are going to finish preparations for Christmas and probably mosey toward Hillsboro. I have a barn project in mind that will involve a trip or two to Lowe's or Home Depot and then a day or two of piddling work. I want to avoid to much strain, we are too close to Christmas for that.

Thanks for reading today.

Davy