Revival In Pictures - Citronelle, Alabama

Today is the day for our Revival In Pictures post from Citronelle, Alabama. We have had a tremendous time here with our friends this week. Pastor Darius Templeton, Sis. Kim and all these fine Cedar Creek folks have treated us so wonderful and kind.

It will be sad to leave Saturday morning but we have one more service before we pack up and hit the road. Tonight is Youth Rally night and it starts at 7:30. We are looking forward to seeing some more friends.

I hope you enjoy all the smiling faces of our friends. We sure have enjoyed seeing them again.

Pastor Darius Templeton

Sis. Kim Templeton and Kelly Jo

Speaking of friends, we had Bro. Farrell Stearns with us Sunday morning and that was a special treat.

Bro. Jason and Sis. Karen Freeman brought their children and came to be with us on Monday night. They drove all the way from Ellisville, Mississippi to be in service and we appreciate it so much. We will get to see them again when we are in Ellisville in several weeks and hopefully before then.

Bro. Jeffery and Sis. Rebecca Blankenship and their girls came to be in service with us on Monday night too. We knew they had been preaching about 90 minutes away and we were hoping they would get to come. It was great to see them.

The Blankenships did keep a secret from us though. Sis. Rebecca's Dad and Mom, Bro. Larry and Sis. Rosemary Landress came with them! We had no idea they were any where near this part of the country at all. We barely missed them in Oklahoma and we did not know when we would have the chance to see them again. We are thrilled they came Monday.

Bro. Landress gave us a Word from the Lord in his testimony Monday night. I have asked the Lord to place it deep in my heart and let it charge me and change me.

Bro. and Sis. Lloyd are great to attend revivals all over this area and we were blessed to have them with us two nights this week. 

That is our Revival In Pictures. Thank you for stopping in today.

Davy

New Classrooms For GoodNews Christian School In Abeokuta, Nigeria

New Classrooms For GoodNews Christian School In Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria

A few weeks ago I wrote a summary of our November trip to Nigeria. I mentioned that we left some money to finish the new classroom building at GoodNews Christian School. We had helped with the expense in the beginning and I knew before we went that they were close to completion. We left home with the intention of taking enough with us to get the job done. 

Here are two pictures of the new building from our day long visit to the school while we were in Nigeria.

Bro. Shobanke sent an email last week with this picture of the completed building.

It is beautiful!

These new classrooms will give the school just enough space for the children they have now. Once the enrollment grows (And the enrollment will grow), they will be overcrowded again. This is the last open piece of ground they own so the only way to move is UP. They built this building with the future in mind. The foundation and walls are prepared for a second story when the time comes. 

We intend to be prepared to help with the second story of this building when they are ready to proceed. We are also helping them pray that one of the properties on either side of the school will become available at a reasonable price. That would be way cool too.

Bro. Shobanke sent a note along with the picture. He wanted me to make sure I said thank you to all the great folks that make all of this possible. I will post his letter of appreciation below so he can tell you himself.

As all of you must realize, we could not help them without you sending us, so all the real thanks goes to God's people. May God bless you for loving the saints in Nigeria and taking the time and effort to love them through us. If you want to know more about our friends in Nigeria you can click our Missions-Nigeria page at any time.

May God bless you all.

Davy

_______________________

Rev. Davy Boggs

LETTER OF APPRECIATION

I greatly appreciate God again for using you for His glory to complete the new two class rooms of our Christian school. You have been a great blessing to us since 2007. We appreciate you, your wife and sister Odie and those that are supporting your ministry. Please thank them all for their help.

Please tell your wife and sister Odie I say hello.

Thanks,

Pastor E.Ade Shobanke

Weekend Woundup and Weview #3

Odie kind of took over for a few days so here it is Wednesday and I am just getting around to posting the review of our weekend. Of course, since the weekend review goes all the way back to last Wednesday, I guess that is OK.

I told you we stopped for a night of revival Tuesday in Livingston, Texas. We were blessed to be in a great service with Pastor Don Goodwin and his church and to hear Pastor Scott Morris preach. Kelly Jo, Odie and I are all three glad it worked out to be there. Here is a picture of the BoggsMobile and Green Machine before we pulled out early Wednesday morning. It started raining just a few miles down the road.

We left early for two reasons. One, we were parked in the upper parking lot and did not want to be in the way of the school. They told us we would be OK but I had a second, more pressing reason. I really wanted to be in Baton Rouge by lunch time if possible.

Some of you may remember that last year on our way through Baton Rouge in January, we found a terrific Mexican Buffet. We love Mexican food but really good Mexican buffets are extremely hard to find. This is a great one.

After a year, we had started doubting ourselves. Was this place really as good as we recalled or had our memories been enhanced by the passing of time? The verdict? 

It is every bit a good as we remembered and maybe even a little better! Wow!

El Magey Mexican Buffet
 8290 Siegen Lane #E, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 

We parked at a WalMart near by the restaurant and when we came back, security was telling us we could not spend the night. We had run into this same thing last year in Baton Rouge so we knew we were likely to get ran off. It was still early but I have not been feeling well. I figured 290 miles might be enough for Wednesday but we would have to press on. Kelly Jo and Odie did some shopping at WalMart and Sam's and then we hit the road.

Here we are right before we left WalMart.

I made a beeline for Camping World a few miles east of town. I had discovered a problem when we arrived in Baton Rouge. The BoggsMobile and Green Machine are connected by a BlueOx tow bar, a set of chains and an electrical cable.

The plug on the car for the electrical cable looks like this picture below. EXCEPT, the plug on the car had broken broken right at the holes where the bolts go through. This is the new plug that will have to be wired in this week



This had allowed for the tension on the cord to pull the plug forward slightly and then the cord was dragging on the ground. The blue cord was the old one and it was ruined.

I knew I could order one online cheaper but I was hoping Camping World had one "cheap enough" because I needed one NOW. Sure enough, they just happened to have one at full price and I scarfed it up. The new one is red. I wired tied the plug in place but I will try to replace it this week.

Here we are at Camping World.

Before we could get back on the road, it began to rain. The rain slowed things down and then the accidents in the rain slowed things down even more. 

The 125 miles from Baton Rouge to Flying J in Mississippi took us four hours including about a 30 minute stop at Camping World.

To say I was happy to get stopped for the night is a huge understatement. 11 1/2 hours had past since we left Livingston. We had driven 400 miles with a bunch of that in rain and traffic, with a the little cord problem thrown in to keep things interesting. The great lunch kept me going though!

I did not rest well that night so I rested some the next morning. We hit the road by the crack of noon and drove a couple of hours to a Sam's Club. The girls went in there and several other places looking at computers. You may remember the laptop I use personally and for Boggs Family Ministries crashed a few weeks ago and it appears it is probably gone for good this time. It is several years old and I have already replaced the hard drive once.

After they scouted things out I went into Sam's and Best Buy to look at the best deals the girls had found but I could not make a decision. I needed to sleep on it.

I did rest better that night and went to Best Buy and bought another laptop. It is a computer, it comes on when it is supposed to and it has not crashed yet. It does have Windows 10 but all the new ones do. I hate windows 10 but then again, I have hated every new version of Windows I have ever had. I am not good at change. I was fine with Windows 3.1 over 20 years ago!

While the girls shopped a while in Mobile, I drove on to Citronelle, Alabama. Pastor Darius Templeton was waiting on me and welcomed me with open arms. I love this man and his family and we are very glad to be here with them and the Cedar Creek Church.

We set up the sound, ate a bite of supper and then I sat on the front porch of the church for a couple of hours enjoying the peace and quiet. The temperature was perfect, the setting was perfect and all seemed right in the world.

The weekend services were great and we had special visitors Sunday and Monday as well. Sunday, in a addition to all of our friends at Cedar Creek, we were blessed to have Bro. Farrell Stearns all the way from Pensacola, Florida. Farrell is  a super great friend of ours and we thrilled that he drove over to see us. We should get to see him a few more times in the coming weeks.



We had more special visitors Monday night and we will have pictures later in the week to prove they were here. Odie has also been getting lots of pictures of our friends at Cedar Creek.

I took these of the church. This is a beautiful place!





That pretty much wraps up the weekend. Thank you for reading.

Davy

A Rambling But Sincere Thank you

OKAY, Odie, That will be quite enough from you young lady! I think you went over board with those 50th Birthday posts just a tad bit, but it was fun while it lasted!

Birthdays in our family tend to get pushed to the side at times. It is not that we do not acknowledge them or buy card and such but we just have not taken the time to make a big deal out of them and we are fine with that.

We have always made a big deal out of Odie's birthdays and we still kind of do. She is our baby. We put on big family birthday parties for her every year until she was 10. We did another at 13, a surprise party in Wichita at 16, a surprise party in Joplin at 18 and a few more along the way.

Not so much with my birthdays and Kelly Jo's birthdays. We married when we were young and real life has a way of smacking you in the face and letting you know what things are really important and what things are kind of important and what things are not important at all.

Birthdays for us, fell way down the list. For me, I remember 10, 13, 16 and 18 were pretty special. I do not even remember the actual days of those birthdays but those were pretty big years. 10 is big because your finally 10. 13 is special because your a teenager. 16 is awesome because you can get your driver's license. 18 is cool because you are now an adult. All of those were a pretty big deal to me and I suppose they should be.

Oh, I also remember my 14th or 15th birthday because Dad and Mom surprised me with a party at the restaurant where Steve and I worked. That was way cool!

Beyond that, birthdays are just another day on the calendar and really not much more than that. Well, one purpose my birthday serves is to remind me that my car and bus license tags are expired and to check to make sure my driver's license is still valid.

I always got a kick out of the young people I worked with at GM in the 90's. They were so upset when the boss would not let them miss work on their birthday. They would say, "But it's my birthday, I HAVE to be off work on my birthday. You can't make me work on my birthday." 

I think that is so funny, especially when the supervisor did not even answer their childish demands. It might have been the first time in their life that they realized the world did not revolve around them. That is a good lesson to learn early in life.

I always wanted to say, we only get off work for the birthdays of dead presidents and Jesus. You are none of the above!

So birthdays kind of took a back seat for us. I do remember my 36th birthday in 2003. It was our first month back on the road and we were in revival in Weir, Kansas. Bro. James Fellers and his church gave me surprise party after church with cake and ice cream and gifts and money. I remember it because it overwhelmed me emotionally for some reason. I cried for hours, honestly.

I know there was one birthday (In the late 1990's probably) we went to Burbank's BBQ in Sharonville, Ohio and ate Fribs (Deep Fried Smoked Ribs, WOW!) and then went to hear the Isaacs in a little church in Cincinnati. I know it was very extremely cold, snowing hard, the ribs were tremendous, the crowd at the singing was small and the music was awesome. I do not have a clue which birthday it was. 

I have tried hard to remember specifics of my 20th birthday, my 30th birthday and my 40th birthday. I can not recall them a speck. The 50th birthday would have followed them swiftly into my fading memories without so much as a backward glance, except for Odie's efforts to pull friends and family together to make this one memorable. 

Because of your very kind and generous words on Saturday's post and Monday's post, I will never forget this Birthday. I do realize you are prejudiced. I do understand that your perception of me is clouded over by love. I know that. 

I know the people that love me freely and sincerely are a small percentage of the population in the world, of the USA, of Ohio and even the small town I am in this week. In the grand scheme of things, your the opinions expressed about me the last Monday and Saturday do not matter one iota to the world.

That is OK. Your words matter to me. Your kindness matters to me. Your love matters to me. Your respect matters to me. Your friendship, kindness and love affects me deeply.

Thank you, friends. You made me laugh. You made me cry. You made me weep very hard. You made me laugh again. You made me bow my head and thank God for His grace, His mercy, His love and for His people.

Thank you as well for all the texts, emails, phone calls, cards and comments. I appreciate them all. I think I responded to each one of them as they came but I want to make sure you know that I mean thank you.

Among the cards and letters and Acapulco gift card and gifts, I did receive a few things I will share with you here.

My brother Steve had this print made for me and gave it to me before we left home. This is the tent during City Reach Richton. It is awesome!

My mother purchased this print in Jerusalem in 1987. It is a sketch of King Herod's Temple in Jerusalem that replaced Solomon's Temple. It is amazing. She had it framed and presented it to me for my 50th birthday while we were still home in December.

The special words from my close family and friends are dear to me. You all covered me up the last few days. My mother sent me several texts yesterday that built and built on emotions of the day.

I will have to say that Kelly Jo takes the top prize. I told Kelly Jo many years ago that I would never step in a pulpit to preach without her respect. How can I have an ounce of hope that I will influence others if the one I live closest to and knows me best does not have confidence in me? 

Kelly Jo's words yesterday gave me confidence to run on for a while! I know that all of you are in my corner but knowing that girl is on my side makes me 10 feet tall and bullet proof! 

I love you, Kelly Jo. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Finally, my dear friends, Bro. Kenny and Sis. Joan Morris called me yesterday. Mama Joan sang to me and then Bro. Kenny gave me The Great Birthday Paradox: 

Here it is.

Birthdays are obviously hazardous to your health. If you have enough of them, they will kill you.

Yet, Birthdays must be good for you because, the more birthdays you have, the longer you live!

I will leave you with that. Thank you for reading.

Davy