Wonderful News And Pictures To Back It Up!

During revival for Bro. Metzger and the Sun Valley Church in early November, we were blessed to witness a wonderful site. Early in revival a man knelt at the altar, confessed his sins, ask the Lord to save his soul and gave his heart to the Lord. Thankfully that is not a site that is terribly uncommon to us but it is an absolute joy to behold each and every time!

I hear of people saying they have never seen a miracle. I suppose what they mean to say is they have never seen a broken bone instantly healed or swelling instantly go down, a cancer to fall off, a tumor vanish or a man or woman raised from the dead. But the greatest miracle possible is for a person that is corrupted by sin, surrender his heart to God and become a brand new man!

II Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

That is a miracle my friend of the highest order! When a man is drawn to Christ and He surrenders to the Love of God and lays himself and sin on the altar, God performs a miracle in that life. He is a brand new man. The old man and his filthy sins is gone. Behold, He is new!

That is exactly what we witnessed early in November in Florence, Montana. Hallelujah!

We have been rejoicing with every update that Bro. Metzger sends me of Kevin's progress in his walk with Christ. Imagine my joy when Bro. Metzger told me he was going to baptize Keven in water last Sunday. When the pictures came through as I was walking into church Sunday evening, I was overjoyed!

In obedience to Christ's command, Kevin demonstrates that he is dead to his old sins, his old life, his old man and he is raised up in new life to live through Christ, in Christ and for Christ, in the name of the Father and of Jesus His Son and the Holy Ghost!

Bro. Metzger also baptized his own youngest daughter, Jessie on Sunday. She is a sweet, Godly young lady and my heart was thrilled with this news as well!

If it looks a little cold in these pictures, it is because it is a little cold in these pictures. Bro. Metzger said it was 34 degrees!

Bro. Kevin came to church because his friends had invited him. A friend of several years had been saved in the last year or so. He came a couple of nights, sat next to his friend and when the Lord beckoned him, Kevin came to Him!

It was a glorious night that I hope I never forget as long as I live. We witnessed a miracle right before our eyes.

That never gets old, friends! That is the whole reason we do what we are doing. That is the reason good churches are open. That is the reason passionate missionaries are still going. That is the reason we climb in the motorhome and hit the road. Kevin is worth it, well worth it!

It is time for me to close this blog and prepare to encounter another man and another woman that needs Christ in their lives. Wow! What an amazing purpose for living!

Thank you for reading today.

Davy

The Tehachapi Mountain Tire Matter

I mentioned again Monday how much we enjoy the drive through the Tehachapi mountains. We have talked to others that hate that drive. It is a pretty steep climb for an RV or other big vehicle so I understand why some folks do not like it. To us, the beauty of it far surpasses the trouble of climbing it.

That is not to minimize the potential difficulties of the drive through the mountains and normally dry terrain. In October 2015 the area received many inches of rain in a very short time. The heavy rain triggered mud slides and nearly 200 vehicles, including 75 semi trucks and 2 passenger buses were engulfed in the mud.









Over 300 people were rescued and the highway was closed for several days. I am pretty sure the majority of those people hate the Tehachapi Mountain drive now. I certainly understand that.

We were through there five months later and the only evidence we saw of the mudslide was one closed bridge being rebuilt. We were routed off the exit and then back onto the on ramp.
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We first drove that route in the fall of 1992. The BoggsMobile at that time was a 1984 Lincoln that had just rolled over 200,000 miles on the odometer. The trunk of that car was huge and loaded to the gills with our "stuff" to live. The back seat was nearly filled with hanging clothes, but had a little place for Odie to sit. We also had a turtle shell luggage carrier on top. It must have been a sight!

(Side Note: I wish we could have been blogging then with an iPhone handy. It would be nice to have lots of pictures of many of our early misadventures. That is really the reason we take time to blog each day, so we have a record to look back on. You are welcome to come along with us for the ride and we appreciate that you do!)

The drive through the Tehachapi Mountains was lovely in 1992 but we did not have time to savor the mountains that day. We were traveling from northern California to south of Orlando, Florida in six days so we missed a "little" of the scenery.😏

We have been through the Tehachapi's many times since then in cars, trucks, trucks pulling fifth wheels and the current BoggsMobile. I would say the bus has been over that drive more times than any other vehicle we have driven. In fact, we went through there three times in the spring of last year!

One of the most memorable times was in the bus pulling Mr. Cheap Jeep. It was late May 2009. We had left central California after church one night and we were headed to El Mirage, Arizona to begin revival. There was very little traffic and we had made the climb up the west side with no trouble. It was a gorgeous moonlit night with the stars in clear view.

As we were coasting down the east side, letting the Jake brake set a nice easy pace and enjoying the view, we heard a "different" sound. The sound was not loud. It was not distinct. It was the kind of sound that you are not sure you are even hearing.

Our ears were tuned in when a car went by beeping its horn and we knew we had some kind of trouble. I pulled over on the shoulder. The picture below was taken this past Friday and is the exact spot we pulled over about 2:00 AM that night. (Yeah I save strange stuff like that on my GPS for some reason.)

The moment I stepped out the door of the BoggsMobile my nose told me it was a tire issue and seemed to be at the rear of the bus on the driver's side. I was surprised when the bus tires were fine. A moment or two later I found the problem.

The driver's front tire on Mr. Cheap Jeep was GONE and an inch or so of the edge of the aluminum rim was gone too! Ouch!

It took me a minute to take stock of the whole situation but in a few minutes I had the little donut spare installed. I had to finagle things to get the jack in place since the front corner of the jeep was on the ground. But the temperature outside was perfect, there was plenty of light and very little traffic.

Two police officers stopped as I was finishing and told me about a tire store about 40 miles south of the next exit. They also told me there was a Walmart across the street from the store where I could spend the rest of the night. Cool!

The tire store they directed me to happened to be a Discount Tire. I had purchased four tires at a Discount Tire less than 1500 miles before. I noticed the tread was lose on one of the front tires the day after I purchased them and they replaced it. 

I have never seen a brand new tire do this.

It was not much of a stretch to believe a second tire was defective too.

It could have been something I picked up in the tire but I doubt it. However, I had purchased road hazard insurance when I bought the tires so it was a moot point. The Discount Tire we were directed to replaced the tire and we were on our way in a few hours.

It was kind of funny when I walked into the tire store carrying a rim ground down on the edges and one thin strip of rubber around the middle. When the counterman ask me how he could help, I held up the sad mess and said, "Can you air this tire up for me?"

He groaned out loud at a joke he had probably heard more than a few times. The customers nearly rolled out of their chairs laughing. You have got to know which audience you are playing to for laughs!

So one peaceful, beautiful trip through the Tehachapi Mountains had a little glitch, but the key is "little" glitch. It could have been much worse. 

The traffic could have been horrible, The temperature could have been horrendously hot or terribly cold. Mr. Cheep Jeep could have been badly damaged. We could have been accosted by some one passing by in the middle of the night. There could have been 4-6 feet of mud sliding into the road.

It could have been a big deal but it was only a little glitch. And, yeah, we still love driving through the Tehachapi Mountains.

Thank you for driving with us.

Davy

A Peek At The Calendar

Most of you know that you can navigate to our full schedule right here at www.boggsblogs.com. The full desktop website looks the picture below. I have circled the BoggsMobile in red. If you go to the blog and click the picture in that circle, it will take you to our full schedule.

Our mobile site is a little different. It does not have the sidebars or the tabs across the top. It does have a bar on top that says home. I have magnified it in the picture below. You can tap on that bar and it brings up a menu to scroll through. 

Click on schedule and it will take you to the schedule tab where you can click the link to go to the calendar.

Either path brings up the calendar.

I mention all of this because people that read the blog regularly often ask how to access the schedule. Now I can point them to this post and it will be easy-peasy.

Speaking of schedule, I have pretty much added most revivals and tent revivals to the schedule for 2018. There are a few blank weeks but I am awaiting confirmation on exact dates and in some cases we are waiting for permits for tent revivals to finalize the date.

We also have some exciting things shaping up for 2019. We are having some interest in City Reach for 2019 and we expect some more in the next few weeks. We will give you more information as we have it.

Looking at dates a little closer to us, we have a change the latter part of this week. Many of you may remember we conducted a service in a park to help introduce a weekly Bible study with Bro. Trey Dickerson while we were in Phoenix in spring of 2016. They began Bible study and it is my understanding they began holding church services a few months later.

Several of you have asked me this year how the church is doing and I know that some of you have been praying for several months about the service there this coming Saturday night. Bro. Trey contacted me Sunday and said they were not able to get things together in time. We will get to see them and their people at Desert Cove next week though.

Hey, maybe you can come to Desert Cove as well. We would love to have you. Thank you for reading today.

Davy

Weekend Woundup and Weview #50

The weekend did not go exactly as we had it planned but we rolled with the punches and it worked out fine. In fact, it was a pretty good weekend to be alive and with God's people and in God's service.

I hooked up the Green Machine while still in our parking place at Riverdale about mid-morning Friday and we pulled out about noon. We should have been on the road earlier but there was really no reason to hurry. 

We went down 99 and then turned on 58 at Bakersfield and began one of our favorite drives in the BoggsMobile. We love going through the Tehachapi Mountains. It is a beauty that we never grow tired of no matter what the season.

It was a little overcast at times and the view was not always clear, but we loved it anyway. Here are a few pictures, bug guts and all.

We pulled into the Los Angeles area about dark and settled into a parking lot for the night. We had plans to go to downtown LA Saturday to visit the Fashion District and we had plans to visit two churches Sunday morning.

We made it to downtown LA Saturday morning and parked the car in a $10 lot.

There are a bunch of parking lots downtown and many of them have big signs advertising $3 and $5 parking. But that is for the first 15-30 minutes and the maximum rate is $12 or much higher. We did see one or two $8 lots that seemed legit later while walking.

The girls love to walk through the blocks and blocks and blocks of stuff and I love to walk pass the food trucks very, very slowly! We make a great team.

We had a wonderful day and Kelly Jo and Odie found some super great bargains on clothes. The weather was perfect for walking around and we visited with a bunch of nice people too.

We went back to the bus with full intentions of getting up Sunday morning and visiting two churches. We wanted to go back to a church we visited last year when we were here in the spring and we wanted to go to another church that we had learned about.

We did not make it to either one. Kelly Jo was not feeling well and could not nap Saturday evening and she could not sleep a wink Saturday night. Plus she had only slept an hour Friday night. 

She could hardly stand upright when we began to get ready for church at 6:00 AM Sunday morning. I sent her back to bed and she was able to rest a few hours.

Since we did not drive over an hour to church Sunday morning as we had planned and we did not go to the second service in the afternoon, we were able to pull into the church in Bloomington before 2:00 PM Sunday. I think we were parked and shutting down the bus right at 2:00.

It is great to be back in Bloomington, California with Pastor Deatherage and all of his fine folks. We were last here for revival in March 2016 and it was like we had not missed a beat. We picked right up where we left off last year. God blessed us with a wonderful altar service.

We had great fellowship after church too. We appreciate them treating us so well. We hope to have a bunch more pictures later in the week.

That wraps up our weekend. Thank you for joining us.

Davy