Nigeria, Here We Come!

We now have our travel visas for Nigeria. They took a round-about route to arrive, but they are now in the possession of my parents.

I am not very happy with FedEx this week. I prepaid for our passports and visas to be shipped overnight with morning delivery. They shipped Friday and should have arrived in Ohio Saturday morning without signature required.

Instead they arrived on Monday and FedEx would not leave the package with no one on site to sign. For some still unexplained reason it was then dropped at the FedEx pickup counter at Walgreens in a completely different and random city about 20 minutes from my parents if you do not run into traffic.

FedEx said I must pick it up at the random Walgreens within five days with a photo ID. Good luck with that. I am 960 miles away. So much for overnight delivery.

Travel Document Systems (The shipper in NYC) had no clue why FedEx would drop the important package there, but TDS worked diligently to try to rectify the glaring mistake. FedEx could not even come up with a cohesive and consistent story.

Dad and Mom saved the day and drove to get the package. It is a good thing they had their superhero capes handy. FedEx told me that I had to pick it up with photo ID. Dad's name was on the package too. I do not know if they required him to show photo ID or not.

The main thing is we have the travel visas and our passports. We are in the process of making our final travel reservations.

Bro. Shobanke called with our tentative schedule while we are in Nigeria. All of it is subject to change and seemingly empty days will undoubtedly be filled in, but it is nice to know the framework a little ahead of time. We are excited!

As it stands right now, we should arrive in Lagos, Monday evening November 19. We should be in Abeokuta later that night. We will probably not do much at all on Tuesday besides visit with Bro. Shobanke's family and other friends.

Every Wednesday they have a prayer meeting with all the Christ Ambassadors Pastors and other Pastors in the city from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. He has invited me to speak at that prayer meeting. If I am feeling at least half alive by then, I would very much like to do that.

The Minister's Conference is scheduled Thursday, Friday and Saturday November 22-24. The conference will be during the day and I will preach twice each day.

Sunday morning I will preach in the main Christ Ambassadors church in Abeokuta and Sunday night we will begin the Outdoor Gospel Crusade. The Crusade will continue through Wednesday night, November 25-28.

Thursday November 29 will be our visit to GoodNews Christian School. We will be seeing the construction progress, spending time with the students and delivering a big suitcase of school supplies. We are excited about the whole trip, but the school visit is definitely a highlight.

On our final weekend in Nigeria we will drive to Ibadan for a short Gospel Crusade on Sunday December 2. We have preached for Pastor Stephen Kuye in 2009 and 2012 and we always see him in Abeokuta when we are in Nigeria. We are very happy to be going to preach for him again.

Bro. Kuye was one of Bro. Shobanke's early converts to Christ. A large majority of his church in Ibadan are converted Muslims. He is a converted Muslim himself. Bro. Kuye is doing a great work in Ibadan and we are thrilled to come along side him and hopefully be an encouragement and boost.

One thing for sure, WE will be encouraged by being there!

We plan to leave Nigeria late in the day Monday December 3. We are not sure where we will go from there. In 2016 we were able to fly from Nigeria to another city and rest several days before returning home. We also like to explore foreign cities looking for opportunities to work for Christ in the future.

We would love to do that again. That would leave Odie in charge of Mile Markers for four weeks. It would probably be rivaling the Drudge Report in numbers of readers by then.

"Kelly Jo, make those reservations!"

Thank you for reading today.

Davy

Vintage View Vednesday Lawton, OK June 2009

In June of 2009 we were at Bristow Camp Meeting in Bristow, Oklahoma the first week of June. Pastor Brandon Murray walked up and ask me when I was going to preach revival at his church in Lawton, Oklahoma. I said "Would this Sunday be OK?" He said, "Are you serious?" and I answered, "Yes, I just had a cancellation." Less than five minutes later he told me that he had sent out a group text to his church and we were going to have revival!

There went my week off at the lake!😎 And what a tremendous week it became for us in Lawton. We had a wonderful revival and became better acquainted with these great people. 

I had preached for this church for a different Pastor, different location and different crowd in the 90's. I had also preached for Bro. Brandon one night a year or so before, but June 2009 was our first revival for him and we loved it.

The funny thing is that I often say "Would it be OK to start this Sunday?" when Pastors ask me to come. It is fun to see their response. I think this might have been the first time I was serious when I said it and Bro. Brandon took me up on it.😀

For our Vintage View Vednesday we have some pictures from that revival in June 2009. I can not wait for you to see the difference in some of these children when we post revival pictures on Friday.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you for stopping by this Wednesday.

Davy

Revival In Pictures - Oklahoma City, OK

Monday was bitter cold in Oklahoma City for October 15th. The wind chill was in the 20's and the wind was blowing hard. It was very hot in Alabama and Mississippi when we were there a few weeks ago and will be very hot in Nigeria when we arrive in a month so I am trying not to complain about the cold.

The 93 mile drive from Roadrunner RV Park to Landmark in Lawton was uneventful, exactly as we like it to be. We were here before 1:00. We parked, set up, loaded the sound equipment in and had a good service to begin revival.

Today is a Revival In Pictures post from Fellowship Meeting in Oklahoma City. We sure enjoyed being at Mt. Vernon Holiness Church with Pastor Rickey Searcy and his fine folks. I gave some of the details from the meeting in yesterday's post.

Odie snapped some great pictures at the meeting and captured beautiful memories with the Mt. Vernon folks and friends from the area and other states. I hope you enjoy the Revival In Pictures.

Davy