Fishing In Georgia!

Let me introduce you to my fishing buddies, Sterling and Neal.  I've been out fishing Neal for a while now, I mean, fishing with Neal for a while now.  More about our trip in a second.  Let me catch you up on everything else in sequence.

Tuesday, went to the doctor.  I have an infection which has been killing me.  I thought the reason I was sooo tired was the time change from the UK.  Found out it was this infection thing.  Dr. Otte put me on antibiotics for the next 10 days.  He said if it doesn't clear it up I may have to have surgery!!!  No good!  Hoping the antibiotics work.  They sure seem to be.  After 6 days I'm not nearly as tired and don't have the pain anymore.  Thanks for your prayers.

Wednesday was my day off, mowed the lawn.  Exciting right!  I really do enjoy it.  I was still pretty tired, but had to do something.

Thursday was Candace's birthday.  She has been working with me for a long time now and my wife and I took her out for lunch.  She and Lee's two daughters are such cuties!  They've been preparing me to be a grandfather for a few years now.  Which, by the way, is going to be happening any day now, Lord willing!  I feel bad, I didn't take any pictures of them.  Trust me though, they're cute.  I'll get a photo soon.

Friday I flew to Atlanta to visit with my buddy Neal.  (See picture above!)  He and his wife Deb have been friends for a while now.  They treat me like family and are good folks.  We just hung out for a bit in the morning but then went fishing in the after noon with Sterling.  Sterling is the Youth Pastor at Neal's church.  I've had the privilege of speaking there a couple of times.  They are doing a really good job there with some great young folks.

Anyway, Sterling's a 'real ' fisherman.  Me, I go about once, maybe twice a year.  I enjoy it when I get the chance, I just don't get to do it very much.  Here's how it went:

Sterling caught the first fish and it was a pretty good one.  To be honest, he caught the most fish over all.  Most of them he wouldn't let me take pictures of them though because they were so small.  I can't tell you who caught the next fish, I'm pretty sure it was Neal.  I do know this, it was so small I couldn't figure out which one was the bait and which one was the catch!

I then went on a hot streak.  It just took a little bit to get into rhythm and get the touch back.

In the spirit of full-disclosure though, I did catch my own small fish.  It was a little embarrassing to tell the truth.  It may have been smaller than Neal's, but I don't think so.  I do believe that his fish was much smaller, at least by a centimeter!

At the end of the day, I probably had the best fish count.  At least as far as bass are concerned.  Since we had the morning off the next day we decided to go fishing again in the morning. 

On Saturday we got up at 4:30 am so we could be on the lake by 5:30 am.  The weather was so beautiful, both days.  Sterling got hot the next day.  He really outfished me.

He caught some good ones, and a LOT of perch again.  The biggest thing that he caught all day though was . . . a boat!

This is actual photographic evidence that he hooked the boat in it's dock.  (The thing that is so good about having your own blog is that you get to control what goes into it.  Therefore I don't have to tell you about the lure that I threw for about 150 yards, it looked really good.  Only problem, it broke off of my line and flew into some poor person's yard. Or about, whoops, forgot, I don't have to tell you about those events!)

Even my buddy Neal was catching fish.

If I didn't have to be the cameraman I would have really showed them how to fish.  I was so busy taking pictures and, to be give you the whole story, feeling so bad about how I outfished them the day before, that I just took the day off.  I did catch a BBQ sandwich though!

Saturday afternoon Neal and Deb took me out to eat.  We went to a seafood place and had . . . fish!  It was fantastic though.  Neal showed me where he went to grade school and his old neighborhood.  It has changed quite a bit since he grew up.

Sunday, went to Maysville Baptist Church and spoke twice.  This is an amazing church, this event is very interesting.  The Pastor is on a 5 week sabbatical so what he did was schedule 5 different AiG speakers during that time.  Dr. Tommy Mitchell was there the first week and did a really good job.  The folks were still talking about it a week later.  Jim Gardner is going there next week.  Then Dr. David Menton will be there.  If you are in the area, check these guys out!

I've got to say a special thank you to Duane and Donna Lyon, see above.  They are Video Conference Coordinators for AiG.  They travel around showing vidoes for the ministry and sharing about the ministry.  They worked so hard and are a real blessing.  It's impossible for the ministry to make it without volunteers.

I also have to say a special thank you to Darrick Shaw.  Every time I'm in the Atlanta area this young man comes and helps with the books.  He's such a hard worker and truly blesses me with his kindness and servant's heart.

The meetings at Maysville Baptist went very well and I was really encouraged by the responses afterwards. A number of young folks spoke with me.  One young lady really wanted answers to how we could get different colored people from one man and one woman.  She really listened.  (See below.)

Out of the many who spoke with me afterwards two young men came up and spent time with me.  One was 8 years old and the other 10.  They asked great questions.  The 8 year old, (see below) told me how all he had ever been taught was the 'big bang'!  Hold up, he's 8 years old and he's talking about the 'big bang'!!!!  We had a wonderful conversation.

After the service I had the privilege to having lunch with some supporters and Neal's family (see below), his two sisters and mother.  It was a wonderful time of fellowship with dear folks, until I spilled a glass of water all over Neal's mom showing off pictures of my family!  Oh well, ever feel like a total bonehead?  I sure did.  They were so gracious to me!

Since Sunday was the 4th of July Maysville Baptist didn't have an evening service.  I went to see a friend of mine, Mark, who's a youth pastor in McDonough Georgia.  He and a Reagan are doing an amazing job with the 450 youth that are in their youth group!  You read that right, 450!  By the way, they've got over 120 adults involved with their ministry.  Every 4 youth has a mature adult mentoring them!  Amazing.

Their church had a picnic and it was nice to be with them.  We played some cornhole, me and my buddy Brian are the defending champions now!

Got to the hotel late last night and just plain crashed.  I was soo tired.  Got up at 5:00 am and got to Atlanta airport so I could catch the 7:20 am flight.  Made it home to my beautiful wife and have enjoyed Independance Day!  We are so blessed to live in a country where we are free to worship the way that we do.  Don't take that freedom for granted!

One last story.  I get home and my wife shows me a letter she got from the Salt Lake City Police Department.  Some of you may remember the story I told over 4 years ago about almost getting arrested for passing counterfeit money at Salt Lake Airport.  It's a long story!  Anyway, we received the letter telling is the money WAS NOT counterfeit!  That ticks me off.  At the time the police were so impolite, accusing me of all sorts of things as well as threatening to arrest me.  It only took 4 years to figure this out!!

Anyway, stay bold.  Pray for Ashish, I sat next to him on the airplane from Atlanta and we had a wonderful conversation.

Carl k.