My parents were there too, along with a total of 23 people. It is tradition that we usually spend one or both holidays with Newt and family when we are in town. It looks like this year we will be spending Christmas with them as well.

We had a good time and ate too much.

After everyone left Newt and I went out to find our first geocache. Geocaching is a worldwide scavenger hunt. You look up on the website where people have hidden a small cache to be found. Then you traipse out into the wild to find it. I have read about the game for several years, but have never participated. Today seemed like a good day to start.

We went out first to find one near the house, but we did not get an early start. By the time we got there, it was already dark. We looked, but was not totally convinced we were in the right spot, nor real sure what we were looking for. So we gave up and went back home to the computer to see what we might have missed.

Not to be dissuaded though, we searched for another one nearby and headed out again. This time we found the cache and were able to sign the log book. The cache was damaged and we played good Samaritans and repaired it mostly to be as good as new.

Now it is time to search for other caches and really get into this game. It is something fun to do in new locations. With our traveling, this could be a fun way to explore the towns we are in.

Everyone knows where they were on the morning of September 11, 2001. For us, we were at this church. We taught a sign language class at the church to help them reach out to the deaf community.

I preached there last night. They recorded the service.

Download audio file (112308pm.mp3)

My part starts about 8 minutes into the recording.

Show Notes:

• NaBloPoMo
• Twitter: dpeach DavidPeach
• Microwave Popcorn
• Installing an ad blocker
• Running news
  • New Balance 1222/1223
  • Timberlake Half Marathon
  • Indianapolis Marathon
• Missionary Talks
• PlaneT3rry

Preaching
We had some great preaching during the week. We had a main speaker and several other men who preached during the time there. One of the preachers was the doctor who spoke on gluttony that I posted previously.

Singing
We had some great singing primarily provided by Evangelist Bill Blount. I have always enjoyed his company. He is a generation or two older than me, but out of all the guys in our group, he is one of the most technologically advanced in our group. He was sporting a Samson Zoom H2 that he set up for recording our sessions. I told his son that when Bro. Blount makes his exit from this world that I wanted to be in the will for the recorder.

Reporting
One of my frustrations of the week came from the missionaries when they spoke. Having spent so many years in camping ministry, I see the need to keep things moving on schedule. We had one session where the missionaries were given 5 minutes each to give an elevator pitch of who they were, what their ministry is and what they are doing to accomplish that.

Remember that we were missionaries in a room full of pastors. These pastors are men who are there partially for the purpose of seeing which missionaries they would like to align themselves with and financially support. The missionaries needed to do everything they could to make an impression on these pastors. While support will not be determined on this 5 minute speech, it could affect whether the missionary got a meeting in churches for possible support.

Every missionary went over his 5 minute limit. Some went over by as many as 3 minutes. Pastors are very jealous of their time in the pulpit. When a missionary can’t stay within the time limit imposed on him, a pastor is going to be less interested in having the missionary in his church. I have been told by some pastors that if I went over, by one second, the time limit I was given that it would instantly mean I would not be supported.

One of the missionaries proceeded to talk about how he has been in churches in which the pastors have lied about their willingness to support missionaries. Also how some pastors have put on a show in front of other pastors to look good, and then privately told the missionary he really was not interested in missions. Basically he spent his 5 plus minutes disparaging pastors across the board. Not real smart when you are in a room full of them. Those are things you may experience and think, but you should never say out loud. And certainly not to a group of pastors that you want to support you.

Fellowshipping
I had a great time getting together with other missionaries and pastors. Many of these men I have known for 8 years. They have become friends by association.

Though I was there as part of a conference of missionaries, I was able to see PlaneT3rry again. He was “in the neighborhood” and took time out to drive down to the meeting area and take me out for dinner. (Thanks again for supper!) This was only the second time we have met in person, but it seems like we have been friends for years.

Driving
When it was all over on Wednesday night I loaded up my stuff and started the 11 hour trip from Pigeon Forge to Pensacola. I left about 10:30 at night and was able to drive until 2:00 AM. When I am alone, I am somewhat of a minimalist. Hotels are over-priced for just one person. I slept about 5 hours in my van while shivering myself awake occasionally. I had on 2 shirts, a sweatshirt, 2 jackets and a suit coat. I misplaced my sweater, which would have been my best defense against the cold. But, I got the rest I needed and made the trip home without any problems.

I own 2 Twitter accounts if you want to follow me. The first one is the one I have been using for a year and a half. That one is the username dpeach. That has mostly been tied in closely with my running buddies. I have a few people who follow me there who do not run, but my main following is made up of people who run and are interested in running news.

My second, and new as of tonight, Twitter account is DavidPeach. I am going to use this one as more ministry related content. I may still post some things about my running, but I plan to make it more about our ministry.

As we explore different ways to help missionaries stay more connected to the people in the churches, this has come to my mind as a great opportunity. My friend Jeff at Missionary Geek and I have talked in the past about using social networking as a way to engage our supporters. I have dismissed much of it because of the problem I see of allowing other people to view my connections. Sometimes, sad as it is, I have been told that I would, or would not be, supported based on who I would be working with. I could understand if the problem was doctrinal, but it never is. First off, I am not going to seek support from a church that I cannot agree with doctrinally. It is always based on personalities or quirkiness that really does not matter in the big picture. Therefore, I have avoided using social networking as a means to communicate with my supporters.

My mind has been steered with the help of some of the people whom I follow on Twitter. The main one being Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson. I have followed him for 2 months. In that time he has told me what new books Thomas Nelson is publishing; he had informed me that they have changed the dress code at the office; and, I know when he plays golf even. Does any of that really matter? Not if I am thinking about what book I would purchase from them. But what it does do is put Thomas Nelson constantly on my mind. That is exactly what I want from people who say they are praying for me and my ministry as well as supporting me financially. I want them to think about me constantly. I want them to know I am a real person who struggles with the same things they do. I think Twitter can deliver that.

Now you can follow one, or both, of my accounts. There may be some cases where I would cross post between accounts, but mainly the DavidPeach account will be ministry related and dpeach will be everything else.

• How to install an ad blocker in Firefox
• How to make your own microwave popcorn
• Half marathon plans
• Hammer Nutrition sale

These are all subjects that I plan to write about in the next few days.

Stay tuned!

The Dump
The Goodwill Outlet in Indianapolis, Indiana was a unique experience. They haul out big bins (4 to 8 at a time) which have various items usually loosely grouped with other similar items: i.e., housewares, clothing, books, shoes. No one is allowed to touch the items until all of the bins in that section are moved into place. Once the final one arrives the crowd of 40+ people start digging through the items like a 90% off sale the Friday after Thanksgiving.

We got a few items of interest there. The coolest item was a suitcase which we really needed. We are still in search of at least one more. We also walked away with several books and some kitchen items that we needed in our new house.

The best part about the outlet store, known to the family as “The Dump,” is you pay by the pound. We combined our haul with my sister-in-law’s and got a price break for going over 50 pounds of loot.

The Potter’s House
We were told by a facebook friend that The Potter’s House was a great thrift store, so we made the 30 minute drive to Winder, Gerogia yesterday to check it out. While we did not find a whole lot of stuff that interested us, the prices were great.

I found a nice long-sleeved blue shirt that I liked. In the process of digging through all the shirts I put my new find on the end of the rack. When I got to the end (where I had placed my shirt) I found a really nice long-sleeved blue shirt. I was really excited that I found two nice shirts. They were identical too. Then I realized I found the same shirt twice. I really must get back on my medication.

Happy Acres
Before we left the Atlanta area today we had to check out a place called Happy Acres. It is only available to missionaries, but they have a free clothing closet as well as some very nice apartments where we can stay when passing through. I found a whole rack of pants exactly my size in my favorite style and brand. There were probably 10 or more pairs of pants for me. I could not bring myself to wipe them out, but I did take 4 pair. They are in great shape and would have cost me well over $100 to buy them new in the store. All free of charge.

Thrift stores are great. Sometimes you have to dig through a lot of junk to get something useful, but when you find what you need you can save a ton of money. If it were not for thrift stores we would not have the nice clothes that we are able to wear.

Our thanks to everyone who donates their used, but good, items to thrift stores. Maybe the next time you see me I will be wearing your old shirt or shoes.

The whole feeling of being back in the old familiar ministry was brought home in a special way today. We drove south through Nashville and are back in the Murfreesboro area where we spent the first 6 years as the home base for our traveling work. Tomorrow morning we will drive through town before getting on the road to Atlanta. It will be fun to see what all has changed in the last 5 years since we were here last.

We went to Big Lagoon State Park. It is only 12 miles from where we live. But once you enter the park it seems like you are way out there.

Monday
We arrived at the campground around 3:00 in the afternoon. That is check-in time and it seemed like a good time to get there. That allowed us to have a good final lunch at home before having to eat my cooking.

We got camp set up and then spent a good amount of time trying to string up the G5RV dipole antenna for the ham radio we took along. After we got it all up in the air I saw a note in one of the camp brochures the next day saying not to tie or hang anything in the trees. Oops.

We did not do any exploring that afternoon/evening since we had to run part way back to town to get some supplies we had forgotten. There is a Wal-Mart about half way between the camp and home, so I had my wife meet us there with some things and we popped in to Wal-Mart for the other items. We then spent an hour or so enjoying ice creams from Sonic before parting ways.

Tuesday
After a restless night’s sleep, we got up early to put the coffee pot to use. Yes, my 10 year old drank his fill of coffee. Good for keeping you warm, not that it was too cold. I think it was 68 when we got up Tuesday morning. Not too cold, but cool enough to justify coffee for the lad.

We hiked for a good long time after a breakfast of eggs and bacon. We returned to the camp for a rest and to read a book. Another hike before a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In the afternoon I took a nap and we rode bikes and read books until we met up with my Dad who brought us some fishing poles and hamburgers. We ate the burgers and headed down to the seashore to do some fishing. My son caught the first fish. It was a pinfish about 6 inches long. The neighbor fishing near us bought it off of him for $1 for bait. The next 2 we caught we donated to the neighbor. We ended up with about 8 pinfish (which we turned into bait or tossed back) and the final catch was a 5 inch catfish. I must have hooked it while trying to set another nibbler. The catfish was hooked in the eye. Ouch!

Slept better that night. Was also much cooler.

Wednesday
Got up to 64 degree temps. Felt cooler since the wind was blowing. After the standard eggs and bacon we went bike riding for a bit. Camp was packed up in various stages of the morning. We also read for a while. Eventually we got out of there around 1:00.

In the events of the 3 days we cooked s’mores and burned hot dogs. We did some torturous things to marshmallows. Though we did not talk with anyone on the radio, we listened to people from Switzerland, Virgin Islands, Spain and Italy. We had more fun with fire than should be allowed. Probably would have had a whole lot less fun if my wife had been there. My son had fun taking hikes with the camera by himself. I was not too worried that there was a pond that hosted 3 alligators just 100 yards from our tent. Maybe I should have been. But this was a fun time to relax and not worry about the world crashing down around us. So we didn’t let a little thing like the stock market or alligators get us too worked up.

Their marquee out front read “Ranked No. 1 in nation by Comfort Inn guest.” Just 1 guest? Could no other guest say anything nice about the other Comfort Inn’s in the nation?

I guess it just does not take much to win an award these days.

After we were on the road yesterday headed to Georgia, my wife asked me where we were staying. I told her Conyers and she said that there was an Odyssey in Conyers for the best price she had found so far. We did not get there early enough last night to find it and look it over.

This morning I called and found out it was still available. We went in and trudged through all the paperwork. Three and a half hours later we drove off with a 2003 Odyssey. We quickly rushed back to the church where we were staying and transferred all of our stuff from Suburban to Odyssey.

We left the car dealership 2 hours behind schedule. We needed to be in Laurinburg, NC by 5:00. Fortunately, that was a buffer time. Absolute latest was 7:00. Since we got out of Conyers 2 hours late, that ate up our buffer. We did get to the church about 6:30 and I was ready to preach by 7:30. What a wild ride.

Our 1990 Suburban with 285,000 miles is sitting in a church parking lot waiting for us to return next week and pick it up. I told the secretary it was for sale. If she talks anyone into buying it, then we won’t have to take it back to Florida with us.

Tuesday
We did our final packing and and were ready to hit the road about 11:00 am. We planned to have breakfast with some friends. Because their phone was not working, we never did get caught up with them. So we had breakfast by ourselves then swung by their house to say our final good-byes.

As a travel day, we did well on Tuesday. We did not make it as far down the road as we had anticipated, but we also left a few hours later than we wanted. After 10 trips through the city, we finally found the hotel district of Villahermosa. We have stayed in various expensive hotels on the periphery of the city, but this time located the cheap hotels near down town. Getting our truck and trailer into the parking lot was a bit of a challenge, but we were thankful for a gated parking area.

Wednesday
Because of our late departure on Tuesday, we were about 2 hours behind schedule on Wednesday. We made that up by getting on the road early. We arrived in Poza Rica, or planned destination for the day, and found a hotel with a nice parking lot. We drove around looking at hotel parking lots and then decided if we wanted to check on the price of the hotel. The one we stayed at had a very large lot where we were able to park our truck way back in a corner and not have to worry about losing anything.

This was a sad day for us as the hamster that was traveling with us was not able to make the trip. We had read that they can easily be stressed. Apparently the stress of traveling got the better of him. He was the younger, stronger, healthier of our two hamsters. We left the old one with friends and took the young one on the road. He did not get a proper burial, but we did the best we could at the gas station.

Thursday
We made the final leg of the Mexico portion of the trip just fine. We had no problems on the Mexican side of the border; we just had to fill out some paperwork to cancel our immigration and vehicle paperwork. The US side of the border was a different story. We waited in a long line to get to the Customs officer. She had us pull over and unpack the truck and uncover the trailer. Everything passed inspection, even the rabbit.

There were friends waiting at a restaurant for us that evening. We were glad to spend time with them. They were 2 missionary families working with the Deaf in Mexico. One family lives at the border and the other happened to be passing through at the same time as we were, so we enjoyed the evening together.

We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary by crossing into the US.

Friday
We drove from the border to Killeen, Texas to visit with an old friend. She is someone with whom we had worked for several years, but it has been 6 or 7 years since we saw her. She had a pleasant surprise for us when we arrived. A mutual friend was passing through at the same time and she invited him to spend the night with all of us. We all previously worked together and enjoyed sharing stories of days gone by as well as catching up on our current ministries. All of us are still doing the same type of ministry we were when we worked together, just in different locations now.

Saturday
We lingered at our friend’s house too long, but enjoyed every minute of it. We anticipated being in Pensacola between 10 pm and midnight. By the time we got through Houston, we knew that it would be closer to 1:00 am on Sunday, but not much of a problem.

Starting in Houston, we noticed the long line of cars headed west. This very packed traffic continued steadily from Houston to New Orleans. However, we, headed east, did not have any traffic to deal with. At least till we hit just north of New Orleans. At that point there was no one headed west any more, they were all headed east. Traffic then crawled from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama. The normal 3 hour drive from New Orleans to Pensacola took us 6 hours. We were part of the 1,000,000 people who evacuated the state of Lousiana on Saturday in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav.

Sunday
By getting to Mom and Dad’s house at 4:00 in the morning, we did not quite make it out of bed in time for church that morning. We also took a long nap in the afternoon and were even a bit late to church that night.

We have landed. Now it is time to find a house to rent and get settled in over the next two weeks while getting prepared for our travel year starting the middle of September.