"WE'RE GOING TO TOWN"

Today we are "Going to Town" Ha Ha! When I was a kid growing up in Fresno I remember hearing those words "were going to town." (Hispanic accent added) That was a saying that the poor folk said because they lived outside of town not in town. Linda and I have a "Meeting" (there is that horrible word again) in Madera for Ministry and we decided to go the extra 20 miles to Fresno. Were going to take advantage of a found treasure (gift cards in Linda's purse) and let Linda shop. Ha ha

We will stay in Fresno since we have to go back to Madera for Sunday service so why not take advantage of it huh? Prayerfully this time I can see my Mom since she ditched me the last trip for Bingo instead ha ha (pray for her) I forgot to mention that we had a great time on Thursday Night for our Study. Acts 6 is filled with encouragement to the believer not to back down from a hostile crowd who is about to stone you but to see the face of Jesus in all things.

This is an exciting time we are all living in. For us a time of literally trusting God for our every meal and by the looks of some of my pics I haven't missed any. (Hey, hey you don't need to agree just nod your head so I don't see you). God is good! So now its off to shopping for Linda to buy whatever her heart desires. I just don't see how she is going to buy any new clothes with Home Depot & Lowes cards!

In His Grip
AL

Fantastic Dinner

Linda was given the "Biggest Loser Cookbook" for her birthday and she fixed one of the recipes from it tonite and it was absolutely marvelous! I can feel the lbs just melting off of me as I blog this ha ha. It was a meatloaf made with lean chicken along with spiced up zucchini and man was it fabulosious (Gk= melts in mouth) I looked it up and since it is in the aorist tense it means "it keeps on melting" ha ha. (s.o.m humor)

Anyway's.......... My Mother-in-law wanted to know where the above cold looking picture was taken so I thought I would give ya another one.

We went to Pacific Grove (Monterey for all you desert folks) for Linda's Birthday and had a wonderful time watching the waves crash and then putting our jackets on in the evening it was so beautiful there. A promise is made to anyone who comes to visit that we will take you there and enjoy some real sunsets on the beach.

The next day the weather was so beautiful we went for a walk out on the rocks and watched the waves roll. We sat out on the rocks and spent time with the Lord praying for everything we could think of and of course all of you as well. I saw this flower and thought to myself huuummmm how would my daughter-in-law take a photo of this and walla look what happened. I'm not as good as she is but here it is ha ha.

I wanted to include this photo as well to entice my buddy Mike to come back this way and we can play golf here again.

Looking forward to some visits this year from everyone who is able to especially you Norma!

God Bless You All

Al

Who you calling Loser?

OK this is what we do on Tues Night just in case you thought we were just a bunch of Holy Rollers (whatever that is) Linda and I enjoy yelling at our least favorite contestants this season its the silver team. This is a great incentive to eat healthy and have a goal here to get even healthier so we can serve the Lord. Being that we live in the produce capitol of the world you figure it would be easy huh? WRONG! Remember these people believe in feeding you here so we had to enact a house rule for our Study/Prayer Night. If you bring goodies (junk) you must take them home or they go in the trash. I have had to become a food Nazi of sorts and it is killing me. Ha ha just kidding! Well if you wanna spend an evening with us make it a Tues night watching "The Biggest Loser"

In real life we know who that really is don't we? That's right the Book of Revelation tells us!!!

In His Grip

AL

Thanks For The Prayers

Linda and I both want to thank The Espinosa's & The Florants for your prayers today regarding our exams at the Census Bureau. Taking these exams @ our age can at times be very challenging especially since being out of school for like 3 + decades now. I cannot for the life of me figure out why you need to know so much about the stinking math equations that I encountered today. Fractions & Decimals and eplurabus unium goofy mugwumps stuff. I guess I was just expecting you know the typical questions when going house to house to add up how many people live in a particular residence. Questions like which arm do you hold the clipboard in if you write with your right hand. Needless to say we both passed the exam(s)

I say exam(s) because we decided to take the Supervisors exam as well, we figured what the heck I could use a little of Obama's stimulus money he seems to be giving away. We both passed that exam as well praise the Lord but what happened next was truly from prayer.

During the exam a fellow sitting next to me asked me where I was from and when I told him Los Banos he said "wow me too." He asked me what brought us to Los Banos and we told him the Lord. We told him we started a bible study in hopes planting a church. He indicated to me that he attended Calvary Baptist there in Los Banos. We spoke of our affiliation with Calvary Chapel and the Moderator of the test overheard us and asked "are you guys Christians?" and then said "praise the Lord" ha ha.

We completed both test and Linda and I were the last ones ha ha (I hate those timed test) The Moderator told Linda and I that he too lived in Los Banos and attended the church that I am working with to organize a one day Men's Conference. He was absolutely shocked at this. After he had graded our exams he told us we both had passed. I noticed he had showed us great favor in posting our final scores telling us he wanted to bless Gods people. The reason I used the pic above was I noticed his name tag said "Joseph" I told him I felt just like one of Josephs brothers being taken care of during a famine.

God is so good to provide His people to take care of His people for provisions and hopefully make the Government pay for it!

Side note! we received a call later on from Joseph telling us our first exam had also been taken care of for more consideration!!!!!!

Definitely in His Grip
AL

We had our first Men's Breakfast here @ the house and if you recognize the photo on the left you will notice it is the web pic from Ken Graves Web page. The men all 9 of them absolutely enjoyed the video "Be A Man." by Pastor Ken.

Linda is an amazing organizer and really was a HUGE help to me in this event. As we begin to move along with different events here it will be fun to see who the Lord lifts up.

We have on the average of 6-8 guys who show up here for the Thurs Night study and nearly that many for prayer on Sun. It's amazing to see these guys soak up the word and offer up their requests to the Lord. Next Sun is Super Bowl Sunday and unfortunately for the Cardinals we will still be having prayer ha ha. Depending on how long we spend in prayer there might be some time left on the clock to watch the end. Prayer Sunday is a special time around here and there is no way in the world would we miss it for a game ha ha.

Tomorrow Linda and I both will be taking a test for the Census Bureau. Since drug tests are probably the only test we know for sure we can pass please pray for us the test is @ 1:00PM our time. Well Ya'll its now 4:00 time to prepare for Prayer.

God Bless
AL

WE'RE BACK !!!!!!

Hey Ya'all

We are back with you on line hoping that we can give you continual updates of our "Adventure of Faith 2009" What a long 8 months since we left The Desert back in May of 08'. We are definitely excited to see what the Lord has for us in this next year to come. Tomorrow we will have our First Men's Breakfast here @ the house. We will be viewing Pastor Ken Graves

"Be A Man" DVD and sharing afterwards. Can you believe that these folks here have never seen this.

I'll be sharing more with you soon

Lord Bless Our Friends & Family

Al & Linda