New Service Year!

So we are well underway into the new 2015-2016 Service Year.  A lot of things have happened over the past 8 months.

About two months ago we stopped  to get gas and a quick break in service. One of our fellow pioneers gave a man a magazine and he was so appreciative that he gave us his personal recorded CD. Note such classics as Moonshine Woman, I Can't Sell My Truck (For Scrap) and Corn Crazy. Definitely classic Appalachian Bluegrass! Also I don't know if you can make it out, but on the cover of his album the man is holding a rooster!

Our area is teeming with snakes.  This year was a particularly bad year for copperheads and rattlesnakes.  One night after the Thursday meeting there was a young rattlesnake right outside the Kingdom Hall door.  One of our brothers was able to kill it before anyone was hurt.  Mike took it home and skinned it.  We ate the meat, which tasted like a combination of fried chicken and fish.  Then Mike tanned the snakeskin and it turned out remarkably well! 

Kayaking and Hiking with a visiting speaker and some brothers he brought with them.

Friends from Tazewell, VA

Molly & Herb came to visit at our Regional Convention in July.

At the end of July we got to bring our nieces Brooke and Bailey home with us for 2 1/2 weeks.  We spent lots of time in field service, hiking and exploring!

Teaching the girls to skip rocks in the river.

Checking out a large group of butterflies in service.

One of the nine turtles that the girls saved from the roads.

Petting a mini horse.

Feeding our call's goats

Petting a potbelly pig.

The girls got to make their own batch of homemade soap! 

Family Worship night on top of a mountain.

Riding the 4 wheeler

Canoeing with Johnny & Rachelle

At the end of August I had the privilege of attending Pioneer Service School for the second time! What a way to finish out my 10th consecutive year of pioneering.  There were 39 students in my class, with a large number of second timers and three third time attendees. There was a family that had seven members attending Pioneer School together! They made up three generations pioneering! Pioneer School was a much needed booster shot for me, so encouraging and upbuilding! It felt like a warm hug from Jehovah and was just what I needed to keep pioneering. Here's some pictures from our fun week!

My phone got hacked!

Roses were left on all the sister's desks for the section on women. 

These two sisters are mother and daughter.  They hosted me and Lori Walls when we first came and visited WV-1 way back in February 2012.  I remember one discussion we had that they both spoke of regular pioneering as a goal. What a treat to be able to attend Pioneer School with them 3 years later!

This is Derek, he and his wife, Jody, sat behind me in class.

Future pioneers who came to visit their Mom & Dad in class!

This is Sandra. She and her son Louis were in my class and they recently moved to our circuit from Brooklyn!!!!

All the Brothers from our class.

Class Picture

Finally, we went on a little trip to Ft Blackmore, VA to a hiking spot called the Devil's Bathtub.  Its naturally carved out by the constantly running water. What a neat swimming hole!

A few weeks ago we got to hear the review of our congregation activity for last service year.  You might find the statistics encouraging, I certainly did!

Phelps, KY Congregation Statistics:

25 publishers (9 of which are Regular Pioneers)

6 different Auxillary Pioneers during the year

142 Books

2,934 Tracts & Brochures

9,868 Hours

4,749 Magazines

2,876 Return Visits

24 Bible Studies/Month

What an accomplishment for such a small hall!

We get to meet our new Circuit Overseer in just a few weeks.  They are Joshua and Anna Hauser from MD-11 Circuit. Maybe they will know some of the friends from back home! 

I miss all you friends from home dearly! Hope everyone is doing well!

Time Brings Change

It seems as an adult, time is more fluid. I remember when I was a child days were so long, summers were even longer.  Now it seems that time passes so quickly and with no accounting. I believe I have started this post at least 3 times and then lost all progress I had made.... sad  consequences of living in the boonies with super slow/spotty internet.

This new service year marks my 10th year pioneering..... I can hardly believe it has been that long. Pioneering here in Phelps has been some of the best of those years.  Let me tell you about some of our experiences.  I currently have 3 bible studies. My first study is an older woman in her 70s. Her name is Dorothy.  She had 11 children, 31 grandchildren, 46 great grandchildren and 5 great great grandchildren! Can you imagine??? Dorothy is what we would call a 'rough' woman.  She grew up in hard times, raised her kids in hard times and is definitely not dainty.  She normally greets me by kicking open her screen door (its tight and has no interior handle). It has not been uncommon to see a cat go flying out her front door and off the porch.  BUT, even though she is a little rough on things, animals, and in her speech, she has an appreciation for spiritual things.  Her husband was an alcoholic and beat her when he was drunk (which from what I gather was most of the time). Because of what she endured she has seizures, difficulty remembering things and a whole other host of health problems. Some days I can tell it's a bad day when she can't stay focused on the paragraph or forgets her scriptures.  But on the good days she remembers everything we talk about and can reason on it.  It really must be amazing what Jehovah sees in her heart.  With her limitations, we only study 1-2 paragraphs a week in the Good News brochure.  Much more than that and she wouldn't get the information. Through all of this, each week she is ready for her study, has her Bible and brochure by her chair and doesn't care if I wake her up to do her study.  She is quite an interesting woman.

My second study is a 15 year old girl named Kayci.  Our c/o's wife turned her over to me last year as a doorstep study.  During that particular visit last April, our c/o's wife prayed to find someone that was not blown out of their minds on drugs that would be receptive and then she found Kayci.  This young girl is not your typical worldly teenager.  She is very polite, intelligent and respectful.  What teenager do you know that doesn't have some form of a social media account? Kayci doesn't.  She also spends her summers going to visit kids with cancer and play games with them in the hospital (which is 2 hrs away roundtrip). She was not raised going to church or even really reading the Bible.  She knows it's important and has a respect for it as most people in our area do.  I have really enjoyed studying with Kayci. She really reflects and thinks hard on scriptural truths.  Over the past two months as the weather has gotten colder, our study has moved from the porch to inside the house.  Since it has moved inside, her mom has been listening in on some of her studies from the kitchen and on her last study, her mom even sat down in the living room and listened to the whole study. PROGRESS!

I'll save my third study for another post.  Back in September we had the pleasure of meeting up with some friends from the Salisbury, MD area.  They came down to work unassigned territory in the next county over (Floyd County).  From their accounts, they had a wonderful time during their week of special activity.  It truly is refreshing to meet people that have an appreciation for spiritual things.  I'm reminded of that when I go home and interact with people that are apathetic or abrupt.  Anyways, while they were down in the area we got to take them to Breaks Interstate Park. If you can't tell already, it is one of our favorite places down here.  Thank you to our friends who were troupers on an unseasonably cold and foggy September day.  Even though the weather was bad we got to do a little hiking and show them all the gorgeous canyon overlooks.  We topped it off with a visit to our little swimming hole, what we call the Blue Lagoon.  Thanks to all the rain we had gotten that week, we were able to do a little swimming with a few brave souls.  To the Pattersons, Homovichs, Hanleys, and Greg & Lauren, thanks for making the trip, it was awesome to have you guys with us!

I have always wanted to climb on this rock, Mike had to help me do it though.

Treacherous path to the Blue Lagoon

Super Hazen!

On the way to the Blue Lagoon.

In October we had I had the joy/stress of birthing 5 baby bulldogs! That was my first time doing that. For all you mommies out there, I have huge respect for you.  The babies were really dependent on me and their mommy to get them through the first month.  But what a joy it was to see them experience different stages of development. I especially loved the learning to walk stage, but once they mastered walking I was in for trouble.  They learned to escape and to play.  All in all the 2 1/2 months I had with them was tiring but fun! Here's my babies:

In November we had our first one day Circuit Assembly.  Mike had the privilege of giving one of the talks.  We really enjoyed getting to know his participant, Elijah. Mike's talk was about Pursuing Peace as a Young Person.  Let me tell you Elijah's experience, it's amazing.  This young brother is about 16 years old and fairly new to our circuit.  His father was a disfellowshipped witness who later became opposed.  His dad did drugs and would force Elijah to take drugs and even fight with him.  The father became extremely violent to the point that Elijah and his mom feared for their lives.  They had to have the help of the police to be removed from that situation and seek help at a women's shelter.  Two days later, Elijah's father committed suicide.  That's not even half of his story.  So here's Elijah going to a new high school and being confronted by another male student for his beliefs.  What Elijah didn't know was a teacher put the student up to confronting and harassing Elijah and even gave him a list of questions to confront him with.  Apparently the boy repeatedly confronted Elijah to the point where another teacher noticed.  Through it all Elijah remained peaceful and answered the questions from the Bible.  At one point the teacher who instigated all of this kept pressuring the boy to continue his harassment, but the other student refused because he saw that Elijah was peaceful and answered everything from the Bible.  As a result, Elijah got to witness to several other students and place literature with them. 

As a final treat from our Circuit Assembly, the guest speaker was Bro Shinichiro Waki with his wife Yoshiko.  Some of my Rising Sun friends might remember when they came as Bethel speakers a few years ago.  His talks were refreshing, candid and full of spiritual gems.  We also had the pleasure of watching the baptism of a young sister in our hall.  She had been raised around the truth and had studied with her grandmother who is a pioneer in our hall.  Miranda has really shined as a new publisher and is a great addition to our congregation.

with Sister Waki

with our new sister Miranda

A nice thing about the falls and springs here is the rivers swell from all the rainfall and we are able to go kayaking.  It's really a treat to go a few miles down the road and be able to take a nice kayaking trip.

One of the joys of our ministry here in Appalachia is the hospitality and friendliness of the people.  It is a regular occurrence to be invited in, offered food and drink.  We've even received counsel that we should accept a drink or food every once in awhile (apparently some were refusing and we don't want to offend). One morning we were sitting on a man's front porch drinking coffee and talking about the Bible when a doe walked up with her two fawns.  We all got quiet and just enjoyed seeing them walk through the yard.  I sneaked a picture. 

Currently we are snowed in. We haven't had a meeting in a week and a half due to snowy weather and treacherous roads.  We got 18 inches of snow on Monday and another 4 inches are expected today into tomorrow.  The snow is above my knees and most people are having a hard time digging out. To survive through winter we rely on our regular calls and rarely do door to door.  But every day in the ministry is enjoyable.  A bad day in service is better than any good day at work!!

Somewhere under there is my car!