I originally planned to call this post "Snow Day," but since it took over a week for things to return to normal I changed the title to snow week.  Todays events sum up life for the last two weeks.  Our dog Lance was recently chosen by his trainer to be featured as the "Dog of the Month."   We planned to meet at the local dog park to take photos and video footage of our Black Lab in action, but Lance had other plans. After three weeks without training, (a week in Gatlinburg, a week with my mom here, then almost a week of snow), he decided to act like he'd forgotten everything he'd learned. After almost 2 hours we only had about one minute of usable footage.  It was a topsy-turvy day to say the least, but that's how things have gone for us lately.

     On March 1 we had an unusual church service. We had visitors who had driven all the way from Orlando, Florida to visit our church. Bro. Dan Sherwood and his family, missionaries to South Dakota, were also with us.  The family from Florida was friends of Sean, a Marine who attended our church last year while stationed at the local Navy base. For her 21st birthday Miranda told her mom that she wanted to take a road trip. She said that after all the things Sean had said about us, she wanted to visit for herself. It was truly our honor to have them with us. Since Miranda's sister had never seen snow, they were planning on continuing their journey north until they found it. I told them that there was snow two weeks prior in Pigeon Forge so they should travel up 441. Less than thirty minutes after I told them this, our church parking lot was full of snow. It snowed so hard we could barely get our cars out of the parking lot later!

     Since we have fellowship meals every Sunday anyway, we decided instead of cancelling our services to move our night service to the afternoon and let Bro. Sherwood preach. He did a wonderful job and the Lord really dealt with a lost visitor.  Surely the Lord ordered the day and even sent snow to keep Bro. Sherwood there to preach to the lost soul.

     I left the van at church and we all road home in the car. When I got there, I could not get all of the way into my driveway because of the snow. I walked to the shed to look for a shovel. As I came out, a limb began cracking overhead. I jumped back into the building just as the limb fell where I had been standing. The next morning a large limb was laying where we usually park the vehicles. Thank God we left the van and couldn't get the car up the driveway!  Otherwise both would have been damaged.

     We lost power for only a few hours, but were without phone and internet for 9 days. Two days into the event, some friends from Grace Baptist Church in Warrenton, GA came to play in the snow with us. While they were here, I saw a large dent and busted tail light on the passenger side of our car. Either the snow plow did it or someone at Wal-Mart. Either way, I was disgusted. That night I met Bro. John Sasser at the Commerce exit to pick up a gift to our church from his church and I showed him the dent. To my relief, he said that it could probably be popped out.  The next day I went to the library. I was only in there for about 30 minutes but when I came out my dent was gone! Honest, I'm not making this up! Apparently the sun heated the panel enough to pop it back out. The tail light is still cracked though.

     On Saturday, Grace Baptist had their annual ladies' meeting.  While our ladies were there, our men were able to visit the Louisville mission being started by Pastor Bill South and Grace Baptist Church.  The Lord blessed them with a beautiful brick church building complete with 14 acres of land absolutely free of charge!  It was awesome to see God bless my pastor and people. 

     Pastor Craig Ogle and the people of Faith Baptist Church in Sylacauga, Alabama blessed us this week with a shipment of postage stamps to help with our mailings.  We mailed over 600 postcards to local residents this month.  We ordered new 6'x3' banners for roadside display and a large supply of door hanger bags for our John-Romans distribution. 

     The snow was fun, as life's little interruptions can be.  I am glad it is now over and we can get back to work!