It's TIme to Praise God!!

For all intent and purposes, the RESTORE THE LAND PROJECT IS COMPLETE!!

I met with the contractor on Saturday to discuss final processes. We will be able to get back into our church Wednesday of this week, we have much to be thankful for. After my meeting with the contractor, I stayed at the church for a minute waiting for Tracy and Myles to get there so we can go get a haircut. I walked the building while carpet was being laid and while the sound tech was laying wiring. I took a deep breathe only to find myself fighting back my emotions. This is such a huge blessing for our church. There is no tape on the carpet, no asbestos, no mold, HVAC is completeand electrical wiring brand new. The atmosphere in place feels different. The look is different. Everything is different! Thank God!

I'm not tooooo happy with the stage area because building and safety killed my octagon look. When the inspector was there last week, I tried one last effort to rid ourselves of the 15ft handicap ramp and place it somewhere else to keep stage appearance but my efforts failed. Nevertheless, we have more than enough flexibility to create back drops for different stage appearances so I can't complain at all.

The color scheme of green has turned out to be better than I expected. The women of our church did a good job matching everything together. That's not one of my strong points.

We stayed within our desired budget of $400,000 and did not exceed it with any extra cost. This was one of the hardest jobs I had to do was keep the cost down at all cost and yet maintain the quality of work without any short-cuts. The contractor locking in at $285,000 at the start of project sealed the deal but I was still a little nervous about what may come up during construction that would increase cost. Thank God for favor in this project because a lot of things came up but we were able to work it out without increasing expenses!

We can't use our AC/HT yet until So Ca Edison installs new 400 amp transformer. I'm hoping that this will be done within the next 2 weeks. We have some underground work that needs to be done as well that's planned to start today. I'm a little concerned because Cali is expected to have rain this week and I'm sure it will delay undergournd work.

We pickup our chairs and office furnishings Friday and planned to have chairs positioned in the church on Saturday. We still have a lot to do in decorations. My wife, Tracy, is doing all of signage work in the church. I will post her work as soon as it's done so you can see it. She really does good work even I'm impressed. Our display case will be delivered next week for our "Welcome Center". Our sound, lighting, screens, and projectors will be installed this week. Just about everything we can think of will be complete this week, THANK GOD!

I want to take this time to say THANK YOU TO MY FAMILY, TRACY, AYSIA, and MYLES! This was a huge project of which I carried the bulk of the load resulting in limited time for my family. They've been very supportive. I really want to thank, Tracy. She was there during my times of frustration, stress, irritations, mood swings, and everything else. As a matter of fact she has a running joke with me and my mood swings. She says, when I'm in one of my moments, "EEEEEEVVVVVIIIIILLLLLL!" She made sure that food was ready when I got home. She gave me my down time when needed. She's allowed me to go to sleep when she wanted to talk. She's been a trooper through this whole process. If I needed her to run down to the church to meet with the contractor, she did. Thank you, T-Baby and I love with all my heart. And yes, we will go to Magic Mountain before the year is out. My teenagers have been very supportive as well. After my softball games, I try to spend the rest of the afternoon with them watching TV, playing games, or wrestling with Myles. But every now and then sleep takes over ending our moments together. So they've developed a running joke, "Sleepy head!" But all and all I'm very grateful for their support. Thank you guys!

To the member of FGMBC thank you for you support and following me in this endeavor. I know it's a huge undertaking for us because of the size of our congregation. However, I believe in God and I'm confident in knowing that there is nothing to hard for God. What looks impossible to us is not impossible to God. If we stay focused on fulfilling the Great Commission, God will handle everything else.

I don't like calling names because you always forget somebody and we know how that goes. But I want to say thank to three guys who's made a point to call me periodically to check on me and to have conversation, Pastor Reginald Payne, Pastor Barry Wilson, and my nephew Louis Monroe. These 3 guys have been genuine friends throughout the process without showing any jealousy and envy. Thank you and may each of your ministries increase.

To my blogging ministry partners, thank you for your words of encouragement and prayers as well. Keep them coming and I have each of you on my daily prayer list.

We had a good day of worship yesterday. I preached Romans 12:1-2 "A Surrendered Life" and God blessed our message. It is my goal to get back to our series "The Importance of Supporting the Local Church" at the beginning of the year. These closing weeks I'm going to cast vision to prepare us for year 2009.

Our Grand Opening celebration will take place on December 7th. I really wasn't sure how things were going to turn out or if anything would come up to delay our entry back into the church. So, didn't invite pastors and their churches for a formal service because I didn't want to tie up their schedules and then cancel at the last minute due to delays. So our service on Dec 7th is informal with an evangelistic strategy. Prayerfully we will plant some seed and water some seed in the process.

It's done, that's it, that's all folks, Until next time, please keep us in your prayers!