Great Visit to the UK

It's midnight and I'll board the Continental flight later this morning for the US. Stuart Redpath, a UK citizen and friend from my church in the US and I spent the week here exploring the idea of planting an office here in the United Kingdom for Mission Discovery. We met we several leaders who gave us great insights in how to make that happen. One of the highlights of the visit was an invitation from the Evangelical Alliance of Wales to bring a Mission Discovery team to Wales to serve. Wales is the poorest nation in the UK and identifies itself as having only 2 percent of its population as evangelical Christians. I look forward to telling you more but I need some sleep now to get ready for my travel tomorrow.

Mission Discovery Looks Global

I've been out of the office for a few days of break before heading out to St. John's Lutheran church to visit the team who served with Mission Discovery in Guatemala this past Spring. Today I'm in the United Kingdom with a friend from my home church exploring the idea of establishing a Mission Discovery office here in the UK. Our hope is that, if there is a need, to establish an office that would recurit individuals and church groups from the UK and Western Europe to serve on Mission Discovery projects in Africa, the UK and Europe. I return home on Friday evening. I would appreciate your prayers as Stewart Redpath and I travel together meeting with Christian leaders here to explore our idea. God bless you. That's me at Buckingham Palace holding the world's smallest Palace Guard.

Mission Discovery Gulf Coast Report

This was Mission Discovery's last summer to supply teams in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. While the work continues, the skill level required to complete the remaining work has changed, making it more difficult for our young teams to work there. We just completed some great work in Gulfport, and Biloxi. Here's a snipit of an email I received from U.S. Project's Director Jim Sweeney about the work of Mission Discovery on the Gulf coast this summer (2008):

I had a great week with James Evans. Sally Sullivan came and talked to the group in Clarksdale one night about her adventures with MD. We had a really good week there with a lot of kids in the neighborhood coming to Christ! Mrs. Jamison spoke the last night about how MD changed her life. We have worked on her house for the last three summers a little at a time. She told the group how she was looking at paint for the house with no money to pay for it, but believing that God would provide. Just as she was doing that, this white guy named Jim pulled up in her driveway, the rest is history :)

Volunteers For Hurrican Dolly Victims

We are currently making a list of those willing to serve in a relief effort for those impacted by Hurricane Dolly in both Reynosa and South Texas. If you are interested call Tina at Mission Discovery 800-767-8720. Currently we have no dates of project descriptions for such a relief effort, we are gathering that information.

Reynosa, Mexico Hurricane Dolly Update

Here is the latest update from Pastor Valente Sobrevilla who reports that remarkably the clonia where teams work last week is in good shape. Lots of water, but little wind damage. I place a call to David, Camp Director at Cone-Oasis, to get an update but was unable to reach him. I also attempted a call to John Dolph our head bus driver who lives in the area, but call did not go through. Remarkably Valente reports that Reynosa has only limited power outages.

News From Camp Cone-Oasis, LaFeria, TX

I received a message from Carl Pregel (on the road back to Nashville) that he had talked to David Mulvaney, the Camp Director at Camp Cone Oasis where MisDis team stay while serving in Mexico. David reports that some damage was sustained to the camp as well as severe flooding. They are currently without power. Carl and Pat may be returning the the Rio Grande Valley to assist in repair and asked if there was interest among others to join them. If you are interested in serving in the areas affected by Hurricane Dolly please leave a message here or call Mission Discovery 800-767-8720. We will put your name on a list of willing helpers and contact you if/when a project develops.

Update Reynosa, Mexico Hurrican Dolly

As of 10:35 pm CDT Valente and Grace Sobrevilla report that rains flood the colonia where many of our projects are located. Winds had subsided to less than 40 mph by the time I spoke with Valente. I will call mid day tomorrow (Thursday) when Valente and Grace are able to get a better look at conditions.

Hurricane Dolly-Mission Discovery Homes

Attempts to make contact with Pastor Valente and Grace Sobrevilla, Mission Discovery staff on the ground in Reynosa, Mexico have not yielded any new information from the area where team's worked this summer. I will continue to call Valente into the night to get a first-hand report of what is happening. Please pray for those that you served as the heavest rains of Hurricane Dolly are presently over Reynosa. (Pictured L to R Grace Sobrevilla, Valente Sobrevilla, Maury Buchanan, Pastor Francisco)

When "In the Pits" is a Good Thing!

Oh by the way....during a brief weekend back at home in Nashville, Jeff and Evette White invited me into the pits at Nashville Speedway for a NASCAR 200 + mile race. Jeff is an engineer for Baker/Curb Racing. Not a good night for the team though. A wreck (what every fan loves and owner dreads) happened about half way into the race.

Mission Discovery and Hurricane Dolly Plus-Opening Day Slide-Show

Currently Dolly is dumping rain on the area. We will check with Valente Sobrevilla about how the storm is affecting our new friends later.