Goodbye 2016

Hello, this is Odie checking in from the road. We had a great time last night with Pastor Ryan Martin and our friends in Sullivan, Missouri. I am sure that Dad will have pictures from our visit next week. Now we are headed on toward Wichita, Kansas.

This is December 31st and that means we have survived another year. It feels like 2016 just began a few weeks ago and after a few blinks it is gone. We began 2016 singing Great Is Thy Faithfulness in West Harrison, Indiana. God has proven to us over and over again how great His faithfulness is. 

I am a person that likes to have  a plan. I am open to some changes in the arrangements but I like for things to follow my plan as close as possible. It seems like life loves to laugh at my well laid strategies and throw me curves. I am learning to trust God plans and to know that His plans are ALWAYS better than mine. 

City Reach was our ministry focus for 2016. The Lord blessed us with several great City Reach campaigns in 2016 and we know none of them could have been possible without Him! Praise God for the souls that were saved and people that were helped of God.

This year we traveled from coast to coast and many places in between. We saw many awesome things along the way. It is always great to see our family and friends along the road. We have made new friends that are now lifelong friends. Sadly, we had to say an earthly goodbye to friends as well. 

Now as a new year approaches. I am ready to say goodbye to 2016. It has been a wonderful year!!  I will look back in my memory banks with fondness but I gladly welcome 2017. I am ready for a fresh start! 

How exactly will the next 12 months go? I may have ideas and dreams but God is in control. I am willing to fervently pray, sincerely believe and then trust God to do what is best for me. I am going to enjoy life one day at a time and appreciate the journey. I pray and believe that walking without any help will become a reality for me this year! I am going to look for that miracle every day and I am going to serve God no matter what happens.

Thanks for joining with us on the blog this year. Stay tuned right here and we will take you on every crazy adventure we face in the coming days, weeks and months. 

Last Monday Lisa, Deidre and I spent a few of hours together before we had to go our separate ways. We enjoyed lunch at Cheddars and a browsing visit to Hobby Lobby. Spending time with these two is always a blast!  

 

 

 

 

A final picture with Deidre on Tuesday

 

Many miles may separate me from these two lovely cousins but they are never far from my heart. I love them both so much!

That is all for 2016. Thank you for reading! Happy New Year and I will see you next year. 

Odie

A Summary of Our 2016 Nigeria Trip

I received a phone call from Bro. Shobanke this week and his call reminded me that I had not posted a summary of our recent trip to Nigeria. I know that many of you are interested in Bro. Shobanke and Nigeria so I want to make sure all the information is here to view. I hope you enjoy.

Our latest trip to Nigeria was filled with excitement and we enjoyed it very, very much. God blessed, helped and guided every step of the way and His hand was evident several times. It is very easy to pull back and try to control things myself but it is ultimately better if I can trust God to bring His will to pass in spite of everything I see going "wrong."

The first highlight of the trip was to preach camp meeting in Osun State for Christ Campaigners Church at the City of Mercy. Pastor Isaac Adewale was so kind to invite us and he, his wife, family and church treated us like royalty.

I preached two nights of camp meeting there and a one day Minister's Conference. You can read about it HERE and HERE.







Bro. Shobanke arranged all of our transportation to Osun State and went with us every step of the way. By Saturday night we were back in Abeokuta and getting ready for the Sunday services at Christ Ambassadors Holiness Church. Sunday morning I preached in the church and Sunday night I preached the first night of the outdoor Gospel Crusade on the crusade grounds next to the church. You can read about Sunday HERE.







Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights we continued the Gospel Crusade with great success. The nights I made specific calls for the lost to come and be converted, God sent grace to dozens. Two nights I made a call for every one to come to the altar and both nights I had 100% response in the altar service. I was flying high to see so many respond to the help of God. You can read about the crusade HERE and HERE.





We also visited the school one day. We love the work that the school is doing. Sis. Ruth and Sis. Rebecca and their staff are doing a super great work and we are thankful for it.








We were able to take a few hundred dollars in school supplies, $200 for school supplies that can be purchased there, money to supplement Sis. Ruth and Sis. Rebecca's salaries and $1500 to complete the new classrooms that are badly needed.



Bro. Shobanke told me Wednesday that the construction on the rooms is now completed and the painters were beginning now. Praise God!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday I was preaching the Minister's Conference in Bro. Shobanke's church. We had three whole days of great services where we enjoyed fellowship with God's servants, studied the word, worshiped together and sought God's face. It was a time of great strengthening and encouragement.

I love preaching to these guys and believe it or not, they love the preaching. They have wholeheartedly embraced us and they have accepted us like family. I can not tell you how good that makes me feel. These people are my brothers and sisters, there is no doubt about that. You can read about the conference HERE, HERE and HERE.





We also took some money to help Dorcus as we do every year. Dorcus was saved in the Gospel Crusade in 2009 and has grown into a wonderful Christian woman. We love this lady very much.



Dorcus had clothes made for each of us and melted my heart when she presented them to us. I am wearing mine in the pictures below.



We were blessed to spend and evening with Bro. Shobanke's family and what a treat that was. The people you see below are my family. They have adopted me and I have adopted them.



We were also blessed to take gifts for Bro. Shobanke's family, money for Christ Ambassadors Church, Bro. Shobanke, his Pastors, several preachers attending the conference and other Pastors and families as He led.

Bro. Shobanke had a project in mind for the money we gave the church and I will tell you more about that when he sends pictures. Hopefully I will have pictures of the completed classrooms at the school soon.

We are blessed to go to Nigeria with full hearts and full hands because you and the Lord make it so. Thank you to those that help us carry this burden for these wonderful people. God is doing a work in their lives as He is in ours and it is exciting to be on the side lines looking in.

That pretty much sums up our Nigeria trip 2016. Thank you for praying and thank you for reading.

Davy

A Change In Next Week's Schedule

I posted this Thursday morning but I am re-posting shortly after noon with an update. The update is inserted within the post in red type below.

Kelly Jo and I made a farewell trip to Acapulco Wednesday at 11:00 AM. It was a bittersweet visit but the food and salsa were grand. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to so many of our friends.



A Change In Next Week's Schedule

We have not even left the barn yet and our 2017 schedule is already changing. That is why we always say in Odie's newsletter, "Please call before diving long distances because our schedule is likely to change, like maybe today."

Well, today, the schedule changed.

We are planning to leave later today in order to be in service Friday night with Pastor Ryan Martin Sullivan, Missouri. Sunday we are supposed to preach the dedication service for the residential portion of the "Hope For The Hurting" program at Bethany Revival Center in Wichita, Kansas. Both of those dates are still on.

We were supposed to be with Pastor Brent Moore and his church in Ardmore, Oklahoma a few nights next week. I touched base with Bro. Moore Wednesday and there was a slight hitch. They still wanted us to come, but Bro. Moore was going to have be away. 

He has been asked to preach a campmeeting in Croatia and will be traveling there with two of his children next week. This is an opportunity of a lifetime and he felt like God had opened the door. I absolutely agree with everything, except for us going to his church in Bro. Moore's absence.

We have filled the pulpit for Pastors that had to be absent. We have preached in churches where the Pastor was called away at the last moment. However, preaching a revival for a church when the Pastor can not attend at all is uncomfortable. I love for the Pastor to be there and it is not the same with out him.

I begged off and we agreed to schedule our revival at a date to be determined later. I wanted to let everyone know as soon as possible since we have quite a few friends in Oklahoma and Texas that might be planning to visit us in Ardmore. I will post here when we are going to be in the area again.

We are looking forward to being with Pastor Dennis King and our wonderful friends in Gainesville, Texas for both services on Sunday January 8th.

Update: Pastor Russell Cheek has asked us to preach a few nights at Amber Holiness Church in Amber, Oklahoma. We are happy to accept his invitation and we are now planning to be there Tuesday through Friday, January 3-6. The services will begin at 7:30.

Wednesday

Wednesday night we attended revival at Dryden Rd. That will probably be our last service there until Easter and it sure was a good one. Pastor Gary Lee preached outstanding! We are blessed to have a great home church and we praise God for them.

We are looking forward to cranking the BoggsMobile and hitting the road in a few hours. We have been "sitting still" long enough. We will try to write soon from some where down the road.

Thank you for reading.

Davy

Weekend Woundup and Weview #52

Thank you for the nice response to my Christmas Sunday Parable.

This past weekend was the last full weekend of the year so this is the last Weekend Woundup and Weview post for 2016. It was a great Christmas weekend and it was also a great week leading up to it.

We told you about the Christmas service Sunday night at Anchor of Hope.

We told you about the Christmas service Tuesday night at Trinity in New Castle, Indiana.

We told you about the Christmas service in West Harrison, Indiana.

We told you about our friends, Mitchell Boggs Jr. and his family, stopping in for a short but wonderful visit.

We told you about at least a couple of our many visits to Acapulco.

We told you about our Very Morgan Christmas.

We told you about our Very Boggs Christmas.

There are a few things I had not got around to telling you about. I missed describing our annual Christmas dinner with my brother Steve and his sweet wife Karen last Monday night at Rodizio. I missed that mostly because we neglected to take any pictures. Since there are no pictures, then it may not have happened at all!

Steve and Karen take care of all of our mail during the year; collecting it, sorting it and forwarding it to us. But they also do so much more than that. Anything at all that needs to done on our behalf, they do it. They make our life on the road so much easier than it could be.

Even when we evangelized back in the early 90's, Steve and Karen were super helpful. We did not have cell phones, so I put their home phone number on my business cards. Pastors would call Steve and Karen and then I would call them every Sunday night and collect any messages that came in.

Our Christmas dinner each year with them is a token of our appreciation for all they do for us. Plus we get to be with them that night and we get to eat too! What a bonus.

Friday Steve helped me work around the barn all day and we spent a great day together. We even slipped a little salsa into our day as well. That made a great day super great!

Christmas morning has always been reserved for Kelly Jo, Odie and I. We always read the Christmas story, open a few presents and spend our morning enjoying each other.

Here is Odie enjoying her 9th Christmas in the BoggsMobile. Give that girl a purse and a few clothes and she is a friend for life.

Later Christmas morning we went to our home church, Dryden Rd. Pentecostal Church. Our Pastor asked us to do the Christmas singing Sunday morning and we were very glad to do it. We had a wonderful service and it was capped off with great preaching from Bro. Bennie.

The real treat of the service was when Bro. Bennie asked Sis. Renae to help us sing for the altar service. She used to help us sing during the altar a lot when we were home all the time and we always enjoyed it. She is a great singer with the sweetest spirit. I offered her a singing position on the road but she just shook her head.

Monday Bro. Brian Hisle and his family were visiting his mother and they took time to drink a little salsa with us at Acapulco while they were in town. It was very nice to get to fellowship with them for a while.

We planning to leave some time Thursday so last night we had one more night together with some of our family. We met at a little Mexican joint with terrific salsa called Acapulco. My Mom was a little under the weather so she could not join us. We enjoyed a great time with Dad, Lisa, Kelly's parents and our little Odie.

Dad was gone before we thought to take a picture.

We are already in full departure preparation mode. We have a bunch of things that must be completed before we pull out so we need to get busy.

Thanks for reading.

Davy

A Very Boggs Christmas

Christmas evening was the time set aside for A Very Boggs Christmas. We met at the Dodds Fellowship Hall as we have for several years. It has plenty of room for us to all spread out and have a good time plus it is conveniently located. It is right next door to the Lazy OD Ranch and only a few miles from every one else.

All the family members were present and it was good to have everyone together. We now have three of the grandchildren living away from Waynesville and all three of them were able to be home for Christmas. That made it special for all of us. 

The theme of the Christmas dinner this year was Mexican food and boy howdy it was good! Everything I tasted was perfect, plus I topped it all with a heavy dose of Acapulco salsa.

I will leave you now with the pictures from our Very Boggs Christmas. Thanks for reading.

Davy