A Very Morgan Christmas 2016

We spent Christmas Eve with our Morgan family and what a day it was. There was plenty of food, love and joy to go around and we enjoyed every minute of it. My first Christmas with the Morgan family was 32 years ago and I think they keep getting better and better. 

This is a fun bunch. We laughed and ate and played music and opened presents and ate a few more times. It was a great day and evening.

We have several pictures to post from our time on Christmas Eve so here we go. I hope you enjoy our very Morgan Christmas!

Davy

A Christmas Sunday Parable

I already posted once today so if you receive this by email you will have to click through to read today's first post.

I had something else rattling around in my head today so what follows is an original Christmas Sunday Parable. You are welcome to re-post if you like with attribution and a link to this original post.

A Christmas Sunday Parable by Davy Boggs

Let us suppose the whole world celebrates the birth of Ronald McDonald. The impact of McDonald's on the world has been so great that once each year the world marks his birth with a tremendous holiday. 

The celebration starts small and builds steadily through the years. As McDonald's expands and is known and loved the world over, Ronald McDonald's birthday takes on wider significance. 

Not every one loves McDonald's, but the influence of McDonald's is so great and so obviously positive that even detractors take part in the celebration each year. It is the world's holiday.

The anticipation for Ronald McDonald's birthday each year builds over many weeks. 

School choirs sing songs in his honor. Mothers bake cookies. Grandfathers tell stories. Families cherish memories. Children wait with great anticipation.

Retail stores, greeting card companies, chocolate companies, jewelry stores and many others depend on Ronald McDonald's birthday celebration for much of their yearly profit. 

Children of every language count down the days with visions of Happy Meals, Cheeseburgers, French Fries and all kinds of gifts dancing in their heads. 

Families and friends gather together in every nation for great feasts of Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, Fillet O'Fish, French Fries and Apple Pies! Some locations even have McRibs for a limited time.

It is the biggest single day of the year. 

Schools and businesses shut down. 

Governments suspend their operations. 

The whole world pauses one day each year to honor the birth of Ronald McDonald and the great institution that bears his name.

But for the purists, the true lovers of McDonald's, a disturbing trend develops. 

It seems that many are celebrating just for the sake of celebrating. They send cards, they buy gifts, they have parties, they sing, they drink and they dance, but there is very little mention of the man that was born or the good things he brought the world. 

The great holiday grows but it is apparent that the real reason for the jubilation has been trivialized at best and perhaps even forgotten.

Ronald McDonald's birthday is the biggest day of the year. There is not another holiday that even compares.

Yet most of the 7 billion people celebrating do not even darken the door of McDonald's on his special day. 

That used to be different. Even though some people did not go much during the year, they used to always go to McDonald's on his birthday. Now there are too many parties to attend and too much fun to be had to bother with a trip to McDonald's that might require and hour or two of their precious holiday time.

Then the final blow. Many of the local McDonald's begin to close their doors on Ronald McDonald's birthday. The people were too busy celebrating his birthday to go to the very place that honors his name.

The holiday celebration goes on but the reason for the season has been relegated to fleeting acknowledgements and trite sentiments displayed with dubious expressions of sincerity.

Think about it a moment. Was your local McDonald's open today? If it was open, did you go?

Found In a Church Bulletin:

Please Remember the Reason for the Season.

There will be no church service Sunday.

See you next year!

I did notice that Waffle House was open all day.

Thank you for reading.

Davy Boggs

Our View At Christmas

May God bless each of you as you go to church this morning and gather with your families to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. We hope you have a very merry Christmas.

Kelly Jo and Odie and I will have our little Christmas this morning in the BoggsMobile. This is our 9th Christmas in the bus. The BoggsMobile seems like part of the family. I guess we should buy it a gift.

Then we will go to our home church, Dryden Rd. Pentecostal Church, at 11:00 AM. We will sing some Christmas songs and listen to our Pastor preach, then we will gather with the Boggs family for Christmas dinner and fun Sunday afternoon.

I am very sure the day will be full of worship, laughter, blessings, food, gifts and family. When the day is finished we will be well satisfied and full of love for our families, friends and Savior. 

Even as we celebrate, we realize this day is not the easiest day for some folks. In the midst of our rejoicing we will pause to pray for those of you that are suffering and mourning. We will ask God to bind up the brokenhearted and set at liberty them that have been bruised. Thank God, that is what He came to do.

May God give us all the things we need the most in our lives. God bless you friends.

Davy

This was our view our the front window Wednesday in West Harrison, Indiana.

This was our view out the front door.

This is our view out the front window from within the barn.

Merry Christmas Eve 2016

 

Hello my friends, this is Odie on Christmas Eve 2016. Today we are in Hillsboro enjoying being with the Morgan crew. We will have pictures and a report of events later. I can assure you that we are having lots of fun and eating way to much delicious food. 

Now lets walk down Christmas memory lane.  One of my favorite Christmas memories is from the year of 1999. I do not remember if we have blogged about it before. It is so funny now, but I did not think it was funny at the time. 

I was 14 and we lived in Kansas at the time. We stayed in Wichita for the holidays and I was very enthusiastic about waking up very, very early to open gifts Christmas morning. I would have started earlier but my parents told me I could wake them up at 7:00 AM and NO earlier to begin our Christmas festivities. 

So I slept soundly all night. Then "according to my clock" 7:00 AM rolled around. I always got up at 7:00 AM Monday-Friday for school and in December it was pitch black outside. But when my alarm went off at 7:00 AM Christmas morning of 1999, the sun was shining bright outside my window. 

What in the world?

I immediately knew something was not right. I walked into the living room on my way to wake my parents up. I looked at the clock in there and it was Not 7:00 but really 9:00!

What happened? Well, my parents came into my room after I was asleep on Christmas Eve and moved my clock back 2 hours. I was confident I was getting an early start on Christmas and they were getting 2 extra hours of sleep! 

Can you believe my parents did that? Believe it, this really happened. I have no idea what possessed them to prank me so badly!

I still think it was a nasty trick. I will admit it has given us lots of laughter over the years and is a favorite Christmas memory. Now I enjoy sleeping in on Christmas morning. 

Tomorrow we will be up early for church at Dryden Road. If you are looking for something to do tomorrow. I would like to invite you to join us at Dryden Road Pentecostal Church. It is located at 3201 Dryden Rd, Moraine, Ohio and service begins at 11:00 AM. 

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas! Thanks for reading!

Odie 

A Special Visit From Dear Friends

Wednesday we had a short visit from dear friends all the way from western Missouri. Bro. Mitch and Sis. Lynn Boggs were in Ohio/Kentucky for a few days with their family and they graciously carved out some time for a visit with us. They made our day by stopping in.

We met Bro. Mitch and his parents and extended family many years ago and we hit it off with them all immediately. They instantly became an important part of our lives and they have proven to be life long friends. I believe it was God's will for our paths to cross.

Bro. Mitch and his family visited several of the City Reach campaigns and they were a great encouragement to us in the work. It has been great to see them on numerous occasions over the last year plus.

We were totally unaware that we would be seeing them again this year. When Bro. Mitch text us and told us they were in the area, we were thrilled. They had things scheduled for their family and we had Christmas services Tuesday and Wednesday but they made the time to see us and we appreciate that very much.

They snapped this picture outside the barn and sent it to us.

This is not the first time that Bro. Mitch and Sis. Lynn have been to the Lazy OD Ranch. They brought part of their family in May of 2015 and put a badly needed roof on the barn. That visit overlapped a few nights with tent revival so they got in on that too. It was a super great visit.

Here they are then.

Bro. Jason Fellers and his family came and worked hard on the roof as well. It almost did not seem right for them not to be here this time too.

The barn looked like this when they came in May 2015.

And it looked like this when they left.

The old roof was original so it was at least 33 years old. It leaked in 3-5 different places when it rained and then 3-5 different places the next time it rained. Needless to say, it was in bad need of replacement. I am happy to say it does not leak at all now, nor do I expect it to leak for a long many years.

Bro. Mitch and Sis. Lynn did not come to see us Wednesday by themselves. They brought all of their children and grandchildren to see us too. I believe there were 16 of them in total if I counted correctly.

It has been a while since we had seen the older children and it was very good to see them all again. These folks are near and dear to our hearts and we love them very, very much.

It would have been awesome if they had time to stay longer but they were enjoying a family vacation and they were on a tight schedule. I know they will be back by the grace of God and there is a chance we may get to see them on our way through there next week.

Thank God for good friends! This will probably be the last time I write before Christmas day (Odie will probably write tomorrow) so please have a safe and very merry Christmas. God bless you all.

Davy