Hands Headlines

We’re just catching up on posting a few family birthday photos. Addison turned 6 in March. And Toby turned 4 a couple days ago. We had his birthday party with a “Cars Theme.”

Addison lost her first tooth just a couple weeks before her birthday. She lost her second tooth while we were at Sea World on her birthday celebrating:

After returning home from a day at Sea World, we had cake! Have you ever seen a Shamoo cake before?

Toby had his party at home with many good friends. Games, pinata, presents . . . good times!

Of course Toby got a custom cake, too:

The “land down under” - a vast area of outback territory with kangaroos and koala bears. It’s a popular vacation spot but also a dry and thirsty land spiritually. Only 3% of the population would consider themselves as connected to any Christian church. Most likely even fewer have a growing personal relationship with Jesus.

Campus Crusade’s missionary staff in Australia and New Zealand have invited Shannon and I to serve at their annual conference September 23 - 28.We’re very excited about the opportunity to come alongside these 170 or so staff and hear what their needs are for Internet ministry and communication systems.Most of our time will be spent interviewing the staff, learning what existing systems they have, determining what technical requirements are needed for growth of their ministries and offering training and implementation for the global systems our team has already developed.

 Please pray for our travel and the conference . . .

•    Lift up our children - staying the whole week we’re gone with the grandparents (Eads family).  Pray for wisdom and perseverance of the grandparents, too!
•    Ask that we’ll not be too jet lagged in order to serve well at the conference. We arrive on Sept 23rd after 21 hours of air travel and a shift of 15 hours in time zones!
•    That God will be greatly glorified through the conference and the Australian and New Zealand staff would be even further grateful to reach out in Kingdom service.

Our training events in Colorado went very well. We made it home just fine after 4,000 miles and a couple dozen photos. Here are just a few from the trip:

The video only takes 3 minutes to watch in entirety. It was created by CommonCraft. You can view the original on the CommonCraft site or read a transcript of the video.

This is the BEST NON-TECHNICAL EXPLANATION of how to stay updated on your favorite web sites. If you have ever wished, “Boy, I wish there were a simple way that my favorite web site would notify me whenever they post new stuff,” then this video is for you!

It explains how to use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to stay updated. Almost all new web sites are offering free RSS Feeds (or syndications).

RSS Subscription Feed for HandsHeadlines.com is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/HandsHeadlines

Why not use what you learn in the video above to stay updated on HandsHeadlines.com? It’s one of your favorite sites, I’m sure!

Again, the video is super simple. It’s called “RSS in Plain English.” This is not for geeks. Normal people will like it.

If you are thinking, “I just want to stay updated by email, that’s all.” Then there is a different free service you may want to check out offered by a web site called FeedBlitz.com See our post about it here.

Day #4 on the road to Colorado:

WELCOME TO TEXAS! There’s not a font large enough to capture the spirit of the signage you see entering the Lone Star State. “Don’t Mess with Texas” is one visible tag line you see quite a bit.

Everything in Texas is big. And Texas itself is big. Real big. Even the pancakes we had for breakfast we about big enough to sink a battleship. (See below) Oh yeah, and just so ya know: the flapjacks pictured below were ordered off of the kids menu!! After 90 minutes, we collectively were able to finish about two of them!

We had a great time visiting with some long-time friends in Denton: Ross and Christy Bryant and daughters Rebekah (not pictured) and Reece. Shannon met Christy when they were both students on a Campus Crusade summer project.

Day #3 on the road to Colorado:

After our grinnin’ visit with good ol’ Mark McKinnon in Alabama, we kept on truckin’ west through Mississippi and Louisiana. We don’t have much to report from our drive through those states, but I’d like to dedicate the photo below to my good friend Danny. This one’s on us, Danny!

The kids are doing pretty well, all things considered. We’ve passed the time in the van well and have really gotten into this card game called Mystery. It’s great for adults and kids.

Our first stop was David’s hometown: the metropolis of Pelham, GA. 4,100 people, 3 traffic lights. The town is not without distinction, however. Once upon a time, Pelham was home to the world’s largest rural department store: The Hand Trading Company. The store was built by David’s great grandfather in 1914. You could buy everything from groceries to tractors to coffins to ice cream sundaes! The store closed in 1982 but the building still remains. Check out more info on Pelham’s web site or this entry on wikipedia.

As the welcome sign below says, Pelham really is a special town. The people really look out for one another. Strangers don’t stay strangers for long. There’s definitely a slower, “I’ve got time for you” feel from the citizens. It is one of those places where the small town atmosphere is authentic and unique.

David’s parents still live there, and had a great time with their grandkids.

Our celebrations for the 4th of July were simple but SWEET! The kids had fun creating and eating these chocolate cupcakes. Each one came complete wtih a custom-made American flag planted on top.

Avery and Addison recently decided to get a new ‘hair do.’ It involved clipping several inches of hair from each of them.

The good news is that they were delighted with the results. Even better news is that they donated their hair to Locks of Love – a charitable organization that facilitates the production and distribution of prosthetic hairpieces to cancer patients and other needy children. You can learn more about Locks of Love – based in Florida – on their website: http://www.locksoflove.org/

May 16th marked the 6-month anniversary of the Hand Clan living in Orlando.

The moving truck unloaded all our stuff on November 16th, 2006. And, after we finally installed some shelves in the garage and freed up enough floor space to actually park the vehicles, we’re happy to report that about 95% of the boxes have now been unpacked!

But moving is a process that involves much more than arranging furniture and unpacking boxes. For us, it has been a relational process of getting connected with neighbors and new friends.

Back in November we had several specific prayer requests related to this relational process of transition. Amazingly, the Lord has answered every single one of our concerns, even beyond what we asked!

ANSWERED PRAYERS! . . .
New Relationships for Spiritual Growth:
A few other couples with young kids who are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ live in our neighborhood! After meeting them, one family decided to begin a small group Bible study for all of us. Now the weekly group meets in our home (see below)!
These new friends have really helped ease the transition for us. Shannon connects with the wives at a weekly Jazzercise class (see more). I ride my bike over to the office with a couple of the men. We see each other often and our kids play together.

Kids’ Friends:
Avery, Addison and Toby have each made good friends right here in the neighborhood. It has been a real blessing to have friends and a playground within walking distance! Shannon got connected with a homeschool co-op called HIGH Day, and during the school year took the kids there to participate on Fridays.

Church Home:
A big answered prayer. For a few months, we were visiting several churches but now we’re in the process of joining Crossway Community Church. Already we’re getting involved there.

So, how do we like Orlando?
The Lord has made the transition much better than expected. A lot of it centers around new friendships and the kids enjoying things here. Of course we miss Atlanta. And, no doubt, Orlando is NOT the South (culturally). But, hey, there’s still hope: Several restaurants here have good sweet tea, people DO understand our accents and even occasionally say “ya’ll,” and opportunities abound here for fishing, bbq cookouts, car races, cow tipping or a variety of other redneck activities. So, I think we’ll stay.