Happy Birthday, Grandma

Check out the video to the right. Excellent!

News update: that beauty queen from the Phoenix area who was charged with kidnapping and terrorizing an ex-boyfriend, Kumari Fulbright, had been acting very strangely the last couple of months according to her neighbors. She'd sit in her car for hours right outside her apartment, and lay face down on the parking lot pavement in 40 degree temps wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Two of her three accomplices, whereabouts currently unknown, allegedly have ties to Colombia and connections with the drug trade.
A picture seems to be emerging here.

If you've followed the doping scandal in baseball you'll want to watch 60-Minutes Sunday night. Roger Clemens will be interviewed and will deny any use of any illegal or banned substance. Roger McNammee, the Yankees trainer who told Sen. Mitchell that he injected Clemens with steroids and HGH will be watching the show with his lawyers. They've said that if Clemens says anything that defames McNammee, suggests that he lied to Mitchell, they'll be filing a defamation of character lawsuit Monday morning. This could get interesting.

As the time winds down to Sunday's inaugural meeting of "As yet to be named Bible Church" my anticipation grows. We'll have a bulletin (some of it tongue-in-cheek), visitors cards (I think we'll have a pretty high percentage of visitors), and an insert I'm calling "Double Take." Those of you who attended Celebration may remember "Afterthought." This is the same, just a different name. All of those things are done, just need to be printed out.
I think we'll have a good morning - vertical worship and good fellowship. I readily admit to looking forward to preaching and teaching again.

As I type this I have beside me a small red "Memo Book". It's 4" wide and 6" tall with maybe 40 pages, not including the 20 or so that have been cut out from the front. Each page has a year and month handwritten at the top, beginning with January 1971. Below that heading are names and a dollar amount, almost all of them in the range of $5-$15.
It's my Grandma Helen's ledger of her giving to missionaries and others that she supported.
CBC (her church) - 5.00
Schopf - 15.00
Gardiner - 15.00
Dyer - 10.00
Craig - 15.00
John Davis - 10.00

Every month she sent me a check, including her grandson the Bible College student in her missions giving. By 1974 it was $25.00 each month, and if you turn to the last page with writing on it, May 1974, the entry reads "Craig Graduation - $100.00"
Over the span of time covered by this ledger book some of the names change; some are dropped and others added. But Craig is there every month from January of 1971 to May of 1974.

Grandma Helen was in her late 70s to early 80's during this period of time and died very shortly after we arrived at our first church in California in June of 1974. She lived frugally on a very limited income. I can't imagine how she managed to give $70 and more a month, an even more considerable sum in the '70s.
We all have mental images from our childhood. One of mine comes from spending a week at Grandma Helen's house during summer vacation. I was probably 6th grade, give or take. I came down the stairs in the morning to see her sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and her Bible open before her. She was praying, her lips moving like Hannah's praying at the Tabernacle (1 Sam. 1).
Besides mental images we all have heroes. Mine aren't baseball players or wealthy entrepreneurs. I have a relatively short list, but pretty high up are poor widows who gave secretly and sacrificially to those who were in ministry, and those preparing to be in ministry.
Grandma Helen was born on January 3, 1893.

We remember January 3 for another reason. I'd like to share that with you in tomorrow's post.