4-29-17 Sat.

Interesting week we had this past week. I can't remember the last time when we had this unusual weather. I am referring specifically to the ocean. Monday through Friday I went to the beach to video and the surf has been really stormy even though we have had no storms. I am hoping that the waves will straighten out for tomorrow morning. And we are supposed to get a real short Santa Anna.
I was talking with my Friend Susie on Friday and she said it was really windy in Simi Valley, just North of LA.
Our daughter Sarah and family are planning to come and visit this summer. That will be great and I am really looking forward to them coming.
Okay, I am trying to think of something to share so I must go back about 8-9 years. The first picture is of Little Joe, me and Samuel on our three person Sea Doo.

We used to go down Mission Bay ride around once a week in the afternoon. The interesting thing is that when I ride around with just Samuel sitting in front of me. You can see that Samuel has his hands resting on my legs. I held him in place with my legs sort of pinching him and holding him in place with my knees. One time a cruised around the bay and I realized that he had fallen asleep sitting there. It was so cute!

The next picture is of Samuel and Harriet. It's not a flattering picture of Harriet, but we are way past that. I think she was talking either to Hilda and Lee Ann. Samuel sure was a cutie!

 

The next picture is of my Father and Harriet. I have shared this picture before. This was in the last six months of my fathers life. He was sharing some things from the Bible.

 Of course the Bible is open to my father's favorite chapter, Romans 8. I used to read to my father every morning for many years from this Bible, which I still have today.

I hope you have a great week and Maranatha!

Frank

4-22-17 Sat.

Another busy week. Do you ever think about life slowing down a little bit? I keep thinking that that's going to happen, but it has not happened yet.

This past Thursday we had the funeral service for our good friend Buck who died the previous week. It was held at Gateway church. I wanted to say Buck was a good guy, but I should say Buck is a good guy. I talked to him about a week before he went home to be with the Lord. He was quite ready and mentally looking forward to the home going. He was at the VA hospital and he knew his time was short. I asked him when he gets to heaven to tell Harriet that I miss her and think of her every day. God bless Buck and as he used to say, "He has, he does and he will."

It's just after 4 AM here in Santee. I'll be heading down to the beach with my friend Larry this morning at 5:30 AM to take some more surf videos. Not sure how well it will go because the tide is rather high.

Then when I come home I will drop off my equipment and go pick up the grandkids. I'm to take them to see the new Smurfs movie. I love being with them, but I will tell you these Smurf movies are kind of tough because they do a lot of singing. Not that I have anything against singing is just these little blue people singing is kind of weird.

Yesterday it was 92° here and is supposed to be as hot today. Looks like summer is arriving early or at least a taste of it. It will be a glorious morning at the beach with the sunrise. I'll try and get some pictures.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Maranatha,
Frank
                                        Harriet and Autumn

4-15-17 Sat.

I hope you have had a good week. I have a prayer request for my good friend Ken. I've known Ken for quite a few decades. We surf together six days a week for many years. Since I'm unable to go surfing I've been taking videos with my drone as you know from previous blog posts. This past Wednesday morning I was there at the beach and I'm going to include a picture I took with my cell phone.

The full moon was still in the sky at 6 AM and that's Ken in the lower right-hand corner getting ready to paddle out. He came back in within about 30 minutes and was out of breath. I will shorten the story and let you know that he had to go the hospital and they ran ahundred test on them and found out that he has and I'm quoting from Ken's email:

"I JUST got to come home from the hospital…after 100 tests.  I have blood clots in my leg (the cramping right one) & 75 % of my lungs blood-clotted.  I was I.V. Blood thinned (heparin) & now starting Eliquis FOREVER.  My Factor 5 leiden came & got me big time from when I found out I had it when I got Hepatitus B over a decade ago.  Those baby aspirins haven’t stopped the problem."

I would ask you to pray for my friend Ken for his healing and that God would restore his health. Ken is a good man and a good friend. Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to pray for him.

On the same morning, my camera on the drone was having difficulties. I could still view through the camera but the buttons that take pictures and videos were not working properly and I had to send it back to the factory to have them diagnose the problem and fix it. Fortunately, I purchased there DJI care protection plan, which means that the repair and shipping were paid for by them.

This weekend is probably the most important weekend in Christendom. Of course, without the birth of Jesus, we would not be celebrating his sacrifice on the cross for us. But Paul the apostle makes it clear what the gospel is that he preached. Now Paul, the apostle got his information directly from Jesus Christ so, this is 100% accurate. If you read 1 Corinthians chapter 15:1-4 you will get the same information. I was going to give you the essence, but I'm going to quote the Scripture below:

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;

² By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
³ For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
⁴ And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

The three key points are that Jesus Christ died for our sins, he was buried and that he arose again according to the Scriptures.  These are the most fundamental points of Christianity and if you are going to a church that does not preach this you're going to the wrong church. Churches do not save anyone. It is the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. And unless a man is born again he shall not enter the kingdom of God.

So, it was a sad Friday for the disciples when Jesus died, but Resurrection Sunday was coming! I hope that you will take the time to be in the house Lord not just on Easter Sunday but every Sunday. He is worthy of all glory honor and praise!

Maranatha,
Frank

4-8-17 Sat.

Something Interesting happened this past week. Pastor Mike sent me an email with some pictures that he'd taken of Harriet and myself when he was in Hawaii with us in 2008. Three out of the four pictures I've never seen before and I'm going to include them in this blog post.

The first one was taken on a side street and we were walking back to our condo I'm assuming from having a meal because were coming from that direction. There's all your great eating establishments like Roundtable pizza, KFC and Burger King down that way. I will have to admit that it was great to see these pictures. I sure miss my girl. We had so much fun together. I think you can see it on her face as well as mine.

The next two pictures were taken in the little condo we use to stay at. It was really small but very inexpensive. It cost $70 a day. Pretty much everything else would cost three times more than that at least. In the picture that's the living room there was a little kitchen, bathroom and a bedroom that was about the same size as that little living room.

The last picture is a close-up of the two of us in the same little condo.

We went to the beach Monday through Thursday and we videoed the first three days. Thursday was a shut out, the tide was too high. My friend Larry and I get there about 6 AM right first light and then we start videoing our friends surfing. We are going to do it again this morning. That's why I'm working on the Saturday morning blog on Friday afternoon/evening.

I hope you have a great weekend and Maranatha!

Frank

4-1-17 Sat.

I received a lot of response from last weeks blog. From Hawaii to Oklahoma the response was the same. Churches becoming more of a place of entertainment.

I remember a message that Pastor Tony Sr. preached when Sonrise was still meeting at the Spring Valley location. This was about 20 years ago and the title of the message was, "Raising the Bar". The message was concerning raise the bar not lowering our standards of excellence. It seems that in the past 2 decades that the Christian Church in general has moved in the opposite direction, its is the dumbing down of any standard of excellence.

It is like the dumbing down of society. Since the mid-60s the SAT scores have dropped and instead of making the students work harder, they consistently lowered the standard so that it does not look as if the students are learning less nor the teachers doing a poor job. That seems to be the attitude that prevails in the Christian church. Let's lower the standards and entertain the great unwashed.

I am teaching the Bible class every Wednesday evening at Philip and  Rogina's home. We continue our study in the Book of Acts. It's great to see there are people still interested in studying God's word.

This past week my friend Larry and I had gone to the beach real early. It was Wednesday and Thursday morning we would get to the beach approximately 6 AM. We start videoing by 6:30 a.m. for approximately an hour and half to two hours. My friend Larry has been surfing for most of his life as have I. He has also purchased a drone by the same company but a different model than I have. We do mostly videoing rather then pictures. They are all real high definition videos and it's amazing. If you have a Smart TV, you can watch the surf videos I make on your TV. Very cool!

During this past week I've learned how to extract a specific picture from the video. I'm going to include a couple of pictures that I've extracted from videos so you can see how they look. The first few pics were taken before the sun came up over the hill in Del Mar. As you can see with the picture of the guy riding the yellow board, the pictures look much better when you have direct sun light.

This is my friend Ken. We have surfed this same break in Del Mar for a few Decades. When it was a full moon we would paddle out 45 mins or more before dawn and surf by the moonlight. Ken was with me when I paddled out with Harriet's ashes. She wanted her ashes to be in the same place where my will be spread out. Probably Ken is going to have the job of spreading my ashes.

Surfing by moonlight.

David surfing his 6'4" fish shortboard

In this last picture, taken by Autumn when we were in Hawaii, you can see my drone flying above the head of the surfer. I fly about twice the height of the wave and just a little bit more.

When the waves break, the spray goes up in the air. Even at the height I fly, the drone still comes back with moisture on it which is not good. So I can't fly lower or I could have major problems.



Last Sunday I was invited by Brad and Karen to their daughter Kylie's birthday party which they were holding at the Santee Lakes. I'm going to include some pictures I took last Sunday. These are really good friends and I love their kids. Yes, I love Brad and Karen too!

Brad and Karen to their daughter Kylie

                        Kylie

Lisa, her son Logan and me. I think Lisa's husband Mark took the picture. Long time good friends.

 

Lots of nice people.  We had a really great. time.

I guess that's it for today. I just need to find a nice picture of Harriet to finish today's blog. I still miss my girl!

 

Maranatha, even so come quickly Lord Jesus! 

Rev. 21:20

Frank

 

Sat. 3-25-17

Good morning! As I mentioned in last week's blog I was going to go to the church that Harriet and I were married in. I'm going to include a picture taken at Harriet's and my wedding and then show you pictures taken last Sunday, so you can see the change in the sanctuary.

I added the second picture because it's in the same folder. It's Harriet's and my engagement picture taken in the basement of the same church where they have their fellowship hall.

 The picture below is taken from the balcony and you can see the drastic changes. Please note a couple of things. The pews and carpeting are removed. They're replaced with folding chairs side tables fully upholstered chairs and fully upholstered loveseats. (Let's all take a nap at church)

 There used to be a large placards on both side walls with the names of the missionaries that were supported and those placards are gone.

 The above picture is of Bill Stoll's his wife and myself.

I could not help but wonder how much churches have changed in the last 10 to 20 years. It used to be a place of worship. Worshiping the Creator of the universe and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now it's become a place of entertainment. The audience watches the performance on the platform. I won't go into a whole lot of detail except for the fact that I was very surprised at the changes. I guess you can tell. It's one thing to use electronic means to help during the service, worship and presenting the message. It's another thing when the people on the platform no matter how well intended, perform and the music is so loud that you can't tell if anyone else in the audience is participating in song.

(Sorry the formatting has changed and for some reason no matter what I do it does not want to change back into the normal margin on the left-hand side.)

The message that the pastor had was very good. The senior pastor was not there and I found out he will be preaching tomorrow. I've known the pastor since we were in our early 20s so that goes back a ways. I'm going to go back to church there this Sunday so that I can greet him. He's a good guy.

Harriet's parents and all the relatives went to church there. It's a good Bible believing, gospel preaching church. I guess I'm just sorry to see the changes not just in this church but generally speaking most Christian churches.

(I was able to fix the formatting on the above to paragraphs but the previous paragraphs will not submit to changes)

I'm heading down to the beach this morning to take some more surf videos. My friend Larry and I went yesterday morning and did some videoing. Here is the link if you want to check it out. If you subscribe, you'll get all new videos that are posted.

https://youtu.be/8YbH87xbfQA

If you copy and paste the above link into your Internet browser you can check it out. I'm leaving this morning about 5:40 AM to down to the beach. Some of my surfing friends will be there and it's fun to see them and video there rides.

Then I come home and I go over and pick up the grandkids and take them to a new movie that just came out is called "Power Rangers". We always have a fun time and I enjoy being with them so much. I wish Harriet was here to enjoy them to. She love them dearly.

Then this afternoon I am meeting Andy and Autumn, yes the same couple that were in Hawaii at the same time as I was there. Really nice friends. Mexican food of course.

That's about it for today. I hope you have a great week and don't forget......... Maranatha!

Frank

3-18-17 Sat.

It's been summer weather here in San Diego for the past week with the temperature in the 80s. Unfortunately, it's been foggy along the coast all week and the waves have been flat. So I've not had the opportunity to go and take some surf videos. But my friend Larry and I have been practicing at the "Sandpit" in Santee. Next time I go I will take a couple of pictures so I can post them. It's an area in Santee that is close to the river bottom and a lot of people that use RC cars, gliders and drones go out there because it's a large open space.

We go out there about 6:45 AM and no one else is there, I wonder why? You know what they say about the early bird getting the worm.

My friend Tanner invited me to come over to his house yesterday (Friday). Then we changed it to meet at his wife Breanna's parents home, Tony and Linette who are very good friends of mine also. It was really a nice time.

Tanner and Breanna's baby, Lincoln is so cute! Actually, he's beautiful. I'm going to include some pictures.

No that is not Lincoln. Tanner and I took Lincoln for a walk in his stroller and I saw this palm tree that someone had done some artwork and I thought, that's unusual, so I took a picture.

The last picture is of his "Dude" outfit. He's such a nice little guy.

 Tomorrow is Sunday and I was thinking of trying the church where Harriet and I met Scott Memorial Baptist Church. The name has changed. I'll let you know how it goes.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Maranatha,
Frank