History-Cookbook Fundraiser

Hello All! As readers know, I rarely mix my pastoring and youth leading with this blog as it is my personal blog, but since so many of you heard about the youth group's fund raising history-cookbook Mary Ann and I spent most of the summer working on (and some of you even sent us recipes for it!) I wanted to take a moment to announce: "It is here!" (The applause is resounding, especially from this house!)

If you want to read more about More Treasures Under the Oaks, or request a copy via PayPal (you don't have to have a PayPal account to do so), you can do so at our fellowship's web page: http://www.truelifecf.org/cookbook.htm. We are asking for a $12 donation per book, and all proceeds from the book go to the youth group and the outreach work we do to local youth (neither Mary Ann or I or any individual receive anything for this book). The postage is a little steep for a single copy, but because of our rural location we can't go to the post office to weigh individual orders so we are using flat rate priority envelopes and boxes. Of course, and I mean it!, don't feel any, any pressure to request a copy.

The book turned out wonderfully, and I don't say that because Mary Ann and I wrote it and typeset it. Simply, God's hand was on it. It is 224 pages of local history and photographs and recipes, with a special, large section on outdoor cooking (barbecuing, grilling, Dutch oven, smoking, etc). Many of the stories we recorded have never been in print before as God led us to interview old timers who have since died or moved and whose stories have never been written down in the past. In many cases these old timers gave us their scrapbooks with photographs never published before and told us to take them for as long as we needed and use what we wanted from them. God is woven throughout the book in scattered verses and the section titles, plus multiple of the articles and other writings. We have received wonderful feedback on the book so far, and it is exciting to me to hear how many people are reading it cover to cover who have never set foot inside the church building or will never hear me teaching or read my blog. It is exciting to realize they will read verses from God's written word, hear the story of a Creation-Scientist with a PhD in Evolutionary Biology who used to be an avid anti-Christian and evolutionist (a recipe from him is in the book), read how our area is not a slice of Heaven, but a shadow of Heaven, all as they read stories of treasures, wild-west shootouts, pioneer life in our area, and so much more! To God be the Glory! Whether or not you get a copy, please keep this in prayer as both a wonderful fund raiser for our youth, and as a door into people's hearts and homes in the region that otherwise might have stayed closed.