amokarts

Friday September 4, Saturday, September 5, Sunday September 6-Saturday September, 12
Miscellaneous Projects and Going Silent For a Few Days
Okay Faithful Readers, yesterday I posted a rather lengthy post/article about my upcoming mission trip. It was one of my creations to be sure, but there has beena new development on my mural project. I heard back from the mission agency and while they liked the design, they didn't feel it captured what they do, so that one is off to the portfolio and I am working on a new one, this one will be a collection of characters working on a house. So yesterday evening I began creating the characters as well as finishing another page of my Swine Flu project. This morning I awoke a little too early and finished some revisions on my interlinc lesson on Eleventyseven's video for their song Evil Genius and I began sketching out a few of the pieces for finishing off the Swine Flu project. This evening I will be staying in a hotel near the airport so I can be on my plane by 6:20 tomorow morning. My plan for tonight in the hotel is to sketch a few more pieces and ink anything I don't finish this morning.

Airports are a great place for people watching and so I will take the opportunity to find a few characters for the mural between here in PA and New Orleans. Monday's project will be working on a construction site in Chalmette, LA and hopefully a rough sketch of the mural, Tuesday and Wednesday should be painting the rest of the mural. and the rest of the week will be spent constructing things, hopefully finishing the Swine flu project and whatever other sketching time allows. You won't see any finished art this week. I plan a video from the stills I take while painting the mural and hopefully some of my other work in Louisiana. Also during this time I plan to study my Bible and prepare a "message" for my church based on my experiences. After all of this I board the plane at around 4:00 Saturday afternoon and head for home.

I'm praying it's going to be a great and busy week, but more than great and busy, I pray that the Lord really works on me, helps me refine my direction, lets me serve some people and make a real difference. I would appreciate your prayers on this as well.

Thursday, September 3—Mission Trip Image
It's funny how God works. I have to start this post with a confession. I'm 45 years old, I've been in ministry over ten years and I have never been on a mission trip. There I said it! I've traveled to preach, traveled to write, I've done local service projects, but I have never taken a trip for the sole purpose of serving others on a mission trip. This coming week will change all that. The reasons I have never been on a mission trip are several. First, I usually didn't have the vacation time, I always took a week to take kids to a music festival, a week for family and the rest of the time usually went to training. Secondly most of the mission experiences offered revolved around things mechanical and I am simply no gifted in those areas at all. Those both probably sound like pretty good reasons but quite honestly it could be summed up in two words, "excuses, excuses."

A few months ago I received an email from our District Executive about a mission opportunity for pastors. A week in Chalmette, Louisiana, not far from New Orleans. The days would be spent repairing damage from Hurricane Katrina and the evenings in ministry training exploring our call as ministers. What really sealed the deal for me was the note at the bottom of the page no experience necessary, just a willingness to learn. One excuse gone, still had vacation time and had already taken my family vacation and my wife is short on vacation days so I would not be depriving my family, the other excuse gone. Bottom line, I am going to New Orleans this Sunday Morning.

Now when I signed up for this trip, I received a questionnaire asking about my skill set—one of those rate yourself from 1-5 things. Never have I taken such an easy multiple choice test in my life, all the answers were no skill except for one. Wall Painting, at which I am moderately experienced. Then there was a blank space where one can list the skills he has. I mentioned that I am an artist and that I do murals on the off chance that we would be working on a church perhaps I could do a really nice children's room or something. I then said I figured that there would be no need for this, so I was perfectly willing to do the "grunt work" so the skilled construction people could do what they do. I figured when they saw my mural skills they would chuckle and dig out my wheelbarrow, but strangely this week, I received an email. The mission agency asked me if I would be willing to paint a mural for their training area. Of course I agreed, mainly because my life verse is each one should use whatever gifts he has received to serve others, but also because this is something I know I can do. It's going to be an 8 foot by 8 foot design, I should be able to finish it in two days or so, Lord willing. The above is the proposed design. I can't wait to get started.

There's a moral to the mural story. Your gift has value so never write it off. You never know what people can use, so don't be afraid to tell people what you do. You may have a gift they have been looking for but haven't found.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Today was a rather hectic day, I overslept in the morning, (my usual creative time and had Bible Study in the evening, but I did manage to create a flyer for an upcoming sermon series, based on the book Fearless by Max Lucado and of course the Word of God. We are planning on distributing the flyer around our neighborhood along with a promotional paper with articles on fear and how we can beat it as a way of inviting the community to our church for this series. The series started 9/27/09 please keep us in prayer.

Monday August 31 and Tuesday September 1 Finishing the Clearfield County PA Project
This project has been so much fun thanks to Jim Stroud of JHStroud Design for giving me a shot. These pieces will eventually be published as part of a travel guide for the county.

Thursday August 27 to Sunday August 30, 2009 Playing catch up with the blog.
Okay I haven't been able to blog for a few days but I have been creating new things daily.
• Thursday August 27, created a few new pages for my Swine flu prevention project and reworked the concept.
• Friday, August 28, came up with an idea for a web-companion to the swine flu project and worked up a sample,
• Saturday, August 29, Wrote my sermon, (Getting Ready for Supper) which will be posted to my podcast in the next day or two. (I had a few problems with recording this one.). I also complete a few more pages for the swine flu project and colored a logo character for a travel book for Clearfield County PA.
• Sunday, August 30, Preached the aforementioned sermon and did another Clearfield County character.
Samples of all these unpublished projects are seen above.