Every two weeks Neil comes over with 12-year-old Grant and works up our lawn. We pay Grant, who is learning the craft from a master teacher. Meanwhile, Neil’s 9-year-old twins, Abby and Erin, take over our household for those two-hours. Saturday, they gave me no peace for sitting at this computer the entire time, working on the “Learning to Receive” blog. “Grandpa, we’re here! It’s time to play!” I adore them and see them often, so it’s not like we don’t log enough one-on-two time together. Grandma played with them while I worked. That’s when they tricked her.

They played rummy–this family’s favorite card game for generations–and checkers. Only later did Grandma discover they had alternated on her. She thought she was playing with Abby the whole time, but they were switching, having a little fun at her expense. You would think at their age they had done this a lot, but they haven’t. That’s why it took Margaret so completely by surprise.

Abby stood at my shoulder and said, “Write about me, Grandpa.” I said, “I do. Whenever you do something worth writing about.” She puffed up and said, “I do. All the time. I turn cartwheels. I stand on my head. And Erin and I have this long routine we do, our special handshake.” That’s true. That handshake is something to behold, with perhaps a hundred elements. They twist and bump in unison, slap hands, rub elbows, on and on, all the while with eyes locked on each other and laughing all the way.

Our Plano, Texas friends, Jeff and Tiffany Dillon, have just found they’re going to have twins. My observation is that these two children will be the envy of their siblings; each one will always be next to his/her best friend. From a grandparent’s point of view, twins are double the fun and laughter.

They’re returning to regular school in a few days, after two years of being home-schooled by Julie. Neil and Julie have evidently decided the kids are missing out on some important aspects of school which they do not get when they do their lessons at the dining room table, still in their p.j.s. After looking into a number of local schools, they chose–to my complete surprise–a Catholic school, Our Lady of Divine Providence, located a half-mile from their home. In the same way our school at FBC Kenner had Catholic kids, this one has plenty of Protestant young-uns and even some Muslims. The religion classes, we’ve been assured, are basic Bible stuff. The children are eager and understandably a little anxious. The girls just learned they will be in separate classrooms. “But that’s all right,” one said. “We’re on the same hall.” Only a year ago did their parents install bunk beds and introduce them to the concept of sleeping in your own bed. That was an adjustment, but they made it.

Bryan and Rebecca Harris were in town Friday, helping their daughter Aleesa move into a dormitory at our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. This was not a small thing on their part–they live in Vallejo, California, where Bryan pastors a wonderful church. He was a member of the staff of FBC Columbus MS and then FBC Charlotte NC where I pastored, so this family is like our family. Aleesa was entering her second year of seminary last August when Katrina intervened. I love it that she’s back. No one returning to school here this fall will come just because they love the exoticism of New Orleans. This is all about a calling to help a city find its soul.

Bryan and Rebecca’s youngest daughter Anna begins her second year at Mississippi College in a few days. What a prize she is. We used to make jokes about Bryan’s leadership of our teenagers in churches where we served together. He always had answers for the parents, always knew what they should do. We would tease, “Wait til your children are teenagers. We’ll see just how much you know.” His four children have turned out beautifully, and are credits to their parents. They all are serving God and bringing honor to Bryan and Rebecca.

“I’m preaching Sunday at Call Junction Baptist Church’s homecoming,” Bryan said. “It’s my first time back.” This is the little East Texas church where Bryan was saved and baptized as a high school senior in the late 1960’s. Harry Klutz was the pastor. “He’s going to be there,” Bryan said, “and I can’t wait to see him.” When Bryan told his parents, “I’ve just been saved and I’m going to be baptized in that Baptist church down the street next Sunday,” his mother ran him out of the house with a knife. His folks had warned their three children about religion, that preachers are con men and the churches running scams. Pastor Klutz took Bryan in, and later sent him to East Texas Baptist University where he met Rebecca and was called into the ministry. Over the years, Bryan has led almost every member of his family to Christ.

I am thrilled to have had a little part in the Harris’s lives for nearly 30 years. Satan may have tried to interfere with God’s plan for Bryan, but the Lord overruled. That’s real Divine Providence.

There might have been forty people in Vieux Carre’ Baptist Church Sunday morning, which is forty more than used to worship there. Greg Hand actually was called to serve God in the French Quarter before he had ever heard of this church. He and Wren and sons Ryne and Kit moved to Pass Christian, Mississippi, just over the state line–“We couldn’t afford to live in New Orleans,” Greg said–and spent all their available time in the Quarter. When the little church on Dauphine Street fell onto hard times, Freddie Arnold and I asked him to become its pastor. It was, as we say, a “God thing.”

Of the forty in attendance, a few were from the seminary, a couple from Greenville, Texas was present, and the others were French Quarter people, either residents or street people. A blended congregation if I’ve ever seen one. Wren played the keyboard and Greg the drums while someone worked the computer putting the words on the screen. At the offering time, Greg invited anyone with an offering for the Lord to bring it to the front and lay it in the offering plate. Most got up and came forward. At the end of my sermon, Greg made the altar call. “You can be free. But it’s up to you. You have to want to be free. If you do, get up and come to the front and we will pray for you.” A half dozen responded. Others came up to talk and pray with them. I prayed with a man named Stanley who indicated he had never received Christ but wanted to. After our prayer in which he asked the Lord into his life, he added, “And Lord, I want to be free from alcohol and drugs.”

I’ll ask readers of this website to pray for Christ’s victory in Stanley’s life.

“Keep your eye on me,” said Ryne Hand. “I’m a baseball player.” He’ll be a junior, I think he said, at Pass Christian High this fall, but already colleges are scouting him out. He was named for Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg of the Cubs. “And I play second base,” he said. Greg said, “Ryne and I have an agreement when he turns pro. Tell Brother Joe what it is.” “With my signing bonus, I buy the pool,” he said. Greg added, “And I fill it with water.”

The Hands’ home in Pass Christian was completely destroyed by the Hurricane and they lost two automobiles. But they’re back, and if I’m any judge, stronger than ever. Take that, satan!

I drove home down Danneel Street in search of Wings of Faith Mission. This little street is just a few blocks inside and parallel to ritzy St. Charles Avenue, but the market value of the houses is on the opposite end of the scale. At Danneel and Josephine Street, four teenagers were gunned down a few weeks ago, and there have been subsequent shootings in the area. That’s why, when Pastor Richard Moore of Wings of Faith contacted me recently about getting help for their building, I was eager to respond. To be honest, I had never heard of this mission, even though it’s one of ours. They are in a strategic location. That’s why I was disappointed at the obstacle.

“Richard Moore is in the National Guard,” Freddie Arnold said. But when I replied to his e-mail seeking help, the response I received was puzzling. “Who are you and what is this all about?” It was from another Richard Moore in the NG. As we went back and forth, trying to locate our guy, this Richard Moore went to their records and found a half dozen by that name, but none in the New Orleans area. I drove by the church this afternoon hoping they were having worship services so I could meet him. It was boarded up. In the next block, the St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church seemed to have attracted a large crowd, so someone is carrying on in the area. Most of the houses still carry the tell-tale tattoo from the first responders who were going door-to-door looking for survivors.

We need a strong church on Danneel Street. We will appreciate your prayers for this little congregation and this hard-to-locate pastor. God knows where he is. And that we need him.

Sunday morning, I was at the computer checking my e-mail when Margaret walked by. “I was so totally tricked! Those girls really put one over on me.” She’s been laughing ever since.