Angel Food Ministries

2006-12-01 Posted at 01:31:30 PM

WOW

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I have posted here.  I guess when you get busy, it's easy to loose track of time.

Well, my focus has changed a bit since my last post.  Oh, I still work with the Children's Ministry at church (we did another "A Year In The Making" this past August and had "Fam Jam" in October) and up until a couple of weeks ago, I was still making balloon creations in restaurants (the restaurant my daughter and I were working in is now under new management and they decided that cutting the balloons would increase the bottom line), but there has been a reallocating of some of my other intertests...I have not been pursuing my online business activities much lately and my spare time has pretty much evaporated (Note to self...need to look back into online business activities now that balloon income is gone).

The thing that has taken some of my time is a new minitry that my wife and I started up at our church.  Well, we didn't actually start it...we introduced it to our congregation.  The ministry I am referring to is called "Angel Food Ministires" and it is a blessing not only to our church, but to the community around us.

Angel Food Ministires is a food program that is in over 20 states across the country and is going through a growth explosion.  Once a month, the program allows people to purchase over $50 worth of grocery store quality foods (not seconds or close to expiring) for $25.  The great part is that around half of this food is meat.  Most of the items come frozen, so you have to have freezer space available, but you just can't find a better deal on food.  Now, my wife is an avid coupon shopper (I call her the "Coupon Queen") and she does amazing things to stretch our grocery dollars (I'm talking about going to the store and bringing home over $100 worth of stuff for $20 to $40 dollars), but you just can't get that much meat for that little money.  And I'm not talking about bologna and hot dogs...last month we had hamburger patties, pork chops, chicken tenders (you know...REAL meat).  Plus, when you purchase one of these "basic units", you are able to purchase additional "specials" like eight 8-oz. NY Strip Steaks for $18.00 or ten pounds of Popcorn Chicken for $15.00.  This is just an amazing deal.

But for me, what I love (even more than the terrific prices and wonderful food) is the ability to help people out by making it available to them.  We have so many people that come back to purchase food from us each month that could not afford it any other way.  And what is even better than that is when we get to give food away to people that cannot even afford the $25.  Since I work, my wife does most of the talking to people on the phone and she related a story to me from just this past month.  Someone had submitted the name of a woman who is a single mom with 2 children.  She has a part time job working for a school and when school is out for the holidays, she does not get paid.  When they run out of food stamps each month they have to live on noodles and bread.  When my wife called to let them know we had a food donation for them and explained some of the things they would be getting, the lady's daughter responded, "You mean we get MEAT?"  We also had a lady call the church last month who is on disability and last month her disability check was stolen.  She had to use this month's check to catch up on her utilities and rent and had no money left for food.  We also found out that she needed some clothes and relayed that message to the members of our church.  When she came to pick up her donated food and the clothes that had been donated, she had tears in her eyes.  We have stories like this every month.

When we first started making this available in April of this year (the first church in our city to become a host site), we had about 20 order submitted.  A couple of months later some other churches in the area came to us asking if we would help them get started at their church and they started placing orders through us.  Since those few orders in April, we have grown to over 250 orders and have now had a couple of those other churches split off become official host sites dealing directly with Angel Food Ministires (and no longer ordering through us).  Besides our church , there are now five other official host sites in our city (and we have worked with three of those).  We have also partnered with one of those churches to be a distribution site (where the trucks drop off food for several churches to pick up and take back to their facilities to distribute).  All of this from a congregation whose weekly attentance is around 100 to 150....ISN'T GOD GOOD!!!

All I can say at this point is, if you would like to save money on your food bill, find an Angel Food Ministires host site in your area to order from.  If there is not one in your area, talk to someone in your church or organization about making it available to the people of your community (or volunteer to run it yourself).  I'll leave you with one thought....Matthew 25:31-46

"A Year in the Making"

2005-08-13 Posted at 09:33:42 AM

Whew...been away for a while. Since my tech left (at work), I have been pulling double duty. When you add that to my resposibilities at church, making balloon creations in restaurants, and my online business activities, I have stretched myself pretty thin. I have had to prioritize my activities.

One of my priorities was "A Year in the Making". Each year (this was the second) at church, we give away school supplies to children in the community. Throughout the year (thus the name), our Children's Ministry asks the church membership to contribute to our project (different items each month). Then, a week or two before school starts, we hand them out to anyone that needs them. We get together the night before to prepare different bags for the different age groups. Then on a Saturday morning, we try to give them all away.

Last year (being the first year), we focused only on Elementry aged children. We compiled 200 bags and gave every one away. This year, we compiled 500 bags for kids from kindergarten all the way through high school and gave away over 325 last Saturday morning (and that was only with word of mouth advertising and signs in front of the church - Darrel the Barrel even made an appearance). We are hoping to grow to 1000 next year. I think with a little promotion and sponsorship from businesses in the area, we could put the together and give them all away.

Oh, yeah...all of this from a church that runs about 100 to 150 each Sunday morning. Just shows what God can do.

It takes four hours....

2005-06-25 Posted at 11:06:51 AM

OK, before I get into an explaination of the title, I need to give you a little background. If you have read any of my other posts, you will know that we had VBS (Vacation Bible School) at my church a week ago. I got to entertain the kiddies as "Darrel the Barrel", but this was just one of my many duties. I also ran the multimedia system which projected the worship videos (kids performing choreographed motions while singing the songs) overhead, took pictures and video of the children in their various activites, and prepared a video presentation for "Parent's Night" (when we invite the parents to stay and see what the young'uns did all week long). Now you're ready to move on.

Did you know that it takes four hours to create an eight minute video clip? Well, not actually an eight minute clip...it was actually several one and a half to two minute clips that totalled a little over eight minutes. Most people do not realize how much goes into putting together a video clip.

To start with, I had to get all of the photographs and raw video loaded onto the computer. This takes at least as long as the video is (you have to set it up, run the entire video as is recorded on the computer, and then disconnect everything). Since I have been downloading the video each night after I took it, this did not take that long. Once the video was downloaded, it had to be separated into "scenes".

Once the raw video scenes and photos were on the computer, I had to get some background music. Since a CD of the music came with the VBS curriculum, I just loaded this on the computer and used it for my background sound (since the kids had been singing these songs all week).

With the music, video and pictures in place, I still had to create the title screens. I wanted a "Welcome" screen, a "Thanks for coming" screen, and several others. Once again I went to the curriculum resources and used the clipart they provided to create these screens (by copying and pasting each individual letter to the picture file).

With all of the "bricks" in place, it was time to build the presentation clips. I started by deciding what I wanted the theme of the particular clip I was working on to be. Once I had a theme, I selected one of the songs that fit with the theme. This gave me the length for the clip. At this point the title screen, pictures and video clips could be added (including putting breaks in the background music in the places where I wanted the sound from the video to be heard). Then, the icing on the cake was to add text "captions" to provide a storyline throughout the clips.

Now, I am no professional video editor, but each one of these steps takes time. I figured each of the six clips I compiled took from thirty minutes to an hour to create. I started around 9:00 PM (on a night that I had to go to work the next morning) and did not finish until after 1:00 AM (I didn't actually "finish"...I just got too tired to start another clip). If I didn't have so much fun creating these clips, I'd begin to wonder if it was really worth it.

I must admit, I have not been really happy with the quality of the presentations I am able to create with the video editing software I am currently using. If you know of any good open source (or other freeware) video editing software, please post a comment with the name of the program and where I can find a copy for me to try out. Signing off.

Hot Dogs for Breakfast

2005-06-17 Posted at 09:24:55 AM

Yes, I had hot dogs for breakfast this morning.  "Why?", you ask?  Well, actually, the reasons are many. 

The main reason is my wife's fault (well, not really...but it sounds better to blame her).  You see, we home school our daughter, who is now fifteen.  Our local community college offers courses aimed at home-schoolers.  In order to attend those classes, you must attend one of their "orientation" classes each year.  As it goes, one of these "orientation" classes was this morning at 7:00 a.m.  (I know...my wife complained about it being so early, too).  Now, since she normally prepares my breakfast (thank you, sweetie), there was nobody to do that this morning (if you think my fifteen-year-old daughter is up in time to fix breakfast for me before I leave for work, you're crazy).

Ok...so we have established that my wife is gone and I had to fix my own breakfast, so why hot dogs?  As I have posted before, we had VBS (Vacation Bible School) at church this week.  Last night was the last night.  Between getting up to go to work anywhere from 3:30 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. all this week, then going straight from work to VBS and not getting home until after 9:00 pm., to staying until after 1 a.m. to put together a presentation video for the parents night-before-last, I haven't gotten too much sleep this week.  I really wasn't in any frame of mind to prepare an eggs, bacon, biscuits, and gravy type of breakfast.

Well...we have now determined no wife to cook for me, and no energy to prepare a home-cooked breakfast.  What about cold cereal?  My only response to that is...do you know how many times I have had cold cereal this week?

But why hot dogs?  All I can say is...leftovers.  Since many of the VBS workers come straight from work (like me), they prepare something different each night to make sure we don't starve.  The night I stayed late to work on the video, we had hot dogs that someone had grill at home before arriving.  Well, they had some left at the end of the night and I didn't know how long I would be staying, so I told them to just leave them for me to snack on.  As it turned out, they left more that I thought they would so I had some to take home.  And since neither my wife or daughter will eat a hot dog that has any amount of black on it, that leaves them all for me.

Who is Darrel the Barrel?

2005-06-09 Posted at 08:28:20 PM

Actually...it's me.  "How can that be?", you say.  Well maybe I should back up a bit.

As I stated before, I work with the Children's Ministry at church.  As we come into summer, it is time for Vacation Bible School.  The theme of this year's VBS is "Construction Zone".  And as it goes, there is a character in the curriculum called "Darrel the Barrel".  So, when it came time to find someone to don the costume, who was volunteered? YOURS TRULY.  (sorry, there are no pictures).  Anyway, it sounded like fun and it's for the kiddies, so I couldn't say no.  I guess I'll be busy every evening this next week.  I'll post a follow up afterwords.  Signing off.

Where do I go from here?

2005-06-04 Posted at 01:40:36 AM

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