Category: Travel

Categories
Blogging Commerce Driving Food Geography God News Shopping Travel

Orange County Florida

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last Saturday morning I headed northward from my new home in the Florida Heartland (rural South Central Florida). I drove through Polk County – and then into Osceola County – and then into Orange County. (That’s where Orlando is, and I did enter into its sprawling city limits.)

Once I entered into northwestern Osceola County – rural evolved into suburban – with more homes, and stores, and restaurants, and of course – heavy traffic.

I spent the day with my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces – visiting from the Dallas Texas area. As an aside – news broke that (Saturday) afternoon about the mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets. My family lived in Allen for about 6 years from 2007 to 2013, and since 2019 they’ve lived in a nearby suburb within a half-hour of that large outdoor shopping mall. I’ve been to that mall countless times with my family while visiting them. I lift-up to our God Almighty the family and friends of the victims of the shooting. May He comfort them in this difficult time.

Back in the Orlando area – me and my family spent much of the day at the Orange County Convention Center at a national cheerleading tournament. (My youngest niece is a cheerleader with her 9 and 10-year-old peers.) After that we spent several hours at Disney Springs. Once upon a time (mid-1990s to mid-2000s) I spent many vacation nights partying at Pleasure Island – which is now known as The Landing. I even had an annual pass to the nightclubs for many years. We enjoyed a late-Lunch at Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’ Kitchen at The Landing. The food was good, abundant, and expensive. The front of the restaurant faced one of those former clubs that me and my brother loved to hang out at.

It was a fun but exhausting 189-mile day-trip. It was about 14 miles longer than it should’ve been. That evening I accidentally missed the entrance to the hotel that my family was staying at, and we ended-up on I-4 for a frightening 7-mile stretch. As you may know (as a longtime reader of this blog) I don’t drive on interstates, expressways, or turnpikes anymore (with rare exceptions) due to anxiety attacks. Luckily – it was near bumper-to-bumper slow-moving traffic during the entire stretch, so I was sort of fine with it.

It was good to finally return home to paradise in the Florida Heartland after that Saturday adventure !

Next #TravelThursday I’ll look back at a fun cruise from exactly 19 years ago. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church God Ministry Scripture Travel Weather

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday May 07TH 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

Last #SundayScripture I began transcribing my sermon on “Paul & Titus” that I preached to my church family on March 05TH 2023. Here’s Part 2:

[CONTINUATION OF SERMON]

So the Apostle Paul briefly writes about Titus in 2ND Corinthians, and Galatians, and 2ND Timothy. And then he writes an entire letter to Titus. Paul refers to Titus as “my true son in the faith that we share”. Paul advised Titus. Paul gave instructions to Titus. Paul selected Titus to be his church leader on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean. Titus was an effective disciple of Paul. Titus was much younger than Paul. Titus was probably at least 30 years younger than Paul. Titus lived another 30 to 40 years after Paul was martyred in Rome.

Shortly before Paul died he wrote his formal letter to Titus. Paul wrote:

I left you on the island of Crete so you could complete our work there and appoint elders in each town as I instructed you. (Titus 1:5)

I’ve never been to Crete – or Greece. The closest I’ve been to Crete – or Greece – is Rome Italy – 15 years ago. Crete is in the southeastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s the Mediterranean’s version of a tropical island. Summers are hot and humid – in the 80s and 90s – sometimes close to 100 degrees – even above 110 degrees during record heatwaves. Winters are chilly and snowy up in the mountains and sometimes all the way down to sea level. Crete has mountains up above 8,000 feet above sea level. It’s a tropical island, but it’s at the same latitude as Tennessee and North Carolina, so it can easily snow there in the wintertime.

Many years before Christ – over two-million people lived on ancient Crete. Far less people live on the island of Crete today – over 600,000. A lot of people lived on Crete back during the First Century – during the time of the New Testament. Just as it is today – Crete was like a melting pot of many different cultures. It was an important island – strategic in location – for travel and trade. It’s convenient to Western Europe, and the Middle East, and North Africa. It’s at the crossroads of 3 continents. A lot of people visited Crete, and they liked what they saw, and they settled there. It had a sizable Jewish population.

Just as it was across the entire region – the church was new there in the First century. Since the island is spread out from east to west by about 160 miles – there were many towns scattered around, and most of the towns had a church or two or more. Paul instructed his young disciple Titus to appoint elders in each of those towns to run their respective church. Paul then described the type of elders that Titus should be appointing in order for the church to grow. He said:

An elder must live a blameless life. He must be faithful to his wife, and his children must be believers who don’t have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. A church leader is a manager of God’s household, so he must live a blameless life. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered. He must not be a heavy drinker, violent, or dishonest with money. (Titus 1:6-7)

I like that part that says “a church leader is a manager of God’s household.” It was relevant in the 1ST Century. It is relevant in the 21ST Century. This here is God’s household. It’s God’s home. It’s our home too. We must take care of it.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Blogging Geography Photography Travel

My Flickr Photostream

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. You know – I’m still on Flickr. I’ve never created an Instagram account. I don’t even know what Instagram looks like. I tried Google Photos for a little while, and I realized that it was too complicated to use, and it’s inferior to Flickr. It was disappointing since I use Google (the search engine) all day every day.

Flickr has been around for 19 years, and I’ve been on it for the past dozen years. I like Flickr. It’s easy to use. It’s relatively glitch-free. I have unlimited storage as a paid Flickr Pro member. I’m approaching 4,000 photos on it. I’ll be on it for as long as they exist.

My goal is to upload and caption at least 10 new photos per month onto Flickr. I’ve done that for the past 53 months in a row – since the end of 2018. I’ve been asked – “why don’t you just do a photo dump of all of your photos all at once and be done with it ?” Well that would be no fun at all. Flickr is my personal electronic scrapbook, so each new photo is meticulously selected, uploaded, researched, captioned, and placed in its appropriate album. I have 65 albums – most of which are public.

This month I’ll be populating my Puerto Rico album. I was in Old San Juan on January 11TH 2023, and I have some very nice photos to share of that wonderful day – courtesy of Carnival Celebration. On the previous day I was in Amber Cove, Puerto Plata, and the surrounding north-central coast region of Dominican Republic. I uploaded 34 photos from that day in February, March, and April. I actually took 81 photos that day, so only about 42% of them made it onto Flickr. I call them – the best of the best. (Check-out my Dominican Republic album.)

I’m not a professional photographer, but it is a hobby of mine when I’m visiting the world. It’s a relatively new hobby of mine since the start of the smart phone revolution – and Flickr. One of my biggest regrets in life is the lack of photos of my travels before I owned a smart phone.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page you can see thumbnails of the last 6 added photos to my Flickr Photostream. It’s a good way to keep-up with what I’ve uploaded and captioned onto my favorite photo hosting service.

Next #TravelThursday I’ll head-up to Orange County Florida. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Categories
Bible Blogging Christian Church Driving God Ministry Scripture Travel Weather

Sunday Scripture

Greetings my friends. It is Sunday April 30TH 2023, and this is the day that our LORD has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it. Let us celebrate this great new day of believing, following, trusting, loving, and being more like our Lord + Savior Jesus Christ. Let us love our neighbor as ourself.

This morning I’ll be with my new church family here in Sebring Florida – weather-permitting. We could have some severe weather moving through the region this morning, so I’ll monitor that. (My new church is a little over 4 miles away by road.) In the event of severe weather – I can watch the livestream online as it happens. But I’d rather experience service in-person. (That’s the Pastor in me.)

So it’s been about 2½ months since I wrapped-up my last sermon here on #SundayScripture. That was the one that was based on the Matthew West song – “The God Who Stays”. I’d like to write another sermon based on another contemporary worship song. I just don’t know what that song is yet.

Starting with this edition and continuing through the month of May and into June – I’ll be presenting my March 05TH 2023 sermon on “Paul & Titus” – in its original written form. I hope that it inspires you and encourages you.

[BEGIN SERMON]

You know if I asked you to – quickly – list 10 names out of the Bible – I’m thinking maybe you would mention Adam and Eve, Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Paul, James, and Peter. I think those are the 10 most prominent names out of the Bible – 3 from the Old Testament and 7 from the New Testament.

Today – I want to share with you the story of one of the lesser-known names of the Bible – Titus. Who ?  Titus ?  Who’s Titus ?  You know there’s an entire book of the New Testament on Titus, and it was written by – not Titus – but Paul (as in The Apostle Paul). It’s 1 of 13 letters or epistles that Paul wrote that make-up about half of the New Testament.

They are known as Pauline epistles. They are formal letters sent by the Apostle Paul to a person or a group of people – to inspire them – to encourage them – to set them in the right direction. Paul sent his letters to friends who were church leaders, and he also sent letters to the church in general. You know these Pauline epistles as his letters to the Romans, and the Corinthians, and the Galatians, and the Ephesians, and the Philippians, and the Colossians, and the Thessalonians, and his friend Timothy, and his friend Titus, and his friend Philemon. I’ve preached a lot from the Pauline epistles, as they are my favorite part of the Bible.

That’s a lost art from the past – writing letters to someone to inspire them – to encourage them – to make them happy. That was popular back before smart phones, and social media, and the internet, and computers. We would grab a pen and a piece of paper, and write a letter to someone to show that person that we’re thinking of him or her. Some of us even had manual typewriters at home, and we would type a letter. And then we would place that letter in an envelope, and write (or type) the address on it, and then place a stamp on it, and then drop it in the mailbox. Yep. That’s what we did – way back in the ‘60s and ‘70s and ‘80s. Even into the early-‘90s.

When I was serving in the desert of Saudi Arabia – during Desert Storm – 32 years ago – each of us received a random handwritten letter sent to “Any Serviceman / Servicewoman” – usually written by a student in school. They were words of encouragement from one stranger to another – from stateside to warside. They were awesome to read. They made us feel happy – thousands of miles away from home.

[TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK]

If you wish to learn more about the God I know then stay tuned to #SundayScripture. The best is yet to come !

Thank you for reading my blog for this day, and may:

The LORD bless you, and keep you.
The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

All rights reserved (c) 2023 Christopher M. Day, CountUp