FCM Atlanta Chapter Minutes for February 13, 2020 The February 13, 2020 meeting for the Atlanta Chapter of the FCM was held at the home of John and Julia Jefferson. Those in attendance were the following: John and Julia Jefferson; Lynn Fox; Randy Burt; John Abbott; Bill Darby. Bill brought two very special guests, Olivia and Wyatt. Our next meeting will be Thursday, March 12, 2020 at the home of John and Julia Jefferson. Dinner begins at 6:30 and the meeting starts at 7:15. Please feel free to come early! We thank Judy for the delicious desserts she brought. Unfortunately, she was not able to stay for the meeting. Judy, you are one in a million!!!! Several of our members had conflicts this month. We pray for them and hope we can all return next month. The following is a summary of our meeting. Keep the ìSONî ShiningÖ Julia and John Jefferson MINUTES: Dear friends, I am sorry I have not written the minutes for the meetings that were held in October and January. Due to unwanted, yet persistent pain and surgery, my right hand has not able to type. I am just beginning to recover so hopefully will write the missing minutes in the near future. Our guests, Olivia and Wyatt are members of Bill Darbyís church and are interested in magic. They took time out of their busy school week to accompany Bill on his long trek from Athens, GA to come to our meeting. Wyatt is a middle school wrestler and Olivia, an 8th grader, dances with special needs children. What a blessing these young people are to their family and to their community!! We do hope they will be able to return. Bill is such a wonderful friend and mentor to Wyatt and Olivia. We have the best FCM members ever! Before our meeting got underway, John J. shared gospel magic with our young guests, Olivia and Wyatt. He showed them 3 effects, gave them the instructions and the gospel magic lesson and had them practice the tricks. He also taught them the magic words: practice, practice, practice! They were very receptive to learning and hopefully they will use the lessons they learned, to the glory of God. John J. opened our meeting with prayer and welcomed our young guests, Wyatt and Olivia. He then gave Magic Bobís lecture notes from the January meeting to those who were not able to attend. John J. also showed the group John Abbottís new book entitled Experience Magic with Johnny Magik!!! The book teaches over 50 tricks, gags and routines with items found around the house. John A. includes tips for learning and performing magic and encouraging words for beginners of any age. What a great gift for an up-and-coming magician! Way to go, John A.!! We are delighted and impressed. The book can be bought online at www.JohnnyMagik.com or on Amazon.com. Buy it and bring it to the next meetingóJohn will autograph it! John A. gave each of us a booklet entitled Magic Tricks You Can Do. It contains directions for several magic tricks, directions to a free video online which demonstrates the effects, as well as the information to access his website to schedule an event. We are certainly proud of our newest member and his wonderful enthusiasm as he shares the gospel through magic! Now for some more fun! Bill Darby asked John J. and our young visitor, Wyatt, to stand back to back. Bill gave John a small Bible and asked him to ask someone to give him a page number. The number was 67. Bill then asked John to whisper the word he saw in the top corner of the page so that he could ìmentallyî send the word to Wyatt. OK, Bill, what did we say about practice? After much ìshouting of chokeî and even more laughter, Bill made a discovery that had prevented the mental trick from working!! What fun!! Whatís that about Gideon Bibles? John Abbott was next. He wound a rope around his neck and said that we often get tangled up in life and the more we try to do on our own to be set free, the worse things get! There is only one who can help usóthat is Jesus Christóat which point John pulled each end of the rope and it magically came through his neck and he was set free! We need to call on God and trust Him to help us through our troubles. Super trick, John. Randy brought out 2 coins called the Hopping Half effect. He proceeded to manipulate the USA silver coin and the English copper penny, explaining that he really did have 2 coins! Randy is an accomplished manipulator of coins and performed the trick beautifully. He shared the ìsecretî with the group. We know that the real secret is a very well- made effect and lots of practice! So why do you have colored loops on your wrist, Randy? Randy explained that it is a great way to share the gospel. He asked Wyatt to pick 2 colors from the five loops. Wyatt picked brown and orange. Randy put the 2 loops on his fingers and was able to have them magically switch places. He said the brown could make you think of the cross and the orange, well, ìorangeyouî glad I showed you this trick? The other colors could represent eternal life, the blood of Jesus, the golden streets of heaven, etc. A short gospel message can easily be given using very simple props. A large bag of loops can be bought at Hobby Lobby for a very small price. Randy showed Wyatt and Olivia how to do the trick and he gave each one a packet of 5 loops. Hopefully they will be able to share Jesus with their friends. We were then pleased to hear of Lynn Foxís mission trip to a small city outside of the country of Panama. His Sunday School class made the trip to help build a house that will also serve as a church, and to also teach a Vacation Bible School. A local organization was impressed with the effort and said they will finish the building. What a blessing this group was to the people in this small place so far from usóreal people, real difficulties, real faith. Lynn performed many illusions for the residents. We are sure they were blessed. Lynn then showed us a ìflowerpotîóMasel Tube-- and asked us to provide the rain to help a flower grow, by slapping our legs. The flower silk was produced, but it needed color. Lynn asked us to throw beautiful colors toward the flowerpot. We did, but the silk was blotched. We tried again and finally a silk with a beautiful flower on it was produced. God is so good. He gives us a beautiful place to live and grow in His word. Thanks, Lynn. A great message and a cool trick! Well, Magic Bob, if you are reading this, just know that we were still finding confetti from YOUR trick and now!... John J. explained that when Magic Bob came in January he showed him a magic wand which ultimately made a loud noise and then proceeded to shower our house with confetti! (we know, it wasnít loaded!). Anyway, not to be outdone, John J. went to Walmart and bought 4 small tubes and 2 large ones! He told the group that Bob had made the tube look like a magic wand with white and black duct tape so he could use it in a performance. John J. then proceeded to shoot off a small one which caused all kinds of exclamations and much laughter and then he wondered how much better the longer one was, so off it went!! OK, so we acted like kidsóeven had John A. put a video on Facebook!óall the more fun . Everyone offered to help clean up but John J. and I said we were pretty much experts at picking up most of the confetti so they could just look for the ones we missed, next month! Our number was small, but our heart for sharing and for laughter was great!!! As always, we missed our friends who were not able to attend, but hope the above notes will bring back fond memories for those of us who were here, and a sense of belonging, to all. We closed with prayer. Our next meeting will be Thursday, March 12. God willing, we will meet again. Grace and peace to you, Julia | |