FCM Atlanta Chapter Minutes for February 9, 2017 The February 9, 2017 meeting for the Atlanta Chapter of the FCM was held at the home of John and Julia Jefferson. Those in attendance were: John and Julia Jefferson; Randy Burt; Leland Davis; and Eugene McBrayer. We missed many of our fellow magician friends. We do hope you will be able to come next month. Our next meeting will be Thursday, March 9, 2017 at the home of John and Julia Jefferson at 6:30 p.m. Following is a summary of our meeting: Keep the “SON” Shining… John Jefferson MINUTES: John began with several announcements. We are pleased to hear that Jerry Burgess is planning to return home next week. He is recovering from major heart surgery. We have kept him in our prayers. Bill Darby emailed us from his mission trip in Romania. He says that using magic has already opened many doors into the atheistic hearts of the high schoolers to whom he is ministering. We are looking forward to having Bill share his experiences with us in March! The Greater Atlanta Magicians Banquet has been rescheduled and will be held Saturday, Feb. 18 at 6:00 p.m. at the following location: Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall) 471 Mount Vernon Hwy Sandy Springs, GA 30328 John then gave out more free coins and cars to the members. Randy began our sharing time by demonstrating “The Magic Hat” sold by Penguin Magic and Daytona Magic. He showed an empty, flat, large metal top hat and then produced at least 5 metal rabbits! Great effect with lots of possibilities for a great Gospel magic trick! Randy then amazed us with his “very simple” Three Card Trick. He placed 3 cards down and asked Leland to choose one card and then reverse the order of the other two while Randy was not looking. Randy turned around and then asked Leland to move the cards around as in a 3-card Monte trick. Randy then found the card which Leland had chosen!!! After much explanation—for a very “simple” trick—I THINK we got it!!! Great trick that can be repeated over and over!! John then showed us the Houdini’s Chain of Sin he bought from Barry Mitchell. John showed us 2 plastic chains—one blue, the other red. He stated that each link in the blue chain represented a poor choice—that’s right, we “blue” it! Our sins cause us to be outside of the hand of God. (blue chain away from hand). However, Jesus, represented by the red chain, took our place and allowed us to be safe and secure in God’s hand. (chains switch places). There is a U-Tube video that shows the effect and several other moves. Great, illustration, John ! Our last effect of the evening was shown by John. He recently did this at his church with four volunteers. Seems everyone is still amazed by the trick! It is called the 4 ½ Cards Trick and Mix. There are 22 steps to the trick but the idea is that cards are chosen, cut in half, mixed up, thrown away and “loved and not loved” until each person has only one half-card. That half-card perfectly matches the other half that was placed in each person’s pocket!! The Gospel message is that God makes the impossible, possible. No matter how hard we try to “mix things up”, God will see us through and will bring things back into perfection. We just have to hold Him close to our hearts, just like the guys did with the one extra card in the card trick! Well, that was the end of a great evening of fellowship and amazing effects!! We do hope our friends will return in March and be able to share with us. There were several prayer requests and many unspoken as well. We ended our meeting in prayer as we had begun earlier. Until next time…Julia