Author: Scott Sutherland

Follow-up from the “Take Them a Meal” Coordinator Kathy Warble

Hello and a hardy “thank you” to those of you who’ve faithfully provided tasty meals and tangible love to the McFarlands during the critical and chaotic onset of Donnie’s illness.

If you are a follower of their blog, you’ll know firsthand how much your personal attention has ministered to this God-fearing couple and their sweet family.  We stand amazed for the progress Donnie has made and for the impact these folks have had on our understanding of faith put into action.

Having put our heads together, it is Tina’s suggestion that we take a break from the meal program at this time, once the current schedule is completed (through 04/02/2015 as follows):

If and when the time arises that the McFarlands require additional support, the “Take Them a Meal” program will be re-activated at that juncture.  We’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, keep those prayers and sentiments of love coming! (No one is saying that an occasional meal & treats aren’t still welcome, just on a scheduled basis.) Please grasp that you have been used by the Lord to demonstrate His love:

“All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us.   He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us”

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

What a blessing!!
Kathy
#(407) 765-1816

The blog experienced a major “spam comment” attack.  That’s one of the dangers in having a blog that does not require commenters to actually be logged in or registered.  It makes it easy for folks to comment, but also makes it easy for spammers to comment!  I think I’ve eliminated most of the spam comments, but to prevent a future attack, I had to implement a “captcha” routine which basically requires you to prove you’re a human (and not a spambot) by completing a fun little activity before you’re allowed to submit your comment.  You’ll see it next time you try to leave a comment.  It’s pretty self-explanatory and certainly more fun than trying to ready the twisted, text and numbers most captcha routines require.

If anyone has any trouble, please email Tina and she’ll let me know.

Donnie begins his second chemo treatment at 11:00am today (Wednesday).  He had a REALLY bad reaction to the first round, and we’re all hoping & praying that today’s treatment will be much, MUCH easier for him.

To that end, the family has asked me to post this request for focused prayer at 11:00.  But even if you miss it, pray anyway.  I firmly believe that our prayers can have an influence in the past as well as the future.  God transcends time, He hears our prayers, and He is able to affect any point in time.

Please pray for our brother today.

Thanks!

Scott <><

Tina asked me yesterday if there was a way people could put pictures into their comments.  The answer is “yes and no”.  If you’re tech-savvy enough to upload your pictures to someplace on the Internet and copy the URL of the picture, then yes — you can put a picture into your comment (more on that in a minute).  Otherwise, you can’t.  It’s a security thing.  Not my restriction, but built into the blog’s platform (WordPress).

While I was trying different things, one of them added some formatting features to the comment entry box, so I left them there:

1. Undo
2. Redo
3. Insert horizontal line
4. Bold selected text
5. Italicize selected text
6. Underline selected text
7. Make selected text or picture a link to some URL
8. Break the link assigned to selected text or picture
9. Insert a YouTube video
10. Insert image from URL (that’s what I was talking about above)
11. Check your spelling
12. Make a bullet list
13. Make a numbered list (like this one)
14. Center selected text or image
15. Outdent (not a word, but the opposite of…)
16. Indent
17. Change the color of selected text

So be creative & colorful!  It’s more fun to read 😉

Any other requests, please let me know!  🙂

Tweaks to the blog seem so inconsequential compared to the main topic here that I almost feel guilty even posting them.  But I want to make the blog as friendly and enjoyable as possible for Donnie & Tina, and for everyone who shows their love by sharing comments.  So I hope you all (excuse me, y’all) don’t mind.

This latest tweak lets people “get conversational” and reply to somebody else’s COMMENT, if they want to.  You’ll now see a “Reply” button at the bottom of every comment, like this:

So if you want to reply to someone’s comment, just hit that button and type away.  When you post your comment, it will appear under the one you replied to, slightly indented so folks can tell that it’s a response to another comment.  For example, I replied to Linda’s comment:

You can see that it’s positioned right under Linda’s comment and slightly indented.

If you just want to reply to the post (like you’ve been doing), just scroll down to the “Comment” form at the end of the comments, just like before.

I hope it’s useful.  🙂

Hey, everyone.  I’m Scott Sutherland.  I’m a friend & church-mate of Donnie & Tina, and a website developer.  I volunteered to make a few tweaks to the blog.  Here’s a quick list of changes:

• Updated the theme to add a little color
• Fixed the date problem (comments & posts were reflecting the default time zone, not Eastern)
• Changed settings related to comments so that the most recent comments are at the top
• Added a “Photo Gallery” (see left-hand menu)
• Added ability to subscribe to the blog so you can receive an email notification whenever Donnie or Tina publishes a new post).  Here’s how to subscribe:
• At the bottom of the left-hand column, just enter your email and hit the “Subscribe” button.
• You’ll receive a “confirmation” email.  Click the “Confirm Follow” button in the email to complete your subscription.
• You’ll then receive a notification that you’ve subscribed and that you can change your subscription preferences.  There’s nothing you need to do with what’s in that email.  You can ignore it.

If anyone has anything else they’d like added, please leave a comment here.

Donnie & Tina:  we love you guys.