Memories from our time in Georgia...

Our hike to the highest peak in GA:

Live Camel Cargo Delivery

Today we were walking along the coast and enjoyed watching the dangling camels. Enjoy!

I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water....

Yesterday, for almost 24 hours it  rained. It has not rained in this desert place for 9 months.  This is the third rain since our arrival. The Lord reminded me this morning as I sat at the dining room table in the quiet of the dark, listening to the rain:

Isaiah 41:17-20  ⁷ When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the LORD will answer them; I the God of Israel will not forsake them.  ¹⁸ I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.  ¹⁹ I will put in the wilderness the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive. I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together,  ²⁰ that men may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it. 

May we all live our lives so that it is evident that the Lord has done it!

Below you can see some of the flooding and the task of keeping it off of the back patio.   

   

Traditions and Transitioning

What a joy and a responsibility it is to pass on to the next generation the wonders of our God!!

Traditions can be a way through which we demonstrate to our kids the things of the LORD. With traditions we can bring significance and give meaning to the celebrations throughout the year. Traditions can help to establish the focus as we celebrate birthdays, Easter, Christmas and other holidays. Traditions create a sense of security, expectation, and celebration! Traditions allow for memories to be made and help them to not be forgotten.

But O how hard it can be to have tradition... especially when transitioning!

For almost a year now we have been in transition. Moving from one place to another we have had to forgo some of the traditions we had tried to establish over the first years of marriage and parenthood. What had been "normal" was no longer available because of living in a new place and with new people.

So what have we done.

We started a new tradition of a Pancake Thanksgiving Breakfast, beginning the day by celebrating God and each other, taking turns to thank the LORD for what He has done in each person around the table and giving thanks to Him for who He is.

Together we finger painted our advent wreath. This year it is a rainbow color to represent the promises of God and to help us to celebrate His promises revealed in Christ as we read through the story of redemption. We long to be reminded and strengthened Christmas season as we remember that through all the transitioning we can continue to experience God as faithful to all the promises He has made. We long to have the same heart as Abraham :

20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." 23 But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Romans 4:20-25 (ESV)

So as you enjoy either old traditions or make new ones this year, remember the promises of God and grow strong in your faith, believing that it is Christ who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.   

Byes to Blueberry Blessing

Today we watched Blueberry Blessing as she drove off to be a blessing to other families who need a car while stateside. We praise God for the many many miles we have driven together as a family in this car with almost no trouble. We pray that the LORD will continue to provide many more safe miles for other families and live up to the name we gave her... BLESSING.

TO: Blueberry Blessings' New Family
FROM: Thomas

We love Blueberry Blessing.
Please be careful with Blueberry.
Please don't crash into her!
I pray that you would take care of Blueberry.
Please keep sharing Blueberry Blessing.
I hope you know Jesus because you have to know Jesus if you want to go to heaven.
We love Blueberry Blessing and we want you to take care of her while we are away.
Pray for me too. We love you and we want you to take care of her for us.
Thanks.
Thomas

Language Learning Lessons....

There are a lot of sounds that are “weird”. English uses about 40 sounds. These are what I “know”. English has one “d” sound. The language we will be learning has 4 “d” sounds and none of them are like our “d”! Most languages say a “p” and “t” without breathing out. Try to see if you can do that! It takes work! Try an a “f” or a “v” without touching your teeth to your lips. Weird, huh?

You have to learn a language like you learned your first one! Children do not speak for the first year or so. They just listen! They point at things. They hear it over and over and over and over again. All I want to do is SPEAK. All I want to do is READ. I need to learn to LISTEN first. I need to listen as I pick up things, point at things, as I move, as I am DOING. I am a visual person. I tend to want to learn by looking at words. I should look at OBJECTS and ACTIONS! How many times do babies hear things before they start to speak? They learn from REPETITION. I will also. I have to become like a CHILD. Humbling, huh?

Language learning is like owning your own business. You can't blame it on a teacher, a language school, a language helper, or supervisor. You take full responsibility. I will be the one who determines what I will learn in class everyday with my language helper. I will determine where I will go in the community and which projects I will complete.

My teacher said “Language should first be treated as a toy to play with before taking it apart.” Please pray that our will have fun learning our language. Pray that it will be a joy... by God's grace.

Language learning is relational! Pray that we would build great relationships with our language learning. Pray that we will show that we are like Jesus. He left all the glories of heaven and became a child! (Phil. 2, John 1:14) We do not exist to be serve but to serve and give away our lives for Jesus.

Why are we "Good News Junkies"? Part 2

A long time ago I tried to answer this question: Why are we GOOD NEWS JUNKIES? The first reason (in the first post) we are "Good News Junkies" is because Jesus removed all of the barriers to us coming to Him by dying on the cross. Because we are sinners, we now can come to God by faith. The reasons we are so crazy about the Good News is because we are sinners who can now come to God. We depend on the GRACE of JESUS. We have FORGIVENESS! We are cleansed and righteous before God! EVERYDAY, we live off of this good news! ONLY JESUS can bring us to God.

The second reason why we are Good News Junkies is because we seek PLEASURE IN JESUS. We are sinners because we prefer the pleasures of sin over the pleasures of God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because we love __________. Fill in the blank. We love our selves, we love power, we love food, we love being appreciated, we love being loved by others, we love our possessions. We sin because we are all PLEASURE SEEKERS. What comes to mind when you think of JUNKIES? I think of an addict. I think of a pleasure seeker. We are all pleasure seekers. We are all junkies. What are you crazy about? Family, friends, football? Power, sex, money? ONLY JESUS CAN SATISFY THE LONGINGS OF OUR HEART! Just listen to HIM....

John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

John 4:14 "Jesus said to [the woman at the well], “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

I long to be like Peter who said.... “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life"

I long to be like David who wrote.... "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." and "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Ps. 73:25 and Ps. 16:11)

I long to be like Paul who wrote "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" (Phil. 3:7-8)

I pray that Jesus will keep me as a good news junkie! That I will never want to go away from Jesus because he is my joy.

We are far too easily pleased when we love other things more than Jesus. Only Jesus can satisfy!

This is a wonderful quote from C.S. Lewis...
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."