We had a great time last night picnicking at our house with our church. We ate, talked, and played basketball and Wiffle ball. Here are some pictures. You can see a few more in this album.
Ellie Casner and Hannah are buds (left)
In order below:
Here are the Wiffle ball teams together.
Christina, Anna, and Meredith
Kassie and Bethany
Kathryn and LeeAnne are buds.
The American church has professionalized and glorified ministry. So much so that it is no longer seen as the responsibility of us regular believers. What does the Bible say about ministry? I have uploaded the next part in the series on Doing the Work of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 16:5-18. You can listen to it in the Teaching Audio player on the right side bar.
We had an exciting new addition to our home over the weekend: twenty-four new chicks. As I wrote before, we are going to raise chickens primarily for eggs. We ordered twenty-five Rhode Island Reds (one didn't survive the trip) from Welp Hatchery. We received a call on Friday morning from the post office informing us they had arrived. I could hear the chicks peeping in the background as I told him I would be there in a couple of hours to pick them up. I was surprised how small the box was that they came in:
Here I am opening the box to put them in their new, cozy home.
It didn't take them long to adjust.
The children immediately wanted to hold them. This one Caleb is holding was good enough to look at the camera and smile.
I just uploaded my teaching from Sunday at Highland Christian Fellowship. It is a continuation of the series from 1 Corinthians 16 on Doing the Work of the Lord. In it I share some of my most life changing moments in learning to be disciplined and learning to love. I also explain the vision and purpose of our fellowship. Listen to it in the Teaching Audio player on the right sidebar or here.
Watauga County Campaign for Liberty presents:
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Monday, April 26, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
The office of Blue Ridge Ear, Nose, and Throat 870 State Farm Road, Suite 101 Boone, NC
Campaign for Liberty will host this evening of questions and answers concerning the pertinent issues of the race. It will be open to the general public. For more information please call 828-265-1039.
We just signed up online for the annual conference of the North Carolinians for Home Education! We love going to this every year and have made it a priority. We are encouraged by all the speakers, sessions, and talking with other home educators. We always meet new friends and run in to old ones that we would never otherwise see. The book fair is fantastic. We buy our My Father's World curriculum (so we don't have to pay shipping) and all sorts of other birthday and Christmas gifts for the kids. If you homeschool in North Carolina and have not been, you should seriously consider going. See ya'll there.
Serving God is not easy. There are visible and invisible enemies of God that come against us. There are temptations, distractions, discouragement, risks, threats, fear. This is obviously not an advertisement for serving God (although I love giving those too--there are many, many benefits of serving God that far outweigh these negatives). The teaching I just uploaded from yesterday is encouragement for those who are committed to serving God. It covers three ways to stay strong in doing the work of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 16:13. When doing the work of the Lord,
You can listen to this message in the Teaching Audio player in the right sidebar of this site or go here. Don't forget you can subscribe to future messages by clicking on the iPod icon at the bottom of the audio player.
We had a fascinating and diverse group of people into our home for our mid-week prayer meeting. Several ethnic groups were represented: Chinese, Malaysian, African, Serbian, and Iraqi. The reason for this diversity is that Chui Hea Hill (of Malaysian descent) has a wonderful ministry to refugees. She and her husband work with World Relief, U.S. Center for World Missions, and International Justice Mission. She brought with her refugees she is currently assisting: a woman who worked in Iraq as a jounalist and was kidnapped, a young Muslim Iraqi boy who's father was killed by a car bomb, two African boys whose father was a king in Zimbabwe and is running for his life because of his stand against an evil government. We heard their stories and prayed for each of their situations (we also played basketball, ate snacks, and had good fellowship). We were challenged by how much suffering goes on in the world that we are not aware of and encouraged to be available for God to use us to demonstrate his love and truth to other.
