A Father's Legacy

"Skipping Stones"
{Image property of Livvy Taylor Photography. Used with permission.}

~

Once Sunday morning, a man sat in his recliner reading the Sunday paper. Glancing at the clock, he spoke to his son, "Better be getting ready for Sunday School."
The young boy asked, "Are you going?"
"No," his father replied. "Not today."
"Dad, when you were a boy, did you go to Sunday School"
"Why, of course I did!" the man answered.
As the boy got up and left the room, he murmmured to himself, "Probably won't do me any good either."

~

The day before, in another part of the country, a poor hard-working family sat around the dinner table. They discussed with excitment Monday's harvest, and the resulting payment of an old and heavy debt.
That night a horrible hailstorm swept through the area, distroying their prize crop.
Sunday morning came, and the son stood with his father in the field that had held all their hopes. The son waited for his heart-broken father's reaction to the disaster. The man stooped and took up a handful of earth and studied it in his hand. Suddenly he began to sing softly:

"Rock of Ages,
cleft for me,
let me hide myself
in Thee."

Years later, after the boy was grown and serving the Lord with a family of his own, he would often say that was the best sermon he had ever heard.

~

What a difference a Godly father can make in the lives of his children.

Happy Father's Day, and may the Lord bless all those who seek to live for Him.

EchoLOUD

echo: "a repetition or imitation of another"

loud: "marked by intensity of volume..."


A few years ago during the young people's class at a church my family was visiting, I was given a wristband. You know what I'm talking about, those plastic-y rubbery ones that were so popular a couple of years ago. Well, they were popular here, I don't know about where you are... Anyway, this one was orange, and the letters ECHOLOUD were stamped on it.

I got the wristband because I knew the memory verse; but I wondered - what's the significance of this? Does it mean anything, or is it just a prize for knowing the verse? If the latter was the case, it seemed pretty shallow. But the teacher went on to explain.

In the last few weeks, I've thought quite a bit about the meaning of this little bracelet. Do I live by what it stands for? Do I take it for granted, or do I take it for the serious, solumn command and challenge that it is? How can I improve? What else can I do?

The orange is for the color of a life vest. When someone is drowning in a spaceless, helpless sea, what do they want most in the world? Well, most likely a boat and people who will throw them a life vest. Rescue.
We should be the rescuers - throwing spiritual life vests to people who are hopelessly drowning in a sea of sin. We should be that bright orange beacon of hope.
The ECHOLOUD means just what you might guess. An echo is a repetition of something. What higher goal is there in the life of a saved (rescued) born-again believer than to be an echo of Christ? To repeat His teachings, reflect His life, and demonstrate His love to a drowning populace - that is life! And our echo? Echo LOUD!

Chick Stuff - Advice Anyone?

My little bird seems to be over the ant bites - by Sunday afternoon he was much perkier, and now seems like his old self. I am thankful the Lord sees fit to even care about the 'insignificant' things like hurt little animals. Or maybe it's that He cares about us, and our attachment to them :). At any rate, I'm glad He saw fit to right my mistake (leaving the chick in the yard in the first place). The only problem is, I am now going to have to re-think my 'solution' for the chick's independence. Because of the ants, the cage I was going to use will not work - the ants could crawl right up and over the lower boards. I thought of sprinkling poison around the cage to prevent that, but then the other chickens might get in it (especially the four young ones - they are still pretty dumb Lol). Then I thought, "What about a 'moat'?" you know, like they had around castles in the old days. The ants couldn't get through water. Now, that's all well and good, but where am I going to find a portable moat?! I can't build it - water would seep through wood, plastic would have to be cut, molded, and caulked together (which I wouldn't know how to do) and metal would be the same problem, except that would be even trickier, 'cause it would envolve sautering (spelling-?). Besides, I haven't got alot of money to spend on this whole little situation here. Here is a drawing I did of the idea:



The cage would sit in the hollow space inside.

Does anyone have any advice on how I could build or find something like this? I would really appreciate any tips!

Austin's Back!

{Photo property of Marilla Heights Photography}

Well, 'our boy' is back in the States, safe and sound, mission complete. He was supposed to arrive next Saturday, but he e-mailed Trissy and me (who he calls "The sisters [he] never had.") and told us he would be home by today, but not to tell anyone, 'cause Bro. Earl and Mrs. Shannen didn't even know! It was going to be a surprise... Ha! well, it was a surprise alright! He came home last Saturday, instead of yesturday, and about shocked the living daylights out of us too! Well, he's his father's son, and his older brother's younger brother, so why should we have been surprised that he would trick us too?! :) But we are so glad to have him back. We still haven't gotten a chance to talk talk with him, and find out exactly how things turned out (he'd been having us pray for some specific people over there that he was hoping would be saved before he had to leave and come back), and hear all his stories. He says he's got alot of them; I imagine so, after spending almost a year as an under-cover missionary, so to speak, in a dangerous country having never been away from home in his life! He's thinner than when he left, but other than that, and getting used to hearing people regularly speak in English, he seems like the same old Austin!
As you may know, I have no blood-kin brothers, though I have always dearly longed for them - especially older ones. The Lord did not see fit to grant my wish in that way, but He has given me some very special 'adopted', spiritual brothers, who have been perhaps even more of a blessing than blood kin. Austin is one of these.
The Lord truly is good to us!

Sparrows that fall...

Sometimes I wonder, is it okay to pray for animals?
For the past couple of weeks or so, I've been putting my little crippled chicken out in the yard for a few hours, to give him/it more outside air (he's been staying in a box in our garage), and I've also hoped that the grass would provide a little stability for him to learn to walk in. I put a plastic basket with large holes over him, so that he can still see out and feel the breezes, but we won't accidentally step on him (plus it prevents cruelty from the other chickens roaming the yard).
Well, today I put him out as usual. I check on him periodically, to give him water, make sure he's not in the sun (HOT), and just make sure everything's ok. I went out today after he'd been out a while, and he was just laying sortof listless in the grass. I picked him up, and saw he was covered in ants! Now, down here in the South (maybe in the north too, I don't know), we have a particular kind of ant that's very small, but when it bites you, it is very painful. They're called "fire ants". And that is what was attacking my little bird. They had never bothered him before! Mom said that it was probably since we have not had much rain for the past few days. I ran over to the eaves of the house where Dad has some five-gallon buckets to collect run-off, and sunk him up to his neck in the warm water, trying to wash the ants off. He hardly protested at all. Trissy heard my lamentations and stuck her head out the door, and when she saw, she hurried back to the kitchen and made some vinegar-water to bathe him in when I got the ants all off. So we did that, and then put him back in his box under the fold of an old towel, 'cause they say if a person goes into shock that they should be kept warm even if it's hot already. We didn't know if he was in shock or not, but he seemed pretty done in. He perked up a tiny bit after a little while of rest and no ants. After lunch I put some Neosporin (that we keep specifically for our animals) on his bites, and I've been giving him water regularly. But when I went out just now, he seemed to have wilted a little more. He's not a very big body, to absorb the poison, and he's swollen from all the bites; I'm just wondering if, after all this time and hard work nursing him through all those other odds against him, if now he's going to up and die because I left him out to the ants!
Is it ok to pray for animals? I think, answering my own question, that yes, God sees the little sparrows that fall to the ground, so He surely doesn't mind if we care about them too! Nothing is too small to bring before the Lord - we've just got to be willing to accept His outcome.
Surely the Lord's got a lesson for me out of this one too.

VBS - 2010

Vacation Bible School is now over for this year and we had a wonderful time! Well, over except for the 'closing program' which will be tonight, Lord willing. It was a really rewarding experience - I was the Pre-K 'Group Leader' (the person who leads the kids from one place to another, makes sure they're where they need to be throughout the evening, and takes care of them if they need anything) and the kids were so fun! Their eagerness and excitement really reminded me of how the Lord tells us to be like little children in our seeking of Him.
Trissy was the Kindergarten Group Leader, and Oliver and Lindy were the teachers for both the Pre-K and Kindergarten groups.
Monday night's lesson was on the parable of the four kinds of soil, and how we should be like the good soil, and have our hearts ready for the sowing of the seed of God's Word. (Mark 4:3-20)
Tuesday night was on the parable of the lost sheep; how the shepherd left all the others to go out looking especially for the one little lost one, and how the Lord wants us to be His sheep (Luke 15:3-17),
Wednesday night was on the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-35),
Thursday night was the man who asked to borrow bread from his friend at midnight (Luke 11:5-10), and
Friday night was about the parable of the Talents. (Matthew 25:14-27).
I only stayed with the kids in the room to hear the lesson on Monday and Tuesday nights, the others I was running errands and staying busy elsewhere, so I didn't hear the last three nights' story "applications".

Including each night of the week, I had a total of 8 different children in my group (Friday night they all came, and I was glad they were all together on the last night), and more than half of those (5) also go to the Christain Academy! So I already new them, and didn't have to spend alot of time trying to learn names and temperments. :) They were all very well-behaved all week, as well as being enthusiastic ;)
So that's how VBS went, in a nutshell.

On a slightly side note, Tuesday night Lindy told us that one of our young men had led a girl to the Lord the day before (they are both music majors and go to college together, and the girl is the girlfriend of another of our young men)! And also on Thursday night, I think it was, the older daughter (whose about 11) in one of our church families 'announced', for lack of a better term, that she had been saved a little over a week before. Both of these girls were baptized this morning, along with two other women who had been visiting the church, and were recently saved! So, in the words of the 11-year-old's little sister, "This is a good day" :D

Chick Cage

Today Dad gave up a large portion of his day to help me make a sort of cage for my little crippled chick. Trissy and I hope to go to Youth Camp in the northern part of the state in a couple of weeks, and I know Dad and Mom can't give my chick the kind of attention I have been, feeding and watering it every few hours, so I devised a way to (hopefully) accomplish several several things at once. 1 - Dad and Mom won't have to take such detailed care of him while I'm gone, 2 - He will be learning to take care of himself, 3 - I won't be 'worrying' about him as much.
The 'cage' is just a wooden rectangle frame, that I plan to cover with chicken wire, except on the bottom. He can then be put out in the chicken yard, feed scattered around him, a little waterer set in the center, the 'cage' set over the whole deal, and voila! the big chickens are kept away, clean-up is minimal, and he will be forced to scoot around to get the feed and water for himself, thus making him more independent, and me freer.

*Be sure to check this post again later - I've got to go now, but I hope to post a picture of the cage frame (I haven't gotten a chance to put the wire on yet), and an update on VBS!*

Ttyl!