Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Adventures in Frisbee Golf

Today we played some more frisbee golf on campus...so fun!!
It was a bit chilly though! At one point, I had finished that particular hole, and just Papa and Mama had to finish...we were all waiting, and watching them finish up. It was cold and windy, so I crouched in the bushes to avoid the windchill...I was about a foot or two from the lamp post that was the goal...Papa was just on the other side of the patch of boxwods and hollies. But, I figured that if I just kept on eye on Papa, and his frisbee, then if I needed to I could get out of the way. After all, wouldn't it be funny if of all the places, Papa actually did hit me? I tore off a few leaves, and started to mindlessly tear them apart. Guess what, I got hit pretty squarely in the jaw with Papa's frisbee.
Two throws into the next hole of golf, I was back behind a row of holly trees...they are about 6 or 7 feet tall, and so, I was kinda looking around for my frisbee...and i saw a pink frisbee. Now, the college students that play this cours regularly have to play at midnight when there aren't any pedestrians on the sidewalks...etc...so, because its midnight, its dark, and therefore very easy to lose frisbees in the bushes. We'd found really neat discs in these holly bushes before, so I pulled it out to look at it. It was one of those cheap flimsy frisbees that businesses use for advertising...but i shouted to Peter, "Look! I found a disc!" He shouted to the others...but then I showed him it was not a good disc...and then I tossed it to the others...and we all laughed...about finding a disc, a very junky one...but a disc.Still scanning for my disc, I looked around some more in the bushes. This time I saw a yellow one...mine was yellow, but this one had water in it. Apparently it had been there a while...so I told Peter that maybe I had found something good. I crawled carefully through the holly to where it was, dumped out the water and leaves and turned it over: INNOVA Champion Shark. That is a good disc. The Champion means that its the 13 dollar version of the Shark disc instead of the 8 dollar...pretty good!
The other three discs that we have found on campus have all belonged to the same person, but this one I was happy to find out, has very little wear, no identification, and our friend doesn't have any clue who it belongs to. So pretty much, its mine. A very nice disc!

Friday, December 22, 2006

What is the true meaning of Christmas?

Dudley: Benjamin, what are we doing on monday?
Ben: We are opening presents!
Mrs.M: Why are you opening presents?
Ben: Because its Christmas
Mrs.M: What is Christmas?
Ben: Monday
Mrs.M: But, who's birthday do we celebrate on Christmas?
Ben: Carrie's

I guess he doesn't quite undrstand it all yet...

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Uggg. Blogger. It won't co-operate!

Well, Joanna...
I was going to change this site too, for you....but I an't make it...maybe BLOGGER is just having a bad day...but even after I "save changes" and "republish" it and all...it still it the same...

So...maybe another day it will let me...or maybe I should give up...I'll try to check it again later....or let me know if it automatically changes...cause in my settings, it says its changed. Whatever.

Reflections on mission work....

Ever since I was very small, I have felt that God wanted me to be a missionary. But, recently I have really been thinking a lot more on it...

Why am I attracted to mission work? At times it is easy to be attracted to the thought of glamorous adventures, or perhaps to receiving fame as a missionary. Is that why I want to be a missionary, or do I really feel a burden for souls? Am I driven by the love of Christ for those which are lost? If my true passion is for the salvation of lost souls, then what action am I taking? If I feel a burden for lost souls over seas, then how can I ignore the lost souls around me? Everyday I meet people in the store or on the street who have not heard. Do I not care that they are destined to eternal punishment? God cares about these people too. Jonathan Goforth was a missionary to China in the late 1700s to early 1800s. He grew up in Canada and when about twenty years old he sensed God’s call to the mission field and he surrendered himself to the Lord. It was said of him that, “from that minute on, he was a missionary.” He did not wait to arrive in China to begin evangelizing and sharing the gospel. He was completely taken up in this work. All of his spare time, all of his efforts, and any spare money was put into distributing tracts, evangelizing in the slums, and praying for lost souls. William Borden once said, “Any day in which work is not done for Christ is wasted.” If I want to be a missionary, then am I a missionary now where I am?

Missionary life requires character. It means suffering, humility, denial of self. This life involves a life of prayer, complete surrender of rights to the Lord, uprooting of all pride, a spirit of service even when unnoticed. Sacrifice and an emptying of self are a daily exercise. I must learn to love the unloved, and those who seem hard to love. Am I preparing myself now for that kind of a life? Is that what I am expecting? Am I willing to pay that price? Am I practicing that life now? The life of a missionary really is just laying down your life for the lives of others. But this is never too much, it’s only what Jesus did. He is the ultimate missionary’s example. He never demanded his own way, he loved the unloved, and he sacrificed willing for a people who did not love in return. Jim Elliot said, “One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.”
Jonathan Goforth’s wife, Rosalind, told about how much she had to adjust to Jonathan’s complete commitment and focus on the gospel. Her first lesson was as early as their engagement. She was from a rich family and he was from a poor family. She had been dreaming of the beautiful engagement ring she was soon to receive, but Jonathan told her simply. He had enough money to purchase it, but every spare penny he could get a hold of was used in the purchase of tracts, and other gospel literature, and would she wish him to waste money on a valuable ring when there were so many lost souls who must hear the gospel? It was a sacrifice, but only the first of a life of sacrifice. A missionary is not there by his own wishes or to satisfy his own desires. He is there to lay down his life for those he came to serve.
To be a representative of the kingdom of God means to live as Jesus would, and to empty myself of my own desires and wishes and take on the humility of a servant.

Missionary life is hard. Besides the character that a missionary must have, I must be fit and ready to take physical suffering as well. Weariness, hunger, illness, may be reoccurring struggles. I may have to face an angry mob, take beatings, or imprisonment. Would I be able to face the loss of a loved one, or even to surrender my own life? These are solemn thoughts indeed, but a missionary is not out to satisfy his own wishes and goals, but those of the Lord.
Adoniram Judson, a missionary to Burma in the early 1800s, demonstrated a right understanding of the hardships and sufferings of a missionary. The following is a letter which he wrote to the father of his beloved to ask for her hand in marriage:
“I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India, to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution , and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Saviour from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?”
Though now times are different, and I may not face all the dangers that may have been faced in the early 1800s, I must be aware that a life over seas is one not without suffering and pain.

Isobel Kuhn— “I believe that in each generation God has ‘called’ enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth….Everywhere I go, I constantly meet with men and women who say to me, ‘When I was young I wanted to be a missionary, but I got married instead.’ Or… some such thing. No, it is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!”

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I'm Happy!

- taking Sunny for a walk
- everyone looking in the holly bushes for lost frisbee golf discs, and me finding one!
- Ben telling me that Ann Sullivan looked like Baker.
- people everywhere talking about Christmas presents....
- David seeing a picture of Nina, and saying her name
- David saying please, "Mooooon" …you just gotta be able to understand his dialect…
- Benjamin asking if he can have milk on his Chex Mix (Blah!)
- hearing a song about "that precious brown building in the yard..." and then realizing that it was talking about an outhouse...
- Benjamin calling David "Stickers"
- having played frisbee golf four times; three times we have found discs…and as far as we know, all three discs belong to the same guy! (we're not sure about the one I found)
- David's enthusiasm over Chex Mix
- good country bluegrass songs...done by totally not bluegrass people...
- Benjamin: "Papa, on Christmas day, you can open you Luigi!"
- giving 5 spelling tests yesterday
- re-doing my xanga! (Do you like it?)

Monday, December 18, 2006

A Happy Birthday!

- a very happy birthday
- lots of christmas shopping
- being online, chatting with gma lyn, then her telling me she and Poppy were gonna call me...and them calling before I could get off the line!
- Megan calling me on my birthday!
- Benjamin informing me that I have a striped shirt on
- A good piano recital, even though I accidentaly played my second stanza--first.
- getting tons of packages and Christmas cards in the mail everyday!
- finding something that's very cool, and buying it.
- finding a strange picture of me on nina's xanga...hey, at least she didn't put it on mine!
- changing my password again, now that I just said that...
- getting a Christmas box, all for me, and yes, from WA!
- getting invited to Chicago!
- Christmas shopping with Nina
- frisbee golf on campus, with all the Reeves
- Ben telling me that Dudley is making "Farmer John Chicken" for supper. its really Parmesan chicken.
- trying to write our Christmas letter
- freaking things happening like the air clip jumping off the rear-view mirror, and acting like a bat...
- Church at the horticulture gardens in the ampitheatre!
- getting two CDs for my birthday! The piano one that I really wanted, and Steve Petit's bluegrass one!
- and some really good cappacino mix!
- and the Bible that I really wanted!
- and a really cool vest!
- and Phase 10!
- reading happy lists
- wishing that I could shorten the distances between here and other places...such as...easley, WA, Chicago, ...and lots of other places!

Well, they were not all on my birthday, but they all made me happy!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

My sweet Ben

I was having a kinda hard afternoon....you know when things just aren't going like you'd planned, and now you're behind in your work...
Benjamin came through the room, and I caught him. "Benjamin, you know what I need? I need a..."
"A HUG!!!!"
Aww, he is soo sweet!

Happy Things!

- Wreaths on the front windows of a cute house
- people who are crazy about the most minut details of 'CARS'
- looking through files of random pictures
- wishing for a quiet place in the house
- trying to learn to obey HIS voice
- matching long medical words to their latin roots and finding that gastrectemy literally means "the removal of the belly"
- God giving me a verse this morning
- trying to follow the Lord Jesus in Servanthood
- figuring out a way I can braid my hair
- songs like 'Okie from Muskogee'
- thinking about I should work for Milton Bradley when I grow up
- Alan Jackson's hymns CD 'Blessed Assurance'
- praying for people
- wishing people would be online at the same time as me
- wishing I could only try selling unassmebled snowmen around here. the thing is...we rarely get those raw materials here. ours usually look more like disassembled snowmen.
- frizzy hair today (cause it was braided last night)
- revisiting my old cubby space down in the basement (where once upon a time I liked to hide to do my schoolwork)
- making a soup that I didn't think would be very good, and everyone really liking it
- Emilie's Noodle Bake for supper
- my piano piece coming together
- God's amazing creatures! (we watched a documentery on tree hopping monkeys tonight)
- watching the hygenist type the results into the computer, and noticing that she was totally doing "hunt and peck"
- feeling that Jesus sees what I do
- Clara Maguire (because today is her birthday)
- reading a long xanga post that totally inspired me!
- tea early in the morning
- finally getting gmail to work right
- its my bedtime...