Paul and Pearl Kaufman for Dinner

 Last week, one of my favorite Bible college professors from Allegheny Wesleyan College, posted on Facebook that he and his wife had arrived in Colorado Springs a few days early before tent meeting. Jonathan and I decided to invite them to our place, and they were so kind to actually come!

 It was a pretty long trip for them, and they couldn't stay long, but it meant so much to us for them to take time to come and spend supper time with us. I used to so enjoy Bro. Kaufman's Bible classes at AWC. I especially remember the class on Jeremiah. (I'm reading Jeremiah now.) I remember having to write an essay on some topic in the book of Jeremiah for the class.

 Sis. Pearl Kaufman quickly made friends with the girls, admiring Hannah's scrubbie she was knitting. She asked Rose to show her how to do the "purl" stitch in knitting, so Rose was happy to show "Pearl" how to "purl."

It means so much to  me for an older lady like this, who is married to such a well-known and well-educated husband, to yet take time with my girls, and just value them like that.  

 Bro. Paul Kaufman kept Jonathan regaled with many stories, and at the supper table told us about the trips to Israel that he has been involved in for many years. How Jonathan and I would love to travel to Israel next year for our silver wedding anniversary!

 We were able to get in to one service of tent meeting so far, but our children have also wanted to attend some at the Bible Missionary Campmeeting, which unfortunately overlaps the tent meeting.

Here is the tabernacle for the Bible Missionary campmeeting, tucked back into the trees in a very lovely spot near Elizabeth, Colorado.

Sunday we attended services there, and really appreciated getting to know some of the folk there. There must have been around 200 conservative holiness folk there. This was the beginning of the missionary service in the afternoon,where a missionary from Guyana spoke.

 While standing in line for lunch, we got acquainted with the Norwoods, a young family with 8 children from Wyoming. What a beautiful family! And then we sat across from a young couple by the last name of Johnson. He said he was the nephew of Gerald and Roanna Bustin, and he is also closely related to Rebekah Stence. His wife is second oldest of 10 children! 

 The young people sang a special song in the afternoon service. We so appreciated the good group of young people. Last night, the young people sang again.There must have been at least 35 teenagers in the service last night. There are a lot of young couples at this campmeeting, and middle aged, along with older folk.

Our children have been making friends, and Gary and Becky Hunts' girls are there this weekend, too. 

It has been a VERY busy week. Last Saturday Jonathan and I were able to spend a little time with Kenn and Carol Lefever before both of us couples headed to Kenn's aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary.

 Dave and Enid Beitzel were celebrating their 50th anniversary. Lots of old acquaintances there.

 Then Thursday we had been invited to an appreciation dinner for members of Good Samaritan Ministries, a health care sharing ministry we have been part of since we came home from Ukraine, or about 18 years. 

It was at the Hotel Elegante in Colorado Springs. And it was elegant!

 It was probably the first really formal dinner Rose and Sam had ever been to. (The other children didn't want to go, and some of them went to pick up Crystal at the airport.) I was having to clue Rose in on how to operate at a formal dinner. 

Napkin on lap. Don't hold your knife like that. 

Which of these THREE forks do you use to eat the salad?? Make your best guess.

 It was a delightful meal, followed by this luscious cheesecake. BEST one I ever tasted. Cheesecake is on the menu sometime in our near (or far) future. 

Afterward, there were different brief speakers.

 CEO of Good Samaritan spoke a bit.

 State Senator Kevin Lundberg talked about how he is working in the government to preserve the ability of health care ministries like this one to flourish and to be accessed by Christians as an option to health insurance.  Every year we can count off our taxes the amount we share each month with other Christians for their medical needs through Good Samaritan. Right now for our family it is about $495 a month, to be part of this health care sharing ministry so we don't have to pay exorbitant amounts of health insurance. We are so grateful for a state senator who cares about Christians.

Afterward, we spent a while talking to a new friend we made at the table, and while we were talking, Good Samaritan staff were going around handing these bouquets to different ladies. Then just as we were about to leave, I was handed another table bouquet! Also every couple was given a lovely pack of cards to send each month to our assigned medical need.

It was truly a beautiful occasion sandwiched in between a lot of messy work! Right afterward, Jonathan and I had to go to Lowes to pick up a new dishwasher for a place Jonathan had remodeled for selling. A home inspector had turned on the old dishwasher and it flooded in the kitchen!

Jonathan and I carried in the new one and toted the old one out. He worked on it while I cleaned up mess under the sink and wiped up water off the floor.

 We didn't get home till nearly 11:30, so we were late enough that I was still up when Crystal arrived safely home from Africa, with Carrie and Elisa and Hannah who had gone to the airport!

Here are a few thoughts from the Bible and John Piper about ministry:

“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 20:24)

"According to the New Testament, 'ministry' is what all Christians do. According to Ephesians 4:11–12, pastors have the job of equipping the saints for the work of ministry. But ordinary Christians are the ones who do the ministry.

What ministry looks like is as varied as Christians are varied. It’s not an office like elder or deacon; it’s a lifestyle devoted to making much of Christ and meeting the needs of others."

 ****************

 After being to one tent meeting or camp meeting service after another, and being exhorted about our spiritual life and service to others, it is sometimes hard to come home and

just

clean house and cook meals and wash dishes--and clean up spills in the cabinet.

Just hang laundry and listen to a daughter tell about African adventures and insist on obedience from younger children, and delegate jobs and read bedtime stories and spend time teaching your little girl to sew.

Just watering flowers and garden and trees and cleaning up behind a puppy that accidentally swallowed a sewing pin and has to be minded closely for a couple days.

Lord, what if I just stayed one night late to pray for myself and for others at one of the services, and the rest of the time, I'm just a mom?

Just a common, ordinary mom that gets tired and distressed easily about not being spiritual enough?

What if You  just wanted me to go to bed?

I think that is where I will go right now.

Thank You, Jesus.

Amen.

Bridges are for Connecting

Recently, Timmy helped me put together a charming little bridge that I had purchased online.

It came in pieces in a box, and I unpacked and oiled each piece with a natural wood oil

to keep it from weathering.

For a long time, I had been wanting a bridge over the dry creek in our back yard, and finally realized that if I were going to have a bridge, I would have to:

1) Decide on my own.

2) Purchase on my own.

3) Put it together on my own.

So I did.

1)I decided what I wanted (which ended up being what I could afford and not totally what I wanted)

2) Purchased it 

and 3) Got Timmy to help me put it together.

It looked simple.

What is so hard about putting a little bridge together?

In the end, we had to take some of it apart three or four times to get the pieces together right, in the absence of any kind of instructions, which should have been in the box. And it still wasn't right.

Jonathan took one look at the funny way one part of it looked, and told us how it should be.

So then Timmy fixed it the way it should have been.

I do not know how to build bridges. That was obvious.

But I wanted a bridge.  

And I succeeded. After several tries, and asking different ones for help, I got me a bridge, and it is built, and there it is, a small apparatus that connects one side of the stony creek bed to the other.

It doesn't really matter whether a bridge stretches across a shallow creek bed, or over Royal Gorge 1000 feet below.

A bridge is for connecting.
Royal Gorge where my brother Gabriel's family took some of my children with them a few weeks ago when they were here.

Sometimes you need a bridge between you and someone or something else.
What is between you may be as small and shallow as our dry creek bed,
or as deep and impossible as the Royal Gorge.

You don't know how to make the bridge, and the ones who have the skill can't do it for you.

You have to build the bridge yourself.

And when you can't get it built right, you have to backtrack and try again.

And you might flop again.

But you keep trying.

You try and flop, and you try again, and you wish for instructions to follow, and you feel your own inability and lack of strength and smarts. 

You feel like a little kid that doesn't know anything.

So you have to ask for help. 

Maybe you ask your husband, or your dad, or your brother, or your pastor, or you give up on all of them and ask God.

God loves bridges.
He sent His own Son to be a Bridge--a Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
Jesus, be our Bridge today--connecting us poor humans to the heavenly Father.

And help us with the bridges we need between us and others.

We know we need bridges, but in our own strength we can't build it.

Show us how to build the bridge, how to build or mend the relationship,

how to take the little step that will result in You reaching out to us with Your great big step,

and we'll praise You with all our hearts.

Brains in a Bag--Using Your Head to Save Your HIde

This is Rose, proudly holding her brains in a bag.

Well, you know, they weren't her brains. Actually,they were the steer's brains salvaged by the butcher from our steer's skull.
Rose asked the butcher for the brains. She needed them to use to tan the steer's hide.

 Here is the hide, with the butcher's helper sprinkling it liberally with lots and lots of salt to preserve it. Most hides are sent to a hide processing plant in Nebraska, they told us, from which the hides are then sent all over the world to be turned into leather and leather products.

 But Rose wanted the hide to tan and process herself, so she had to pay $35 for it.
You can see the salt being dumped all over it.

Rose later froze the hide in four pieces to work with when cooler weather arrives.
In Rose's research about preserving rabbit or elk or deer or cow hides, she has learned that there are enough brains in each animal to rub on to preserve its own hide.
There is something in the brains which, when you rub it on the backside of the hide, helps to preserve it.

And sometimes we need to use our own brains to save our own hides.

Like the Rechabites had to do in the book of Jeremiah.

Sometimes, we have to do things we don't normally do, because prudence calls for it.

We have to use our brains and be wise. 

The Rechabites had been commanded not to live in houses but to dwell in tents, and they carefully kept this commandment until Nebuchadnezzar came and took over the land.

Matthew Henry writes, "These Rechabites would have tempted God, and not trusted Him, if they had not used proper  means for their own safety, notwithstanding the law and custom of their family."

This clan fled to the city of Jerusalem to live there (in houses) for their safety's sake. 

They could have made a big deal about Great-Great-Grandfather Jonadab's stipulations to only live in tents, but instead they used wisdom.

It's called using your head. 

Matthew Henry says, "The rules of a strict discipline must not be made too strict, but so as to admit of a dispensation when the necessity of a case calls for it."

In simpler words, "Rules may sometimes be bent when necessity calls for it." 

Usually, for example, toads don't sleep beside hens, but after a hail storm, both a hen and a poor toad were rescued by our children and put to sleep for the night in a box of straw.

Now what is interesting is that all at the same time as this Rechabite clan was obliged to bend the rules in order to live in houses in Jerusalem, instead of in tents as they had been commanded to do,
they still kept the other commandment of their father--not to drink wine.

So they temporarily kept the first, while not the second of their father's commands.

They didn't throw out the baby with the bath water.

When Jeremiah tested the Rechabites' resolve by offering them wine, they didn't reason with themselves, "Well, we broke one of our clan's rules; we may as well break the second rule, too."
No, they made a difference between a rule broken
in an emergency and out of necessity, and one broken deliberately and with no necessity.
They lived in Jerusalem in houses rather than in the wilderness in tents,
but they didn't decide to get drunk while they were at it.

So there may come along one or many circumstances where we will have to use our brains to save our hides. When Samuel was afraid Saul would hear of his anointing of one of Jesse's sons to be king, God gave him a way to be wise, by going to the town to offer a sacrifice. This reason covered for the real reason, which needed to be kept secret for Samuel's and David's safety.
When Jeremiah was about to be killed for talking to King Zedekiah about the future fall of Jerusalem, Zedekiah told Jeremiah to tell the questioners that he had been asking the king about a better place to be imprisoned. Jeremiah did this. It was a wise cover to save his life.
Corrie ten Boom did not feel it necessary to reveal any facts that would endanger the lives of the Jewish people she and her family were trying to save.

While we must draw a line at denying Christ to save our hides, there may be other things we can do for safety's sake.
There will be other circumstances that won't be as difficult or dangerous as risking our very lives,
but which will nevertheless be tough and dangerous to ourselves, our children, our safety, our reputations, our beliefs. How will we preserve them?
We must pray for discernment and use wisdom.

God has given each one of us exactly enough brains to "preserve our hides," exactly enough freewill to make wise choices and to do what is good and wholesome and right. We might have to do something temporarily at times that we wouldn't normally do, but we don't have to throw all our personal convictions and beliefs out along with that temporary decision.
God has said, "I have set before you life and death.
Therefore, choose life."

Simple, Old Fashioned Joys on Independence Day

We had such a delightful Independence Day.

You'll notice I didn't say "perfect."
Just delightful. 

And that was perfect.

Carrie made red, white and blue scones for breakfast, drizzled with orange glaze. Mmm.

And after breakfast we finally came to a concensus about what we wanted to do for the holiday.

We had discussed going to the Cripple Creek gold mine (which cost a lot)

or going four-wheeling (which required a lot of unloading of hay off the flatbed trailer and loading and hitching of the trailer and all sorts of rigamarole).

We finally settled on driving to Cheyenne Mountain and taking a hike to St. Mary's Falls, which was a 6 mile hike.

But when we got to the parking area, it was packed, with vehicles in line waiting to find a spot.

So, trying not to be too disappointed, we drove on several miles to another road--

and to our great delight, we found a spot to park and a little road to hike back.

Pretty soon, we found this spot by a stream, where the boys quickly discovered lots of fish!

There were so many fish, and the little pools were so shallow, that the boys caught some with their bare hands!

As we were walking up the trail, I couldn't help thinking about a wedding that was going to be happening tomorrow, daughter of friends. And another wedding that evening, friends of Sam's at the firehouse. Pictures of all sorts of reunions and get-togethers and new "in-a-relationship"'s on Facebook.

My daughters and sons don't even have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Yet.

We're just going on a hike in the mountains together--wading in the stream and hiking up trails and catching fish with the boys' bare hands.

Jonathan and I are standing there watching our kids have fun,

just having a grand old time with a little bit of water and rocks and slippery, slimy fish darting about their legs.

We couldn't even make a hike to St. Mary's Falls happen, much less provide future spouses for our older children.

Our nineteen-year old daughter and her nineteen year old cousin Elisa are merrily going up trails, seeing a grouse, a buck, and wild strawberrries, and happily sticking flowers in Elisa's hair.

The boys are snatching and grabbing slimy, wiggly, fish by this big boulder.

We saw a beautiful, bright orange western tanager, and butterflies, and even a bat hanging upside down under the stream ledge. It hissed at Timmy when he was trying to catch a fish, and scared him.

He discovered it was a bat hanging upside down!

Bats of doubt and discontent and envy might like to hiss at us on our merry hike. 

You learn to ignore them.

Instead, you choose trust and contentment and thankfulness and joy.

Which results in peace.

Jonathan and I kept looking at each other and grinning.

We didn't have to hike six miles to find joy.

It was right there beside us by the stream where our kids were playing happily.

Just us and God and the sunshine and fresh aspen leaves and blue sky and little fish and water trickling and black-eyed susans, and each other.

Sometimes the greatest joys are the simplest.