Earlier this month, I posted at the Weekend Kindness site: Kindness to Kids. In it I shared several ideas on a way to reach out this Christmas. Whether you take on this project as an individual, as a family, a 4H community service project, or as a church, I think it has the capacity to bless many. Yourself included!

I hope you stop in over there and read it, and while there, sign up for this weekend’s mission: Send a love letter listing the reasons, “Why I love you so much!”

I’m blessed with such godly parents. This morning, after watching the discouraging results of our state’s elections last night, I was comforted by the email awaiting me…written by my mom. Here it is, and thanks go to my wonderful gem of a mom!

Well, this morning, after the results at the polls, we have to see if our divine viewpoint is up and functioning! Remember, in Daniel, how God set up Nebudchadnezzar (evil) and then humbled him? Remember in Psalm 118:6 and 8 how ‘the Lord is on my side…What can man do unto me?’ and ‘It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. And Prov. 21:1 where the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. We are loyal Americans and we treasure the right to vote but the whole process is in God’s hands. He sets up some leaders for cursing and some for blessing. Democrats are not evil because they are democrats. Republicans are not good just because they are republicans. I heard Jan Michaelson on WHO as we were driving south of … the other day. He made a dogmatic statement that is based on solid Bible truth. He said, “the only purpose of government is to protect its citizens from evil!” But we believers have accepted the view that government owes us something and so we are crippled in our viewpoint. Where did we get the idea that our hope is in a republican governor or president?

I want my hope for freedom as an American to be based on what God has said, not on the veiled promises of ANY politician, don’t you? Our nation really needs to be judged and it is being judged…God being taken out of schools, the media, government, etc. But not out of our lives as individual Christians, right? Its kind of special to remember that ‘my times are in His hands’. and ‘when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold’ and ‘all things (election results too!!!) work together for good’. So whether you wanted the results of yesterday’s elections to be democratic or republican, don’t put your hopes or fears on the political ‘line’. Go with God!!!”

Wow, I feel better, don’t you? :O)

(Mom, you need a blog!)

Several years ago, I read Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan. Amazing book, and a free one at that. Currently, I’m reading Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger by Ronald J. Sider. Both books include the following: an itemized list of the “luxuries” most of us would have to give up if we were to live the life of the world’s desperately poor.

The following was written by prominent economist, Robert L. Heilbroner: 

“We begin by invading the house of our imaginary American family to strip it of its furniture. Everything goes: beds, chairs, tables, television set, lamps. We will leave the family with a few old blankets, a kitchen table, a wooden chair. Along with the bureaus go the clothes. Each member of the family may keep in his “wardrobe” his oldest suit or dress, a shirt or blouse. We will permit a pair of shoes for the head of the family, but none for the wife or children.

We will move to the kitchen. The appliances have already been taken out, so we turn to the cupboards…The box of matches may stay, a small bag of flour, some sugar, and salt. A few moldy potatoes, already in the garbage can, must be hastily rescued, for they will provide much of tonight’s meal. We will leave a handful of onions, and a dish of dried beans. All the rest we take away: the meat, the fresh vegetables, the canned goods, the crackers, the candy.

Now we have stripped the house: the bathroom has been dismantled, the running water shut off, the electric wires taken out. Next we take away the house. The family can move to the toolshed…

Communications must go next. No more newspapers, magazines, books—not that they are missed, since we must take away our family’s literacy as well. Instead, in our shantytown we will allow one radio…

Now government services must go. No more postman, no more firemen. There is a school, but it is three miles away and consists of two classrooms…There are, of course no hospitals or doctors nearby. The nearest clinic is ten miles away and tended by a midwife. It can be reached by bicycle, provided that the family has a bicycle, which is unlikely…

Finally, money. We will allow our family a cash hoard of $5.00. This will prevent our breadwinner from experiencing the tragedy of an Iranian peasant who went blind because he could not raise the $3.94, which he mistakenly thought he needed to receive admission to a hospital where he could have been cured.”

Order a free copy of Revolution in World Missions today, and be inspired at the vision that God gave K.P. Yohannan, the founder of Gospel for Asia. Yohannan is unique in his approach to missions, believing rightly, that though money, medicine and food are needed and a blessing to the world’s poor, what they truly need is the message of Christ. For instance, if India turned to God, their “sacred” cattle and grain would no longer be consumed at the altar of Hinduism.

Sider’s Rich Christians book, on the other hand, is full of scripture on how dear to the Lord’s heart are the world’s poor, and that it’s a responsibility many of us ignore. Despite Sider’s liberal stand on world population, he makes many good points. I’ll leave you with one.

“The clearest statement about Jesus’ identification with the poor is in Matthew 25:35-36, 40: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink…I was naked and you gave me clothing…Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’

What does it mean to feed and clothe the Creator of all things? We cannot know. We can only look on the poor and oppressed with new eyes and resolve to heal their hurts and help end their oppression.

If Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 24:40 is startling, its parallel is terrifying. ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me’ (v. 45)

What does that mean in a world where millions die each year while rich Christians live in affluence?

What does it mean to see the Lord of the universe lying by the roadside starving and walk by on the other side? We cannot know. We can only pledge, in fear and trembling, not to kill him again.”

You can read all about my personal take on it at MInTheGap. Even if you don’t homeschool, you should be up on your fourth amendment rights. Child Protective Services can be pretty aggressive from what I hear, threatening to take your children from an anonymous tip alone.

Imagine a ticked off neighbor out for revenge. Now imagine her anonymous tip resulting in a humiliating strip search of all your children for bruises. Uh-uh. Go read my article.

Homeschoolers and Fourth Amendment Rights. Use ‘em or lose ‘em.

With a freeze advisory, I decided I’d better get the girls’ beds dressed in flannel. Dh sleeps too hot for flannel. We’ve joked that I should sew a half-n-half sheet: a flannel half for me, cotton for him. I’m just thankful he doesn’t mind my frozen self snugged up tight to him! I don’t know how he radiates heat like he does…

Anyway, the warmth problem will be moot once we give in to winter’s arrival and crank up our new yard ornament.

Our main source of heat is the Woodmaster Corn Stove we invested in last January. Alternative heat is the up and coming trend with gas and electric prices so high. Our stove is 20 feet outside of our house, and a monstrous silver 300 bushel grain bin sits by its side to auger corn into the stove as needed. Sure beats chopping wood and carting it through the house to the wood stove insert we have in our fireplace! I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am to keep all that mess outside! We’ll still use our fireplace sometimes, but it won’t be the necessity it’s been in the past!

Our house is fifty-six years old, and has adorable resinors under each window–flush with the wall. The original heat was “hot-water heat”…hot water circulated through all the pipes and did a great job heating the house…till our boiler gave out. The corn stove utilizes the same concept…the corn burns (hardly any ash build-up), heats the huge outside boiler and sends the hot water underground into our basement and then up through the pipes in the house. The main pipe from outside just happens to run under our bathroom floor…making it sooo warm and toasty!

Here are some figures for those that want to know…we buy our corn from the nearest farmer–a friend–who sells it to us for $1.50-1.80/bushel. Filling our grain bin this time around cost us $430. If we start using it in November, it should last us till February or March…longer if the temps don’t get too frigid. We only put 200 bushels in last January and had leftovers in April when the weather warmed. Our electric bill one extremely cold month prior to owning the corn stove was $300. About $200 of that for heat. As you can see, big savings.

Anticipating the warmth is making me feel better as I sit here in our 60 degree living room! It would be colder in here if we didn’t have our two kerosene space heaters taking the edge off.

What are you doing to get ready for winter? (and if it’s not fall where you are, go ahead and rub it in why don’t you!?)

My name isn’t really Mary.

(haha)

Seriously, did you realize how easy it is to find addresses and phone numbers on the internet? Google someone’s first and last name, their state if you know it, and often you can find a few leads that give you their private information.

Thankfully, my first and last name aren’t all that unique.

Here are my rules of thumb, because first and foremost, I want to protect my family:

• I won’t mention real names, other than my own
• I stick to regions (mid-west) rather than naming my home state
• I’m pretty careful what I say about my extended family, and my marriage (who knows who might ever get their eyes on this blog!)

We can be proactive and still be “found”. A while back, when surfing blogs, I happened upon one with a little counter in the sidebar that said, “Welcome, visitor from ______,_ _!” I about gasped when I saw my little po-dunk town and state displayed after being on that site less than a minute!

I don’t know if you’ve ever visited MySpace.com. (I don’t recommend it!) But you can type in your zip code and whatever mile radius you wish and find blogs of people in that area. Yeah.

So here are my questions for you:

1. Do your friends and family know you blog? (in-laws, church family, etc)
2. If you put forth your real names/locations, please share what made you comfortable to do so. (I’d really like to know, maybe I’m just paranoid!)
3. Same thing with pictures. Is it really safe to put those out there? So many people block out their children’s faces, etc, while others lay it all out for the world to behold. (And I love pictures!)

I’d love input from all the viewpoints. I’m sure there are areas in which I could be more careful, and perhaps more carefree.

Personally, I like the freedom of anonymity. I can share my strong opinions and not worry about some leftist extremist making a midnight housecall with revenge in mind!

And Mary is my real name. Really.

(This new blog is too hip for me. It won’t let me capitalize when I bullet or number things! Way too cutesy, if you ask me…)

Please don’t get the flu vaccine.

About 80% of the flu vaccines out there contain 25 micrograms of mercury per dose. The EPA’s safe limit for mercury is 0.1 mcg/kg. Talk about an overdose. Thimerosal is the mercury based culprit to look for. Phenol and aluminum are also highly toxic. And the new FluMist nasal spray and its sidekick (the same thing in needle form) are full of them.

Plus, one of the world’s leading immunogeneticists–Hugh Fudenberg–says that your chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease is ten times higher if an individual has 5 consecutive shots than if they have one, two or no shots. Is this a proven link between the influenza vaccine and Alzheimers? No. But we need to be aware.

Dr. Mercola has a fascinating article to back me up. Even better, he suggests alternatives, such as avoiding all sugar to help build up your body against the germs we all fear this time of year.

Go to the National Vaccine Information Center to use the Mercury Calculator. Enter your child’s weight and the brand name or manufacturer of the vaccine, and it will let you know if the mercury levels have exceeded the EPA’s standard. I’d call the doctor’s office or health department before vaccinating to get the brand names. Be forewarned.

From the same source (NVIC) you’d read the following:

“Mercury is a known neurotoxin and drug companies removed mercury preservatives from over-the-counter products in the early 1990’s but the FDA has not enforced its 1999 directive regarding vaccines. While mercury has been reduced in many childhood vaccines, some flu vaccines given to pregnant women and infants still contain so much mercury that a person would have to weigh 500 pounds to safely get a flu vaccination according to EPA standards.”

The CDC Web site’s main message: “The single best way to protect against the flu is to get vaccinated each fall.” And babies 6-23 months are listed as one of the priority groups for flu vaccines.

Consumer advocate Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the NationalVaccine Information Center, has a different perspective.

“Children these days get so many vaccines that they almost always get them together on the same day. Use of the flu vaccine in combination with other childhood vaccines in babies this young amounts to a national medical experiment on American babies. The science should precede the policy and not the other way around.”

Check it out. At the very least, do a search on mercury-laden vaccines and autism. I have three friends who’ve been devastated firsthand by vaccines. That’s a few too many.

Oh, and if by chance, you or a loved one succumbs to the flu, try this simple remedy. Hydrogen peroxide. Half a capful in each ear several times a day. If you need more info, simply click on the link I included above (Hydrogen peroxide).

Some great comments on this morning’s “music” post led me to this link for The 107 Theses, “A Call for Reformation of Contemporary Christian Music” by Steve Camp. (Thanks Anna! and all the rest of you who took time to share your thoughts!)

Here’s a little taste from the Steve Camp site, he shares this to build up to the fact that CCM is seriously close to being on the downgrade, if not already slipping:

Charles Hadden Spurgeon spent the final four years of his life at war against the trends of early modernism, which he rightly saw as a threat to Biblical Christianity. Spurgeon wanted to warn his flock about the dangers from moving away from the historic positions [of the truth]. ‘Biblical truth is like the pinnacle of a steep, slippery mountain,’ Spurgeon suggested. ‘One step away, and you find yourself on the down-grade. Once a church or individual Christian get on the downgrade,’ Spurgeon said, ‘momentum takes over. Recovery is unusual and only happens when Christians get on the ‘up-line’ through spiritual revival.’ History has vindicated Spurgeon’s warnings about the down-grade. In the early part of the twentieth century the spreading of ‘false doctrine and worldliness’-theological liberalism and modernism-ravaged denominational Christianity throughout the world. Most of the mainline denominations were violently if not fatally altered by these influences. A hundred years later, we are seeing history repeating itself again… ‘False doctrine and worldliness’-the same two influences Spurgeon attacked-always go hand in hand, with worldliness leading the way. Christians today tend to forget that modernism was not first of all a theological agenda but a methodological one. (John F. MacArthur, Jr. Ashamed of the Gospel (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1993), 21-23, emphasis added.)

And this from the same source:

Os Guinness is “spot on” when saying, “[we have seen a change] from an emphasis on ’serving God’, to an emphasis on ’serving the self’ in serving God.” The object of faith is no longer Christ, but our self-esteem; the goal of faith is no longer holiness, but our happiness; and the source of faith is no longer the Scriptures, but our experience. Christian music currently reflects this. We are producing a generation of people that “feel” their God, but do not know their God.

There’s a lot more good thought provoking stuff over there, I encourage you to check it out.

Here’s a hot topic for you, let’s explore how the culture has influenced Christians through music. I’m inviting you to chime in with your own personal opinion. 

This past Saturday night, I happened to hear Ravi Zacharias on Christian radio—his topic taken from his “Leadership Workshop on Worship” (CD 209). The following quote immediately caught my attention:

“When Lucifer fell, he fell directly into the choir loft.”

Funny? Here are a couple of verses about the scheming of Satan:

• 2 Cor. 2:11, “…in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.”
• 2 Cor. 11:14, “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

And read Revelation chapters 2 and 3 for more on Satan, and for God’s wake-up call to churches. Stuff like “Synogogues of Satan” and “the few people who have not soiled their garments…” All directed to churches. When you think about music, and how powerful it is, doesn’t it make sense that Satan would see it as a great way to infiltrate Christianity? Especially as the trend for Christian music has historically been to borrow from its secular counterparts?

Look how divisive the subject of music is. For starters, the praise and worship time has greater importance now than it ever has. Song time crowds more and more into the sermon time. Church shoppers are wanting the whole package…and good preaching sometimes takes a back seat to good music. Some churches have had to adopt separate services to please their members. Hymns only for one set, CCM (contemporary Christian music) for the other. Some agree that you can listen to whatever you want on your own time, but in church the tone needs to be more reverent. So where is the line drawn regarding the form of worship? Can we Christians remain in touch with the culture without sacrificing to its gods?

I admit to a history of struggling when it comes to claiming a stance on CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) and Christian rock, having enjoyed both. Our church music service is a blend of mostly CCM with a hymn or two here and there. It’s not out of the ordinary for our worship team to play guitar along with the keyboard or piano, and recently, one of the worship teams added their drum machine to the background (very subtly)…and I liked it. But that’s a response I’m struggling with and it spawned my post here about music. I want to know what God thinks and says about it in a church setting.

For interest, not necessarily to prove any points, here are a couple of verses on praise music. Eph. 5:19 says,

“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

And Col. 3:16,

“Teaching and admonishing in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

If our church suddenly went to hymns only, I’d sincerely miss the CCM. And I wouldn’t want to have to choose between the two. (That said, I’ve been in churches where the CCM resembles more of a boyfriend/girlfriend love song than a praise song to the Lord, and I recoil from that with all my heart). 

I also fail to appreciate Christian book stores whose music section is full of posters of Christian rock groups with sneers, males with earrings, and other secularly appearing similarities to rock groups. Kutlass, for instance. What would be the Biblical culture’s equivalent? “Come get drunk on wine during communion?” Maybe worshipping God ritualistically, Roman-style? Do we really have to “become” the world in order to win the world?

What about the new trend for alternate music that’s neutral? Switchfoot, Reliant K…at first thought it seems admirable…one step in the right direction, but is it just going to become a genre of American “good” apart from God? (Subject for another post…)

Ravi Zacharias closed his message with a word picture along these lines. Would you give your spouse your favorite music on CD for their birthday, even knowing they hated it? (Okay, sure, we can’t be positive as to what form of music God loves and hates, but…the question is worth pondering.)

What do you think?

My week started with thunderstorms taking out our computer modem, and ended with one miserable two year old dotted with chicken pox. Through it all, I’ve learned that HP’s technical support beats Staples’ 800-number system hands down and that pretty much every over the counter anti-itch potion is too harsh for a toddler’s skin!

Toddler is our first child to never be vaccinated. For anything. And even with my two older children, I opted not to vaccinate for chicken pox. My medical doctor even advised me not to, saying the vaccine was basically peace of mind for working moms who couldn’t afford to take a week off to nurse sick children. And one week can morph into two or three if all the kiddos end up catching the disease. My chiropractor, who believes in going vax-free, told me that what most of the American public doesn’t realize about the chicken pox vaccine is that these kids will need to be revaccinated as adults and if they forget, they are in for a life-threatening case of chicken pox.

Anyway, I didn’t get on here to argue the pros of not vaccinating.

What I really crave are “been there done that” great tips on getting through this junk? I’d classify toddler’s case as just shy of “raging”…last night I was up all night with her while dh went on a midnight run to the nearest open store (thirty minutes away) to get more Calamine lotion, Claritin allergy for toddlers and Curious George band-aids (isn’t he the best daddy? And no, we don’t cover every sore with a band-aid…). I’m so thankful we’re done with the toilet training, b/c the pull-up I had her in for night-time was really chafing her sores. And she really doesn’t need a pull-up at night; she wakes up half a dozen times during the night to go to the bathroom (all false alarms for the most part, ugh) anyway. So she’s completely in cloth training pants now, thanks to CP.

We’re going to do an Aveeno bath soon and re-apply the Calamine. I hate to give the Claritin unless she just can’t sleep at night without it. Any tips and all prayers are greatly appreciated!

TIA!