Saturday, January 29, 2011

Spring is Coming!

The Spring-time itch has come to these gardening-lovers.  Seeds are starting indoors, the onions are in the ground, and there’s much more work to be done!  The past couple of days the weather has been gorgeous, in the 70′s, and the sun is shining beautifully.  We have even had our windows open, and were able to hang clothing out on the line to dry naturally.

Spring-time is coming, and we’re getting ready!  Stay tuned to our gardening blog as we update you as to our success of growing our own food… in the city.
Broccoli seedlings
Our seed starting equipment
Growing lights
Onions in the dirt
Clothing out on the line

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Life

Jaden

Up close

Jo and Jaden

What happened?! =)

Lately, with the cool weather, we've been drinking a lot of tea.  Our favorite: Good Earth's Sweet & Spicy.

Rice steaming on the stove.

Discussions...

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sanctity of Life Sunday

Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday which remembers the legalization of abortion in the United States beginning in 1973.
Life. Love it. Protect it.
~~~~~~~
" Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them."
(Genesis 1:26-27 ESV)
~~~~~~~
"For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them."
(Psalm 139:13-16 ESV)
~~~~~~~
"Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one's youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate."
(Psalm 127:3-5 ESV)
~~~~~~~
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.  And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
(Malachi 4:5-6 ESV)
~~~~~~~
"but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven."
(Matthew 19:14 ESV)

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

JOEL'S EPIPHANY

Joel wrote this biographical email to a new acquaintance.  With his permission, I share it here.
In the Name of Him to whom we must give account,
Julia                      

My family has lived in McKinney for 20 years, and my Dad has served as the pastor of a small "independent" Christian church (www.nwcconline.com) for that entire time.  My 5 siblings and I have been home schooled, and we have been active in various ministry opportunities through the course of our "education."  For the past 3 and a half years, we have been involved in starting and building up our own creation science ministry. Check out our website: www.creationevangelismtools.org.  If you want to learn a bit more about my family, you can also visit our family blog: www.texasskies.blogspot.com, and also my sister's blog: www.imprimis.wordpress.com.

We are all interested in worldview matters and the Biblical perspective on subjects like world religions, origins (creation vs. evolution), politics, government, education, and media (movies and music).  We enjoy discussing these subjects with other people.

I've been in CollegePlus! for about 2 years, and I am within 15 credits of completing my B.A. in Political Science. (I can't wait to be finished!)  I originally had the goal of getting my Poli. Sci. degree and then going for a J.D. so I could get into law (probably Constitutional Law, or perhaps family law), and politics.  But, I've kind of had a bit of a change of heart...

For several years, I have had an interest in biblical apologetics, and especially creation apologetics since we first heard Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis give his “Genesis: the Key to Reclaiming the Culture” presentation five years ago. As I became more acquainted with Biblical creation based apologetics and evangelism, I began to realize that this is exactly what the church needs to hear, and what our country needs. Since then, I have sought to equip myself and develop my worldview more Biblically and more fully through various resources which we as a family have purchased or been given.

However, there have been some "distractions" in my life, namely my interest in and intense involvement in politics and political campaigning for a couple of different candidates. I had kind of come to the point where I was believing that we could "take back" our country through politics. The Lord used my campaigning experience and the outcome of the 2008 national elections as an epiphany for me to show me that to turn this country back to Him will not happen overnight, nor through a “top-down” political revolution. This battle over whether or not we will serve the Lord as a country will be won on the individual personal level. This is when I began to realize the importance of reaching out to individuals to help them realize they need to look to Jesus Christ for salvation, and not the government. I also came to see more clearly the importance of helping people in the church develop a biblical worldview.


As a Christian, and an American, I have a concern for our country's degeneration into godlessness and immorality. At the same time I believe that the church at large itself is a mission field because of a widespread rejection of the authoritative sufficiency of the Bible by many Christians. So while I believe it is important to try to “stem the tide,” of godlessness in our culture, I believe one of the most foundational ways to do that is to first evangelize the church so that there will be a multiplicative effect in our efforts to reach the unbelieving society. I want to be able to help call the church back to the scriptures, much like the Reformers. Then, according to the Lord's will and timing, as the church returns to the scriptures, that will help to turn the country back to God and His Word.

Down the road, as the Lord leads, I may pursue a degree in law, but for now, my focus is on building up my own faith and helping other Christians get on track Biblically speaking.

On Camera

Yesterday afternoon, after morning church services and lunch, we kids worked on producing a short video about the Sanctity of Human Life and the abortion issue.  We were able to get it all filmed (it was just a talking head), and even filmed a short spoof on atheists, which we'll post soon, hopefully.  (For some reason, there were no pictures taken during the filming of the Sanctity of Human Life video.)

Joel Kautt, as "Really Darkins".

I was the camera operator on this production.

And, here I am again.  You can see the "teleprompter" in the background. 

"We here at the..."

Scene 2, Take 3 - action!




Abby did a great job working the "teleprompter".  We just connected our laptop up to our TV, and it showed the words that were to be spoken large enough to read from a distance.

Adjusting the lights...

Monday, January 17, 2011

A New Look

Last Wednesday evening, since there was no Bible study at our church, we decided to embark on a not-so-small project: rearranging our living room.  We got the majority of it completed that evening, which included moving two large bookcases, which were filled with books, and two couches (that was the easy part!). Now the room has a totally new look!

Who is this corkster?  =) 

Caleb helped so much with the moving.  Thank you, bro!

This is what it looked like before (sort of).

In the process...

The book-less shelves.

Books...

And more books...

And, yes, even more books!!

Caleb had to drill a hole for the cords of our DVD/VCR player, and our TV to go through. 

1 shelf moved, 1 more to go.

Yours-truly moving the couch into place.

And, here I am finishing putting up the pictures on the wall.

Totally exhausted... =)

And, now we have an area where people can chat without being interrupted by people walking through the middle.

A new look...

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Snow!!

We had heard that there was a forecast of snow, possibly as much as 3-5 inches, for Sunday afternoon.  But, for some reason, I doubted that we would have much, if any at all.

We went to church, as usual, and it was rainy and quite yucky out.  At the beginning of the morning worship hour, I looked out the window, and it was starting to sleet a little.  But, by the time we opened the door after the service was done, everything was covered in white!  It had snowed almost 2 1/2 inches just in the little-over-an-hour time period of our worship service.  We were quite surprised, to say the least!  In the end, we got at least 4 inches, maybe more. 

Snow is falling...
 
Abs out in the snow.
Abby helped our neighbors build this snowman.  It's cute, isn't it?

Jo out in the snow.  (This looks familiar!)

Snow on the clothes line.

Johanna got this photo of our neighbor's dog.

An interesting perspective.

Snow on our concrete bench.

The sun sets behind our neighbor's snow-covered house.

We went on a walk on Sunday afternoon - Caleb took this photo while on it.

And we saw several cute snowmen while out on our walk. 



Icicles

More icicles

I took this one today.  The snow is slowly starting to melt, even with the temperature at 20 degrees.