High Holidays Report On Sept 7 we meet in Cleveland for a slightly late Rosh Hashanah (or Yom Teruah) celebration. This was the first time we combined the Cleveland and Chattanooga groups. We had 28 people in attendance, even though one of our regular families was unable to be there due to sickness. I think the fellowship was wonderfully sweet! We had a family visit with 3 older children/teenagers. Since we had such a wonderful meeting on the 7th, our gathering decided to meet for a closing service to Yom Kippur on Sept 14th. I forgot to count the number that night, but most everyone was in attendance. We had our first Jewish young man to attend. Nicholas (Samuel is his Hebrew name) is an 18 year old from Middle Tennessee attending Lee University here in Cleveland. Nick has been to our house several times over the Sukkot holiday and we have enjoyed getting to know him better. On Sept 21 we met for our regular Sabbath meeting. Even though we had 2 families out with sickness and it was a rainy messy day, we still had 21 in attendance. | New Prayer Requests: * Please pray for Gideon. He is having some issues with his gluten intolerance and what we are beginning to think is a Candida overgrowth (related to his gluten issues). Continuous Prayer Requests: *Please continue to pray for Jonathan’s health. Pray for his H-pylori bacteria to be put under control by the Almighty’s hand and for the damage it creates to be erased. *Please covet to pray with us about our financial situation. Pray that the LORD will provide Chris with the job situation he needs to allow him not only the time he needs to study and prepare for the teachings he leads, but also meet our bills. (This is even more needed now that the summer is coming to a close and his yard jobs will be slowing down.) Praises: *Christopher’s wisdom teeth removal went very smoothly. He is doing well and is hoping this is his last surgery for a LONG time! *Chris’ dad’s shoulder surgery went great and he is mending right on schedule. Due to the extremely busy High Holiday season as well as the busiest month of the year at Life Care (where Chris works part-time and I work on a call-in basis), I am cutting this month’s newsletter short. As I sit here writing, I am on my first day off in 5 days. I have put in 58 hours since last Sunday morning and Chris will clock in around 65 plus the yard jobs by the time today ends for him. It has been Life Care’s annual meeting this week and that means LONG days and SHORT sleep nights for us. We are SO thankful for the work though, as it brings in some much needed finances for our family. Amazingly though, I have kept up with the children’s homeschooling and even though my floors need sweeping in a really bad way, the house is still intact! Unless the LORD leads otherwise, I plan to review a book for you in October that I am super excited about. My children think I should try to contact the author and become his official advertisement because I have recommended it to so many people! I also plan to give you details about a ministry opportunity the children have concerning a play they have written. We pray your month goes well and that the LORD will bless you and keep you, making His face to shine upon you, granting you His peace. |
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Passover is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays and commemorates the biblical story of the Exodus, when Hebrew slaves were released from bondage in Egypt. Called "pesach" (pay-sak) in Hebrew, Passover is a celebration of freedom. Passover along with The Feast of Unleavened Bread is an 8-day holiday. Many say the name derives from the fact that during the final plague – the slaying of the first born – God “passed over" the homes of those who obeyed His instructions by placing the blood of a lamb on their door post. Another translation means "to have compassion for". The LORD had compassion and passed over those whose door post were covered in the blood of the lamb. The holiday is marked by the celebration of a Seder on the first night. The Seder is designed to give each Jew the experience of "going from slavery unto freedom" as they did in Egypt. The Passover tells the Exodus story and recounts the Ten Plagues. (Watch this video and keep reading) Jews that celebrate Passover are celebrating the fact that God deliverd them from slavery in Egypt and made them free like He promised to do. However, as Christans there is a deeper meaning behind this festive celebration. Not only is there the fact of being freed from slavery to the Egyptians, but we also celebrate that God as delivered us from a worse slavery than the Egyptians. He has delivered us from the grip of the devil and his slavery to sin.
When God sent his Son to die on the cross it was no coincidence that the day He set us free from the grip of the devil and his slavery to sin, the day he took the sting out of death and placed on it Himself, was during the celebration of Passover. (Click the more buton below to see the reast of the post) Only 7 days left! Are you sill voting? As you might know S.C. TreeHouse Productions has entered the 30 second video "Experiences and Discoveries" into the Home School Legal Defense Share Your Voice Video Contest. And we need your help to move onto the next step of judging. You can vote for it once a day every day from now until March 14. We would appreciate all the votes you can give us. Here are the buttons to the page where you can vote for the 30 second video entry "Experiences and Discoveries". The top 16 videos will move onto the next phase of judging. You do not have to have a facebook account to vote. Click the buttons below to vote either with or without facebook: (Don't forget to watch the video to!) Thank you guys so much for all you do!P.S. Can you find the exploding car, a BOO! Do Something DVD, and The Knighthood book in the video? If you can leave a comment telling where they are
Hi there! As you might know S.C. TreeHouse Productions has entered the 30 second video "Experiences and Discoveries" into the Home School Legal Defense Share Your Voice Video Contest. Now we need your help to move onto the next step of judging. You can vote for our video once a day every day from now until March 14. We would appreciate all the votes you can give us. Here are the links to the page where you can vote for the 30 second video entry "Experiences and Discoveries". The top 16 videos will move onto the next phase of judging. You do not have to have a facebook account to vote. Click here to vote without facebook Click here to vote with facebook God Bless C.D.S Never ruin an apology with an excuse. Well to start off this post I would like to say SORRY EVERYONE!!! I really have no reason as to why this post is so late besides that I just simply forgot. So with one BIG SORRY I now will finish the story that I started...or will I? Last time on "Just Two Dollars" my family and I piled in the van, as we so often do when we can get Dad to stop talking, but instead of heading to our house we were going in the total opposite direction. Now being the great observer that I am, I stated the complete obvious, "We're going the wrong way." And now the exciting sequel to "Just Two Dollars". "Where are we going?" a completely confused voice asked. "To Goodwill in Athens to see if we can find any more suits for extras" the calm all knowing Mother replied. This information threw me for a complete loop. Why, you may ask. Because I knew not of the existence of this so called Goodwill in Athens (good reason to be confused right?). So after dad went through a very long unnecessary history of how Goodwill came to be in the same town as the legendary Dairy Barn, we finally got there. However what we saw and heard when we pulled into the parking lot almost made us get back in the car and leave for good.
2 Corinthians 12: 7-10 7 Therefore, to keep me from becoming overly proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from the Adversary to pound away at me, so that I wouldn’t grow conceited. 8 Three times I begged the Lord to take this thing away from me; 9 but he told me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.” Therefore, I am very happy to boast about my weaknesses, in order that the Messiah’s power will rest upon me. 10 Yes, I am well pleased with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties endured on behalf of the Messiah; for it is when I am weak that I am strong. I'm really not sure how to begin this post. I mean, who really wants to write about weaknesses? Who really wants to read about strengths? But, alas, I must. I have a strength--organization. I have a weakness--organization. I can become addicted to it. It can rule me. I have another strength--perfection. I have another weakness--perfection. When you put these two things together they can be wonderful or deadly. My organization strength helps me to keep my children on task with their film projects. It helps to get extras together and where they need to be. It gets a lot of stuff done. My organization weakness causes stress when I want things done NOW and not later. My organization weakness causes me to demand instead of gently ask. It causes me to have to apologize a lot. Several months ago, this weakness caused me to put pressure upon Christopher to settle on a premiere date. I had good reasons, but used them incorrectly. I choose the date. As it grew nearer, Christopher struggled to get everything ready to meet it. Because of that a few mistakes made it onto the DVD master that was taken to the "printers" (Don't know if that is the correct word, but you know what I mean) Anyway, when the DVDs were all ready and we had paid a pretty penny for them, we found 2 pretty large mistakes. One of these was a glich in the scene where Christopher scans the outside of the church with the crane. The other was in the Beyond Under trailer. Here is where my perfection weakness reared its ugly head. I got quite upset. I took my glasses off and tossed them down on the table or my lap. That is usually a pretty good sign I am distressed. Christopher has a strength. Many of them actually. I think as you watch the DVD of BOO! you will see his strengths all over the scenes. Christopher has a weakness. It is spelled S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G. He knows it. And, he is usually very careful to get me to check things for him before sending them out. But, sometimes they get by us. My weakness required him to have to rush. A mishap with the computer caused him to lose his entire DVD menu (not his fault by the way. It took him 6 weeks to make that menu). So, in about 3 hours time, he created an new one and linked all his videos onto it. I had caused the 3 hour rush because of my "organization" and deadline for the premiere. In his rush, he downloaded the wrong Beyond Under trailer. His weakness is now plastered for everyone to see. Whose fault is it? Ultimately, mine. But, I blamed him. I threw the glasses down. I got upset. However, it all comes back to my sin. I rushed ahead. I knew when I did it that I shouldn't push. The LORD was speaking to me and I ignored him. Now, my son has to pay for it. Chris has a strength. Many of them. He works hard. He provides for his family. He never stops. Chris has a weakness. He works hard. He never stops. Many of you know that he resigned his job last October. It has been a wonderful year. We have seen the LORD work miracles in our family. But, I will not lie. It has been tough at times. I feel like the LORD has grown our family as a whole more in the last 11 months than we have ever experienced. We have been blessed and humbled. But, it has been hard on Chris. He has 6 people to feed, clothe, educate, house, and love on "odd jobs salary". Because of this, his strength has been a blessing. But, because of this his weakness has reared itself many times as well. One of the odd jobs he took was a lawn job. At first glance, he thought it was going to be pretty easy. A couple of hours work. He set his price. Well, it has yet to be an easy job. Several times the boys have gone with him. They hate that yard. I went once. I hate that yard. His mower is just too small and too old to handle it. But, his strength pushed him on. There have been days that he has not had a "job" to go to. But most days he has done two or three things in one day. None pay great, but we have not gone hungry or missed a bill. Last week, he worked an "on call" job in Cleveland. Afterwards, he went to do a follow-up on an odd job and then got on his motorcycle to meet me for his haircut appointment. He wrecked his motorcycle in the about 2 mile stretch of road between me and him. I can not tell you how blessed he was. He is healing SO wonderfully. And his injuries were so minor. However, he was suppose to do that yard the next day. He couldn't even hardly walk. But insisted he was going. Thankfully, a friend (love you Mike) did the yard for him. I believe part of his wreck was to get him to slow down. Do we need the money? Oh yeah. But, he needed to let the LORD continue to get the glory in this and not him. (By the way, Chris has really done an awesome job with this issue over the last year, but as with any strength/weakness, we sometimes have to be humbled and reminded.) See, the LORD uses our strengths for His glory. We shouldn't fight Him on that. We should always seek to glorify Him with the strengths He has blessed us with. But, the LORD will also use our weaknesses. And, He will also use them to teach us. Ouch! Unless I sin again, and I hope I don't, I will not plan a premiere without Christopher's input. I will not plan one that will push him as I did this time. As he says "Let's never plan another premiere before we have the DVDs in hand." I will try to learn from my sin and let him be him and not require him to be perfect. And the other three Stewarts and their strengths/weaknesses...well, let's just save that for another post :) Trusting in Him, Penny PS I am leaving this post as a draft. I have already caused my son to be embarrassed with his weakness forever in DVD form. I will not do that again. He can choose whether to post this or not. It is my gift to him. Note To Mommy: Thank You Mommy, I love you so much and Im sorry that you thought you had to do this for me. It is all part of God's plan and I trust that he will use it to bring him glory and not me. (no misspellings!!!! I think) Thank you again Mommy. Love C.D.S "Delight yourselves in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 As a young college student, I attended a mission's conference at which one of the speakers used this verse. As far as I know, I had never heard it before. The LORD spoke to me in many ways that weekend. Of course, many of my desires were wrapped up in the typically 20-something-year-old female type things. I wanted to marry Chris. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to have children one day. And I wanted to be a missionary. Unfortunately, it took the LORD several years to teach me the truth behind this verse. So many of us skip the first part of this verse and just jump ahead to the end; the "Santa" part. The LORD never said that he would give us the desires of our heart WITHOUT the first part of the verse--the "delight yourself in the LORD." See, when we delight ourselves in Him, we will have our desires in line with His desires. Our desire will be what His desire is. Our heart will be focused on His heart. Over the last 20 years I have desired many things. A bigger house. Healthy children. Secure job. Nicer car. Less stress. Chris home more often. Less stress. New shoes. Less stress. Do you see a trend here? These are not necessarily the desires of the LORD's heart. They are my desires of my heart. I have watched my oldest son as well as all my children grow in leaps and bounds over the last two years. Yes, they have grown in height, but more importantly, in leadership and in walking with the LORD. They have sought His desires and He has put strong desires in their hearts for many things. I have sat back and wondered at how these desires were going to manifest itself in our limited funds world. And yet, He always seems to surprise me with His gifts. Are we perfect? Ha Ha Ha. That's not even funny. No, we are not. But we serve a perfect God. He has perfect desires for us. And, I believe my children are seeking after those desires. So, I am going to take a leap of faith. I am going to trust the LORD to provide the needed supplies for those desires to be fulfilled. My human capabilities can not accomplish them. But, He is more than willing and more than able IF I delight myself in Him so that my desires are His desires. If you feel lead to help out in any way with these needs, please let us know. But most importantly, we ask that you go to the throne of our King in prayer that His desires will be fulfilled in His timing and in His way. Your prayers will accomplish more than my listings. Supply List (in no particular order) *Box trailer for our van This is needed to haul supplies to various places as we expand the ministry *Trailer hitch for our van Gotta have one of those if we get a trailer! *Storage building (preferably mice-proof) I would really like our living room back--no joke *Clothes rack for costumes during prep and filming stages *Portable screen *Field mixer & recorder *Upgrade on our camera and mic *5.1 or better surround sound system for presentation and editing purposes *Field monitor Trusting in Him, Penny |
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