All Things New

I was just reading in Revelation today how God will make "all things new" after the tribulation and it really meant a lot to me as we put 2007 behind us and look forward to a new year. Perhaps this has been best illustrated to me recently as I have been cleaning out our garage. I know that may seem an odd comparison, and it is far, far less meaningful than God making our world a new place, but as I have cleaned and discarded these past few days I somehow felt "cleansed". Emptying our garage of unused and unneeded items has been very therapeutic for me. Hauling bag after bag of trash to the curb was like emptying my life of old sinful habits and starting anew. As I organized the items that remained, it was refreshing to stand back and look upon the order that was not there before.

To a much greater degree, perhaps this will be what it will be like to look upon our new world. We will be cleansed from our sins and refreshed, ready to embark upon a new life where we will continually worship and glorify the Lord!

In my simple human state, I am so thankful that God provides me these small glimpses into who He is and what He wants from me. Jesus spoke in parables to the disciples so that they could more easily understand Him and God so often seems to show Himself in the simple world around me. The biggest challenge is slowing down long enough to hear that still, small voice as it whispers in my ear.

Isaiah 40:22

Consider this...

Check out this website to meet a young girl who struggles with the same disorder I do - dystonia:

http://www.breannarose.org/default.asp

Then, consider helping them in a small way by downloading the beautiful song from this MySpace page:

MySpace.com/RoomForBreanna

Although Breanna's dystonia is much more severe than mine, I can very much relate to her struggles, and those of her parents. The proceeds of the song will be for this project:

Breanna's family have a home with the bedrooms and only bath up a steep flightof stairs - and because of Breanna's constant medical bills, etc, they can'tafford to make the home handicapped-accessible. So, two of my songwritingfriends and I (Nancy Vogl) wrote a special song to sell as a download to raise the moneyneeded to build a first-floor bedroom wing.

Feel free to pass this information along!

Christmas Blessings, Prelude

This Christmas was indeed a blessed one in our home. We had the wonderful opportunity to start the festivities off by attending an informal service at our church, as we enjoyed singing, fellowship, and a short Christmas message for the kids.

On Christmas Eve, we all gathered together in our living room to open gifts, along with Jeremy and Annmarie Morgan and her two brothers, John and Corey, plus Zhenya and even Sergei showed up for a while. It was a wild time, as you can imagine! The audio would have been awesome, had we recorded it. ;-) We got into lots of "oooohs" and "aaaaahs" when folks opened their gifts, and then we started imitating whatever sounds the recipient made, which was very interesting. I daresay a good time was had by all.

Today, Christmas Day, Ollie and I spent most of the morning in the kitchen preparing our noon meal. This was actually fun, as we had some "intense fellowship" along the way. The Morgans joined us once again, as did Zhenya and Sergei. After a delicious lunch, Tessa and Kathryn led us in a delightful singing session and then we retired to the living room to watch "The Nativity Story".

More than anything, we are immensely blessed to be able to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on this day. I am thankful to have had our family together (Jennifer joined us for a while, via phone), and to have the freedom to raise our voices to the heavens in praise of God, who sent his Son as a lowly babe to be the Savior of the world.

A few (!!!) photos to follow.

Christmas Blessings 2007, Part I

Annmarie seems to be enjoying her Christmas earrings!
The dogs had gifts, too, but they seemed to need a bit of help opening them (OK, I admit, the gifts DID keep them occupied why the people opened THEIR gifts, so there was an ulterior motive).
I cut off the gift, but Vanya got the Tetris game he had asked for, much to his delight.
Anna Banana is a monkey and she loves anything that has to do with them, like these socks!
Hmmm, this photo was supposed to go at the top, but I haven't gotten this posting multiple photos all figured out yet. This was the scene in our bedroom Christmas Eve, as the elves prepared the stockings (yes, our teens STILL love stockings).

Christmas Blessings 2007, Part II

What is this? Kathryn teasing Tucker?! Anna seems interested in one of the many videos we got for Christmas this year.
I like the variety of things going on in this photo - Tessa is opening her gift, Annmarie is taking a photo of someone, Jeremy is opening our next Amazon box, Naomi is watching either Tessa or Annmarie, Cory is looking at his GameStop gift card (far left).
I warned her!! She would not smile for me, so I told her I would post this on the internet!!
The Genuine Article! Zhenya enjoys Oklahoma Sooner memorabilia and I "just happen" to have connections there who can make the purchases for less than we can order them via the internet!
This is a classic! The girls had no idea Dad was making bunny ears behind them. And then, there is the INCOMING wad of gift wrap that someone had thrown across the room, into the trash bag.

December Festivities

My apologies to our Oklahoma relatives who are iced in, but we are enjoying unseasonably WARM weather here this December. We had a record high temperature of 75 (or 76 - I don't remember) yesterday and were supposed to break another record today.

We took a day off of school to rake our pastor's yard (photo above) and then we raked our own front yard. Many hands makes for quick work! It took us only an hour and forty five minutes to rake all of these bags. Don't worry, they were treated to all-they-could-eat pizza after all of that hard work!

An Amazing Project

Visit this blog to read about a most amazing project for our friends, the Rosenows:
http://newhomecincinnati.blogspot.com/

We encourage you to help, if the Lord so leads you.