Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!

I just wanted to share some pictures of these Ukrainian Eggs Rebekah and I made the other night. Our neighbour invited us to a class to learn how to make them. We jumped at the chance!! I had gotten some tools from my Grandma before she died and promised I would learn how to make these eggs and I have done it!

We chose a traditional Ukrainian design.  It has an 8 pointed star, which symbolizes God's love toward man. Which is so beautifully demonstrated at Easter when we celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection to pay for our sins.

These are the tools I got from my Grandma. (Sorry the picture is so dark)

God Bless you all,

Crystal

Happy Sunday

Greetings!

I just wanted to provide a link to my daughter, Rebekah's blog on this Sunday evening.  She has some very encouraging posts and especially her latest one.

Enjoy!

Rebekah's Blog - Jesus Fulfilled the Law

A New Year

As I face another year, I'm thinking I need a little encouragement.  This year has had it's challenges and I look forward to "starting a new".

But I know the only way for me to have a better year, is to focus on the Lord.  I pray that God will guide and strengthen me to face what this next year might hold for me. And I pray for God's blessing of a good year.

I'm not going to make any resolutions this new year. Well, only to put my life in God's hands and do the best I can.

It makes me think of this bible verse;  (which I copied off my daughters blog.)




I pray for God's blessings on all of you in 2016. God Bless and happy New Year!

Advent

Yesterday marked the first Sunday of Advent.

Our church celebrates advent for the 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas and also on Christmas Eve at our candle light service.

It is so good to keep advent in mind as we approach Christmas. It is our way to prepare our hearts to worship our Savior who's birth we celebrate and to keep our focus on what's important.

Advent simply means, , coming, as in Christ who came into the world as a baby to die for you and me and who is coming again to take us to Heaven.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

Generally, to celebrate advent, we use a wreath and 5 candles of different colours.  Each week we read the advent reading and light a candle.

The wreath is a circle, with no beginning and no end, symbolizing God's love for us.

The first candle we lit yesterday was the purple candle, which is the Candle of Hope.

And again, Isaiah says, "The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him." May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:12-13).

We can have hope because God is faithful and will keep the promises He made to us. Our hope comes from God.

When I was a child we always had an advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas. I didn't think much of it then what it all meant.  But as our children use the same advent calendar I used as a child, I hope that Larry and I can show them daily how much God loves them. Enough to send His son to earth to die on a cross for their sins.  This can be a daily act of worship to God.

Here is our advent calendar all ready for tomorrow.  I bought halloween candy on sale to fill it.

God bless!

The Waters of Baptism

Last Sunday, we were totally blessed to watch our daughter, Rebekah, be baptised.  She had made the decision to be obedient to the call of baptism when they announced the upcoming baptism service in November.  We believe that baptism is a public confession of faith. We use full immersion in water to signify death to our old selves (being put under the water, or the "grave") and coming up into new life in Jesus. He has made us a new creation. Just as Jesus went to the grave after He died for our sins, then He was raised back up to life.  We do not believe baptism offers any salvation, that only comes through faith in Jesus, but we do this as a public declaration that we have believed in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation.

“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.” Romans 6:4-5

Rebekah asked me and our youth pastor to speak on her behalf. That was hard for me. I almost lost it a couple times, but I did manage to keep the tears at bay. Well, only until I looked over at her a short while after she was baptised and she was positively glowing! I started to struggle very hard with the tears then.

My mom was able to come all the way out from Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was so nice to have her here.

Here are some pictures from the service;

Pastor Matt challenging Rebekah to keep walking with the Lord. Larry helped with the dunking part. (And he was not as successful as me at keeping the tears away:)

I LOVE this picture! Look at how happy Rebekah is.

Afterward

We all had fun with my mom while she was here too;

It was a great weekend! One that we will always remember.

Answers in Genesis Debate

I wanted to let you know of a very interesting debate coming up via live streaming at Answers in Genesis. Ken Ham will be discussing creation vs. evolution with Bill Nye the Science guy right at the Creation Museum.

It will be taking place on February 4th at 5pm Mountain Standard Time. You can go here to sign up for the live streaming and updates.  You can also check out the Answers in Genesis website for more information about this debate and their ministry.

Bible Verse Advent

My daughter from Country God Girl is featuring a Bible Advent on her blog for the next 22 days.  It is so cool to see the Old Testament point to Jesus' coming.
Check it out if you have a chance.

This post is linked up to; A Mama's Story

Are You Creating Division With Your Prayers?

I was laying in bed last night, just thinking.  I was thinking of things to pray for and thought to pray something about my husband.  I wanted him to do something the way I would do it.  And it reminded me of a lesson I learned not that long ago about being careful how I pray.

I am going to share a personal story about this.  Last year I had that baby itch. You know, when you just want a baby so bad it's hard to think of anything else.  The only problem was, God has decided I can't have any more babies. So I started looking at the local adoption websites and completely fell in love with a brother/sister pair.

They weren't babies, but the girl was only 4 (about the age our little Nathan would have been, had he lived) and so cute and the boy was right in between our 2 youngest. They both had blond hair and blue eyes.  I wanted to run and tell Larry about it right away, but I know him and what his reaction would be. So, I decided to pray for 1 month. Pray that God would soften Larry's heart regarding adoption and that he would at least consider it.

I finally got the courage to bring up the subject and the answer was a big NO!

I won't lie, I was completely heart broken. It was as if I lost 2 children. I was very sad, but I kept praying about it.

I was praying that God would change Larry's mind. That he would see it my way. And you know, all that the praying did was keep the bad feelings alive in my heart and mind. Really, in a way, I was saying Larry doesn't know how to lead our family and he should see that I'm right.  I was creating division.

The way I should have been praying was that God's will would be done. Which is how I eventually left it after I realized the negative feelings I was harbouring in my heart towards my husband.

And now, instead of praying that Larry would do something the way I want him to do it, I should remember to pray that God would help Larry do something the way God would have him do it. Then I know it's done the right!

I don't really know why we couldn't adopt those children, but God knows.  I can find peace in knowing that God knows EXACTLY what's best for us. And let me tell you, I sure am savouring every moment with the 3 beautiful children God has blessed us with.

Ephesians 4:1-4

New King James Version (NKJV)

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,   with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love,   endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.   There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;

 

 This post is linked up to; Hope in Every Season

Behold, Jesus is at The Door - A Lesson in Attentiveness

I finally made a craft that I had thought of years ago while teaching Junior Church.  Jacob was still a baby and we were using lots of Costco brand baby wipes. They have the plastic closure on top where you pull out the baby wipes.  It hit me one day that you could use that as a door. Then Revelation 3:20 came to mind right away.

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me."  Revelation 3:20

We are learning about "Attentiveness" for our Bible Character Quality Study right now and I thought Revelation 3:20 would be a perfect memory verse for it.

I explained to my kids that when we are attentive, our eyes are OPEN, our ears are OPEN and our mouths our CLOSED. In the verse it says, "If anyone HEARS My voice...."  So, we need to be listening for Jesus. He is waiting to have sweet fellowship with us.

And if we need salvation, all we have to do is "open the door of our heart" and let Jesus in. We believe that we are sinners, that Jesus is God, that He died on the cross as payment for our sins and rose again to have the victory over death. It is good to think of such things with Easter coming up.  This year I will not be putting out Easter baskets. I will give the kids a little treat on Saturday, but Sunday we want to focus on what Christ did for us on the cross.

Anyhoo, here are the instructions for this craft.

You will need;
the plastic closure from Costco brand baby wipes (door)
popsicle sticks
a picture of Jesus (you could have your children draw one)
brown paint
scissors
glue
paper to glue this on to

We started by cutting the picture of Jesus to fit behind the "door". Then glue that down to your paper.

Next we glued popsicle sticks to cover the door.

After we glued on the popsicle sticks (and a trip to Tim Horton's for coffee), we painted the door brown and added "cross beams" that were painted before they glued them on. (refer to picture)

This is what it looks like finished.  This one is Rebekah's. Notice the, "knock, knock, knock"?

And here is the open view. This one is Ben's.

They turned out exactly as I imagined they would. ONLY, please don't be like me and put them right into a notebook. I was so excited to be finally making these, that I didn't think about how thick they would be and had the kids glue into their Bible Memory Verse books!

This post is linked up to; Raising Homemakers, Hope in Every Season, Growing Home, A Wise Woman Link Up Mama's Moments

I have No Greater Joy..

than to hear that my children walk in truth.  3 John 1:4

I have some exciting news to share!

The other night on Feb. 4, Larry and I had the privilege of leading Jacob to Christ.  Actually, it all started with a conversation Ben and Jacob were having in their room. Ben was telling Jacob about heaven and hell.  Then Jacob told Ben he wanted to go to heaven and Ben told Jacob to come tell me.
Jacob came running into the kitchen, looking very excited. He blurted out, "I want to be a question!" I said, "You can't be a question."  It's a good thing he clarified himself and didn't just walk away thinking he couldn't be a Christian .
I started explaining the steps to salvation;

1.  Admit you are a sinner
2.  Know that the penalty for sin is death
3.  Believe that Jesus, being fully God, died on the cross as payment for your sins.
4.  Rejoice in your new life in God!

Then we went to Larry and he prayed with Jacob.  Jacob was so excited! And we just praised the Lord.  I have been praying that the second Jacob could understand the plan of salvation, that he would receive the Lord. What an answer to prayer.

Please Christian mothers, never cease in praying for your unsaved little ones. God hears your prayers!

Welcome to the family of God Jacob!

How We Do Bible in Our Home School

First of all, Happy New Year to all. We have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas and New Year's and now we are getting back into the flow of our routine.
So for lack of nothing else to post about, I thought I would share our Bible program with you.

We have been working through the 49 Bible Character Qualities, which I got from the Duggars and we also have been going through Balancing the Sword.  I bought Balancing the Sword from Vision Forum.

So, we learn a new character quality every 3 weeks or so.  We learn 2 memory verses to support that particular quality and read bible stories that help illustrate it.  I give Rebekah vocabulary words from the memory verses, that she writes the definitions for as well.  So far we have learned about;  Truthfulness, Self-control, Wisdom, Orderliness, Alertness, Obedience and Resourcefulness.

Right now, we are learning about Hospitality.  Our 2 memory verses are;

"Do not forget to entertain strangers. For by doing so, some have unknowingly entertained angels." Hebrew 13:2

"Be hospitable to one another without grumbling."  1 Peter 4:9

They write each memory verse in a notebook. Which is great copy work.

We have the half lined/half blank notebooks, so they colour a picture on the top part and write the character quality.  Which is great for art.

To start bible time each morning, we recite the current memory verse and sometimes have review. Then we open in prayer before reading the chapter of the bible we are on.  Balancing the Sword is a bible study book, that asks questions for each book of the bible. Right now we are reading 2 Samuel. 

After we answer the questions, we all say one thing we are thankful to God for and say our prayer requests. We then pray for these things.  Lately, I have been trying to remember to sing a hymn to close our bible time.

A Big Change Coming - We're Moving

Some posts are harder to write than others and this happens to be one of those posts.  Now it's not because I'm sad, because I am over that, it is because the Lord has been teaching us something that I really want to be able to explain properly.

I'll go back to the beginning of July when Larry and I tried to refinance our mortgage to pay off some of our bills. We realized we were getting nowhere fast and had to do something.  Well, our broker told us there was no way we could do as we wanted and maybe we should look into selling our farm and look for something less expensive. When Larry said that out loud, I just went to bed and cried, and cried and cried some more. We have been here for over 6 years, almost the longest I've lived anywhere in my life. But Larry said he wouldn't make us move because he saw how upset it made me. THEN, it struck me that the idea actually made sense and would be best thing for us. Larry has to work SO hard just to make minimum payments, it just didn't seem fair to him to stay on.

But this is when we both just started to look to the Lord. I guess we got in this situation partly from the year Larry had been seriously injured by his semi truck and couldn't work and maybe mostly because we hadn't been waiting for guidance from the Lord in our finances and even though I have been very careful with our money the last 4 years, we just really needed to FULLY trust in God.

If we would just have remembered these verses that most Christians know off by heart we might not have gotten in such a situation.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths."
Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV

So, I started looking for something we could afford, but still in the country in our area. And I found only one property on Kijiji (like Craig's List).  It was a duplex, made into a single dwelling, moved onto 7.6 acres on a basement. We went and looked at it on July 14th and knew that this would be the only house that really would be an option for us. But, praying all along that God would completely close the door if it wasn't where He wanted us.

We put our house for sale on the same website about a week later. We couldn't afford a realtor.  We just prayed about what amount of money we needed and trusted God to send buyers or not send buyers if that was His will. Well, within 2 weeks we had 2 offers! One couple had to sell their house first, so we gave them 2 weeks, but they didn't sell it. So, we let the second couple have a go at it. It took about 2 weeks but they have everything settled to take possession September 26th. 

While we were waiting, I started to worry that the house we wanted to buy would be sold and we would have to rent something. That wouldn't be so bad, but we have animals and I wanted to bring most of my apple orchard with me!  But Larry said, if God wants us there, nothing will stop that from happening. So, we just prayed that if God wanted us there that it would still be available.  Larry phoned the man who was selling the  house and told him that we were just waiting to hear back from the couple's bank to see if they could buy our house and I can't believe what he said! Well, I should believe it because God is so awesome. He said that other people were interested, but he told them he was just waiting to see if we could buy it first. Larry didn't even ask him to do that, even though I wanted him to. God was making a way and showing us that He is in control.

But God really wanted us rely on Him. So, it was almost as if He was holding up a candle so that we could take one little step at a time and not see anything ahead in the darkness. Like Psalm 119:105 says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path"  We really didn't know where God would lead us, but we kept going on the path of open doors. If He closed a door, we would wait and pray for the direction of the next step.

So, we stayed the course and went to a lawyer, had offers written up, sent everything off to our broker and waited. We had to wait about a week to hear, because some things had to still be done, but we finally heard the news that we were all approved and could buy the house.

This is not what we want to do, but it makes sense. We have so much stuff and the new property doesn't have the outbuildings that we have here to store stuff in. So, we have to use an old wooden garage for a barn and we bought a 53' trailer to move everything and then to use as storage there.

But, I feel completely at peace about it. I really feel this is where God wants us and somehow He will bless us there.

I will write more about the move and share pictures soon. The only reason I even wrote this post is because we ran out of boxes to pack in and I wanted to share how good God is and praise His name. He is mighty and powerful.  And to share that the only reason I didn't completely lose my marbles during this whole process, IS because of my trust in the Lord and knowing that no matter what happens, God is here with us and I can find joy it that.

"....do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Nehemiah 8:10

I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride with my emotions during this whole process. If it looked like we would move, I'd be sad about leaving our farm. But, if it looked like we could stay, I would wonder how we could ever get ahead. So I had to keep this verse close in my mind;

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:6-7

God is good!





This post is linked up to - Raising Homemakers Link Up & Thankful Homemaker Link Up