Cleanup of the weeks behind

It's been a few days since an update and I apologize, I just didn't feel like I had a whole lot to talk about, though it is true that the trip left a lot on my heart. Mainly, it helped me to think more in terms of Christ's Kingdom, than before, the trip to the old mission, the going from house to house, speaking and arguing with people, listening, learning, teaching children. I want to see that kingdom grow and I want to be a part of it, I want to be used of God. I see tremendous potential in the youth of this church as they are being trained up by godly parents and by Bruce, who really has a heart for these young people. I see a lot of growth in them, and a desire to live godly lives, not just in knowledge but in love as well. I desire to be a part of that and to see the Stillwater Reformed Presbyterian Church be a base for reaching out to the community. Jesus Christ himself taught for three years without much of a true following, it wasn't time. Yet when the time came and he sent the Holy Spirit into the world, three thousand came in one day and more were being added daily. Can that not happen here too? Keep labouring and striving for the kingdom and trust that God will give the increase in due time.

Well, it was a fairly uneventful trip Friday night. I stayed at the Wagner's house to watch Spiderman, on the drive home I could see thunderclouds in the distance with lightning flashing every once in a while. It rained down by my parent's house, which was much needed. I could see even by my headlights that everything was brown. Even as I look out the window and across the pond, the tops of many of the trees are brown and dying, hopefully they'll spring back once we get a good rain.

Today my brother, father, and myself went over to a neighbour's house to do a little work, cleaning up around a shed and tearing it down. The slab was out of level, and out of square so we ended up ripping it out and we'll replace it with a new slab and shed. I said (even before we put the level on) that I could see it was out of whack. My brother said that he could have told me even before he saw the shed that it was out of whack, everything seems to be so around here, and it's not due to settling, it's due to people just getting it done themselves and not taking particular care how it's done :) We will also be doing a small pump house for the well on top of the hill. I was looking around for the well when we were driving towards it but didn't see it. We stopped next to an old ice chest, one of the "bend-over kind" and it was inside. Apparently a lot of people use those things because they have pretty good insulation and keep the well from freezing! It just looked odd though, to have a well put together inside of an old, rusty ice chest. We just worked a couple of hours and then came back home, since there wasn't much to do until we had material to put up a structure and build the slab. My brother and I put together a small cabinet when we got back.

My father also took us out to see Pirates of the Caribbean in the afternoon, which I would not recommend to anyone. I enjoyed the first one I'll admit, but this one was quite different and definitely not from a world view. It makes me want to stay at home and not go out into society when I see things like that. What they are bringing out and what the world accepts seems to get worse and worse. I'm not much of a movie-going person anyway and the entertainment industry makes me almost sick at times. It's the biggest industry in America, people are as much as saying "feed my eyes!" and it doesn't really have any lasting benefit that I can see. Many people in our society live for entertainment, that is why they work, to get money to entertain themselves, that's their only purpose in life, or so it would seem, for ME to have fun! I was reading in Schaff about the gospel of John today (I'm up to about page 700 in the first volume now, I read more Sunday than I had the entire three weeks with the mission team) and remembering how when Schaff had spoken of John previously, he mentions twice the same thing that Alan mentioned when going through first John, and that is that the aged John would say "little childen, love one another. For if you do this, it is enough." (paraphrased). It certainly is something to remember, and hopefully my life will be one of servitude and love toward others and not desiring to be served and loving myself. My ultimate focus needs to be on Christ, and I have been reminded of that especially these last two days, as my attention is diverted elsewhere. It is when I take my eyes off of him and the work that I should be doing, that I, like Peter, sink and begin to look to other things or people as objects of my attention.

Well, all that I have left for tonight is a couple of paragraphs that I really liked from Schaff that I was reading on Sunday, hopefully it will be enjoyable to you too, I'm not sure why this particular passage struck me but it was something that I simply had to quote somewhere!

Schaff Vol 1 pg 441-443
For the gospel does not destroy, but redeems and sanctifies the natural talents and tempers of men. It consecrates the fire of a Peter, the energy of a Paul, and the pensiveness of a John to the same service of God. It most strikingly displays its new creating power in the sudden conversion of the apostle of the Gentiles from a most dangerous foe to a most efficient friend of the church. Upon Paul the Spirit of God came as an overwhelming storm; upon John, as a gentle, refreshing breeze. But in all dwelt the same new, supernatural, divine principle of life. All are living apologies for Christianity, whose force no truth-loving heart can resist.

Notice, too, the moral effects of the gospel in the female characters of the New Testament. Christianity raises woman from the slavish position which she held both in Judaism and in heathendom, to her true moral dignity and importance; makes her an heir of the same salvation with man, (1Pe_3:7; Gal_3:28) and opens to her a field for the noblest and loveliest virtues, without thrusting her, after the manner of modern pseudo-philanthropic schemes of emancipation, out of her appropriate sphere of private, domestic life, and thus stripping her of her fairest ornament and peculiar charm.

Henceforth we find woman no longer a slave of man and tool of lust, but the pride and joy of her husband, the fond mother training her children to virtue and godliness, the ornament and treasure of the family, the faithful sister, the zealous servant of the congregation in every work of Christian charity, the sister of mercy, the martyr with superhuman courage, the guardian angel of peace, the example of purity, humility, gentleness, patience, love, and fidelity unto death. Such women were unknown before. The heathen Libanius, the enthusiastic eulogist of old Grecian culture, pronounced an involuntary eulogy on Christianity when he exclaimed, as he looked at the mother of Chrysostom: "What women the Christians have!"