Julia's Hope by Leisha Kelly

Julia's Hope
A Novel by Leisha Kelly

If we gave out "best books" awards this one would be in the running. The story is very moving and the plot travels along at just the right pace.

This is the story of a family struggling to survive the Great Depression. It is also the story of an old woman's yearning to remain free to choose how her life will be lived. The author does a fantastic job of writing in the first person of the three main characters. The father, the mother, and the older women share their experiences and thoughts throughout this heartwarming novel.

We are so happy to have found another good Christian writer. Plans are to read more of her works. We highly recommend this easy to read book.

Christmas Message 2008

One of the Christmas ornaments received in our family ornament exchange this year.

This year our extended family celebrated Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving. Now you may think that is rushing things a bit, but this was a blessing in disguise. Because of this early celebration we now have time to set back and really enjoy all of what our country has to offer at Christmas time. We unintentionally are avoiding the rush.

We really enjoy driving around anytime close to Christmas eve and view all the beautiful light displays in our area. Some are pretty gaudy, while others are tastefully done. Those that use a theme in their decoration we find especially interesting. Our small town even has a contest for both residential and business to see who can be the most decorative.

We often load up our Cd player with discs that have Christmas music. Then we set it on continuous play and let it run through the whole batch. We never get tired of listening to these sounds, as some do.

One year our local radio station was playing traditional Christmas hymns in July. We recommend that you try this for yourself sometime. You may find, as we did, that it helps in realizing afresh the real meaning of Christmas. The wonderful words of life that we normally associate with this busy season have a profound affect when heard at a less stressful time of year.

These hymns sung out of season are a reminder that Christmas is:

Not an old man in whiskers.

Not parties and family gatherings.

Not presents under a tree.

Not snow and starry nights.

Not crowded malls and parking lots.

Not ringing bells and red buckets.

Not the holly and the ivy.

Not tinsel and bright lights.

But rather, Christmas is God's answer to a world of sin.

God loves us so much that he sent His only Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.

May you and yours be blessed by this answer always.

Low fat Christmas

This year we have made some adjustments in our favorite Christmas treats that will save us some fat intake that needs to be reduced.

Our fudge is made with Smart Balance instead of butter. And we also use non-fat evaporated milk instead of the normal evaporated milk. That reduces the fat grams to about 1/3 of the usual amount.

Then we love making Treasure Cookies. This year we replaced the butter with Smart Balance and are using non-fat sweetened condensed milk instead of the regular sweetened condensed milk. Again that reduces the fat content substantially.

Now, if only we could do something about the sugar. We don't feel that any of the sugar substitutes on the market today are any healthier than sugar itself. So we continue to use good old fashioned sugar.

All of our changes still produce the best fudge and cookies around. So these changes will remain.

We will be experimenting with our favorite sugar cookie recipe that calls for almond extract. We will be substituting the 2 cups of butter with smart balance and save at least a third of the fats normally used. If you use the lite version you could probably save half again as much.

Rerouting Project

Update on our transition time at our church

Our transition focus has taken a decidedly different direction. At our transition meeting in Oct our transition pastor announced unexpectedly that he was removing himself from the leading position and changing to an adviser position since he felt it was time the church take full responsibility for the direction of the church in the future.

As a result our Congregational Leadership Team has decided to form a group of 5 members to explore and investigate how other churches have turned a declining attendance around so that the church would experience growth.

All active participants can nominate up to 5 persons to be on this "Research Team". Then the transitional pastor along with two other members from the CLT will use the submitted names to select the 5 member Research Team.

All of us are to be involved in this scouting out process. We can submit our findings to this research team using any and all resources available.

In June the team will present a report. Then the congregation will begin meeting again to implement needed changes.

After thinking about this idea and proposal, it brings back to the surface older questions such as why do people leave our church and why do persons stay at our church? What does God want us to be doing? Do we feel we are faithfully following His Word now?

It will also be interesting to see how the Lord's timing is concerning this effort and the arrival of a new pastor. If he arrives soon enough then he can help us sort through this process too.

The pastoral search committee is still looking at names but have made no plans at this point to interview any one.

We are on an interesting journey! Please continue to pray for our church!

Thank you.

Peace on Earth

This quarter our memory work contains passages from the New Testament about peace. Each child that wishes to participate was given a list of the passages and a magnetized dove. They can post their list on their refrigerator.

Each Sunday we will all be learning the same short passage. A volunteer student shakes the dove shaped tambourine whenever the passage is recited. (This dove gets excited whenever peace is mentioned.) Another volunteer hands out a dove sticker for keeping track on the list. A treat is also received for each recitation.
At the end of the quarter a reward will be given for each recitation of all ten passages together.
The congregation was encouraged to join us in our learning.

Plans are to give each child a dove cookie ornament for a small Christmas treat.

Can you tell how much fun this church work is?

Walking fitness

We are both using these walking DVDs to try and stay in shape during the cold wintry days. One of us goes 4 miles every day and the other is working up to that by doing about 1 mile each day so far. It is a very easy way to get the aerobic exercise that one needs. Surprisingly going through the same program every day is not hard. As a matter of fact, one can "zone out" pretty easily and think about other things as the body exercises. We have not seen much results yet as far as weight loss goes or energy increase. But we will be patient and keep on until we do.

The Good and The Bad

Note: this post was written originally back in March of this year. To date we still hold to what it is saying.

Our transitional transparency meetings are beginning to have two effects on us as members of our congregation. On the one hand, we are learning much about our fellow members, and this is good. But on the other hand, we are discovering great discrepancies between our beliefs, a very bad thing. Most of the issues we have been looking at are clearly spoken to in the Holy Scriptures, and yet many within our congregation have another view. They site the working of the Holy Spirit as the testimony that what they want is a ligament course of action. If we only strive to come to consensus on the issues we face, we will surely be less than what God had in mind. If all we strive to do is arrive at something we can all agree with, this in no guarantee that God's will is done. We must use another standard than consensus. Our understanding is that we must use the scriptures in testing whenever there is disagreement. Consensus is not what Christ had in mind when he prayed for unity within the brotherhood. Our unity must be under Christ the Lord as head of the church. Scripture is the source of arriving at understanding what that unity should be...not our own experiences. We must use a standard, and we feel that standard must and should be the Holy scriptures. Our understanding of the workings of the Holy Spirit are as a guide in understanding scriptures and as a source of strength in living out what Christ calls us to do. The working of the Holy Spirit was never meant to be a substitute for an understanding of that call. We are to serve Christ through the church body. God has a plan for how we are to go about doing that. The Holy scriptures clearly define that plan. Some within our congregation want to bypass certain scriptures and follow what they feel the Holy Spirit is calling them to do instead. We firmly disagree with this position. We both believe as our confession of faith decrees: "We acknowledge the Scripture as the authoritative source and standard for preaching and teaching about faith and life, for distinguishing truth from error, for discerning between good and evil, and for guiding prayer and worship. Other claims on our understanding of Christian faith and life, such as tradition, culture, experience, reason, and political powers, need to be tested and corrected by the light of Holy Scripture.

We know from Scripture that the Holy Spirit continues to reveal God's will to us (1 Cor. 14:26-33). The Spirit of God is not silent in the present. However, this new revelation will not contradict what we know of Christ's way in Scripture (John 14:26). So we can open ourselves to revelation and prophecy, provided we test them in the community of faith by the norm provided in Christ through the Scriptures."