“The RoseBouquet”

“So how many of your brothers and sisters are coming to help with the Auction Sale?” several people have asked of late.

“None.” is my answer. “Well, if I offer Tom a ride, I’m sure he’ll be glad to come. But he’s in a wheelchair, so he isn’t going to be lugging a lot of stuff out and helping with the heavy physical work.”

My sister Elsie is somewhat aware of the work I’m doing. The other weekend I had sorted and made a fresh inventory of all her stuff here since 1995. She called on Sunday evening, and we went over it all item by item. She asked questions about things she had forgotten she had, and she told me which things I could add to the auction sale and what to get rid of for her. The deal was that for storing these things I could use her desk, her freezer, and some kitchen chairs, etc., so if I said, “Oh, I was hoping to use that,” Elsie was gracious enough to say that she’d keep it then.

I’m also to help myself first from any boxes of books she designated for sale, and I believe a few pieces of fabric. (She used to be a bookkeeper for a fabric store; whenever they couldn’t afford to pay her, they let her take fabrics instead, so there is quite a stash!)

Yes, Elsie is giving me some nice rewards for my work for her.

By the way, I am to have possession of my own wee mint green house on Friday this week, so next week - if I can break away the time - you will start seeing photo stories of the transformation as it gets cleaned and fixed up for moving in. See the “Before” shots below…

My first missionary prayer letter is up and ready for you to read - and print, if you wish. I’ve just finished up the last of my postal mailing to friends and relatives, particularly the ones not keen on computers and email. Now I need to turn my attention to the online friends. You can find it here; 1st Missionary Letter

As I wrote last week, my agenda is very much focused on packing and moving and fixing up my new place. I was away early to the city this morning to sign the last documents, and shopped for new locks and dead bolts to install on Friday, when I officially get the keys to my very own house.

On Sunday I’m inviting all my church friends and anyone else who wants to come, to drop by any time after 3 p.m. to look the house over, and give suggestions and ideas. If any of them are inclined to offer to come help with a certain project, I’ll be glad to take down their names. In fact, I’ve just created my clipboard chart specifically for that! So if you are within driving distance - you’re invited too! Come spy out my new “Promised Land.”

I was interviewed last Sunday afternoon by the Missions Committee from our church, and one of the things they asked was - what am I doing to raise prayer supporters as well as financial supporters.

Hmm…! I hadn’t thought about that yet. I know I have lots of friends around the world praying for me, but I haven’t really worked at tracking that. So I guess I should make a chart for that as well, and if YOU are one of those that is willing to promise to faithfully pray for me in my ministry ventures, especially with Western Tract Mission, but generally too, for all of my life, then I’d appreciate a note from you to indicate that. I’ll put your names on my own private chart, and I’ll make a point of sending you special prayer requests from time to time. Also my future missionary letters to report how things are going.

I’ve got ink cartridges for you! My brother Tom gave me these last week. He said someone had been desperate for some cash and offered them to him for a great price. They are complete kits, and from the front photo, I thought one of them might fit my HP printer. Close but not quite.

So if your printer takes either of these model numbers, PG-40 CL-41 or BCI-3e, I can give you a good deal on these twin paks. They come with a bonus of photo sheets inside too. (Each package has 2 cartridges in it).

Well, the final papers are signed this morning, for my wee little green mint house at 903 23rd Street in Saskatoon!

So I think it is safe now to post some photos to show you what I’ve been talking about. The part that worries me is that you might not have as vivid an imagination as I do, and you can’t see all the colourful flowers that will surround it later this summer, and the morning glories climbing all over it, and the life and love that will sparkle from it’s windows. Therefore, if you are not very well impressed with your first look, I hope you’ll trust me and reserve judgment for a few weeks, and see the transformation that will take place.

This is what I saw as I drove away the first time I saw it on March 19, of this year.

This is what I saw as I drove away the first time I saw it on March 19, of this year.
903 - My Miracle Home

When I went by for another look in early May, the snow was nearly all gone, and I liked it more. But of course, by that time I knew in my heart it was the one the Lord had chosen for me, and which is the answer to my prayers, (including the part about being willing to work at it!)

903 - in Early May.

I couldn’t resist a drive around to the back alley to snap this shot of what will be my garden when I’ve tilled that raw sod.
Where the garden will spring forth

My elbows are sagging today, even my bones feel tired. But then, I’ve worked them pretty hard over the long weekend.

My sister Elsie, whose stuff is in storage here since 1995 when she moved to B.C. on the west coast, asked for an inventory of her stuff, so that she could decide what to let me put on the auction on July 6. So I put on an extra effort over this long weekend, to go through all her boxes, record the contents on my clipboard, and also write up a matching label which I taped to the boxes. In case I have to go looking for a certain one again, it will save opening a bunch! That’s a lot of handling of heavy boxes, never mind that sometimes I just took them down, wrote them up and put them back up on the shelves.

Anyway… I finished that inventory last night. Then as I went to bed I remembered that I forgot her trunk, and this morning I remembered a few other items too. So it isn’t all done.

Something amusing did happen on Saturday afternoon. I had cleared all her boxes off two shelf units Dad had built in his workshop for her stuff, and I transferred them to a third one, hoping to pack tidier and to free those two units to take upstairs. I wanted the smaller one up in the garage beside the ramp, so I could bring more auction sale stuff up to the garage.

When I had removed the last shelf from that unit and was laying it down, I said mostly to myself, but perhaps as a prayer, “There! Now I just need a man, Lord. I don’t think I can carry this upstairs by myself!”

Just then I gashed my finger against the sharp edge of another shelf board, so I went to the bathroom and put on a bandaid.

Before I’d quite finished, the doorbell rang. I ran up to get it, and there was a man! Larry, my next door neighbour was standing there. I said, “Hey, you’re an answer to prayer! I need help bringing a shelving unit up to the garage.” Then I added, “Well, maybe I should ask first what you wanted.”

He asked about borrrowing Dad’s rotortiller while theirs was being fixed, but he was quite willing to come help me with the shelf unit first.

Basically, it’s two ladders, joined by an X at the back, made of baseboard trim material. Larry’s solution was to knock the bracing off the one ladder, making it two parts. I carried up one, and he followed with the other. In the garage I found him a hammer, and he put the bracing back in place.

Of course, that’s when I realized I had not cleaned up under the ramp yet, so I ate clouds of dust while I pulled out the fiberglass insulation Dad had stashed there, and made room for this shelving unit.

And naturally, I let him borrow the rotortiller.

I told this story in church on Sunday, and several people had fun with the concept of praying for a man, and getting such a quick answer.

The lugging around of boxes is not over yet, but as an end is in sight, I’ll stay at it as long as I have to. I think I’ll be finished with all the auction preparations in a few more days, and then there is still the backyard clean up, but I think I’ll be ready by June 1, when I’ll get possession of “my own wee house!” I may even get my bedroom packed up by then.

(Sigh!) the heavy work won’t be over, but the focus will shift to cleaning and feathering my own little nest. If things go the way I picture them, I may get the cleanup all done in two weeks, and then round up my friends to help me move over there.

Just now the loan paperwork is in process, and tomorrow I go to the city to sign the purchase deal. After that they tell me, it depends on how fast or slow the lawyers are, but most likely they’ll have it all complete by June 1.

Meantime, I’m spending Sunday afternoons working on getting out my first Missionary prayer letter, and a personal one describing Dad’s death and the things I’ve been busy with since, since a lot of people on my mailing list are ones who usually only get my Christmas letter. I try to personalize each one, which takes a bit longer. About 30 more to go.

But I’ve decided that today I can put up on my website the same letters for any and all others who would like to get the same letters, minus the personalized P.S. If you promise to read the letters as if addressed to you personally, it should work, right?

Next month I’ll have to start making payments of $307.38 each month, plus pay utilities (here the estate is paying them), and all the other expenses of owning one’s own home. So if you would like to be part of my support team as a missionary, that would be wonderful. Believe me, I’ll see each gift as one from the Lord and you!

Just the gas money to drive there every day until it is ready is a scary thought. Here the gas costs $1.20.9 and + per litre! I hear it’s going up some more yet.

But if you know me at all, you know I’m a frugal and resourceful person and can make a little go a long way! I’m a good investment.

Besides, if I can get moved in by mid-June, I can start working harder at my business again!

Say!! I just remembered my short story section in my Sharing Library! We’ll have a short story today under Ruthe’s Roses. Enjoy.

Although I haven’t had time to keep up with writing new articles, I have started to list my angel encounter articles with IdeaMarketers.com and they graciously provide a way for you to syndicate these articles on your own web site. Every week as I list another article there, it will automatically appear on your designated page on your site. Voila! Good content, and you didn’t have to write it.

All you have to do is name a copy of your basic template page something related to articles, or angels. Then in the space for your article content on that web page place a short special code of about two lines.

To request this code and read more details on how it works, go to http://ideamarketers.com/syndicated/syndicateauthor.cfm?writerid=25444

Syndicate Ruth’s Angel Encounter articles on your site! Fast, Easy & Free!

P.S. Once I can get my work hours back, I’ll provide even more series!

©2004 Ruth Marlene FriesenReuben Overman stroked the upholstery in the stretch limo as the driver took them effortlessly along the underpass at the bridge, along the freeway bridges over the river, and on to other freeways. He sighed wistfully. He wasn’t meant to be a revenue officer. He should be in the place of the sharp business woman to his right.

She was talking about how he was to launder her Internet matrix gains and make it look kosher and above board. Her plan involved a computer program that promised great wealth to those who signed up, and he would have certain hidden roles to play.

Reuben tuned her out. He knew he ought to be paying attention and looking for a way out, but it was his love of nice things - like her limo - that had got him into this trouble in the first place. He wished–

“You’re not listening to me, Reuben!” she interrupted his thoughts. “I thought you were bright, reliable. What are you really?”

“Gutless,” he muttered, gazing out the one-way window.

He heard his grandmother quoting the Bible in his head, “Be sure your sins will find you out!”

Reuben sighed again. If he had not wanted the accouterments of wealth, if he had chosen to follow God, like his best friend, James, had, if he had not started gambling online, then this woman wouldn’t be blackmailing him, and turning him into her own private loophole through the tax laws.

The driver slowed down as they came into the city center streets and traffic was congested. Reuben saw the grassy median strip, and considered opening the door and rolling out, and then running. But when he lightly tested the door handle he discovered it was controlled by a master lock.

The woman in black reached out and dug her long red finger nails into his wrist, “Resign yourself, Reuben. You’re mine and you can learn to like it. Dirk has orders to shoot if you try to escape.” She allowed herself a smug, satisfied smile as she settled back.

[To read the rest of this story go to Limousine]

Jesus is about to go back to Heaven, from where He will come again as the victorious King of all kings. While He is preparing our future home in Heaven, we are to spread this good news of His salvation to everyone, so all the people of the world can be part of that Great Big Wonderful Family up there.

The disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

Do you spot those three words at the end of verse 17? “But some doubted.” Even then, not all had faith in Jesus or His words.

However, they were present when Jesus gave this last great commission – which all of Jesus’ disciples are suppose to be doing until He returns as King Jesus. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So what does this mean to you and me? If we believe Jesus, we can rest assured He has all authority in Heaven and in earth. We can cheerfully go and tell everybody in every nation about Him, and baptize them into our God with three Persons, and help them to become disciples of Jesus too. Then we have a responsibility to teach them everything Jesus commanded (all we’ve studied in the book of Matthew), always with this confidence that Jesus is right here present with us in the form of the Holy Spirit.

PRAYER: Oh God, this is stupendous! You are so marvelous, revealing Yourself to us in three unique Personalities, God, as the Father-Creator of us all, and Jesus, as one of us Humans, who was perfect, so He could die for our sins, and as a Spirit, abiding in and with our spirit to guide us. On top of all this You have given us this Assignment to be part of the saving of all the souls who will respond to our/Your invitation to come under the kingship of Jesus! Wow! Let’s do it!

THE ENDNOTE: This completes our study of Matthew. Because I’m in the midst of buying a house and preparing it to move into, and my days are very busy, I’m going to put daily devotionals for publication on hold for a while. Not my own personal ones of course; we all need to meet with the LORD daily!

I hope you will continue to read and think about the readings in the Bible, seeking to find a personal application for yourself. The Lord will meet you there and speak to you!

When I have another series ready I will notify those on this mailing list by email.

+++++Jesus is my King+++++Jesus is my King+++++

Blessings on you Today!
Ruth Marlene Friesen

P.S.What would it look and feel like to be a young woman who calls upon God in every crisis and always seems to get answers? You can vicariously experience this through the novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses. .

Things look like they are in a shambles around here, but really - I insist - I am fairly well organized.

Okay, there was that incident last week with the Champion Juicer. Dad always used it to grind peanut butter. It was one of his last gifts to me. But at noon last Wednesday when I wanted to make myself a fresh tub of peanut butter, the Champion was not in the cupboard!

Right away I figured so-and-so had taken it. Would i ever tell him off! I checked all over the house in my various piles of boxes and stuff, in case I had packed it and forgotten, but I couldn’t find it.

On the way to the post office for the mail I was really chewing so-and-so out in my mind. Then it hit me, that I was not reacting very well to this, and I had no proof. I begged God to forgive me, and tried to set it aside.

At supper time I wanted to make peanut butter in the Vita Mixer. I knew it was suppose to be possible, but I would need the cookbook that came with it. Oops… That must be in the box of cookbooks I’d stashed downstairs. So I ran down to get it. As I moved another big bag of bedding, there was the Champion Juicer!

Was I ever glad I had not called so-and-so to ream him out and threaten such and such!

I insist, I know where most things are - but yes, things do get lost in all the packing and sorting.