“The RoseBouquet”

Well, I got my displays completed for the weekend. However, I had to snitch a bit of margin. I had put in about three weeks of afternoons on this project, and on Friday gave up my morning too, and worked hard at it all day. At 5:30 pm I still had a few letters to cut out and glue to the one wide red ribbon banner, but I decided that it was more important to get there in good time, so I loaded the car and headed out, getting on the road at 6 pm. It’s half an hour’s drive now on the new divided highway back to my old home church, Neuanlage Grace Mennonite.

Once there I had to wait until someone arrived who could say which table I might use for my display. I set up the bigger one that I called “Currently Western Tract Mission ministers with…” and showing all the areas of our present work. I kept the other smaller one that I called the Nostalgia display, showing some of our humble beginnings in its carrying case, and finished the banner on Saturday at home. Then before the Sat. evening session my friend Kathy joined me to help me move and set up my displays the way they should be.

What I call the nostalgia display showing some of WTM’s past.

The bigger display showing the many things our mission is doing currently.

(Thought you might like to see what I’m chattering about. The more I looked at them the more I can see ways to improve them yet. The red ribbon banners were rather tacky and some of the letters fell off. I will have to re-do some of this stuff before I go out again).

I had many friendly chats with people, and really enjoyed that interaction with people. On the Saturday night they scheduled me for a 2 minute presentation. I tried to make it as brief as possible, but I think I went over to 5 minutes. It was a great opportunity to show the various things we have going on at W.T.M. and the impact they are having.

It was a great pleasure too, to meet and to hear the reports of the keynote speakers, Jimmy and RoxAnne Cox with SIM, working in Sudan now. (They first spent 18 years in Ethiopia.) They are now based in Narobi, Kenya, but Jimmy treks repeatedly into Southern Sudan to help set up up schools and mission stations in the most war-torn area, where for over 22 years no one has been getting any eduction. They are teaching adults first and training them to become teachers. They showed some excellent videos, and RoxAnne is a very polished and effective presenter. I am proud to say she’s my third cousin.

I went back on Sunday morning to hear them share again in the Adult Sunday School class, and then Jimmy preached in the morning service. That was followed by a huge potluck lunch for everyone. And more visiting and chatting with people. I visited some other friends at their home in the afternoon.

Poor Snowflake felt very neglected at home. On Friday he had to remain in his room from 9 am when I left for the office until I got home at midnight. He was meowing like crazy when I let myself in the back door. So I settled down with him in the recliner and we had a 10-15 minutes of bonding and reconnecting. Then when he was ready to go play I had to put him back into his room so I could go to bed. Poor cat. I think he got fed up with sleeping so much all weekend.

I was home on Saturday until 4 pm., when I left to take care of some errands before arriving back at NGM church. On Sunday I got home about 5 and was out again at 6 until 10 pm. Yes, poor Snowflake was neglected all weekend, as was my housecleaning!

Working on that missions display took up a lot of my time and concentration last week, and I rose to the challenge willingly enough. But something else interrupted my life last week, and I’m ginning to myself here because I suspect this could be the starting point of something quite amazing. I can’t help myself - I’m going to give you a few clues.

A young man came to the office mid-afternoon on Thursday and asked to speak to me as I’m the one that works on and looks after the mission’s website. This was a true computer geek! He’s 21 and knows way more about computers and graphics and building websites than I do, he’s also keen on Linux, but get this - he’s a Christian and he wants to offer his services to this mission!

Of course I had to tell him that he’ll have to meet the Director first, and fill out the membership application form required of all volunteers. Since he is so young and travels by bike as the Spirit leads him, I can see that he might suddenly up and announce that he’s feeling led to go to some other city, or start a business of his own, and it could be awkward and leave us in the lurch, so I want to suggest to the Director that we start him out with some simple projects just as teaching me how to do some things and how to network my computers, etc. Then, as we get to know him better, maybe we can delegate more sensitive work to him.

So… the next few days and weeks could be crucial in this matter. I need to make up a list of all that I’d learn to learn from this tailor-made teacher that the Lord seems to be bringing into my life.

Oh, and I should add that this morning I am speaking at a Senior’s luncheon, again, on behalf of the mission, so I have prepared this
RoseBouquet ahead of time. That should be fun too.

Oh-my-Oh-my!! I thought my SiteBuildIt! package was really special and unique, and although that is my latest started site, it has by far the higher traffic, even over my huge (over 700 pages) Ruthes-SecretRoses.com site. But this week I’m discovering that something our Ken Evoy had added on as an extra benefit for those who wanted to pay more for it, is not incorporated into the SBI suite of services. Instead of paying $99 extra to get it, it is now part of the base package. And what a treat it is going to be! I’m hoping I can incorporate it real soon too on my Aloe-vera-and-handy-herbs site.

Not sure what that extra is? Well, a normal site gives people information to read or watch. It TELLS people things (known as ‘content’ to web site owners). But a new generation of website building, known as Web 2.0 is out there, and it refers to makings sites work both ways, giving out information or content and receiving the information or content. Inter-active, that’s what it is.

Some months back, Ken Evoy, owner of SiteBuildIt! devised a program called C2 that could be added to our sites, which would automate the ability to invite visitors to our sites to give us feedback, questions, stories, articles, all kinds of stuff, and help us grow our sites by leaps and bounds. What’s more, these visitors would be so proud of their contributions that they would link to them on Facebook, twitter, and other social networking sites, which would give us FREE advertising. See, how clever that is?

A number of SBI site owners have tried this out and are testifying to its wonder-working power to grow their sites and make them plenty of extra income. So dear Ken has decided to make it a part of the default package without raising the price. Can you imagine? What a heart!

And this week there is a Halloween special on! Buy-1-Get- another 1 for $100 extra! So one site is $299 and two sites are $399. If you want to split the cost with someone, you could go together and each pay $199 for a one-year subscription. (And that’s an over $1000 value easily!)

Go read up on it here; 2.sitesell.com

Abraham had a reputation for being a friend of God. We see that illustrated in the stories about his life and decisions in Genesis, and James said outright in the New Testament, where he wrote, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. (James 2:23 NIV).

That may be hard to understand if you have the impression that God is way-way up there, and that He doesn’t really care about puny mankind here on earth. That is false, however. God does care to an astonishing degree about everyone of us. (That degree, by the way, is to the full 100% as God never does anything less than perfect.) We see this in how he made Adam and Eve differently than all the other creatures, and how He sent His only Son to take our death sentence, and give us new and eternal life, and yes - even the right to walk into God’s presence spiritually, through prayer, and talk with Him as good friends do, with honour and love.

When Abraham was still Abram in the land of Ur, God invited him to rise up and move to a better place He would show him. God promised him that He would make of him, Abram, a great and mighty nation, and through them bless everyone on earth. Abram and his wife, and nephew, and all his servants - a whole entourage - and started on this journey. When he got to the land of Canaan, God said, “this is the area I’m giving your future descendants,” and Abram began to build altars to worship God and thank Him.

But that promise was not fulfilled for many years. God tested their faith with delays. We can follow the saga of their adventures and misadventures in Genesis chapters 12-25. Abram made some mistakes, such as when in Egypt he pretended that Sarai his wife was only his half-sister, when she really was both; the Pharaoh took her for his harem!

Then there was the time when he took a concubine, at his wife’s urging, to hurry up God’s plan for a son. But God didn’t dump His relationship with Abram. Rather, He tested and disciplined him to bring him into line with His greater, better plan.

Abram and Lot both grew too wealthy to live close together, but Lot chose an evil area, and was captured in a local war, so Abram went out to rescue him and the other small kings and their people.

God made a detailed covenant with His friend, and changed his name to Abraham to indicate that he really would be the father of many, though he had not had a single child yet. It meant that Abraham had to learn to accept his Friend’s promises by faith and live as if he believed Him.

There is also the interesting account of the Lord appearing as one of three angels making a visit to Abraham and Sarah’s tents. They hurried to give these ordinary-looking men good hospitality, and in return the Lord confided some plans He had for Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham knew they deserved to be destroyed but Lot lived there, so he bargained with God to not destroy the cities if he found only a very few righteous people there. We learn how friends can intercede for other friends when they have good standing with the friend in power.

Abraham’s friendship with God was unique, but perhaps a prototype of the kind of relationship we may have as well. Despite his faults (and we all have those), Abraham worshiped and trusted God as God. That trust went right to the point of blind obedience when God tested him by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him. It seemed so strange, considering that God had promised Abraham that many future descendants would come through Isaac. However, Abraham’s devotion to his God was so complete that he was sure God could raise Isaac up from the dead again, if he were sacrificed.

I confess, I once felt sure I had a promise from God, but found it hard to lay that “Isaac” on the altar to show that I loved God more than the promise I had clutched to my heart. I’ve learned to hold God’s gifts more loosely now. If He has power to give them, He should still have power to remove them, and to bring them back in a new and resurrected way IF they are truly from Him. If they are not, I am better off to let go of the false dream I thought was a promise from God.

It is experiences like that which really knit us closer to God in a pure and holy friendship, high above every other friendships we may have. Moreover, the things we learn about friendship from God can be applied to our other friendships with people. Things like loyalty and trust.

This past weekend really broke my pattern of the summer and took my mind in a new direction. Well, not all that new as I’ve ready and thought a lot about Bible prophecy, but hadn’t really heard a talk or sermon on it in quite a while. Suddenly I was hearing several days of it.

The executive director of the Berean Watchmen Ministry is in our church and this was the fourth annual such Bible Prophecy weekend he had set up in our church. Of course, I’m so new, I didn’t realize this, but when I heard it announced I decided that I would take time for it. The first sessions started on Friday afternoon, but I felt I needed to stick to my work agenda until 5 pm, so I didn’t go until 7 pm for the two evening sessions. I was quite impressed, though found it odd that the church was not full.

Speakers had been flown in from the USA. Gary Fisher, Dr. Randall Price, and Dr. Thomas Sharp. The latter two are trained and have degrees in archaeology and the sciences.

I met a couple on the break from my old home church and Ron had found it by accident on the internet. Saturday was a long day from 8:30 am to 9 pm. They had announced that the talks were being streamed live from their website, BereanWatchmen.com, and just before the evening sessions, Jeremy Hall commented that some of the people seemed to have gone home to watch the evening sessions online while sitting in their pajamas. They had laptops here and there to provide for the speakers’ powerpoints, so in a few minutes someone in the sound booth confirmed that 30 people were watching from home.

I considered doing that, but realized that my computer at home is not fast enough to watch live streaming video without it being jerky, and besides, I had given up this weekend for this conference, so I stayed there.

On Sunday morning the sanctuary was just about packed out, and Gary Fisher preached a fine sermon about living on the edge of eternity. After lunch (when I had opportunity to sell a copy of my novel to the wife of one of the speakers, as well as share my story), we had two more sessions, but the last one was not streamed live. It was announced that the material was too sensitive to get out to the general public, people in another country could get into trouble with the government, so you had to be present to hear about some exciting discoveries.

I got home after 5 pm, and was pleased to see that the ice in my two rain barrels had melted. All weekend spent indoors, while outside the weather had turned warmer and quite nice. The previous weekend I had not been able to empty and turn over the barrels for the winter, and when I checked the weathernetwork I saw it was suppose to rain Monday. So - I quickly changed into work clothes and got busy emptying the barrels and turning them over. I was quite relieved to get that finished before the serious winter comes.

Well, building my Mission displays at the office has grown into a more complicated venture all the time. I had hoped to get the smaller nostalgia one finished last week. I’ve made good progress, but I couldn’t get finished yesterday either. Now I’m hoping I can complete it this afternoon, and then I’ll have three afternoons left to finish the larger one showing what our mission has on the go right now.

This Friday evening I am to pack all this up and take it to my old home church at Neuanlage Grace Mennnonite. That’s about a 40 minute drive north of the city. I may have to snitch time promised to other things to get this finished. I keep seeing more that could be done, and I may just have to set some parts or ideas aside to add later.

Other than that, I am keeping up my usual work agenda with most mornings on my own web businesses, and evenings on clients’ sites.

I do have an invitation to speak on behalf of the mission next week Tuesday morning, but I will try to get the RoseBouquet ready ahead of time. I may just post it before I leave for that mid-morning appointment.

Last week I decided to set myself a new Bible study series for my own devotional time, and then to use those thoughts and observations for articles to use here in the Ruthe’s Roses section. My basic thinking is this; my novel and my site are focused on the theme of friendship, so I should be writing more articles on that theme. Each one becomes another page in my site, and thus pushes my main goals forward.

But this morning I noticed a unique trend in these studies. As I hunt through the main stories of the Bible from Genesis forward I see that over and over again, God is looking for an intimate relationship with us individuals. We found last week that God came to walk and talk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. Don’t most of us like to socialize after our work day has ended?

Next I found that God walked and talked with Enoch too, and one day God just took Enoch home with Him. So we will look at this relationship in the article below today. But looking ahead I see that Abraham was called a friend of God. We will likely find that this happens over and over in the Bible, and that excites me, because the theme of my testimony and life is that God wants to have that kind of relationship with each of us!

Have you started on your friendship with Him?

If you have a windows system on your computer, (and these are installed by default, so if you haven’t installed a Linux/unix system you are most likely to have Windows, ie. Windows XP, Vista, or even the old Windows 98), - then you need to know some things to make life easier for you.

You can set up my PC to defragment its hard drive, check for new email, and launch programs automatically. How? Use the tutorial at the Newbie Club to do this. It was simple, easy to understand, and really frees up time for more productive pursuits. That tutorial on automating can get your computer to do some things on its own so you don’t have to “babysit” your computer through the boring tasks.

In fact, if you are wondering how to do certain things on your computer, you will find the Tutorials, just what you need. For instance, do you understand file size, and how that affects your downloading and storage of files? You need the Bits and Bytes page.

There are only three verses in Genesis to tell the life story of Enoch but they have lots of clues so we can understand him and the example he is to us.

Back in the days before the Great Flood, a lifespan was measured in hundreds of years. So Enoch was 65, a mere young man, when he fathered Methuselah, whose name means, “in his lifetime it [the foretold disaster] will come.” Sure enough, Methuselah was still alive 969 years later when the flood came! For Enoch to name his first son like this must mean that he believed that prophecy.

Now Enoch lived another 300 years and had lots of sons and daughters after Methuselah, so he did not become a hermit or recluse, but he did have something that set him apart from others  He walked with God. I’m assuming he also talked with God, that is prayed, and it became a daily habit with Enoch.

From personal experience I know that you can’t have this kind of intimate life with God for long before it grows more and more precious and you look forward to the daily interaction with your Lord and God. If Enoch kept it up for 300 years you and I can be sure he enjoyed the relationship!

God enjoyed it too. As Bible preachers and teachers like to say when telling about Enoch,  we can easily imagine that one day God may have said, “You know, Enoch, we are closer to my place than yours. Why don’t you come home with me to stay?” We get this from Genesis 5:24 where it says, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

Since these Bible characters are written up in the Bible to be examples to us, what is the obvious lesson here?

Simply, that it is very good to have a regular habit of communing with God, and that God Himself loves to do that with us.

Like any good habit though, it may take a while to become regular with us, and for us to learn to hear and really connect with God. Since He is a Spirit, it means we must develop our spiritual ears and understanding, and we must learn to express ourselves to God, and believe that He hears and understands us perfectly.

The best starting point is His written Word, the Bible. God inspired others friends through the centuries, with whom He walked and talked regularly, and they wrote down what He told them to write. This means the Bible is inspired by God, and if we read and study it reverently it will come alive to us with the messages that God wants to communicate to us.

As a Spirit, God is able to hear all our thoughts and words, so we can respond to Him by speaking aloud or in our thoughts.

So that we will not be inhibited or shy, it is good to have this time with God in a private way. After a while we will learn to enjoy including other believers in small groups for a corporate kind of fellowship with God, but our true spiritual development and maturity depends on having lots of private times with God.

Often such quiet times with God are known as prayer or devotional times. I am trying to avoid those terms just now because they come loaded for some people with definitions and rules that can get in the way of understanding how to really connect with God. At the very root of it our “walk with God” is a spiritual relationship, where we are totally honest and as fully revealed as we are able before God, and where we let Him speak His truth to our hearts or spirits, and our minds. Our spirit may grasp His will first, but our minds need to get a handle on it too, so we will know how to respond and obey, or cooperate with God.

There is another meaning a fore-shadowing in Enoch’s life of something that can happen to us. In the New Testament we have passages that indicate that Jesus, (one with God), will one day physically come to meet those of us who walk and talk with Him , and then turn around and take us to His Home in Heaven. Those left behind will talk to each other in amazement about our vanishing. As believers we often encourage each other now by referring to the rapture. It is nothing to be feared, but rather looked forward to with anticipation.

If you dread that time you are either not walking and talking with the Lord in a healthy relationship, or you don’t fully understand this promise. Either case can be corrected, don’t stay in despair. Ask for help or solutions to the problem.

You’re pleased too, I bet, when your plans for a holiday turn out just like you planned, right? My plans for Thanksgiving turned out just as I’d hoped. I worked most of Sunday afternoon in my kitchen, getting the turkey ready, then the stuffing, and the potatoes. Then I took a rest, and finished my intercession lists I had not completed in my morning prayer time because I went early for the breakfast served at church.

Mid-afternoon I decided that I’d make a dessert after all. I had said that I didn’t think it would be necessary, but I had cooked a squash the day before, so it wasn’t that hard to make the chiffon filling, and I mixed it with some dream whip too. For the pie crust I just used graham wafer crumbs and some coconut and sesame seeds.

About 4 pm I realized that the turkey was done, so I began to take it apart, and then made gravy, and just about the time that I was ready for them, the potatoes were ready for mashing too. I had it all packed up and ready for the car at 5:30.

On Friday, at the office, I had talked with one of our Board members. Allen is a single man and he wondered which relatives he could get himself invited to for a Thanksgiving meal. I offered that he could join my brother Tom and me. He accepted gladly, and promised to bring the cranberries.

I gave Tom and Allen each a quick call to say I was on the way, and we enjoyed a good meal together in Tom’s apartment. It always has a lot of clutter, but Allen said his was the same way.

He really liked my new experiment with the crockpot stuffing, which incorporated some mixed vegetables and creamed corm with the herbed bread and mushroom soup. (I liked it too, and must jot it down somewhere so I can recall the ingredients next time).

That was Sunday. I spent yesterday, the actual Thanksgiving holiday quietly at home, doing the things I love, and coming away with some great new ideas. Perhaps the main one is going to affect this RoseBouquet, as I plan to shift away from my haphazard methods and get a good plan going. I hope you’ll get excited too as you see it happening.

One of the things I did yesterday was spend several hours researching how to get my devotional book, “Joy Gems,” published. I thought I’d try the traditional publisher route first instead of self-publishing because I might gain some valuable experiences, and because I really don’t have time to promote it heavily by myself.

Well, I discovered that some things have changed since I last looked into this earnestly. All the websites of the better known names in Christian publishers pointed to one or two sites. They no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts themselves, but go check regularly the database these other sites provide and then contact the authors of the book proposals that most appeal to them.

ChristianManuscriptSubmissions.com
WritersEdgeService.

They charge $98 and $95 respectively for a six month listing of your book proposal and description and sample chapters. There is another fee for like $299 if you want it critiqued and edited first.

Well, I had wanted to know what it would take, and I’ve found out. I was able to download a PDF file on how to prepare your book proposal to best advantage, so I will need to study that, and save up for this expense.

Over all it does seem a smarter way to go. Before one had to pick a publisher find the acquisitions editor, and send it there with a cover letter. Then wait and wait for a reply before trying the next publisher. This way one might get contacts from two or three publishers showing an interest, and if they all make an offer, you can study their contracts and make a choice.

In this scenario, since your manuscript is online you can login and improve or re-write it if you think that will help. If six months is not long enough to get a bite, you can subscribe for another six month period.

Apparently self-published books don’t count, but you can submit one to these publishers in this way. They have also latched onto Print-on-Demand (POD) self-publishing, because they (CMS) say that if you prefer to go the self-publishing route you can jump over to their partner site, Believers Press, and get it published there. For a fee, of course.

Hmm… Interesting. Something for us to think over, right? (See, I know you have a book in you too!)

Another bright idea I got yesterday was to start a series of articles on the friendships we observe in the Bible, and draw practical lessons for how to deal with our own friendships. Guess what. I’ve got one written already for this issue!

Recalling what happened when I promised to do a series like that on angel encounters in the Bible for my friend Connie’s ezine, I am expecting some very interesting adventures and discoveries ahead! That turned into 30 articles which I published as a free e-book. You can still get it here; Angel Encounters