“The RoseBouquet”

At about 10 or 12 in age, I fancied myself a seamstress and decided to practice with Mom’s remnants on our dolls. I held the fabric over the dolls, got ideas, snipped, and stitched by hand. Mom liked perfection, so she was not terribly impressed.

I’d get over it and in my enthusiasm try again and again, learning a bit about allowing extra fabric for going around some body parts. I got most discouraged though, when I came to Mom for help, and she’d explain with a lot of words – what I needed was a demonstration. Then she would get exasperated and retort, “Well, I can’t help you if you keep doing things upside down and backwards.”

“Mom! I can’t help it that I’m left-handed. Just show me where it’s suppose to go, and I’ll figure it out…”

Sometimes she tried, but when she saw me stitching from the left again, she’d exclaim, “Someone else will have to teach you to sew!”

That turned out to be me.

In my teens I must have been drooling over a pattern book in the store, when the clerk offered me an older, out of date copy – for free. What a treasure! I poured over it at home and soon my vivid imagination was making up stories about the sketches I studied as I sprawled across my bed. Some of the characters became so vivid and real to me that later they became the girls in the Darlin’ Bonne’s Shoppe in my novel, Ruthe’s Secret Roses.

I studied that pattern catalogue too, for styles and colours, and what looked best on blondes or brunettes, and how many seams and pieces were in each outfit. I got quite an education. I did not sew during that time, but just knew that one day I would, not only sew for myself and that well, but I would design my own clothes.

Right after high school, as soon as I had my first steady job as a telephone operator, I sent away for a correspondence course in dress design that promised to teach sewing too, taking nothing for granted. I knew I needed to learn to sew as Mom had said. But I would teach myself through the course.

One of the first purchases I made with my salary was a brand new Necchi sewing machine, and a left-handed scissors.

Working around my shifts as an operator, I took time to do the lessons carefully, and then started to haunt the remnant bin in the basement at the Bay, a large department store that I often entered at one end and wandered through to the other door, on my way to work. Those were the days when polyester was just coming into use. In brilliant colours, no less! It was 60 inches wide, and that fabric just never wore out. A one-yard remnant might cost .99 to $3 or $5, and it was enough for a dress for me!

Finally, I was done with cast-off second-hand clothing, and I was designing styles and wearing colours that I had chosen myself. Whoo-hoo!

When I had paid off my car, I packed my Necchi and most of my worldly possessions and drove to London, Ontario, where I settled down and lived for about 12 years. There I continued to sew my own wardrobe, and more; uniforms for my Pioneer Girls club girls, baby quilts and teddy bears and other stuff animals, and also dolls. Often they were gifts, but sometimes I got orders and was paid for some items too. (I have one large, heavy red photo album full of pictures of crafts and toys I have designed and sewn in that era).

I had to sell and leave behind the ailing Necchi when I moved back home to care for my parents in 1983, but I helped choose a sewing machine and a serger for Mom – who could not sit at them to sew without turning green – so they were at my disposal.

These days my life is full of things I do on the computer, and Mom’s machines sit covered on the sewing desk, so it almost seems a lifetime away, but once in a while I get a yen to sew, and it’s like an itch that MUST be scratched. I cut out a stack of nine items of clothing on my birthday recently, and I’m gradually snatching half an hour or an hour here and there, to work my way through that stack.

Sewing is a skill I will always be grateful for; it has blessed me many times already. The dreams of the dress design shop were not wasted either, but I think they have an unfinished destiny yet.

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It’s time for the next monthly garden photo story! Whew! This is more work than I had bargained for. But I’ve got another page of photos uploaded and ready for you to tour my garden in early August. Go to this page;
August Garden Photo Tour

I hope you enjoy my lovely pink morning glories as much as I do.

People like to talk about their brush with the famous or various great people. Have you ever had one? A few moments with a very important person (VIP)?

I’ve met people who will tell in vivid detail about how they saw Queen Elizabeth up real close. Almost in arms-reach. Some will talk about speaking with a famous singer or movie star. The speaker a conference told last night about being at a Bible camp in Romania and being served his bread for breakfast by the President of that country.

But… is that good enough? Does a brush with a VIP count as gaining a true friend?

Who is your very best friend? How great or important is that friend? Does she (or he) have a relationship with a very important, influential person to whom she could appeal on your behalf? (On second thought, maybe we should not use our friends like that.)

I’ve got some great news for you though! I have a fantastic and super-perfect Friend who invites me to use His name to get special attention, and He’s willing to be your Friend too.

Oh, you’ve guessed who, have you?

Well, let’s just look at this tremendous Friend and the relationship we can have with Him.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He was willing to be born as a baby, to prove that He has gone through everything we did – from our birth. He told His friends that if they knew Him, they also knew God, because they are just perfectly alike. If you want to know what God is really like, study Jesus!

He said that a sign of a true friend is someone willing to die for another, and He sure did that! He died for everyone willing to believe and receive that death as being in our own place. That death and resurrection – if we receive it – is our ticket into Heaven – for eternity! Jesus showed that He loves us to the nth degree. He did more than any of our other friends could do for us.

Not only that, but Jesus went back up to Heaven to sit beside the Father (God), and to pray for us. Say-but, those prayers are effective! They always get answered!

Sometimes our friends will say that they’ll pray for us, but not all of them carry through on that. Jesus said, “I’m praying for you,” and He means it! (Just wiggle down into that thought and soak in it for a while).

Wait, there’s more! He also promised to prepare some rooms for us in Heaven. (Some translations say ‘mansions’). Now just think, it took Him a week to make the universe, the earth and sun and stars, and to separate the land from the water, and to make animals, plants and people. And that’s all glorious and beautiful to behold. So if He is taking all this time to make rooms for us, – wow! Hallelujah! Glory be! – and how magnificent shall those rooms be? (Just camp your mind on that thought for a few minutes!)

When Jesus sent His disciples out, two by two, to deliver the kingdom message to the Jews, and to heal the sick and cast out devils, they came back absolutely flabbergasted at all they had accomplished. But then Jesus told them to think nothing of that – rather be glad that your name is written in Heaven’s Book of Life.

Isn’t that something tremendous to brag about in your Facebook account? Your name is in the Book of Life – meaning you will live forever! And… (trumpets, please), your BEST Friend sits at the right hand of God, and prays for you – continuously!

No body, but nobody can top us on that!

By the way, Jesus has time to talk with us all the time – even if our other friends are too busy, or don’t answer our emails.

During the 23+ years that I lived in Hague, at my parents’ house, we often had people come to the door to ask for donations, or to sell something. (The town had a reputation for good prospecting).

I’m basically a kind, compassionate and generous person, but this issue of having to decide on a moment’s notice whether to donate at the door, or how to know which ones to give to and which ones to turn away – well, it was hard on me. For one thing, I had so little money myself. If I did have a dollar or two to spare, I didn’t want to give it away foolishly at the door.

The school kids often came to sell chocolates, or to ask for donations for UNICEF. (In the latter case I asked them to explain to their teacher that I did not donate because UNICEF supported abortion in other countries).

When the young people would come around dragging garbage bags and asking for empty pop bottles or cans, I could honestly say that we didn’t drink such stuff in this home. (However, I didn’t mention that Dad has his own stash of collected bottles and cans in the back shed, and when he had a good load, he’d ask me to take help him take them in to turn in for cash. It’s a plan of our provincial government to keep them out of the landfills). However, when they asked for support to go on a missions trip… that would tug at my heart strings.

Sometimes they would be strangers with wonderful-sounding charities that would do so much good for orphans, and the blind, etc., but if I had never heard of them before, I wondered…if they might be for real or not.

Sometimes it would be friendly woman from the community collecting for one cancer research fund or another.

I was frustrated by this donating at the door business. I wanted to be a good giver, but I didn’t like to be jerked around, or to fall into impulse giving. I prayed about it a number of times, and gradually came up with a plan.

My church tithe would always be a foregone decision, but I would try to set aside another tithe in a special wallet, and I would pray and wait for guidance to know when to give out of that. If it was empty, I could say “no” with a clear conscience.

There are always plenty of opportunities to give, so I would gather information, study it and pray about it until I could settle on a confirmed list of missions and charities that I would give to regularly or whenever prompted. At the same time I would pray about each ‘gift’ and keep my spirit tuned to discern well when I should donate. I would count on God to show me.

With that plan settled on, when the doorbell rang, I would dash down the ramp in the garage to the outer door, and cheerfully say, “Sorry, I don’t buy or donate at the door.” Most often they turned away immediately, so I didn’t even have to explain about my prayer plan.

One day though, a salesman with a heavy case, asked, “Why?”

I answered frankly, “Because I don’t have time to pray about it and discern the Lord’s will.”

His quick repartee was, “Okay. Let’s pray.”

That flustered me a bit, but I told him it didn’t work like a magic button.

In my present circumstances I just don’t see that many people at the door, and generally not ones asking for donations at the door. (Maybe that was unique to Hague).

Now that I have some incomes and and am contributing my time to various missions, I think about planning my giving even more. In fact, I’m doing a study in the Bible on giving and working on a good grid of discernment to help me find the worthy missions and projects and people to support.

My missions wallet swells sometimes and there is a very unique joy and delight in feeding orphans in one country, buying school supplies for poor kids in another, and supporting missionaries who need their daily groceries. When it goes flat I am at peace; it will fill up again.

But no rash, unconsidered donating at the door for me.

Our childhood friendships often set a tone for the rest of our lives. In thinking about feeling friendless, I recalled some instances when I felt that way.

My earliest years were spent in the small prairie village of Chortitz, (where Mom was born when her parents still had a small straw thatched house). Pretty well everyone in the village was related to me in one way or another. The farm next to ours on the west belonged to my grandparents, and the one after that to our cousins. The parents were both my Mom’s cousins and their children, the older twin boys and the girl, Johanna, just a year older than me, were my second cousins.

I thought highly of these relatives, and was always honoured when Johanna would ask me to come over to play under their big spreading tree in the front yard, or even inside where she had a room of her own. Mom would not let me go unless invited, but I felt rather proud of the times I got to spend with this cousin.

On the east side of us where a great uncle and aunt on the farm my Mom’s grandparents used to own. Further down a hill and in the coulee, on the other side of the road was another great aunt and uncle, and if you followed the road to the intersection and turned south a ways, there was yet another great uncle and aunt’s farm. In the woods on that farm was a cabin. When their son and daughter-in-law with their children came home on furlough from a missions term up north, they would live in that cabin for a while. They had a daughter named Lois, who was near my age. She and Johanna were both second cousins of mine, but first cousins to each other.

I made a very upsetting discovery though. When the three of us played together, the other two whispered and giggled a lot and started pulling tricks on me. Mostly to leave me out or to give me a very negative role in our games. I don’t recall the exact details of one crucial afternoon, but I remember that we were playing some kind of post office under the big tree, and that the cousins would hide and I had to find them to continue our play time.

Finally I felt so hurt and wounded that I just turned down the gravel driveway and walked past my grandparents’ home (my most favourite place in the village) and went home to cry. I thought I’d never get to play with either of them again. I felt totally friendless.

So I was rather surprised to find that whenever I was with either cousin alone, we got along fine. But if all three of us were together, I was unwanted and snubbed. Later, when we moved to town, I found Lois was often at her other grandmother’s place next door to us and she liked to come play “house” in our attic. We had wonderful play times together.

This may seem a negative memory, but lately I’ve come to realize that we tend to snub our friends when we want to impress another friend that we grade of higher value. I admit to my shame that I’ve done this myself. And yet – strangely enough, I believe those early experiences have taught me to look out for the potential friend on the sidelines, and to try to draw them in.

During my years as a Pioneer Girls and an AWANA leader, I always worked hard at making the misfits feel included and loved. Somehow I’ve never quite lost the feel of being friendless. I remembered enough to empathize well.

However, it is not my main feeling. I have learned to know the very BEST Friend, who never snubs us for someone else, and who always has time to wrap His arms around us and hear all our hurts and pain. If we ask His advice, He teaches us to be a better friend to others, and He helps us forgive and let go of painful memories.

We’ve had far too much rain for most folks around here, (I wouldn’t mind some sunny days already either), but my garden has thrived with all that moisture! I took a walk around in the rain yesterday after supper with my camera. Would you like to come along?

See the garden photo story for this month Right Here

A quick review of the assignment last week in preparation for setting up a blog. You were to mull over or consider these questions;
1. What would you most enjoy writing about?
2. Picture your target reader. Who would you be writing to?
3. Go do a Google search to see if anyone else is doing that already. Is your angle better? Are they finding a following? Then you likely would too!
4. Prepare your personal testimony for the “About me” page.

You have those answers all written down or at the tip of your tongue? All right. Then let me guide you into starting your first blog.

First we need to consider some practical aspects.

If you consider yourself computer illiterate and you can’t handle anything more complicated than logging in to your email account at yahoo or gmail and posting an email, then we’ll stick to the very simplest blog of all.

If you are more computer savvy and would like something with more class, something you can personalize, and where you can control what ads appear there, or even make some money with your blog then I have another suggestion for you.

The Simplest Blog.

Go to one of the many web-based free blog sites and sign up for an account. Choose your username carefully as it is likely to be part of your blog’s address on the web. Would you do good evangelism if your blog address ends up as, //poopydiaper.blogspot.com? Maybe this would work better, //meaning-of-life.wordpress.com?

Where are those free blog sites?
wordpress.com
blogger.com
zooloo.com
livejournal.com
There are many more, if you want to do a search for them.

Plus, some that charge;
Typepad.com (free trial period then < $5/month)
squarespace.com 14 day free trial – (5 price plans!)

This site has done a review of the top 10 and compares them;
blog-services-review.toptenreviews.com/

Now, there is a certain stigma that comes with a blog that is a sub-domain of another site, such as yourname.blogger.com (the part before the first dot is a sub-domain). There is also the matter that on many of those blogs, the true site owner will put up advertising banners and make money on the clicks from YOUR visitors to the blog. You usually cannot delete a blog you start there. The site owner would rather leave it up so they can continue to profit from those ads.

The second option, should you want to avoid those negatives, is to get a domain (you can do register one at GoDaddy.com for less than $10/yr), and some low priced hosting service. Then you download and install the free WordPress software from WordPress.org, following the instructions. You can hunt through 100s of free templates and personalize your blog so that it is distinctively your own. It is possible to switch between templates or “looks” with just a click or two selecting the one you want today.

You will learn some things as you go, but I would strongly advise installing the Akismet plugin to handle the spam of people hoping to place comments on your blog that will draw traffic to their “unwise” sites.

With either type of blog, you then must bookmark your login page, and make a regular habit of going there to post your thought-provoking blog entries. in WordPress (and some others) you can with a click activate auto-notification to some blog directories and feeds that you have a new post entered, and this will start to draw visitors to your blog.

From there on it is up to you to write good content that will win over friends and present the good evangel to those open to it.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to search and visit other blogs to see what they are saying, and perhaps making a good comment so that that blogger will come to see your blog. All with discretion and good manners, mind you, remembering the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.

P.S. I offer a hosting service at an excellent price, and could install WordPress for you for a very reasonable fee, if you don’t mind waiting until I can fit you in.

Did you do your research into blogs “on evangelism” or blogs that “do evangelism”?

I come from doing fresh research just now, and I’m brimming with tips and ideas. I’ll try to keep them brief, and save some for next week.

First, there is a difference between a blog and a website, although you can certainly make a blog part of your website. I do. There is also a difference in how to do evangelism on both. A normal website allows you to spread out your information into many pages and even categories with sub-categories. Although a blog allows you to archive older posts, it mainly is like the front page of a newspaper. You have to make your point right there, and don’t have much room to expand. in fact, short and pithy is best in a blog.

So if you want to evangelize from your blog, intending to reach those who do not know Christ yet, then your tone there should constantly be waving them to stop on the highway of life to hear what you want to tell them. If you can build a relationship so they keep coming back to your blog you can go deeper, but – you are still trying to address all those others passing by. A little dilemma there, right?

Secondly. Ideally, you do want to build a relationship with a good following, who come back to see what you write each day or week or whatever. Or like the people you meet as you commute to work and back. It takes a long time with just a comment now and then, to build a relationship so they trust you and look forward to hearing from you. If you want to win them, you should avoid the habit of secular bloggers who rant and unload their daily dump of negative thinking and complaining. That may be cute and catchy at first, but folks will start to “cross the street” – so to speak, to avoid your blog if you do that.

Thirdly, to reach secular people you need to know what they think, fear, or yearn for most. You need to relate well to them, but be able to draw them from that viewpoint to the Christian view and explain it so that it makes sense to them. That calls for more research! There are blog directories where you can find them, such as; BlogCatalog [http://www.blogcatalog.com] and Technorati [www.technorati.com] or in the Weblog Awards. [www.weblogawards.org]

Fourth. You can focus on a niche group of people who have a similar interest of hobby or passion as you do. then use that as a bridge to introduce them to Christ and His claims. This is far more likely to be successful, and you’ll enjoy it more. So build a blog around a secular topic you know well, and write compellingly and openly about yourself.

Ack-hmm. Have you noticed that this is what I do in the RoseBouquet? I carry over the theme from my novel, which is about friendship and mentoring, and assuming that people like to get to know another person (me) as our friendship blossoms, I share about my own thoughts and doings. I share far more than I get back from my vast circle of internet or blog friends, but when they do connect, it is always the personal stuff I shared about my garden or cat, etc., to which they respond.

I do not hide my faith in God or that I pray, and from time to time, some stranger writes and asks my advice or for me to pray for them. I suspect, however, that they’ve been reading the RoseBouquet for quite a while before they got up the courage to write me. I recognize and delete garbage fast, but I ALWAYS take time to answer such emails! I don’t polish that much with comments, and don’t repeat such conversations for others to see, but I consider that one of the important parts of my life online.

This may be enough for this week. Maybe next week we can cover how to actually set up and start a blog.

In the meantime, let me give you something to mull over, if you are hankering for a blog;
1. What would you most enjoy writing about?
2. Picture your target reader. Who would you be writing to?
3. Go do a Google search to see if anyone else is doing that already. Is your angle better? Are they finding a following? Then you likely would too!
4. Prepare your personal testimony for the “About me” page.

This Saturday Western Tract Mission is having a Walkathon as a fund-raiser. Friends and supporters join the staff as they walk about 7-8 km walk alongside the wide Saskatchewan river that flows through Saskatoon. My role is to take photos before they start out, then drive to the Kinsmen Park, where I help set up for the picnic/barbecue at noon, and I count the sponsor monies that the walkers have turned in, to see who qualifies for the prizes.

If you are within driving distance, do come join us at 10 am on Spadina Crescent North, near White Swan Drive.

About a month of rains seem to have come to an end and we have had sunny days now since Saturday. Showers are due later today and tomorrow, but hopefully there will be plenty of sun again on Saturday.

As for business… do you recall the old song about the frog on the lily pad, doin’ what he ought’a? That’s me. I’m sitting in front of my computer(s) doin’ what I ought’a, and glad of it.

Do you know the contentment that comes with that?

If you are excited about something or have a passion for some vital information that you want to tell the world, (such as the good news of salvation from death to eternal life), how would you go about spreading such news on the Internet?

A friend has a burning desire to know this, so I’ve decided to give a little virtual workshop here in how to proceed. Remembering that when we learn new stuff we need time to do it in slow steps so as not to be overwhelmed, I’m going to break this down into simple phases or stages.

One method is to write a regular blog. But you need to learn a few things about a blog first.

What is a blog? It is an abbreviation for web-log, which is basically an open to the public, daily or weekly (…or sadly, in many cases, with only occasional entries) personal diary or journal.

If you can write good quality content that people love, and write regularly on a blog, you can develop a loyal following. Then you can speak to them from your heart and tell them what is important to you, or share the messages you have a passion about.

Great goal. But there are some pros and cons and things to learn about blogs before you can use them effectively for evangelism. Otherwise, your blog is likely to slide into the swamp of neglected blogs that are as old as last week’s newspapers. People turn their noses up at them.

If you were sitting at my side here, I would take you on a little research trip online. I’d want to make sure you understand what a browser is (the program by which you go see or do anything online when it is connected to the internet), and what kinds of blogs are out there.

Do you know how to do a Google search? (or with any other favourite search engine such as Yahoo, Ask, Wikipedia, etc.?) Then let me give you a little homework assignment until next Tuesday.

Find your search engine blank on your browser. Type into that blank; blogs + evangelism. (Yes, both words with a plus sign between them). Hit Enter.

The very first link that shows up on the results page, is likely to be this one; Blogging as evangelism That has some excellent information. Take time to read it.

When done, go back to the results page, and follow some of the other links. Take time to read those pages and to explore further if they have links that relate to this. All this reading will give you an education. You can make notes as you read to help you sort through the ideas and suggestions offered.

If you follow the link from this first one to the link under “Meet some Web Evangelists” you will find on this page; Web Evangelists links to a long list of people who already do good evangelism from their blogs.

Are you serious about this? Then I recommend you visit their blogs, and read and read…! You’ll get a sense of how this is done by those who do it well, and will get a better sense of whether you could do it, besides seeing what quality of evangelism is already happening out there.

I’m going to do some more research myself and we’ll see about how to move forward with this, and what other options there are. See you next week!