Doers of the word

Hey everyone. Sorry I have not contributed more to our blog. I truly do miss writing as often as I used to. Please know that I am praying for many of you. Please feel free to let Beth and I know if there is anything else we can be praying about. I wanted to share what I have been convicted of recently.

"Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." James 1:21-27

I was thinking about the all of the different religious activities that Christians participate in. Conventions, retreats, book clubs, Bible studies, small groups, etc; these things are not bad in themselves but what is our purpose behind them? Why do I study the Bible? Is it so I can quote scripture and have the answer, or so that I may know the will of the Father and walk in His ways? Some of you may know that Beth and I have a Bible study at our place each Monday. It would be truly sad if all we did was read God's word and leave it at that. If I simply know the word, but do not live out what the word says in my life, then what have I accomplished? If I read God's word and know that I and the rest of the world are sinful, and there is only one way to the Father then why does my heart not break for my fellow man? Why would I keep such important news to myself? If I know that God's word says for me to love my neighbor but I am no better than the tax collector, only loving those that I choose, then have I really learned anything? I am deceiving myself, becoming comfortable with knowing what is right, but not necessarily doing what is right. My prayer is that we would put into practice what we already know to be true. God help me to truly desire righteousness. Help me to lay aside the wisdom of this world. Help me to put your truth into action that I might bring glory to Your name.

12 men decided to stop what they were doing and follow Christ. Through their faith God used them to change the world. Today there are more than 2 billion who claim to be followers of Christ. What are we doing?

Oh, dogs and turtles....

Well, I know it's been about 9 years since we last updated. Let me tell you, we have been SOOOOO busy (that and April was the longest month of my life). Alex is still slaving away at the chip facotry, making fatty snacks for you and me. He had an employee who got his finger cut off (almost). They sewed it back on and it's growing quite nicely now. How pleasant. He recently won a company wide award- the EcoHero award. One of his coworkers nominated him for his (our) efforts to help the environment. Ironically, shortly before he recieved this honor, all of the worms in the worm bin suffocated and met an untimely death. We still haven't recovered. Our recycling is coming along quite nicely, though.

My jobssss are good. I'm tired alot but summer is in three weeks! Can we say "Yes"??? My ESL class is goin pretty good. Most of the other teachers have lost alot of their classes (attendance drops off at the end of the year) but I'm sitting at about 50% attendance, which I take as a compliment. We've had some very fun times. I've started teaching them English phrases that they may use and be very confused by, such as: "He kicked the bucket" meaning "He died" (they thought that was a scream). Bahahaha.

The day job is really fun. It's slowing down since it's the end of the year. I've really enjoyed getting to know the kids and the people I work with are just lovely. Last Friday I went and got snowcones with two coworkers (whoo-hoo! Friends!). Just this week, I translated some official documents and when I sent them to get them checked, the official document translator for the district commended me for my translations. It felt good to get that kind of encouragment. Sometimes, I still lack confidence in my Spanish abilities so its nice to hear some good things. I've learned alot about poop and worms in this job, so that's always useful knowledge. Last week, I watched a kid poop in his pants while he was standing right in front of me and then at my next school another kid did it twice in an hour. Fun day!

We've been super super busy. People have been coming here to visit and we've been visiting family and friends and such. It's been really fun to have so many guests. Summer's not looking much calmer. Leah and I are going to Cozumel for her graduation trip and Alex and I are going to take a road trip to Tennessee to camp in the Smoky Mountains. I'm going to go visit College Station a few times and go to Abilene for a couple of days to teach my mom some fun recipes.

Our newest and most exciting news is that we have pets now. My parents brought us a box turtle named Ed who wanders around in our backyard. We're trying to train him to come to the porch when we ring a bell to tell him that it's time to eat. It's slow going. Go figure. We also got a puppy! We were going to wait until June but she was just too cute at Canton. Her name is Gracie. She's 3 months old today and she's a schnauzer/sheltie mix. According to a recent study taken while walking at the park, she's a really cute dog. Here are some pictures:

She's fun most of the time. She's learned to go to the door when she needs out (almost all the time) and it's only been two weeks. She likes to go to sleep in your lap and eat dirt. Alex and I have been exhausted because she has to go outside every 3 hours (even at night!) but she's been doing alot better. Last night she slept from 11 to 5am. Halleluia!

While her name (Gracie) is pretty cute, it's also functional. God has been using this God to teach me about HIS Grace. For instance, although the dog knows that she shouldn't pee inside, sometimes she still does it. Modern dog training states that if you didn't catch it, you don't punish. You simply clean it up and move on with your life. The trick is to catch her in the act and redirect. It's weird for me to not want to punish her for something that she clearly knows is wrong but when I think about it, God gives us the same gift. There are times when we are distracted or too busy to remember what God really wants us to do and we mess up. Sometimes there are natural consequences to our sin but He promises

11For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalms 103

How crazy is it that as long as we recognize we messed up, God forgives us and separates our sin from us that far! It has been such a blessing to experience in a small way how the concept of giving grace works. There are times when I have to be compassionate and remember that she is only a puppy. How wonderful to have a Creator who knows us that much better than I know my dog. If I can learn this from a puppy, who knows how much I'll learn from children??

:)