L o n g Awaited Camp Pics

3Cuties




Us


Nate and Rachel

Caleb and Anna





Moffitts

Kicking back

Josh C., Andy, Nate

Camp - one of the better things in life

Ozark 2 was a great time! We love the fellowship, spiritual encouaragement, activities, and for me not having to cook all week!

Fellowship

These are some of the many people we enjoyed:
Phil and Martha, grandparents are the best and our children have the best!
Nate and Rachel and our adorable nephews, Micah and Ezra.
Kim Dillon and one of Leyla's favorite friend's Ana, we had such fun catching up as we crossed paths for one day in between camps. They will soon be adopting a baby girl, Ruth Colean! We will have to plan a trip to CO to meet her.
Caleb and Anna who stopped Sat night till Sun afternoon, what a happy married couple they are!
Andrew and Holly with sweet little James, who was all smiles.
Josh and Brook they were only there a couple days, but Josh's t-shirts kept us laughing
Rory Baily with her cuties, Jacob and Joel
Abby Chesney, Leyla loved her little girl, Cami. Michael was a great bug collector. Her hubby couldn't make it, maybe next year.
Josh and Rachel Chesney She is prego and due in about 6 wks. with a girl to be named Addison Rebecca
Glen and Joy Thompson their 2 girls are Leyla and Chloe's age, Katara and Sammilayne they had a great time together.
The Moffitts, yes they were all there, except Becky. The cousins were such a help in entertaining the kids, so nice.

Spiritual Encouragement:

Sam Thorpe from GA was the general session speaker. He spoke on the importance of the Breaking of Bread. It was refreshing to be reminded of our role as priests and how Christ is so worthy of our worship. We have the priviledge and responsibility to remember His death through the simple yet profound symbols of the bread and wine.

Grady Dollar from TX taught an elective on prayer. Some of his points were:
1. Pray with an open Bible, pray the Word. Jn. 5:14-15
2. Serious prayer is noted for it's transparency. Dan. 9:5-6
3. Serious prayer always has the glory of God at stake. Dan 9:17-19
4. Serious prayer is communion with God, it brings revelation, understanding and wisdom. Dan. 9: 20-23
5. Serious prayer gets results.

Activities:

We swam everyday considering the upper 90 degree weather. One day we did a tube float down the river. The kids were a little timid, but were fine in all their floaties. Upon entering, Leyla flipped out about the fog she saw in the river (stirred up mud) and of course didn't want to get her shoes dirty. ;)

Leyla loved going to morning kids classes. Her favorite was doing the craft, hopefully she learned something too.

Andy and Glen got squashed in 2 on 2 volleyball. Those Chesney boys have another thing coming next year!

Andy helped cook all afternoon one day. We served a meal and pawned the kids off to g'ma and g'pa. Next year we hope to help out more. Those Lindamoods sure work hard in that kitchen!

So if you want to go to camp here's more details http://www.turkeyhillranch.com. We are a little bias because afterall it's where we fell in love... Jenica

Check back for pictures!......

What behaviors do you train your children?

Thanks to those of you who took part in my email survey. It turned out better than I expected actually. For the uninformed, I sent out an email requesting input to the five top character traits, behaviors, etc. that those who have raised children tried to teach their kids as they raised them. I wish I could have included others in the email, but since I don’t email very often, I don’t have a very good address list.

Here is the list in alphabetical order. Repetitions have been left in.

Biblical convictions
Concern for the unsaved
Contentment
Contentment
Creativity
Curiosity
Determination
Discernment
Faith First
Family Importance
fear of God
Flexibility
Godliness
Godliness
Good Manners
Having faith
Heart for God
Honesty
Honesty
Honor
Integrity
Integrity
Integrity
Integrity
Joy
Keep strong
Keep the Faith
Laugh - at everything you can
Love
Love for God's Word
Love for reading
Love of reading, learning, and music
Loyalty
Obedience
Other's before yourself
Patience
Power and authenticity of the Word of God
Productivity
putting church first
quiet time and spend time in the Word
Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft
Relationship with Jesus Christ
Respect
Respect for authority
Responsibility
Self-discipline
Servant heart
Service
Stewardship
Tell the truth
Work ethic
work ethic
Work hard - play harder (sounds like a bumper sticker)

What I find fascinating is to look at these in summation. Unequivocally, you parents have desired to teach things contrary to their nature – things they will not learn on their own except perhaps by experience, which of course unfortunately comes too late. And if that premise is correct, than these behaviors are trained in, not coaxed out! How profoundly this speaks of the nature of humankind. The basic premise of an anthropocentric view is that man is good, but just needs to improve in areas by coaxing out the right behaviors. If this were true, why is it so hard to teach our children honesty, love, and unselfishness? Again I say that it is difficult because we are working against their nature.

There seems to be two levels of behavior people are after. The first is model citizenry which is moral behavior, regardless of the motivation. I would venture to state that experienced adults, as moral beings (whether born-again or not), realize the truth in the statement that “virtue is its own reward”. Generally, avoiding a life of poor decisions and / or sin, leads to an avoidance of those consequences as well. It is true that those who do not know Christ as Savior can mimic Christ likeness if they unknowingly follow His principles such as the ones you all listed. But morality and model citizenry are just the first step. The second level is Christ-likeness. Things such as good manners, responsibility, work ethic, integrity, determination, are behaviors which are important for this life but also the foundation from which the next level is created – godliness, love, love for God’s word, joy, faith, etc (hmmm…does this sound strangely like the fruit of the spirit?). All parents desire the first level for the their kids, Christian parents desire the second level for their kids.

Aunt Mona had a pretty thought provoking comment, and I quote “This is wordy, but a few more thoughts! I never ever viewed the children in the moment - I enjoyed them, every stage of them, but I never viewed them at that moment. I always asked myself - if this behavior takes root in their lives what will they have to deal with as an adult if this remains.” I like this concept, and I don’t need to comment.

One last comment. My dad listed a few that I didn’t realize he was trying to teach. In fact, I don’t think I could list the top 5 things my dad and mom taught me. What they did best was model the behavior. Yes of course there was instruction, but instead of teaching a handful of concepts, they modeled a plethora of them. Thanks mom and dad.

Backpacking in colorado

Some buddies and I decided to go backpacking in the San Isabel national forest in colorado last weekend. What a fantastic trip we had. We hiked three 14'ers in two days - Mt. Missouri, Mt. Belford, and Mt. Oxford. For those of you who do not know what a 14'er is, it is a mountaint whose peak is 14,000 feet or greater, and rises 300 feet above the next adjacent mountain. There are 53 I believe in colorado, the tallest of which is Mt Elbert at 14,433. The above links will give you some stats and pictures of those peaks if you are interested. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of my own at this time.

The weather was perfect, but us lowlanders where in for a harder time than we imagined. We were definetly huffing and puffing, a couple got pretty bad altitude sickness, but we made it with no injuries or no one tumbling off the mountain. I discovered trekking poles for the first time as I bought some before leaving. I've done a fair amount of hiking / backpacking, but I won't be doing any more without poles. They really are helpful and work great as a lightning rod on top of the peak. Hiking companions appreciate knowing they will be the second ones hit.

It had been a while since I have tackled anything this arduous, and I had forgotten how deceptive hiking can be. It is tempting to look across a valley, up over a ridge, up at a peak, etc and say to your self, oh that doesn't look that bad, only to find when you get up close that was the worse thing you could have done.

I'll post some pictures when I get them from the others as I did not take a camera.

an update of our not so interesting life...

another saturday morning update here. We have decided to embark on a bit of remodeling for our home. It will be a bit of a process, but I don't think we are in any hurry. We are going to redo the laundry room, downstairs bath, and kitchen (eventually). We got a new washer and dryer from Jenica's dad. He works at Frigidaire, and they delivered a top of the line test model for free, but we have to complete surveys on it for a year. Hmmmm...lets think about that for a while...ok, we'll take it! Now if only BMW did that.

Leyla is sure an interesting kid. She does not like change (to an extreme) we have discovered. She broke down crying when she saw the new washer and dryer, saying she just likes our old one. The other day the city came by and cut down our dying 80 year old maple tree, and that was pretty upsetting to Leyla as well. She also doesn't want us doing any remodelling. And on an unrelated note, the other day she called Chloe a "naughty greedy little pig" when they weren't getting along. And for one more Leylaism, the day before her birthday, when I took her out on a date and we were discussing her upcoming birthday, she squeezed her eyes tight and said with upmost longing, "oh I wish tomorrow were today!".

Last weekend I took Jenica on a weekend getaway to the "Amana Colonies", which is a historic german village in central Iowa. I didn't know much about it, but went ahead and booked a bed and breakfast and bought some tickets to the local theatre there. Well, no one clued me in the unwritten law that you had to be retired to be there. When we walked into the theatre, and saw that we were the only people there under 65, we felt a little intimidated. Not that we don't enjoy and respect the elderly, we just felt our of place. And not to mention that everything at the Amana's seemed subpar. The food wasn't that great, the bed and breakfast was relatively pitiful, and the play we saw had a story line about as interesting as "see spot run". We did a little wine tasting as well - I never new you could make "dandelion" wine. It was interesting, but it definitely curbed my urges to go out and eat dandelions.

We had fun just being together without kids. As I grow closer to my wife it is amazing how much joy there is in having a deep relationship with another person. Someone you love to just be with and commune with. The absolute best part of the weekend was the trip back - we took a backroads highway, windows down sunroof open music on holding hands blasting down the highway about as fast as we dared. Proof to the saying that any happily married couple knows: it doesn't matter what you do as long as it is together. In fact, I have decided when it comes to just being together less is indeed more. Simple times are often just as - or more - enjoyable as the busy planned out vacations.

some devotional thoughts...

This year I started what is looking to be a two year "read the Bible in year" program with a friend from church, and recently read these verses which has caused me to think a bit.

1Sam 2:29 Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Why do you honour your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel? (NIV)

This is written to the priest Eli concerning his derelict sons in the time of Samuel, you can read the rest of the context if you are interested, I won't post it here.

Here is what caused me to think: this verse specifically links honoring God and the relative quality of the offering - and so God was dishonored by Eli and his sons not giving the best, but rather giving the remains in their offerings. Fast forward to 2006 and relate this concept to the new testament church. This may sound trivial, but I have rarely thought of giving in these terms of honoring God, or specifically that not giving the best to God is to dishonor Him, or at least honor self above Him! Yes I understand there is liberty and God loves a cheerful giver and so on, but when was the last time you or I looked at our online banking statements (or check book for you older people) and made sure the best part was going to God and not the remnants? And then thought if it is not the best, then we are dishonoring Him, or honoring our selves above him.

We can rationalize anything my dad used to say (and still does, if you were wondering) and I would add that the first step is in watering down the terminology. Consider the current debate in our nation concerning immigrants - they are now being called "undocummented" immigrants as opposed to "illegal". Like I said, the first step of rationalization is watering down the terminology. Words like sin are dificult to rationalize so they must be marginalized and made more palatable. My point here is that we don't realize how most Christians act with their finances is dishonoring to God, even though we usuall don't call it that way.

Notice the quality of the offering in the Bible is never absolute to all givers, but rather relative. The poor did not have to offer the same absolute as the rich, but relative - the best they had. Whatever state we are in, we ought not to dishonor him in our offerings.