Friday, April 22, 2011

April In The Woods

 
 Greetings To All:
How have you been?  This past month has been less chaotic for us.  If you got our email you already know that none of us have been ill for a few weeks, which is nice.  We have also seen that large orange orb in the sky a couple of times.  And, this time on the blog I got the pictures to actually lay kind of how I wanted them to.  Oh happy day!  We've had a strange twist of our living situation:  Dakota actually wants to sleep in the same room as Desi.  We thought that was odd, but other parents are saying that their children ask the same thing.  So far it has worked out with neither one keeping the other up all night.  We're looking forward to not having to heat our home with the wood burner for a couple of months.  The days here are getting nicer, but the nights are still in the 30's. 
This month has been kind of slow on the course.  However, the phone has been ringing with clients that are scheduling for the rest of the season.  Bring it on!  Our team is continuing to find ways to teach participants Truth from the words they themselves use to  describe their experience.  It's an incredible experience of which to be a part.  When one of our participants, who I do not think is a Believer, said that he  finds comfort in the mere presence of people he trusts and that love him, I could barely contain myself.  However, I had to be creative in how I addressed the topic because that participant's group was here on government money.  And I think we are all aware of the government's lack of explicit support for anything Christian. 
The other day I did a devotional for our base staff meeting.  I would like to share it with you here; I'll give you the condensed version.  It is based from Psalm 139:13-14.  The human heart came to my mind.  How often do we ask each other, "How's your heart?" (And we don't mean the actual physical heart.)  God, our designer, has intricately made our heart, and we can see a spiritual parallel with the physical anatomy.   The heart has  four chambers; two for receiving blood, and two for sending blood away from the heart.  The right atrium recieves blood from the rest of the body(except the lungs.)  We take in all kinds information through our senses.  The blood then gets pumped down into the right ventricle.  We take the info we sense and think about and form opinions about it.  Next, the blood gets pumped to the lungs where it gets infused with life-giving oxygen.  After we mull something over, we pray and send it to God to receive His life-giving breath and counsel.  Once the blood has been properly oxygenated, it flows back to the left atrium, where it awaits travel to the left ventricle.  God hears our prayers, gives them back with His life in them, and we enter a time of preparation.  "Preparation for what?" Good question.  The life-giving blood is sent to the rest of the body where it fulfills its purpose: to bring life.  When our preparation time is done, we are ready to take our thoughts and prayers, now ready to be enacted, and bless people with them.  We help to give them life.  If you happen to look up a picture of a human heart, you will see that the muscular walls of the ventricles, the chambers used to send blood out, are thicker than the receiving atria.  Maybe it's God's way of saying that we are to live out the callings on our lives and not keep them to ourselves.  He equips us to be stronger in the giving than the receiving.  I ended the devotional again with the question,"How is your heart?" 
The human anatomy is fascinating to me.  And why wouldn't it be so marvelous?  Look at its Creator.  Well, I'll leave you with that little tidbit.  Thank you for taking the time to catch up with us.  The pictures of the girls are there for the cuteness factor.  The other picture is to give you a visual of one element that we have.  We had a group from a large lumber mill in the Northwest here for some teambuilding and Kathy got some good pictures of them.  Dakota and Kathy are getting a little restless to get outside more, and Desi is waiting to get her first true taste of summer fun on the playground.  We wish you a dry and warm Spring.
Many Blessings To You,
Carson, Kathleen, Dakota, Desislava

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