Happy Birthday, Lindsay!!

January 16th was Lindsay's 21st birthday. She is a blessing to have in our family. We have her to thank for this blog, as she is the one who does all of the design work and programming; I would be lost without her, in this realm and in many others! I am thankful that we have become very good friends. We can spend many hours discussing scriptures and their application with each other. We have jokingly titled her our experimental child, as we test all of our parenting theories out on her. She loves music and is learning to play both the guitar and banjo. She has acted in several plays, from American Girl to Shakespeare. We love to laugh together, and she has a great sense of humor. One of my favorite things about her, but don't tell her, is that she challenges me. If I say I think something or I believe the scriptures point a certain direction, she will challenge me to back it up. I can tend to swing my pendulum too far in one direction, and she will help me to see that. She loves to study the scripture and one of my favorite memories is of her searching the scriptures at the age of 10. We had been to see a play depicting Heaven and Hell, and she wanted to know what the Bible had to say on that subject and on the subject of Satan. She had sat in on my Precept Bible studies for years and had watched me use the Strong's Concordance and other study tools; therefore she was familiar with how to search and cross-reference scriptures. She found every name for Satan, and every scripture that mentioned him or hell and read them. She then read the whole book of Revelations, which intimidated me until a few years ago; I guess that's the example of the faith of a child. To this day, she is still like that, if she wants to know something, she will get all her reference books and begin to research it. She is often referred to as my research assistant, because when I'm pressed for time, I will ask her to search something out for me. I can trust her research because she will look at all sides of an issue and then come to a conclusion, as opposed to going into something with an agenda and then making up her mind. If you haven't visited
Lindsay's site before, I hope that you will. Here's a picture we took of Lindsay last May.

Catching up on posts

I know that it's been a while since I have posted; the weeks have flown by. During that time we've had two birthdays, Gene's had two trips out of town, the girls have been battling URIs and I have been ill(which is very unusual). I hope to post more often, I know, you've heard that before. But, during this time off, God has been showing me several things and I have a feeling a very large soap box is about to appear. I may post in rapid succession, but I want to be careful in what I say and how I say it, so we will have to see how rapidly they come out. Please feel free to share on any post, even a dissenting opinion, as long as it is done with a spirit of love, is welcome.

Our Anniversary

We had a great anniversary! After finding out what it was like to try to go out on New Year's Eve on our wedding night, we have always gone out on a alternate day. This year's alternate day was Thursday the 29th.

Last year Gene switched jobs, and with his new job he often goes out to eat. The man that he works with has lived outside the US for many years and really enjoys foreign food. Gene on the other hand likes very simple food such as hamburgers. He really doesn't like what we call Foo-foo food, whereas I enjoy many different things, just as long as it's not too hot. One of the types of food Gene had eaten was Indian, which made me quite jealous. I have been wanting to go to an Indian restaurant since he went, but there wasn't an Indian restaurant in Katy. When we went out last Thursday, Gene told me that he had a susrprise for me. He pulled up at a Indian restuarant here in Katy. The restaurant he had gone to was a buffet, which is always nice when you are trying something new, but this one wasn't. It was a very nice restaurant with a fountain inside and linen table cloths. It was also very quiet. It is often very frustrating trying to talk at a restaurant, because many times they are so loud. It was rather intimidating to be trying to order when you had absolutely no idea what things were. It turned out that what we ordered was really good, and I enjoyed it greatly.

Earlier last week, our 11 year old, Rachel, told us that she wanted to make us a picnic for our anniversary. On Saturday, the 31st, we went to
MaryJo Peckham Park, a park nearby that has a pond with ducks on it. It was a beautiful day with clear skies and a temperature of about 75. Rachel made us chicken tenders, potato wedges, homemade cheesecake, fried okra, and homemade rolls. After that, we went to see a movie, King Kong. We had a good time; the movie wasn't so great, but it was fun to have that time together, and it was a real blessing to have Rachel be so thoughtful.

Now that the New Year is here, we're working on schedules and the budget. We are sending out a New Year's letter as opposed to a Christmas letter, so I will be working on that the next few days. I hope to be doing a post that will be a year in review, including pictures. That may take time, and I hope to have it finished by Friday night.

Busyness of the Season

Time has flown since I last posted and my days have been quite full. We have had several people battling sinus and upper respritory infections here, but they all seem to be on the mend now. My parents came last Monday and left on Tuesday, Wednesday night we went caroling with the Pedersen family, tomorrow night we will visit a Messianic Jewish homechurch near here, Sunday night we will have church with the Pedersens along with Christmas dinner, Monday night we're having friends over for dinner and Tuesday night we will be meeting with some of our friends that will be in town from PA. On top of that, Gene is out witnessing tonight, as usual, and won't be home until about 1:30am. So, as you can see, things will be quite busy here for a few days. This is not how I usually schedule things; we try to keep our life much simpler than this, but this is just how things worked out this week.

December 31st will be our 22nd wedding anniversary; it's so hard to believe. In some ways it seems just like yesterday that we met, and in other ways it seems that Gene has always been a part of my life. I don't know if the fact that we met just a couple of months after I was saved had anything to do with it or not, but I'm thankful that he has been at my side for the last 22 years. The Lord truly blessed me to by providing me with such a wonderful, loving, Christian husband.

Here's a picture of us on our wedding day. I wish I could say that we haven't changed a bit... but who would believe that?!

Brittany's a Winner!

My niece Brittany Buck entered one of her drawings into the Saddleshop.com Christmas Contest. She was selected as a winner, and we are very proud of her. Brittany loves horses and competes in both Equestrian with her rescued horse, Lady Liberty, Libby for short, and Western with her paint horse, Nikki. She has done very well in the two years she's been competing.

Here is a picture of her with her horse Nikki.



Here is a picture of her with her horse Libby.

The Lord Has Been Busy With Me

The Lord has been using the past couple of weeks to get me to examine many areas of my life. One of the areas He has been dealing in greatly is evangelism. Now, for those who don't know us that well, my husband is very involved in Biblical evangelism. If you want to understand that more you can read his article Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. Gene has been very involved in this for nearly 3 years. We give out tracts wherever we go, and he goes out most every Friday night to witness one to one in downtown Houston. The girls and I often give out tracts when we go out, and I've gone with Gene to malls a few times, but only as an observer. I have approached a group of teens, and began a conversation with them, but didn't get very far due to my nerves. I have really been hiding behind my skirt when it comes to this issue. I have given many reasons, that, in reality, are just a bunch of platitudes. I have said things about my role as a wife, and questioned if as a woman I should approach a man to talk to him about Christ, and on and on. But, the truth of the matter is, that it was just a smoke screen. These thoughts were just a bunch of lies from Satan to keep me from doing the very thing that Christ called us all to do, "preach the gospel unto every creature." (Mark 16:15) That wasn't a conditional command. He also said, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15), and, "And he said unto them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men." (Matt 4:19) These don't sound like suggestions to me; it sounds as if these were our marching orders.

I was in a conversation recently where this came into question. The person I was speaking to asked me if I thought we were all required to witness to people. I was surprised by the question, but he was sincere. I answered him that yes, we are all commanded to evangelize, there are no exceptions made in the scripture. It doesn't say, "Preach the gospel unto every creature.... unless you are a teacher, or have the gift of helps or administration". No matter what our gifting, we are responsible for evangelizing, no ifs, ands, or buts. And to be clear, sharing the gospel means opening your mouth and sharing with someone that they will face hell if they are not saved on the day that they die. It isn't just living a good life and hoping that someone will come and ask you what's different about your life. How many people have done that to you lately, or ever? I can say that no one has ever done that to me.

The thing that God really showed me was that even though I was confident of what His word said, I wasn't putting it into practice as I should. Gene's favorite verse to quote to me, or anyone else that says they are terrified, is: "And I bretheren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, declaring unto you the testimony of God.For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." (1 Cor 2:1-3) He then looks at me, or whomever he is talking to, and says, "See, you're qualified, just like Paul!"

Now that God has fully gotten my attention and even made me convict myself by my own words, I have decided to go with Gene into downtown Houston on Friday night. Yes, it's going to be one of the coldest nights so far this fall, and yes, I'm going in weakness, fear and with much trembling. The next two verses in 1 Corinthians are what I'm going to focus on though: "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." (1 Cor 2:4-5). I covet your prayers for Gene and I and several others who will be downtown with people who are going to bars and who really need the gospel. And I challenge you to examine yourself and see if this also applies to your life.

If you are unsure how to share the gospel, please go to Living Waters or Way of the Master and you will find all the information you need.

E-mail Problems-- Continued

If you changed my e-mail after my last post about it.... beware, the problem wasn't fixed yet. For some reason when Lindsay changed the settings, they didn't take. I was only made aware of it several days later. So now the address is right. Sorry for the inconvenience.