Circle of Love II

I had an earlier post about a circle of love for college dorms, and now I need to share some more on the circle of love for the Christian family.
First, the Christian family is not always a husband and a wife and some kids.  Sometimes it is two women living together, similar to the case of Ruth and Naomi.  Sometimes it is a polygamous family in rural Africa.  Sometimes it is what it is.  Whatever family you find yourself in, you can use the idea of circle of love, if there are people in your family willing to talk.
The circle of love is for talking and listening.  It is a circle of couches or chairs in which people can talk with one another.  Here are some ideas regarding the circle of love.
1.  Turn the TV and internet phones off.
2.  Ask the one who does not share as much if there is anything they would like to share.
3.  Let each person talk about whatever they want.
4.  Practice your listening skills.
5.  Talk about where you would like to live.
6.  Talk about a dream vacation.
7.  Talk about your favorite food.
8,  Talk about your favorite book or movie.
9.  Talk about stories from the past, so that they can be passed on to the next generation.
10.  Talk about things you want to do as a family.

cherry trees and a lilac hedge

This is my idea of late.  We recently tore down our garage in hopes of creating a backyard, and our backyard still has its challenges, between our dogs keeping the mud muddy and the various empty beer cans, cigarette packs and God only know what else scattered as litter as the wind blows it to and fro.  Our backyard would possibly be a challenge to a green thumb, and our thumbs are not green.
At first I thought I would grow blueberry bushes as a hedge, and I was uber excited about having enough blueberries to supply our family and the apartments behind our house.  But there was this thing that I learned about growing blueberry bushes:  the soil needed to be quite acidic, with a PH around 4 or 5.  So I did a PH test of our soil that I learned over the internet which was, 1.  collect a sample of said soil in two cups.  2.  pour vinegar in one cup and baking soda mixed with water in another cup.  3.  If the vinegar cup bubbles you have alkeline soil, and if the baking soda cup bubbles you have acidic soil.  Eventually, the vinegar cup bubbled.  So scrap the blueberry hedge.
When I went to college, there was a lilac bush outside of the library and smelling that bush was one of the best smells ever for me, and the more I read about lilacs, the more I wanted a hedge.  So now my idea is to plant two cherry trees as "fenceposts" on the ends and then along the fence to plant four or five lilac bushes.
Will this idea work?  I do not know, especially because in our house we love love love BING cherries, although I am not a fan of the bing web browser.  So will our bing cherries and our tartanian mix well and grow well and get enough water and not get to cold?  Maybe you can tell me.

Fire Emergency Plan

Every family should have a fire emergency plan.  Does your family have a fire emergency plan?  Here are some questions to get you thinking:
How many smoke detectors do you have installed in your house?
How close are the smoke detectors to where you sleep?
Do the smoke detectors have batteries in them?
Have you tested the smoke detectors yet in 2012? or in May 2012?
Are there two escape routes in each bedroom in your house?
If you have a two or more story house, do you have a fire ladder?
If there was a fire, do your children know whether or not they should trust firemen and firewoman in suits and masks - the people whose specific purpose is to save your child?
If there is an emergency, does your child know that they should get out of the house?
Do you as a family have a meeting place if your house burns down?
Have you practiced your fire emergency plan?
Does your child know whether or not they should go back into the burning house for a pet or toy or other reasons?
Does your child know about smoke and its dangers?

Here are a few other websites to look at concerning fire safety:
http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d8aaecf214c576bf971e4cfe43181aa0/?vgnextoid=72c51a53f1c37110VgnVCM1000003481a10aRCRD

http://www.escapesafe.org/pdf/EN/evacuation_plan.pdf

http://www.disastercenter.com/guide/family.htm

Seminary

When we were in Kenya we felt the Lord calling us to Seminary.  We did not know much about Seminary, but we were trying to learn.  We looked into Trinity in Deerfield, IL, Southern in Lousiville, and Asbury in Wilmore, KY.  We chose Asbury mostly because it seemed the most family oriented for our family at least.  Going to Seminary was definitely a family experience, with daddy working crazy hours in the middle of the night and chanting Hebrew paradigms, qatal, qatalah, qataltah, qatalt. . .
So maybe your family is thinking of going to Seminary, maybe you should think and pray about it.
I used to think that Seminary is cemetary, that you go to Seminary to stop worshipping Jesus and stop believing in Him.  At Asbury and many other Seminaries across the world, I learned more about the great and wonderful love of God through Jesus.  Of course there are many different kind of Seminaries, so look closely. . .

Circle of Love

I got one of my best Christian family ideas at college from a room in the dorm above me.  The dorm above my was called the brotherhood, and it had a phuBBBBs, a pope, and a snake, and other various a sundry people.   But one dorm room had a circle of love.  What is a circle of love?  It is a circle of couches in which a group of people can sit and talk and be with each other, without TV or whatever modern "entertainment" comes.  So my roommate and I decided to also make a circle of love, and at one point we had 4 couches in our room, with one of them being a fold out sleeper couch.  There was lots of room to sit.  The only down side of this was when a creature named fozzy bear let in a dog that slept in the circle of love and then peed on the couch.  So in our house today we have 3 couches in which people can sit and talk and be with each other.  Sadly, I have let creep in a TV.  So how many couches do you have in your circle of love?  Is your home a place where people can sit and talk and be with each other?

World Map

When I graduated from college my fiance's parents got me a graduation gift they knew I wanted.  A world map.  We had a backing put on it and we have put it, or a map like it, up wherever we lived.  We have in fact lived in various places of the world.  But even if we only lived in one small town, like say Nazareth, with a world map we can know so many other towns, cities, countries, oceans.  Our kids get to see the world even day, even if only subliminally.  Of course world maps change.  Africa has been divided up many different ways, and even the way it is divided up now makes little sense to the tribe it divides.  You can see Australia and the source of iocane powder.  You can see that it truly is a bad idea to get involved in a land war in Asia.  You want to see the rivers of the world - the Amazon, the Nile, the Mississippi, and so many others - look.  Feast your eyes on this world we live in, from Kazakhstan to Western Sahara, from Walla Walla, Washington to Mombassa, Kenya, from Mount Everest to Lake Tanganyika.  So many places to go.  And it shows us what many times we need so desperately to know - we are so so so small, no matter how big we think we are.

Location. Location. Location.

My Grandpa always told me that the three most important things to consider when buying a house are 1. Location. 2. Location. 3. Location.  I think he is right, but people have different opinions of what location is important.  Do I want to make sure that the location. . . is not in the “bad” part of town?  . . .is in a “good” school system?  . . . will increase in value because it is a prime location spot?  Do I want to live. . . on a hill or mountain?  . . . near family, or away from family. . .where there are lots of things “to do”?   . . . in the middle of nowhere?  . . .with a big yard?  . . . by the ocean, or on a lake?  Oftentimes it seems that we choose the location of our homes solely based on our selfishness.  Could it be that there is Biblical Support for a theology of Location, or does location have nothing to do with Jesus Christ? 

“And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent in our neighborhood.”  Jesus thought location important too.  He left the best part of the universe, the best school system, the most prime real estate to live in a dark valley away from his Father.  He alone could offer the complaint with sincerity, “There is nothing to do here.”  He came to the bad part of the universe for us and was killed, and yet it seems that our main objective at times is to not move to the bad part of the world and be killed. 

You may think that I am tooting my own horn, since I live in the bad part of town, and lived in Africa.  But have I really risked anything at all?  What about Burma?  North Korea?  Afghanistan?  Somalia?  Who is going there?  You may say, “Oh, you can’t gothere!  They won’t let you!  They would kill you!”   If The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, can’t I go somewhere for the sake of the gospel, even if it means finding a way, and dying.  Jesus found a way to come and die, and yet we are always avoiding any risk of death.

Will my kids say, “Yeah, Dad always wanted to protect us, he made sure nothing happened to us. . . but he never really had anything he was willing to risk his life for, and he taught us to be safe, and to never risk our life for anything.  He taught us to walk away from the cross.”  I do not want my kids to say that. 

Maybe this post offends you.  Maybe it will be my kids who teach me this idea of Location when they go to Burma, North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia to pour out their lives for the gospel.  What a waste. . . . if they do not pour out their lives for the gospel, even unto death.

Cloth Diapers

My wife and I have four children, and all of them are now out of diapers.  We used a lot of cloth diapers, even though we also used disposable diapers at night and on trips.  Here are my top ten reasons for using cloth diapers:

10.  You learn the importance of washing your hands.

9.  When it leaks all over everything, you have an opportunity to develop patience.

8.  When it leaks all over everything, you have an excuse to leave wherever you are.

7.  When it leaks all over everything, you have an excuse to stay where you are.

6.  You will learn the benefits of a hose.

5.  “Up the back” sometimes happens with disposables, but washing it out always happens with cloth.

4.  Pinning the cloth diaper will also transfer to jobs such as duct taping a Tasmanian Devil or flossing a spitting cobra.

3.  You will save money in your pocket – you will spend time over your toilet.

2.  You will be able to say you recycle (definitely if you use them for biogas fuel).

1.  You will be able to tell your kids, “When I was a parent, we used cloth diapers!”

A Family Verse

We have a family verse.  My wife's family also had a family verse.  Theirs was Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."  Ours is a verse that is repeated through Scripture time and time again, and my wife was the first to notice this repeated theme through the Bible.  The verse we picked was Exodus 34:6, but it can be found in Psalms, Jonah and other places too I think.  It is God revealing his name.  "Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness."  We wrote the verse out and put it on our kids door to their bedroom.  Then we painted the verse on the wall of our living room.  I still think I would like to write the Hebrew of this verse above our front door, but we have not done that yet.  So what is your family verse?  Sometimes I think a verse is not enough.  Maybe you could have a family book, like the book of Ruth, or the book of Ephesians or the book of Deuteronomy or the book of Mark, or the double volume Luke-Acts.  That would take a lot more paint to paint on the wall, and you may need more than one wall.  What verse or book or chapter does your family resonate with, or is your family challenged by, or God has spoke to you through?   Paint it on your wall.  Your kids will grow up reading it over and over again.  

Communal Living

My wife and I have had several experiences of communal living in our lives so far.  Communal living is when two or more families live together in the same house.  That's our definition at least.  We lived with my dad after my mom died and when our first son was born.  My wife's sister also lived with us for a time and that experience was one I look back on and wonder, "What in the heck was I thinking?"  Because my own emotions were a roller coaster of death and life, and I had two wives, one I was married to and living with, and one "wife" who was my dad that I gave emotional support to.  I do not regret it, though, as it shaped my life.  Our first experience as a family was in communal living.  Then we left for Africa and lived communally with a family in a nice urban house, and then moved to a less nice rural house with three families pooping in buckets, living in candlelight, and listening to the rooster on the front porch.  At the end of our time in Africa, communal living was our savior, and our Savior opened the door for it.  Then we moved back to the states and lived with my brother and his wife as they found out that they were pregnant (extreme positive emotion), and then that the baby would most likely die (extreme negative emotion).  Later, my wife's other sister moved in with us for a time and then for a time again.  I feel that communal living is much like a marathon.  When you are doing it, you realize that this was a bad idea.  But when you have finished it, you start trying to figure out a way to do it again.  Our children have grown up knowing communal living, and also being blessed with close relationships with family and missionaries.  So this is an idea, not to rush into lightly, that could change your life.

Nix the Cable Bill

Here are my top ten reasons to nix your cable bill:
10.  You will have more money.
9.  You will burn more calories (you burn more calories staring at a blank wall than watching TV).
8.  You will buy less stuff because you will be out of the loop when it comes to commercials.
7.  You will read more, or if you can't read, you may learn how.
6.  Your husband will have fewer images of half naked women he is not married to.
5.  Your elementary school boys will have fewer images of half naked women you hope he never marries.
4.  Your elementary school girls will have fewer anorexic images of half naked girls whose only value is how good they look.
3.  You may find yourself praying.
2.  You may read the Bible.
1.  Possibly, it may lead to talking, and maybe you and your spouse will find more fun things to do than watching TV.