Garden Report and Other News

We just missed out on a killing frost last week. Friends that live 10 miles away lost most of their garden. It got down to 33, but the conditions weren't right for a frost.

We harvested our clove garlic last week and Caleb peeled and separated them today. The elephant garlic still isn't ready to harvest. We have been eating spinach and lettuce for a few weeks. We are going to have a hot spell over the next few days (low-to-mid 90s) and hope that they don't bolt. Ate our first broccoli head yesterday. I noticed that the cabbage looper has found a few of the bushes. Our onions are starting to bulb. We have been eating green onions for a while. We have several squash growing on the plants right now. I guess this means that the squash borer will find our garden in the near future. Joshua planted some pole beans beside the corn stalks today. I have never grown beans up corn, but have heard it's a viable way of saving space...so we'll see. The tomato plants have blossoms as do the green pepper plants. There are buds but no blooms on the potatoes.

We got "lucky" this year. We usually have either a killing frost around Easter or extremely hot weather...which does in the cool-weather crops (not that I consider my small garden having crops).

I was reading in Genesis the other day about the time when Abraham lied to Pharaoh about Sarah being his sister. After they left Egypt it was said that Abraham was extremely wealthy. This was because he had cattle, gold, and silver. I don't have any cattle and very little gold and silver. As a matter-of-a-fact, I do have a little stock in a gold mining company that is influential in the genocide that is occurring in the Congo. If that is true, then I will be selling that particular stock.

As food prices continue to go up and up and up, I think it prudent to consider growing some of our own food. The cattle (gold and silver) that Abraham owned represented his ability to feed himself, his family, and those in need.

The trailer "house" that one of our AWANA children lived in burned this past Friday. He was at his grandmother's house when it happened. His mother got out okay, but they lost all of their worldly possessions.

Time for the Abrahams of our church to come up with some substantial help for the needy! Maybe I can sell that stock and help a family in need who lives in our little town!

Ministry

Deuteronomy 6 teaches us that fathers are responsible for training their own children to love the Lord with their whole hearts. We are required to teach them throughout the day. I buy into that wholeheartedly.

What about children who don't have fathers? Who is responsible to train them to know and serve the Lord? Is it their often drugged-out, multi-partnered mothers? or grandmothers? Is their school teachers, who would be fired for "separation of church and state" issues? No! It's us, of course. It surely isn't their real biological fathers, who have abandoned them to the world.

On Wednesday night, for 1 1/2 hours, we have an AWANA ministry at our church. We purchased an old (small) school bus from a rural school so we could pick up children and bring them to our church. On Wednesday night we have more people at our church than we do Sunday morning. That's because we believe that it's our responsible to tell these children about the love of Christ and train them to serve Him.

By-the-way, lest you scoff, it's not just about Wednesday night. Several of the children attend our Sunday morning service (picked up by church members) and you will find these children over at our houses and spending the night with us. Gasp!! We let the unwashed come into our homes?

We have had about thirty professions of faith the past two years, after six or seven years of none at all. The Lord knows how many of them are real. Our responsibility is to teach them the gospel of Christ and let the Lord change their lives.

Is it often tough? You bet it it is. I have around 10-15 children in my TNT club every week. The numbers are constant even though the children change. Every semester we have children come and go...they are an extremely mobile group. Some are hiding from CPS, some are hiding from abusive dads, and some are trying to get out of government housing.

Four of our children have fathers in prison. One has a mother in prison. One mother is hooked on meth and doesn't want her children to attend. One child goes home to satanic spiritualism. Others have drug addicted mothers. Some are raised by a number of "relatives." The one we pick up lives in a trailer with his mother. His mother works the evening shift...we have never seen her there when we pick him up or take him home. He goes home to an unlocked door and an empty trailer. Most of these children are told that they are losers and will never amount to anything at all.

Please don't think that I am tooting our horn or that we do it perfectly. We are simply trying to meet the need in our community for reaching out to those who need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. It's messy and gets tough at time. I wish, however, you could have been there the night that two new children (brothers, ages 10 and 11) insisted on immediately hearing more of the gospel of Christ. This was my first experience to have someone urgently ask to hear the gospel explained fully.

Rom 10:11 For the scripture saith, whoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Rom 10:12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all, is rich to all that call upon him,
Rom 10:13 For whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Rom 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Rom 10:15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things?