Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Day 8

Monday, June 28
We spent a few hours in Wasilla and Anchorage trying to find a computer virus repair person. Finally gave it up, when several people kept telling us it would take 3 -4 days to clean the hard drive. It only has 7 gigs, for crying out loud. Ipods are bigger than this thing.. I guess my journal will be hand written for the rest of the trip.

Saw a sign along the highway almost to Anchorage that said, “Watch for Moose.” Then started noticing great circular patches of grass that were smushed down by the side of the road, and even in the medians, like a herd of something had been resting there. Later found out that’s where moose are nesting at night.

Loved the ride from Wasilla to Kenai. Finally, it is a sunny after noon! My fav part of the trip was around Turnagain Arm, where salt water flows in and beluga whales are often seen following their food source. We didn’t see any, of course.

Suddenly we are following a river, and the water is a beautiful turquoise color.

This is the Kenai River. Incredible colors.

Got to the Kenai River Raven Inn in Soldotna. We are the only guests here this week. It is a beautiful bed and breakfast. We have a big ol’ garden tub in our room, a private deck, and a view of the river…except you can’t see it very well for the trees. Dick and Stevie, the hosts, are friendly. Dick has lots of good tips for how to spend your time and where to go to see what. He’s the cook, too. Cheese and crackers for dinner, then i think i'll go soak for a while in the tub...glub, glub...

Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Day 7

Sunday, June 27
Been on the road for a week now. Today is Day 7. Rain again. Traveled from Tok to Wasilla.


The trees look like they belong in the Ewok Forest, or something equally Star Warish. Apparently because of the permafrost, the evergreen grow very tall and very skinny, so they just look really really awkward as far as being a real tree goes. They definitely would look more at home in a sci-fi movie.



Passed more glaciers. Cool how they push so much silt down in front of them, nano-inch by nano-inch by nano-inch.





Got to Wasilla early in the day. We’ve been on a Mexican food fast since we left Texas, so when we drove around Wasilla looking for a place to eat, our bike naturally just turned into a random Mexican food restaurant. It was decently good.

Staying at the Inn at Lake Lucille in Wasilla – so nice. Our room has a view of float planes landing on the lake. So tired I lay down and went to sleep at 7, fully clothed and on top of the bedspread, as soon as we unloaded the bike.

Some time during my nap, I heard Duane mumbling something about a computer virus, so I figured we were doomed. Have been using the Dell notebook to journal the trip every night, and he’s been using it to download his Garmin GPS stuff and make reservations for the next night down the road. Woke up at 10 p.m to shower, then slept til 7 a.m. Woke up finally rested. Tomorrow we reach our resting place for a few days -- the Kenai River Raven Inn in Soldotna.

Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Day 6

June 26
Breakfast was yummy! Glad the room had a refrigerator so we could have chocolate milk! Went from Whitehorse to Tok today. Right outside of Whitehorse, guess what we saw walking down the road? A white horse. Is that random or what??? Maybe they named the town after him.

It was a beautiful ride, at first. Ice fields stretched down the mountains like long snowy fingers. Loved the blue sky.

Frost heaves were so bad the road was totally torn up. Duane figured out how to ride over them like skiers going sideways over moguls, and it wasn’t so bad when he could do that – pretty ingenious, huh! My neck hurt by the end of the day, though, from all the jolts and bumps, and holding that heavy motorcycle helment on my head. Frost heaves were originally caused when the Alaska Highway was built and the road crews scraped off the permafrost to build the road. Now it freezes and refreezes all the time causing the road to buckle like crazy.

It was extremly windy and so freezing cold around Kluane Lake -- a big, big lake that the road seemed to follow forever around the shoreline.

Stopped for lunch at the visitors center at Beaver Creek. Talked to Ryan, the forest ranger guy inside, and told him my theory about the lupine and bluebonnets. He had never heard of bluebonnets, and i think he didnt' believe me at first....but pulled something up on his computer, and low and behold….they are of the same lupinus family. Duane is proud of the giant potato chip he found.

Went through U.S. Customs. Sigh. So glad to be “home” again. Tired of figuring out the exchange rate, buying gas by the liter, frost heaves, and never knowing the temperature. If you look really close at the picture of the international border, you can see how it is even cut through the mountains and trees in the distance. Stopped for the night at Youngs Motel and split a pizza and salad at Fast Eddys restaurant. It never gets dark now, the days are over 19 hours long. So we just pull the curtains and go to sleep. Saw our first bald eagle today!

Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Day 5

June25

Left early for Whitehorse, Yukon. Cold and rainy again. Road bumpy with frost heaves and one long stretch of gravel. Ate breakfast at the grocery store, as there is nowhere in Dease Lake to eat and the grocery has a cafe that opens at 7. Heated clothing again. Stopped at Cassiar Mt. Jade Store. Over 90% of worlds jade is mined in the Cassiar Mountains. So I bought a tiny, itsy bitsy little jade star to hang on the Christmas tree as a memory of the trip. It was $30. However, it is simply beautiful.

The road out of Dease Lake was soooo bad. When we finally got to the Junction of the beginning of the Alaska highway, we stopped for gas. There were Johan and Karolina! They had been following us the whole way to make sure we were safe, and they were also just going that way... they saw more bears, but we were so busy concentrating on the road conditions we missed them. aww.

The rest of the day was a mix of cool and rain and sun, but we kept heated jackets on most of the time. Ate a picnic lunch late in the day – it was a buggy lunch. We fought mosquitoes while we sandwiched. Then took a short walk along a boardwalk to Rancheria Falls. Pretty. Keep seeing some flowers that look an awful lot like the Texas Bulebonnet.

Got toWhitehorse and staying in the Skky Inn. Very nice. Dinner at the Klondike Rib & Salmon Barbeque. It is a pretty famous restaurant in these parts, only open part of the year, the wait usually is for hours, and the people line up around the block. We chatted with some friendly people from California while we waited. Duane had ribs and i had a great salad and fish and chips. We ordered Bumbleberry pie al a mode for dessert -- it included apple, rhubarb, blackberry, raspberry, and blueberry. Klondike is a restaurant in a tent, basically. But everything was extraordinarily yummy . Stopped at a grocery store after dinner and got fixin’s for tomorrow’s lunch, as well as chocolate milk and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We saw Royal Canadian Air Force fighter jets land at the airport across the highway from our hotel. Comfy bed...good night!

Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Day 4

June 24

Woke up to the sound of rain on a tin roof. Lovely. Left Stewart, BC for who knows where up the Cassiar highway, Hwy 37.

Had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel for breakfast. Interesting. Duane did a bacon & egg on english muffin deal. It was cold and rainy. I layered up- not going to get cold today. We couldn't take pictures on the way back because the clouds were hanging so low over the mountains you couldn' t see anything. So glad i got some yesterday! I believe the glacier you can see from the road, the big blue one, is called Bear Glacier. I love how the evergreen look around here-- the needles hang down like long lacey fingers.

We started seeing bear almost immediately - two at a time. A black one and a brown one each time. Got pictures. Duane turned the bike around and we almost came right up on them.

Stopped at a rest stop and ate a homemade turtle we bought from the Bitter Creek Inn last night. It was soooo good. The caramel tasted like a homemade buttery praline.

We didn't go far today. Ended in Dease Lake for a late lunch and just stayed there. The roads were gravel and hard to manuvere. We met a lot of nice people along the way- everyone has stories about what is down the road, weather, conditions, bear, etc. A sweet couple in Bell 2 noticed our Aggie frog togs and struck up a conversation. They were believers. Her first husband was an Aggie. Mosquitoes are terrible when you stop for gas or picnic.

At Dease Lake, a couple from Belgium -- Karolina and Johan --talked to us a lot and showed us pictures of where they had come from. They were very fun-- always standing outside the hotel smoking (and talking) , because it was non smoking inside. Hotel wifi was pathetic, so didn't get to write and can't remember a lot from the day. It was hard to get to sleep though. The days are longer and crawling in bed at 10:00, it is still light outside.

Noreen, the hotel manager, was very kind and let us do a load of laundry, as all our clothes got wet from the rainy day, the water soaking up through the bottom of the bag. The bag sits on a little rack behind the bike. (Did i mention that we didn't bring the trailer this time, so our clothes consist of a couple of pair of jeans, a few long sleeved shirts, fleece, heated clothing, and a few other necessities?)

This beautiful plant is a fuchsia. It was at a restaurant in the most incredible hanging basket you have ever seen!

Tonight Duane gave me another sweet gift for anniversary - a LeeHee necklace that says "before i formed you in the womb, i knew you."

Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Day 3

June 23

Left Prince George on the Yellowhead Highway after a nice breakfast of Belgium waffles and Sasketchiwan syrup, Canadian bacon, and fruit. Julie, our hostess, has a daughter with brain tumor, so we prayed for her at breakfast. Hope it made a difference.. I get the feeling that Canadians don’t really like Americans though. We are obviously too wasteful and not "green" enough. Tend to blame us for everything that effects North America, especially economically. She was a lovely hostess though. She composts and makes homemade bread. I think she was surprised when i said i compost and make jelly. ha

She ironed our sheets, though, and man were they amazing! Mom used to do that. Her cat, Furry, is beautiful--buff color long hair with blue eyes. Furry has a 9:00 curfew because foxes and other critters eat cats. eww.

Was rainy and chilly off and on all day, so it was uneventful until later. Julie packed us an amazing sack lunch-- ham sandwich on multigrain homemade bread with some sort of garlic butter spread. But we had to eat at an busy rest stop at the side of the highway.

At Gitwangak we saw totem poles, took pics, and headed down the Cassiar highway. I noticed along the way that the back roads are lined with wildflowers, as if they are cheering us on our journey. All kinds -- daisies, lupine, beautiful colors.

So later in the day when i was getting sleepy, Duane yells...a bear is walking across the road! Sure enough, a big one.. i woke up. Later we saw two more smaller ones. One was trying to cross the road and we spooked him. He almost ran right up beside us. I could see the panic in his eyes. The next one popped up as we were driving by and he had a flower stem in his mouth -- looked silly. Impossible to get pictures as we were whizzing by.

Beautiful drive to Stewart, B.C. on remote highway 37 north. One of most scenic drives in North America. We passed towering coastal mountains whose slopes are capped with icefields

and hanging glaciers. It is one of the only places in the world you can see glaciers from your vehicle. Blue glaciers that were visible from the road.

Water falls cascading down mountains in streaks, canyons.

So we got to Stewart and were chilled to the bone a bit. Found our hotel. Quaint and simple. Eclectic. The Ripley Creek Inn. Slate floors again, but this time, not heated.

We ate a wonderful dinner at the Bitter Creek Cafe. I had an amazing halibut dish dredged in pistachio nuts, with baby potatoes and veggies. Duane had fried halibut shrimp cakes. yummmmmm. We topped it off with chocolate panna cotta layer cake. It was sooooo good. We totally splurged, but loved it all.

A quaint anniversary dinner in an old hotel... Our waitress, Ceebraun was friendly and cute. We enjoyed talking to her. Her step mom owns the restaurant and Cee is engaged to a guy in New Zealand and just came for the summer to help out.

Loved today. Simply loved it.

Alaska from the Back of the Bike, Continued

June 22

Left Whistler --took a beautifully scenic route, but slow going. The Canadian Rockies are enormous. beautiful. Where there was water, it was either rushing so fast it was blowing spray everywhere, or so still you could see the mountains reflection in it. Some places it was so deep it was a dark bluegreen.

British Columbia is beautiful.

We think people keep cheating us out of our money, though, with the exchange rates. And we have no idea how fast we are going or how hot or cold it is due to our ignorance of the metric system. :) Pretty towns everywhere - Pemberton, Williams Lake, Lilloooet -- quaint, quiet, historic. Staying at the Arbor Bed and Breakfast in Prince George, a basement apt in a private home. Our day was long. Left early. Got in at 8 p.m.

I thought the wildflowers the bear was eating last evening might be holly hocks, larkspur, or delphinium, but Julie at our bed and breakfast says they are lupine. I think she’s wrong, though. She also says the mountains are not the Rockies, but the Coastal Mts. I think she's probably right on that one.

We had a nice picnic lunch in Clinton, a little town along the way with a little park and duck pond.

Today we saw dandelions the size of tennis balls, beautiful wildflowers growing everywhere along the roads. Read Psalm 48 before we left, and kept the last verse with us as we rode...for this God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide even to the end.

Alaska from the Back of the Bike

I figured I’d better blog something lest I be banned from blogsville for eternity, so I found some of my vacation notes and decided to post them. Duane and I had high adventure and the sweetest blessing this year, for our 35th anniversary celebration, of taking a motorcycle trip to Alaska. Here are some o f my musings. A diary of sorts, you might say, penned along the way…mostly.

June 21
Duane shipped the bike to Seattle earlier in June, so the first leg of our trip consisted of flying to Seattle to find it. Today is Elli’s birthday. Kari called on the way to the airport so we could sing happy birthday to Elli before we forget. Asked her how old she is and she said, "i two". Our friend, Tom Riley, was nice enough to drop us off at the airport so we didn’t have to pay two weeks of parking.

Plane had mechanical probs so they got a new one from hangar and we were about an hour late. Met a guy named Brian who was flying with his cat, Cleopatra, from Florida. He tried to be subtly rude when he found out we liked George W. Bush, by saying we probably loved the movie Dazed and Confused and watched King of the Hill for our favorite show. I think he was lonely and awkward…obviously if he was traveling with a CAT, right? And he obviously had a stereotyped image of Texans. Also met a cute couple, Melanie and Sean who got married in Huntsville State Park yesterday in 95 degree temp. They were all smiles and said everything was perfect and it even got cloudy and cooler before ceremony.

Greg and Janet Beeker picked us up from airport. So nice. Duane shipped his bike to Greg's garage and he stored it for him, just because Goldwing people do stuff like that for each other. We took them to Red Robin for a late lunch and then got a late start.

Canadian border guards don’t like Texans, i think. Duane got frisked and we got detained mysteriously, and the bike searched. They asked Duane a lot of questions about having a handgun license and why he needed it. He told them he left the gun at home, but they searched the bike anyway.

Pretty cold on bike. Layers didn't help a lot this evening. Ride was pretty - mountains and glacier dug lakes. Pretty trees - i think they are ruby slippered dogwood. Lots of mauve and white and blue wildflowers. I think are holly hocks. Or delphinium. Saw a black bear outside of Whistler, eating purple delphinium. Stayed in Whistler at an Olympic village type community, the Sundial Boutique. So pretty/ great lodge and verrrrry comfy bed! The slate floor in the bathroom was heated. Nice and warm on my tootises.

Duane gave me a dogwood charm for a necklace and our anniversary. I smile as my head hits the pillow.

Steve and Buford, Warrior Angels

I don’t believe in wimpy angels. I believe in warrior angels. You notice in the Bible when an angel appears to someone, the first thing he says is, “Do not be afraid.” Think about that a little bit! Those are the kind of angels I want protecting me!

Here’s the story.

Two directionally challenged little old ladies awaiting a morning flight out to Houston, were stuck overnight in a strange city (Atlanta), following a three day conference. But we (me and friend, Stephanie) discovered a wonderful thing – the Astros were playing the Braves that very night at Turner Field... with Friday Night Fireworks to follow!

Sooooo….adventuresome duo that we were….we decided to save ourselves a twenty dollar taxi ride and catch all sorts of mass transit (hereto after called Marta) to the stadium…both ways. Praying first for protection, and the company of angels, off we went. First take the hotel shuttle to the airport. Then hop on Marta, some sort of partially underground express bullet light rail train thingy, to the hub at 5 Points station. Then disembark and wind our way through Underground Atlanta with its mixture of tattoo and piercing parlors (a little bit scary even in daylight), faithfully following the “Braves Shuttle” signs to a Marta City Bus that deposited us at the corner of Abernathy and Pollard…right in front of the stadium. PIECE OF CAKE.

On our grand adventure we saw, stalked, got a picture of, and actually touched the Braves legend Tom Glavine as he departed from the press box; Stephanie, cheering enthusiastically, almost got punched out by a punk 20 year old Braves fan in need of anger management classes; and I almost caught a t shirt thrown into the crowd by Jane, the blond and overly smiley Braves drill team personality. So after a wonderful time, but not so wonderful game, it was quite late and time to head home. In the dark.

PIECE OF CAKE IN REVERSE. Quick prayer for protection and company of angels. Uh…find Abernathy and Pollard. Board Marta City Bus. Pray we don’t have to walk through the Atlanta Underground alone. Board the Marta light rail thingy at 5 Points station. Return to airport. Board hotel shuttle back to hotel. PIECE OF CAKE, sort of.

Sitting on a concrete bench in the subway, or whatever it was, with 19 minutes until arrival of the Marta train, we began to notice there weren’t many little old ladies like us in the neighborhood. 18 minutes to go. We looked up and there stood two tall, very muscular, gentlemen sporting crew cuts and Braves t shirts a few feet from our bench. They weren’t really talking, just sort of standing there very straight and tall. 17 minutes. 16. 15. 12. Never flinching or moving, not even their heads, they occasionally appeared to be scanning the area as they stood there. They literally never moved. Just their eyes scanned, side to side, as a variety of neighborhood characters strolled by. 3 minutes. 2 minutes. 45 seconds. Stephanie and I stood up to move towards the expected train. They followed.

The door we were headed for was pretty crowded, so I turned quickly and headed to a different one. Stephanie, seeing the gentlemen heading a different direction, said out loud, “We just lost our angels,” then turned around and they were boarding the train immediately behind her. By this time we were smiling.

The train was so crowded, we had to stand. They stood behind us.
After a few stops, people got off and we found seats. They sat behind us.
We were still smiling.

The very last stop was the airport. It was just about midnight. We were kind of just dumped out on a platform and left to figure out where in the world to go from there. We went one way, then circled back, when one of our angels (I’ll call him, Steve) asked us how to get to the hotel shuttles. (Asked us? HA!) Redirected, we followed him down an escalator and chatted briefly. His friend, (I’ll call him, Buford, in honor of the Buford Highway that we passed everyday on the way to the conference), never said a word. Not one word.

Told him we were from Houston and had been to the game tonight. He said they were from San Antonio. We asked, “Military?” He said, “When you’ve been in as long as we have, it’s hard to hide it.” Asked him what hotel he was staying at, so we could help find the right shuttle. Hmmmm…he couldn’t remember at all.

At the bottom of the escalator, we turned to find the restrooms. They stood there watching until we disappeared. We still haven’t stopped smiling.

Psalm 91: 11 – 12 For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands that you do not strike your foot against a stone.

The Warrior is a Child

"Be Strong in the Lord and in the power of His Might." Ephesians 6:10

"Blessed is the one whose strength is the Lord" Psalm 84:5

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

Just sayin' it's o.k. to be in this place, too.

They don't know that I go running home when I fall down

They don't know who picks me up when no one is around

I drop my sword and cry for just a while

'Cause deep inside this armor
The warrior is a child.

Stuff I've Been Thinking About, Part 2

Discipling your children. HOW?
It is not easy.
In fact, it is exhausting.
It requires being fully surrendered.
It requires putting yourself last. Dead last. Rick Warren was not kidding when he said, “It’s not about you.”
It requires sacrificial parenting -- At a minimum, 18 years worth – at the very least. And that is per child.
It requires focus on the goal – with the goal being godly kids/raising up worshippers for His Name.
It sometimes requires redefining everything. Do you want your kids to be happy or do you want them to be holy? Do you want your kids to be successful, or do you want them to be godly.

When the Bible states to TRAIN UP a child…I think of when I learned how to ride a bike. When I was 9, they only made one size bicycle—adult. I didn’t get it the first time. I had to be trained to balance, trained to pedal, trained to do them both at the same time, trained not to panic, trained to use the brakes instead of jumping off. It didn’t’ happen for me overnight. My Mom claims she ran hundreds of miles behind that bike holding it steady during this difficult time in my life...It took days of training and practicing to finally get it.

Discipling, and training – we’re in it for the long haul.

I just spent time at my daughter's, helping with baby Leala who just arrived into the world. Kari has Titus, who is three, Eliana, who is 20 months, and a newborn. But I watched them patiently train their kids in different areas while I was there. Titus is very compliant, mostly. Elli is just a mess, though. And not for lack of training. She doesn’t like to eat, and she doesn’t like to take naps. She’s just one of those unique little strong willed things. Because of her diagnosis, her parents are careful to keep her healthy and on track physically because of the unknowns. However, at 18 months, she weighed only 18 pounds. They do everything “right”, and she just some days decides not to eat. They say, “One more bite” and she (very cutely, I might add), throws her hands over her mouth. Well, she’s not doing it to be funny, it’s just defiance. So Danny takes her to the back room, away from the table, and “trains “ her. Titus looks at me and says matter-of-factly, “Anya (his pronunciation of Eliana) isn’t obeying, is she Nanna?” But because they love Elli, and Elli needs to eat, and more than that, Elli needs to obey – Elli gets trained.

Are they tired? Yes. Are they exhausted? Yes. But they cannot quit training for the physical and spiritual health of their children. (A child’s job is to obey his parents…we must train our kids to obey.)

THREE MAIN THINGS about discipling your kids that I want to leave with you.
1. LOVE THE WORD.
It totally starts with here with you. Immerse yourself in it. Know it, live it, obey it, read it. Hide it in your heart. Meditate on it. Draw strength from it. Make it a priority. Do you have a plan for that?

a. Bathe your kids in scripture. God commands parents, “These words I have given you shall be in your heart. Teach them to your children as you”….wake and sleep and walk by the way, and play catch in the backyard and drive through the take out window at Chick Fil A. The Israelites incorporated God into every aspect of life. So, use scripture as a part of your everyday life and language. Let your kids see you reading the Bible, loving the Word, and it making a difference in your life. Read the Bible out loud as you rock your child in the morning and have a few quiet minutes together. Post it in your house and on your walls. Post a verse a week on your refrigerator or car dashboard to memorize together. Put a Bible in bed with them, so when they wake up it is the first thing they see. Read scripture over your children as they sleep.

b. Recognize the POWER in the word of God. Use scripture so it is a part of your every day life and language. Use it to encourage not to be punitive. My favorite scripture always was “Do all things without murmuring and complaining.” But instead of beating them over the head with it, you guide with it – “The Bible instructs us to do all things without murmuring and complaining. Do you understand what that means?" After discussing, you then say, “In five minutes it will be time to pick up the toys.” Then encourage them rightly by pointing out how God helped them obey.

c. Pray the Word. (nothing gets the attention of the Father faster than when He hears His word repeated back to Him.)

Father, the Bible says we should pray and not give up. (Luke 18:1) Help Nathan to persevere as he practices baseball and learns how to catch fly balls.

Father, your word says that “Our love must not be just words and talk, but true love which shows itself in action." Thank you for Emily, who showed true love to me by helping me feed and walk the dog.

Children are a blessing of the Lord. Thank you Father that Luke obeyed today and ate his lunch. Luke is a blessing to us.

The catch – you must know scripture, to be able to teach your kids to pray scripture. HIDE IT IN YOUR HEART. You have to be purposeful. Teach it when they rise up and when they lie down. Teach it when they walk in the way.

2. TEACH DOCTRINE and biblical truth to your children daily, so that it penetrates to the core of their being and the very fiber of their heart. Teach it daily, so it becomes a part of who they are and what they believe so deeply that in times of testing their theology is sure and cannot be shaken.
You have to know what you believe and want to teach about God in order to disciple your children. And better to have this hammered out now, so that your theology doesn’t have to be hammered out years later in hospital waiting rooms or funeral homes. Better to fix your hope now on “God is good” than to have to conjure it up when you scarcely can breathe for the pain.

Start with one of two of these and repeat them throughout your day… as you wake and sleep and lie down and break bread together and walk in the park. Or pick another doctrine that you hold fast to, and start there.
a. God made everything. (Easy conversation when you see a rainbow or a sunset, or a dog or a baby or a bug, etc.)
b. God is good. Easy conversation when you are helping your child get dressed and say “God gave us clothes to wear. God is good. “ or when daddy leaves for work, “God gave daddy a job he loves. God is good.”
c. We can talk to God. (Pray without ceasing along with your kids. We can talk to God any time, any where.)
d. God is in charge of everything. If rain interrupts a trip to the park, explain that it’s o.k. because God is in charge of everything and the flowers need the rain to grow. Or if a friend cannot come over to play, explain that it’s o.k. because God is in charge of everything and has a better plan for the afternoon. When you read Bible stories, such as Noah, repeat that God is in charge of everything, and He had a plan for Noah and his family

3. EMBRACE WORSHIP
Children learn to worship by watching their parents worship. They learn to pray by watching their parents pray. They learn to give by watching their parents give, and they learn to serve by watching their parents serve. When worship is an obvious joy to parents, it will be to their children as well. Weave it into every aspect of living – a morning prayer time every morning. Or a family worship before bedtime – read a Children’s Bible story book, chapter at a time.


I said earlier that this requires sacrifice and surrender and a change of focus.. And it does. But it doesn’t have to be hard. Just begin by falling in love with Jesus. Your kids will notice. (I told Titus how kind his Dad was by cleaning up the kitchen one night and he answered, “My Daddy loves Jesus.” At age three, he just knew it -- it was natural. )

And walk with God. Be astonished at His greatness and ability to teach you to raise your children in His Nurture and Admonition. Afterall, we are called to raise up worshippers to His Name. and everything I learned about parenting , I learned from how He parents me.

Stuff I've Been Thinking About

I was asked to speak at our MOMs (Mothers of Many Seasons) group at church and this is what came out... My topic was supposed to be "age appropriate Bible teaching for children." It morphed into "Discipling your children." Sort of the same thing, isn't it?



In the book, Sacred Parenting, Gary L. Thomas states “the best reason for having children is so simple that it may not seem very profound: God commanded us to have children (Genesis 1:28). It’s his desire that we ‘be fruitful and increase in number,’ and this fruitfulness includes raising spiritually sensitive children who will serve God and work for the glory of His kingdom on earth.”

God’s first commission to man was to “be fruitful and multiply”. Jesus last commission to His followers was to “Go and make disciples”. Think about the commonality of those. Side by side, the Old Testament command of be fruitful and multiply and the New Testament command to make disciples almost have the same ring to them. Dr. Leiderback, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, teaches in his Ethics of Marriage and Family course, that parents have a calling to fulfill these commandments and to raise up worshippers for His Name.

How is that working for you?

Teaching the Bible to children has been the calling of my life since I was 28 years old, when on April 1 1982 – unbeknownst to me-- the Lord called me into preschool ministry. I thought I was just doing something because no one else would take on the recently vacated “nursery coordinator” position in our little church, and my best friend looked at me and said -- “I’ll do it, if you’ll do it!” So we started down an incredible path 28 years ago sort of clueless like the disciples who left everything to follow Him when Jesus said, "Follow me and I will make you to become…" Would they have done it if they fully understood the cost, or the path He called them to? They had no idea at the time, what following Jesus meant—but still began an interesting journey.

I can draw a parallel there. Especially the clueless part.

Not long after that, the Lord gave me Romans 11:29 –" the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." And in the days when I have been more than ready to pack it up and leave it behind, (and there have been many), this Truth has literally riveted me to His calling…and I cannot go. After all, what could be more important than teaching the Bible to children on their level of development? What could be more important than introducing them to their Creator and Savior?

So not long after THAT, the Lord gave me the purpose statement of preschool ministry - -Isaiah 54:13 ..."and all your children will be taught of the Lord, and great will be the peace of your children." But enough about me.

Voddie Baucham, a local pastor, revealed a startling statistic a few years ago when he stated that by the end of their freshman year in college, 77% of church kids have deserted their faith. If that is true, i submit to you that something is broken.

We are all over age- appropriate Bible teaching at church. We do a good job. But one hour a week on Sunday morning obviously just doesn’t get the job done. Church was not meant to take on the spiritual training of children, but to supplement the spiritual teaching of the home.
Because for children, the home is at the very center of biblical instruction. There is very little scriptural evidence of children being taught primarily in the tabernacle, synagogue or temple. The home was the school of faith. The churches of those times supported the work of the home, not the other way around. No amount of Christian school, Sunday School, or church influenced childcare and weekday education can replace the primary impact of the home on a child’s spiritual development.

I have begun to see that this is where the system is broken. Because many parents either do not understand their responsibility, or have given it over to the church. I, in fact, did the same thing.

One day when my girls were little, I was driving to a Bible Study at church, or maybe it was a hand bell or ensemble practice, or maybe a preschool committee meeting or a fellowship. (We were always in the car on the way to church, it seemed.) The girls were working on learning our street address at the time, so I asked, “Where do you live?” Kari, about 4 at the time, replied point blank, in her little four year old voice, “At chuch.” I laughed and tickled her tummy and called her silly, but the truth of what she just said pierced me.

Never again in all my life would I have the opportunity to disciple someone like I had the opportunity to disciple those two little lives buckled into the back seat. Never in my life would I again have the time to invest in another person like these two little ones God had put in my own backyard. Was I spending so much time away from them for MY OWN spiritual growth or connection or other events that I was squandering/neglecting the very ministry (motherhood) that the Lord had called me to? Was I depending on the teachers at church to raise them “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Was I really leaving their learning to someone else so much so that my daughter would think she lived “at chuch”? I immediately made some lifestyle changes for my family and my children.

I was an education major, and teaching was natural for me. I was always leaning towards using the child development i studied in college and thinking up developmentally appropriate activities for us to do at home. (My kids told their friends that they knew how to scrub a bathroom before they were 7, and it probably was true!) Some things required radical adjustments on our part, though.

I was influenced and intrigued greatly at that time by Anne Ortlund’s book, Children are Wet Cement – the first book I had ever come across that advocated discipling your children. And more recently by Raising Kids for True Greatness by Dr. Tim Kimmel, and Teaching Kids Authentic Worship by Kathleen Chapman.


That's all for now. But stay tuned for part 2.

Heartfriends

These are the words from the little piece of stationey that Vergie pressed into my hand:

Heartfriends

How generous is God that He has given me these few and special women who are the true friends of my heart. How He must love me that He has let us find each other upon this crowded earth.

We are drawn to each other as if by some mystical force. We recognize each other at once. We are sisters of the spirit, who understand each other instinctively.

There is no blood between us, no common family history. Yet there are no barriers of background or even age. Older, younger, richer, poorer…no matter, we speak the same language.

We have come together in a special moment of time and the sense of union we feel will last throughout eternity. How generous is God that He has given me so many other women I can call friends. Dear, good, life-enriching women who add flavor, value, and delight. I would be the poorer without them.

Yet surely, God’s true concern for us, His children, is to lead us to these rare and special few. The ones who call out to us from the crowds, who hold fast to us through trials, triumphs, long separations.

The friends with whom the heart feels joyfully at home.

Unchanged

A sacred thing happened to me this year. I reconnected with an old friend from college.

It just always seemed that we were meant to be friends, the way the tapestry of our lives was woven together. We used to say of our friendship that it just must have been in our jeans. (Was that because we became friends in the seventies, before wearing jeans 24/7 was readily accepted except in the circle of semi-quasi-Christian-hippies we hung around with? Or was it our passive aggressive way of dealing with the sorority chicks strutting the campus in their high heels and mini skirts?)

So whether it was in our jeans, or in our genes, we knew the moment we became friends that there was something preciously God-ordained about our connection. There simply was. And before graduation, Vergie pressed into my hand a folded piece of stationery with words that summed us up quite nicely – "Heart Friends."

We stayed in touch some after college. Vergie was in my wedding party, and afterwards left town with my pink bamboo Hawaiian dishes that were fairly nauseating, but cleverly “Art Nouveau” at the same time. They had never even been opened when my mom bought them (cheap) at a garage sale so I would have dishes in my college apartment. Some poor man had bought them for his wife while he was in the army and on leave in Hawaii, and she hated them…that was the story. I couldn’t BELIEVE my own mom just gave them to her without asking me, but I got over it since I didn’t particularly like them either. Besides, it was Vergie.

Vergie even lived across town in Houston for a while, and we managed a few trips to see each other when the kids were little. We occasionally sent Christmas cards. Occasionally called. But life got busy and we lost touch mostly. I heard about her sometimes through mutual friends. So when I found that little piece of stationery in her handwriting that reminded me of why we connected deeper and on a core level, I kept it where I could read it over and over.

Then about this time a year ago, totally out of the blue, I got a comment on a blog post from my long lost Vergie. We have added approximately 35 years of living since college graduation, I think. However, the tapestry of our lives is still woven together by threads of faith and commonality. She has lost a precious son. I have lost my precious Dad. We started keeping up with each other a bit more.

So Saturday, I was flying out the door to drive up to East Texas for a memorial service for another friend’s father. Took a chance and shot Vergie an email – coming to your town- if you get this in time, call me and let’s grab a coke. My cell rang almost immediately.

I went by her house, we had a cup of soup together, went to the memorial service together, chatted familiarly along the way. Both when we saw each other for the first time, and when it was time to go, we hugged and held on tight, like friends who just needed to be reassured that it was indeed each other in the flesh. Vergie sent me home with a pot of her heirloom jade plant , a cutting of pencil cactus, and something interesting that she called “Moses in a Basket”. I promised to bring her a hanging basket of widow’s tears next time I blew through her town.

Has it really been that long since we’ve seen each other? You would never know. Things have changed, certainly. But there was still something preciously unchanged and God-ordained about our connection. There simply was.

I guess when it’s in your jeans, you just pick it back up where you left off. And anyways, how could you not be friends with someone named “Vergie”?

Tomorrow – Heart Friends.