Something to think about

http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

I came upon this photographers website today. It sure gives you something to think about. Sometimes I'm guilty of forgetting about all the sadness and evil in the world. Truly puts my problems into perspective.

Nothing much

I have nothing much to talk about but thought I'd ramble a bit. Tuesday the girls had a band concert at one of the High schools. They were combining with all the Elementary bands in Dubuque so they had to go in at 2pm to practice all after noon and the concert was at 7pm. I haven't volunteered yet for one of these things so I felt it was my turn. I sat all afternoon with about 120 4th and 5th grade band brats. The percussionist are the worst, climbing stacked bleachers, playing in announcers booth...you name it they tried it. Anyhow, They fed them pizza about 6pm in the cafeteria. Molly sat with the few kids she knows and Abby just kinda sat in the middle of the room with nobody she knew, as she is quieter and doesn't know the kids that well. I kinda watched her from across the room and felt a little bad but thought she was fine. After she got her pizza and pop and sat down she folded her hands, bowed her head and prayed over her lunch. I have to say as a mom my heart melted. As a kid I would never have had the nerve to do that in public school. I have to remember that on days she is challenging my every word that if her determination is directed the right way God can do great things with her. Parenting is so hard sometimes and I thank God he gives us little encouragements now and then.

The attractiveness of the Gospel

For my Bible study this last week we have been studying Philippians 2:5-11. We are looking at what Christ was like before he was man and how and why he humbled Himself when He came to earth. Today I was reading Isaiah 53 and looking at how He humbled Himself. I had never really thought of Jesus being unattractive before. You see the artist rendition of Jesus all the time and he is a good looking man. Verse 2&3 give us a very different picture. It doesn't say he was "ugly" but it does say would not be attracted to Him and was "one from whom men would hide their face." Being unattractive was one way Jesus humbled Himself. The gospel was unattractive. What do we do with the gospel these days? Seems like we try every thing we can to make it attractive to the world. The scripture says that Jesus was no Joel Osteen. PTL! He was not charismatic and appealing to the world. When we try and make the gospel appealing are we going against the nature of Jesus? It's the Holy Spirit that makes the gospel attractive, not our efforts.
Just something that really made me stop and think today.

Puppet Festival

This last weekend Molly and I attended a puppet festival in Chicago with her puppet team No Strings Attached. NSAPuppets.org .It was lots of fun and we learned a lot. Friday night we performed(at about 10:30 pm) and Saturday we watched other teams and went to work shops. I love this ministry Molly is in because Rex (the guy who runs it) is all about teaching the kids about hard work and outreach to the unsaved world around us. They are a small and young group right now so the parents are part of the team as much as the kids. We did a song routine to black light and the team got a silver award from the judges. I was surprised at all the different things they did there. They had stick skits that was a lot of choreography, mimes, ventriloquists and my VERY favorite was Blacklight Human Video. The human video was to the song East to West by Casting Crowns and it was awesome. Lots of fun and very little sleep!