Got Boxes?

By MAD21

By now you all know what a fan I am of Samaritan Purse's program called, Operation Christmas Child (OCC). I have written before about the organization and the Graham's in a previous article. I was privileged with the opportunity to talk with a great woman named Stacey Wilson from OCC last month. The time of year to begin putting boxes together is coming very soon. Please read and consider how many boxes you and your friends and family could do this year.

How do you explain to people what you do for a living?

For the many people who pack shoe box gifts, when I mention that I work for Operation Christmas Child, their faces light up, and they start asking questions right away. For those who are not familiar with the project or Samaritan's Purse, I explain that I work on the public relations team for a Christian international relief organization that encourages people to pack empty shoe boxes with small gift items for needy children around the world - and that we share the Gospel along with those gifts.

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"Now What?"

By Renee, LSWA

Good question! I'm glad you asked. So you've made your list of SMART goals, mapped out your vision and created a great budget but still you can't seem to make any progress. What's missing? According to Adele B. Lynn in 50 Activities for Developing Emotional Intelligence, we can be deterred from achieving our life long dreams by what she terms "Spirit Killers." These spirit killers can block our growth and we have to work to overcome them. But first, we have to recognize them and understand how they work.

1. Celebrity Ego: Our own egotism holds us back. We already know how great we are so there's really no need to make changes. Right? This kind of thinking keeps us from confronting the truth and from seeing reality. We need to just throw off the celebrity status and get real.

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In A Bizarre Turn Of Events...

By Mallory

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9, NIV)

You know how the plot of a good story in literature (or movies, I guess) seems to work out just so? As intricate as the plot is, the author manages to get the timing perfect. In the end, the whole story makes sense and it all ends in this perfect cadence.

Sometimes I wonder if our lives are kind of like that.

I’m not sure how I ended up at Wheaton College. First of all, it wasn’t a school I wanted to even go to. At all. (Looking back, I don’t know why.) Wheaton College, in the briefest summary possible, is a small (2500 students), non-denominational Christian, liberal arts college that’s about 780 miles away from home. More often than not, this feels like 780 thousand miles away from home. During my first year of school, I was part of Wheaton’s Conservatory of Music, or, as it is annoyingly but affectionately known, the Conserve.

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Speaking LIFE Into Our Children

By Sandra

I ran into a friend at a restaurant yesterday, who wanted to get our kids together for a fun day before her son’s school begins next week. She shared with me that she would love to homeschool, if her situation allowed. God touched my heart when she shared that. She had been shopping for school supplies and said that she hated this time of year.  I sensed that she loved the extra time with her son that summer allows.

As many children, teachers, and parents are filled with anxiety or dread as the new school year begins, homeschool parents can relax. Not because it’s so much easier for us. We know it is difficult to teach our own children on some days. We can be filled with joy and peace, though, because we have such a privilege in imparting knowledge and wisdom to our own family, and because we know that God is our help. We have positioned ourselves to keep our children on the narrow path, teaching them all the life skills for survival and all the spiritual truths they need to prosper.

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Dogs and Cats, Living Together…Mass Hysteria

By Alan

God tells us that “kind follows kind,” Genesis 1:25 and science has reinforced that with DNA. We can see the micro-machines that let the DNA from mother and father combine to give us offspring that should resemble a combination of the pair.

So, it becomes puzzling when you get children that look like you and your wife, look like your respective grandparents, and yet, you are convinced that the DNA must have come from the household pets.

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