art class

Stephen did very good paying attention and following instructions until the last 30 minutes and he was still very well behaved, but he was tired of focusing. 2 hours is a long teaching time for that little guy. But I was very pleased as he paid attention and was not wiggly.


Jordan enjoyed getting to create a 'piece of art'.

Hemmed in Prayer

I enjoyed spending a little time praying for little Tanner James who is scheduled to be born in mid-December to my friends, Sean and Mallie. It is always a joy to me to hem the things I make in prayer. I pray for different aspects of the child's life as I put together the different little things that I make for him/her. During the middle of this project, my large embroidery hoop broke! So that brought up a whole new group of things to pray for. (bummer is I have a pile of things that need to be embroidered. )
This is the big gift. They are doing his room in cowboy and I just fell in love with this little quilt. I like the way it came out with the cute pocket from some old jeans. Then I added a couple of burp pads to match with little pockets from some the kids old jeans. If you were too look closely you could tell when my embroidery hoop broke as one of the names on the pocket of a burp pad is not perfect. I had to hold it together as it did the stitching.
This fleece blanket is really for Tanner when he sits on his dad's lap watching Dad's favorite football team. I did a new thing around the edge, I crocheted it. It was fun to learn a new technique. It makes a nice edge but it does cause the edges to sort of curl like a fitted sheet. It will still be snuggly and warm.
Burb pads or rags or cloths. Different people call them different things.

Venus and Volcanoes

Simulating the volcanoes on Venus....
This was our first try. I think will try it again and again...... and again. The kids molded the mountain and then we painted it. It is the kind that they can use over and over. Can you tell that it did not smell too good? Little Johnny (Mulcahy) was holding his nose and saying how bad it smelled.... vinegar and baking soda.......

Peculiar

My three oldest kiddos are on a ministry team called Peculiar Party Ministry Team. The team does puppets, choreographed dance, ventriloquism, mime, and other things along that line. Each week they lead the kids in our children's church in their worship time and they go out to other places and do performances. They have a couple of videos on You Tube. (Click the blue word video to see one of them.)

Legacy Graphics recently took their pictures with their friend (puppet). Here are a couple of them.

a post from Joshua

Consecrated Lord to Thee
By Joshua Russell 10-24-06

Take My Life and Let It Be A song by Frances R. Havergal.

Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee; Take my voice and let me sing, Always, only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages from Thee; Take my silver and my gold, Not a mite would I withhold.
Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in endless praise; Take my intellect and use Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it Thine,It shall be no longer mine; Take my heart, it is Thine own, It shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure store; Take myself and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee.



Consecrate the Church
This is a song of surrender and submission to say “Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee” means take my life Lord, purify and use me. To offer your self up as a sacrifice is the meaning of Consecration (Consecrate - to dedicate something or somebody to a specific purpose ~ Encarta World English Dictionary.)

"Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, "There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst." (Joshua 7:13)



Today’s Church must rise up and Consecrate it’s self unto the Lord. We must remove all sins from our midst not because it is required for salvation, but for three other reasons, which I would like to discuss in more detail, these are 1.) As an act of Gratitude, 2.) To enable us to stand before our enemies, and 3.) To prepare for tomorrow.

Reason 1: As an act of Gratitude
If you have truly accepted Christ into your heart how can you help but be Grateful for all that He has done for you? He gave his life so that you might live what more can you do than to offer up your life as a living sacrifice and consecrate yourself unto the Lord? If you are Grateful for your salvation and the grace given to you then should you continue sinning? If you are already forgiven of all your sins (past, present, and future) should you worry about continuing to sin? These are question that every Christian must ask himself / herself at some point in their life. I believe that the Apostle Paul stated it very clearly when he said

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? [2] May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2)



So what shall we say then? Will we say that since Christ has given us grace we will “live life to the fullest” or will we say, “Father not my will but Yours”. What will you say?

“So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27] that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:26-27)



Christ has cleansed us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9) by the washing of the water with the word, so that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory. Who doesn’t want a perfect and spotless bride? A bride that is holy and blameless. For this reason we must sanctify ourselves though the Word of God, that we might become the holy and blameless bride of Christ. Ask any bride-to-be on the night before her wedding and she will say that she wants everything to perfect for her wedding. She will want her dress to be perfect and beautiful, and she will want herself to be perfect and beautiful. So I ask again, What more can we do than to offer ourselves a living sacrifice and consecrate ourselves unto the Lord?


Reason 2: To enable us to stand before our enemies
Imagine: it is 1314 A.D. and you are in the army of Robert the Bruce, you are fighting for the rightful King of you country, however you do not have on any armor and you are carrying several burdens. You might wonder how you are able to stand and fight while carrying these burdens, and you are right to wonder because you can’t. A knight can’t go into battle loaded with stuff and without his armor. Neither can a Christian go into battle and fight the evil one while loaded down with sins and without his spiritual armor.

This is the second reason why the Church must be re-consecrated unto the Lord. If we as a body are going into battle carrying our sins and leaving our armor how can we expect to stand strong against the wiles of the devil? We are instructed in Romans 6 to put on the full armor of God.

"Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil." (Romans 6:11)



We are not called to put on only the parts of the armor that we chose, rather we are called to “Put on the full armor of God”. When arming for battle a knight would not put on his armor on-top of his court attire (worldly baggage), rather he would remove all of the things that would get in the way and hamper the efficiency of his armor. Likewise we as Christians must put aside the things of this world that way us down and keep us from going in to the entire world to spread the gospel (Mark 15:16). So today’s Church must set aside the things of this world, take up the armor of God, and consecrate itself unto the Lord

“But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness you are blessed AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, [15] but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Peter 3:14-15 emphasis mine)



When you stand before an enemy you must do so with courage and with power. Imagine: the smallest weakest guy in school standing up for what is right against the biggest strongest guy in school. Would the big guy think that the little guy was very dangerous? Of course not he would laugh in his face and ridicule him in front of the entire school. Now imagine that the little guy is ready to make a defense against everyone who asks him to give an account. Imagine he knew karate and so could beat the big guy. Now consider your average Christian, they don’t know what they believe, they are apathetic about what their faith. They are sort of like the wimpy guy that doesn’t know karate, they don’t have a chance whenever someone challenges what they believe. They are not “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks them give an account for the hope that is in them [paraphrased]”, today’s Church must learn what they believe and be able to give an account of it to whoever asks.


Reason 3: To prepare for Tomorrow
The meaning of sanctification is.

SANCTIFICATION - The act of consecrating or of setting apart for a sacred purpose; consecration.” [Noah Webster 1828]



So in order to become consecrated we must go through the process of sanctification and set ourselves apart for a sacred purpose. In part 1 I discussed that how consecration (sanctification) should be done as an act of gratitude, in part 2 I talked about how we must be consecrated (sanctified) in order to stand before the enemy, remember how I talked about the knight without armor and loaded with stuff and how he can’t do battle? Now in part 3 I would like to talk about the reason for sanctification, which is the process of consecration.

As an example of sanctification consider the refining of gold. The gold starts off as a lump of ugly useless rock, and the refiner takes it and puts it into the fire (trials and hard times). While in the fire the sludge and grime (our baggage and stuff) are separated from the gold, it is then put in to the fire again and more sludge is removed this process is repeated several times (we go through hard times throughout our lives) to ensure that all the sludge is removed. Next the partially refined gold is refined in water (Eph. 5:26) and it is then 99.99% pure (our lives will never be completely pure until we are with Christ in eternity)


So you see how the process of sanctification takes a lifetime and even then is not complete no matter if you live to be 200 years old you will still not be completely sanctified. For as long as we are still in our physical, carnal bodies we will not be completely sanctified, however we must continue to “read the Bible, Pray every day so we can grow, grow, grow” we must continue to strive for purity and holiness because that is what it takes to be a living sacrifice. We, the body of Christ, his Church must prepare ourselves for tomorrow. For we are the bride and tomorrow is our wedding day, we must cleanse and prepare ourselves for our Savior and Lord.

If we want to be ready we must consecrate ourselves unto the Lord and dedicate ourselves as living sacrifices. So the question I ask you is this, Are you ready for the Lord to do wonders?

“Then Joshua said to the people, 'Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.'” (Joshua 3:5)

letter to my children

Dear Daniel Josiah;

This is actually a letter to all my children, but I want it to be addressed to each of them personally. Dear Joshua, Dear Jonny, Dear Sarah, Dear Jordan, Dear Stephen, Dear Hannah Ruth and Dear Daniel Josiah.
First, I want to start this letter by letting you know that even though we just had probably the biggest/most important election of my lifetime and it seems we did not win the race for president. God is still God and He still reigns supreme! He still listens to the prayers of His people (Proverbs 15:29, Proverbs 15:8, Proverbs 28:9) and they are still effective. (James 5:16) As of today our pledge and our coins still say ‘Under God’ and “in God we trust”. Psalms 91:2 says ‘I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” And we do trust in Him. “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15) There is such incredible peace in that knowledge. At times like this I feel an overwhelming need to run to my Father and rest in His arms like Daniel comes and nestles into my arms when he is hurt or tired. Our heavenly Father is our refuge, He is our fortress, He is our shelter. (Psalms 27:5, Psalm 61:4, Psalm 91:1) There is such peace in just knowing that is true and unwavering.
Our family sacrificed yesterday for the election (Mom, Dad and Joshua worked the polls from 6am –8:30pm and Jonny and Sarah stayed with the little ones and cared for them and kept them safe.) We have worked for this election for several months as a family, attending various fund raisers, County meetings, putting out signs, stuffing envelopes, making phone bank phone calls encouraging people to get out and vote, writing letters, helping with a candidate forum, and much more. I do not want you to think we did it in vain. Obama becoming president does not mean our work was not worth it. I received a note from Huckabee and he said “Politics is not an event but a process. We sometimes lose the events but it never gives us the right to stop being faithful to our principles that enlisted us in the process. We shall live to fight another day.” And I must agree. We do not have the right to stop being faithful to our principles. We did not work this election because we wanted to get to say that we were on the winning team. We are involved in this process because we have strong founded convictions and we believe that it is our duty to stand for these convictions. Just because Obama is president does not mean we can stop fighting for the lives of the unborn. They still need to be protected. America still needs to stop the bloodshed and stop killing the most innocent. Just because Obama is president does not mean we can stop fighting for family values with things like the definition being between one man and one woman as the Bible describes.
Now we may have to work even harder than ever before, but that is ok. For we know that we do not work for men but for our heavenly Father. Colossians 3:23-24 We must not sit back and be complacent or sit back and simply complain because we did not win, the fight is not over! I must continue to fight because I need for this nation to be a God fearing nation for you, my son, my daughter, my grandchild.
So what will we do now? We will pray. God’s Word has not changed. We are told in II Timothy to pray for our leaders. It doesn’t say if we like our leaders we should pray for them or if we agree with our leaders we should pray for them, it says we are to pray for our leaders and like it or not, Obama is becoming the president of our nation. More than any other man in this nation at this point in time, he needs salvation. We need him to find Jesus and receive the gift of salvation. Christ died for Obama, he just has to receive the gift and we NEED him to receive the gift. Our nation needs him to receive the gift. Our world needs him to receive the gift. We MUST humble ourselves and pray for Barak Hussin Obama.
In closing, let me once again remind you. Joshua, Jonny, Sarah, Jordan, Stephen, Hannah, Daniel, God is still God and he still rules from His throne supreme.
With love and devotion,
Your Mom

Verses used in letter to my children.

Proverbs 15:29
The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

Proverbs 15:8
The LORD detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him.

Proverbs 28:9
If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Joshua 24:15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

Psalm 27:5
For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

Psalm 61:4
I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings. Selah

Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Colossians 3:23-24 23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

October Family Newsletter

If you want to read or look at my Family Newsletter/photo journaling type thingy. Here is the link for the pdf.