Colorful Colorado: Part 2

Service.

After the busy days of the CHEC conference, we enjoyed spending our last full day with friends from Colorado, Washington, and Texas. Volleyball was the first order of the day.

Eyes on the ball.

Learning to play.

Though I've hardly ever played volleyball, everyone was extremely gracious to include me on the team. We Serven ladies are hoping to improve our skills this summer and be a greater asset in future games. : ) 

This is fun!

All guys game.

Potential finger jam.

The all important ingredient.

Water break.

Airtime.


Break.

Ultimate Frisbee.

Walk with Cara, Jen, and Becky.

A few of us ladies snuck off for a brisk walk around the nearby lake.

All tuckered out.

After nearly 7 hours of hard playing, everyone was finally ready for a rest. Our new favorite game was suggested and of course, we were happy to oblige. 

The all important listmaker.


The empire strikes back.

Supper time.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, festivities preparations were underway. 

Earnest Discussions.

You could almost hear the iron sharpening iron during the conversations scattered throughout the evening.

Birthday glow.

Wait a minute--the strains of "Happy Birthday" were heard, then grew stronger, everyone joining in . . . including the subject, who hadn't thought they might be celebrating his birthday! He was sure surprised. : ) Victory! 

Surprise Gifts.

The cohorts in crime surprise.

Just one more round.

Smile for the Camera.

Ice Cream anyone?

The End to a Perfect Day: Birthday Music.

We so enjoyed our stay in Colorado. What a blessing to share joyful fellowship with the saints across the country!

Colorful Colorado: Our New Favorite Game

Can anyone guess?

Blog On Hold . . .

. . . for a few days. Most of us are running a booth here, but one of us is very, very honored to be taking pictures here.

Colorful Colorado: Part 1

Duet.

"Colorful Colorado" proclaimed the road sign as we crossed the border. The dusty fields with occasional tumbleweeds rolling by didn't look much different from the Kansas land we'd just driven through. As we continued our trip west though, the terrain grew more alluring--vast golden plains, open blue sky, snowy white clouds, with purple mountains standing guard in the distance. Colors of every shade and hue.

But we had yet to discover the best part about Colorado: the people. Isn't it always that way when we travel among the saints of God? True to form, we took mostly people pictures during our week long journey to the west.

Our primary goal was to attend the CHEC conference and accompanying Entrepreneurial Boot Camp. Along the way, we had an abundance of wonderful fellowship, blessed conversations, and knee slapping good times.

Settling Catan.

This was a brand new game for us--quite fun, full of strategy and different every time you play it. Sort of like "Risk" on steroids.

Juggling lessons.

Benjamin has been perfecting his juggling skills. He took every opportunity during this trip to hone his moves, even drafting spare people who weren't occupied to assist him practice. This young lad was more than happy to oblige.

Kevin Swanson.

Pastor Swanson, also Executive Director for CHEC, opened the conference with his usual combination of passion and compassion. In speaking on entrepreneurship, I appreciated his point on the industrial revolution. He stated that it wasn't the "fault" of technology that took fathers away from their families in the late 1800's and early 1900's. That same progress in technology is now bringing fathers back home. As Doug Phillips aptly put it, our job is to "Take lemons and turn them into lemonade".

M&M.

I greatly enjoyed spending time getting to know these sweet girls. Many blessed conversations seeking to apply God's truth to our lives.

Voddie Bauchum.

In typical Voddie style, the house was moved to guffaw, weep, repent, and giving a standing ovation--all at the same time. As he noted, "I'm here to preach. If you want a speaker, go to Radio Shack". I appreciated his teaching on biblical manhood. Wonderful insights in how to better encourage my brothers and father.

Andrew and Ben tackle a wayward cell phone during lunch.

As always, it was fun to see friends from Texas. Regretfully Peter wasn't among them. Our kind TX representatives promised to convey our greetings down south back to our dear brother.

Packed house for the Von Trapp concert.

I read Maria Von Trapp's biography years and years ago. What a delight it was to hear her great grand-children making music together. Amazing blend--sounded like one voice. You could tell they took very good care of their "instruments".

Annie and Elise meet a Von Trapp.

Spotted: Twins.

Cooking for a crowd.

Back at the ranch and in between the three days at the conference, we enjoyed delicious meals, restful sleep, and rollicking good times.

Dutch Blitz: Craigs, Roaches, and Servens.

Of course, what would a home-school conference be without a few rounds of Dutch Blitz?

Lots of things to talk about.

Items discussed were varied and deep. Over the week we covered almost every topic . . . but, no, we didn't solve every issue.

Hymn Improvisation Class.

One evening, I particularly enjoyed an impromptu class taught by Mr. Craig. Observing other pianists is so delightful--I'm applying his lesson on 9th chords to my hymn playing techniques. : )

Part 2 coming soon . . .

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

Crystal Paine of Biblical Womanhood
"With a little practice, members of your family will be confidently singing together in four-part harmony--without expensive vocal lessons or professional training!"

Home Again

Colorado Sunset.

A few of us took a jaunt last week to attend Colorado's Home School Conference. Thanks to the new scheduling feature on Blogger, we were able to make a few posts, however, the comments section suffered. : ) Thanks for your patience. We'll hope to post pictures of our adventures over the next few days.

Oh--many thanks to all who participated in our survey. The poll closed with 180 total votes. 15% of our readers type in the address for ServenClan.com, 56% have it on their favorites list, and 28% use some sort of an RSS reader!

Spiritual Mothers and Daughters

Mothers and Daughters in the Faith.

These are my recollections of some thoughts shared at a recent women's gathering at our church.

All women are called to be spiritual mothers and spiritual daughters. You as a woman will fill both roles at the same time, in a variety of settings and relationships. You are always older than someone, even if you are still a girl (sister, friend, daughter, younger women, etc). And of course, you are are always younger than someone (sister, mother, ladies in your church, grandma).

On Being a Spiritual Mother:

Your job is to cultivate the relationship.

Encourage younger women. Take a genuine interest in who they are, what they are thinking about, and what is important to them. Be open to being in relationship with younger women. Be a friend.

Don't go in to their life and try to "fix" them. Would you want someone to do this for you? : ) Also, don't try to find your fulfillment in being "needed" by someone else. You are there to serve God however he wants to use you. He is the one who will do the work and get the glory in the "daughter's" life.

Be glad that He may also use other women as spiritual mothers in the lives of your "daughters". This is part of living in a covenant community.

Listening is key. Engage in what the "daughter" is sharing with you. Speak God's truth (not your own): very graciously, with much honestly, and in genuine Christ like love.

On Being a Spiritual Daughter:

Your job is to initiate the relationship.

Seek out older women from who to learn: women in your church, your family, in books, around the corner, or across the country.

You don't need to worry about finding the "perfect, one and only, mentor" or older woman. God gives us a covenant community of older women (notice its in the plural form of the word--women, not woman).

We need to be satisfied with God, not always "need" someone else in our life. God is kind to bring His saints around us to challenge and encourage. However, He is the only one who truly can know our hearts, ministers to us, and meet our needs. On a particular day he may use a conversation with one woman; the next day, it may be with someone else.

This is not to say you must have all older women that you meet be your "spiritual mother". Be in relationship with the "mothers" that God brings into your life. Don't always be grasping for more, looking for the ideal or perfect. Recognize God's good gifts of real women he has already brought into your life.

Seek them for counsel, ask questions, glean from their wisdom of years, be grateful for the things they share. Don't ask unless you really want to know; apply what you learn.

Love them--they are being very vulnerable with you, sacrificing their own time, emotional and physical energy for you. But, they want to! So, be glad for the Lord's work in you through them.

Titus 2:1-8
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

An Honorable Son

"The important thing in history is not what the United States plans, or what Soviet Russia and the British Empire purpose, for God has his purpose which overrule all these things. . . . God orders all things with this purpose: the building up of His church and the enriching of His kingdom."

- R. J. Rushdoony

I've been enjoying reading through a pre-release copy of Rushdoony's commentary on Haggai. He's made several excellent points about the kingdom of God and the church.

R. J. Rushdoony died several years ago. His legacy continues in great part to the faithful efforts of his son Mark. I met Mark Rushdoony in 2004, and am looking forward to hearing him lecture at the WCWC.

Read a fascinating post about R. J. Rushdoony's library here.

Ice Cream

. . . for a birthday girl!


Hometown sweets at their best.

It's A Birthday!

May the Lord richly bless our Sweet Lydia, this year and always. : )

Twenty-First Century Time Saving Contraptions

RSS: Worth it's weight in gold.

When Peter was last home, he introduced me to an fascinating stewardship tool. Many of you may already implement this in your computer management tactics, but just in case, we wanted to give you an official introduction.

Instead of sifting through your "favorites" list . . . Nope. They didn't post. Neither did they. Negative. Finally! A post! . . . merely, type in your chosen RSS Feed service (I went with Google Reader), add any websites or blogs you want to keep up with, and it will tell you who posted and have all the posts on one convenient page for you to read!

Most likely, the vast majority of y'all is light years ahead of us-down-home-folks-in-the-backwoods. This tool has the capacity to save an amazing amount of time, yet allow you to still keep up with various blogs and websites.

Learning about RSS has me curious. How many of you read our blog through visiting our site directly? How many utilize some sort of an RSS feeder? Vote on the poll on our sidebar.

Vote for Matt Chancey

Today's the day! Alabamians, make your vote count.

Pretty in Pink

The fruit of her labors: music and dresses.

Years ago, a sweet friend gave us some beautiful pink eyelet yardage. It's been sitting in our fabric stash, just aching to be made into something useful.

Sarah was inspired to tackle the project and create matching outfits for her flute recital. The results were darling, if I do say so myself. : )

Morecraft on Calvin

Pastor Morecraft.

I am really looking forward to hearing Pastor Morecraft's lectures on Calvin at the WCWC (scroll down to see the lecture titles). Pastor Morecraft usually reads his sermons; invariably, as he gets about three-quarters through or nears the end, the emotion and significance of what he is expressing chokes him up. I love it. : ) 

Because of my own father's passion for John Calvin, I've been trying to learn more about this godly pastor from the 1500's. It will be good to hear Pastor Morecraft's observations on Calvin and his application to our lives today. 

". . . God, as he is our Creator, has toward us by right the place of Father and Lord; for this reason we owe to him glory, reverence, love, and fear; verily, that we have no right to follow the mind's caprice wherever it impels us, but, dependent upon his will, ought to stand firm in that alone which is pleasing to him; then that righteousness and uprightness are pleasing to him, but he abominates wickedness; and that, for this reason, unless we would turn away from our Creator in impious ingratitude, we must cherish righteousness all our life. . . ."

Excerpt from Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter VIII, Section 2. 

". . . Thus it finally comes to pass that man, thoroughly frightened by the awareness of eternal death, which he sees as justly threatening him because of his own unrighteousness, betakes himself to God's mercy alone, as the only haven of safety. Thus, realizing that he does not possess the ability to pay to the law what he owes, and despairing in himself, he is moved to seek and await help from another quarter." 

Excerpt from Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter VIII, Section 3.