Letter from India

My family supports several ministries, but one we especially appreciate is “Compassion International”, a ministry which supports impoverished children overseas. The program will provide schooling, clothes and food, and medical treatment through the monthly contributions of the “adoptive” family. The sponsored child also writes updates on what he/she is doing as often as the delayed overseas mailing service allows.


Our precious sponsored child is Lidiya, a thirteen year-old girl living in India. We attempt to communicate and share what's going on in our lives as time goes by, but the delay in the mailing service is about two months making communication more difficult. However, we recently received an update from Lidiya, which was so cute I had to share it with you (she now writes English well enough that she doesn't need a translator);

Most loving Gary Duff uncle and Sheri aunt. Loving greetings in the name of Jesus. I received your loving letter, photographs, and Jonny's short notes. Jenni and Emily are looking very beautiful in that photographs (smiley face). Their dress also looking nice. Whose hair is long, Jenni's or Emily's (picture of girl with long hair)? How old is Caleb? Where is Josh? I wish to know more about Josh.


Happy “B” day to Emily and Jeremy. Nobody should not say Emily is 21 years old. Happy wedding anniversary to uncle and aunt.


My family and me are doing well. But my father is taking medicine now also. My mother is working a nursery school near our house. I have promoted to 8th grade. I have more subject to learn. My height is increasing day by day. So, all dress are short to me.


I participated in sports meet that was held on 26th January at K---. I got 1st prize in Badminton. We celebrate my mother, brother and myself “B” day together. Our project manager call the children who are celebrating “B” day and pray to them each day. Then he gave sweets, other children wishing “B” day greetings. I have got color dress from compassion. I wore it on my birthday. We presented a school magazine in our school. I was the chief editor. Let me conclude here with lots of love and prayers-


Lidiya (lots of flower drawings)

Sponsor a child through Compassion

Come to Me, all you who are...

It's all too easy for individuals, especially Americans, to become wrapped up in our own daily lives, and forget to look beyond our circles. Very few times in my life have I been confronted with pain, deprivation, insecurity or loneliness; so few that I almost forget entirely it's strong presence in the world. (Truly; who goes searching for darkness and discomfort, when surrounded by the light?)

Just the other night we didn't have to go searching for something outside of our daily world; it came to us. In fact, you could say it basically stepped in our path and flagged us down. We were driving home as a family from an evening reunion when a young man stepped into the road and waved. Thinking all they needed was a tire change, or the use of a cell phone, we stopped and rolled down the window.

What we thought would be an innocent, 5 minute encounter turned out to be a two hour adventure with 3 rough young men. As we left the two men at the car and drove one of them to the nearest town, we learned about his distant family, felony history, and gang-member friends. What would have been a simple phone call for help, was in reality a wild chase towards help that would never come: these young men had no money, licenses, food... or friends.

I can understand running out of money and gas. I can understand struggling to hold down a job, and making less than wise choices as a young person. What completely boggled my naïve mind was the complete and utter lack of friends, or even acquaintances the young man had. They knew no one; aside from a few “friends” in low places completely unable to help.

As I began to ponder the people I've met in my short lifetime, and friends I've made, it's hard to fathom going through life... alone. It seems to me that simply striking up a conversation with a waitress, chatting with a coworker, or stopping to help the elderly lady reach something off the shelf can be the start to a friendship, or a chain of acquaintances. And yet so many around us go through life knowing only their loneliness and shame.

Some people may choose to live a life of anonymity; others simply don't bother to try. However, it may be more in our power to draw people into the light than we know, if we have the strength of vision to look into the shadows and recognize a need. Are you exercising your eyesight when you step out into the day? When we walk out the front door to our jobs, and go about our daily routines, how often do we really look a coworker, client, or passerby in the face and invest in their lives?

Those young men probably ended up spending the night on the street. While it may not be in our power to physically shelter others from poverty, or wrong life choices, we can offer what Jesus extended to all broken men in His life. Without Christ we are those friendless, hopeless people living in darkness, but by His grace we live in a light we can share.

Who will you share Christ with today?

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

I quote...

"Obama is the best gun salesman we could find.”

-Scott Hornsby, store manager at Carolina Rod and Gun in Charleston, S.C., on how concerns about potential bans on weapons and bullets have sparked a massive increase in sales since President Obama's inauguration.

Excerpt from World Magazine: Read more here

Volunteer Ministry (no crooks allowed)

Ever since I was little I have always had an interest in nursing, and as I grew older military support became a passion as well. So I decided to combine the two interests by volunteering at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Omaha this year. I started out doing odd jobs at dialysis, before recently switching over to the radiology department. In any medical work there is always plenty of liability paperwork, but the VA seems to take particular interest in killing trees.

Needless to say, as a volunteer, I was given a 34 page “VA Cyber Security Awareness Course” to read. While I was skimming through it I came upon a rather humorous quiz that I proudly passed, with flying colors, without hardly reading a section of the course. I think you will too;

Quiz

If you believe someone is breaking a computer crime law, you should:

1. Not do anything about it

2. Inform your ISO (Information Security Officer)

3. Contact the news media

4. All of the above

If you are working with medical data and you find interesting medical information about a neighbor, you should:

1. Obey VA's confidentiality principles and not share the information with anyone except on a need to know basis for work related purposes

2. Tell your other neighbors, but make sure that they promise not to tell anyone

3. Print it out and take it home, as long as you don't share it with anyone

4. Download the information to your personal USB flash drive

I really have no interest in stealing anyone's medical information, but I do value the experience, relationships, and chance to share the gospel in volunteering opportunities. Don't know what to do this summer? Try giving the gift of your time without being repaid. It won't be wasted in eternity!

Find a VA hospital near you

How much is $13 trillion?

Some people collect shoes, stamps, or other items and simply never use them. I have a sad tendency to sign up for multiple conservative email updates, and then never read them. I receive 7 in a day and end up scanning each for 3 seconds and deleting them. However, this humorous, yet sobering email I received from Competitive Enterprise Institute was one I had to share...

Friends of CEI,

Regardless of your political party or ideological leanings, the notion of the federal government spending $2 trillion, adding to the national debt of nearly $11 trillion already, should make you stop and consider the staggering size of our national tab.

If the irony of using debt-based spending to solve a problem caused by debt-based spending has escaped you (I doubt it has), perhaps these fun facts will put things into perspective:

• If you spent $1 every second, you'd have to keep spending for 412,000 years to get to $13 trillion. That means you'd have to start shortly after the time human beings first starting using stone tools and fire to get to $13 trillion today.

• $13 trillion in one dollar bills weighs 28 million pounds. That's as much as 87 blue whales or 462 Statues of Liberty.

• If you laid 13 trillion one-dollar bills end-to-end they'd reach from the earth to the sun and back...five times over. That's 946 million miles of greenbacks.

The amount we're looking at now—roughly $2 trillion between the Secretary Geithner's new bank bailout plan and President Obama's stimulus package—isn't small potatoes either. So what is $2 trillion?

• $2 trillion is bigger than the entire Gross Domestic Product of our neighbor to the north, Canada. In fact, according to the IMF, only Japan, Germany, China, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy have bigger total economies than the combined bailout/stimulus plan—all other countries on Earth have economies smaller than $2 trillion per year.

Then there's the interest on this staggering debt, which isn't exactly small. Paying the interest on the current $10.7 trillion debt cost Americans $451.1 billion last year alone. How big is that?

• That's $1478 dollars in interest for every man, woman, and child in the United States.

• That's bigger than the annual budgets of New York ($121.1 billion), California ($111.1 billion) and Texas ($83.8 billion) combined.

If you're scared, upset, or disgusted by this, you can do something. Visit BeyondBailouts.org and tell your Congressman and the President what you think of the bank bailout and stimulus.

Or, visit OpenMarket.org and click on the "ShareThis" button to share these fun facts on your favorite social network.

Visit Competitive Enterprise Institute to receive similar updates

True Love Doesn't Wait

I went out to meet my Beloved today. He very graciously received me... even after the many times I have rejected and neglected our precious times together. Truly I am a very unfaithful lover! He wants to do everything with me, though I don't understand why after all the ways I have wronged and scorned Him. When I sleep, He is beside me protecting me from harm. When I wake, He is ready to greet me with a smile and encouraging word. I dance, and He is there watching; taking delight in my joy and pressing me on in the mistakes. When I work, study, write, talk, relate... in every mundane or simple task I do He is always there taking sincere interest in my accomplishments.

I wish I could say that I loved Him as much as He loves me. His strength is beyond my comprehension and His protection so sure; unlike most suitors He has never once left my side. Sometimes I ask Him why, when I have slapped His gentle hands away so many times, He still picks me up when I fall. The love and joy shining in His face is so perfect in comparison to my own countenance, I can't even look at it long enough to know His answer.

You would think that with such a perfect Provider claimed as my own, that I would constantly be boasting of Him to my friends. Any sane girl would be talking nonstop about such a Protector! He should be within my thoughts at all times, like a love-sick maiden who can long for nothing more than to be alone with her Beloved. If I understood the smallest fraction of the love offered me I would throw away everything within my sight and reach out to Him, asking only to never leave His embrace.

My Protector is jealous of me. Of me! I who mock and scorn Him. I who constantly fill my life with other idols and loves! And yet He does not sit by idly and watch me go to my ruin. He is so strong and faithful, and not only provides me with every tool to protect myself, but He has already fought the fight for me; securing my safety.

He tells me that His desire is for me, and He rejoices over me with singing. I am His delight! At first it fills me with despair and shame to see His love for me, and my unworthiness of it. I can't understand it... it is too good to be true! Is there really “true love”, such a perfect dedication and sacrifice? Even if there were, it wouldn't be bestowed on me, the least deserving of those around me!

But looking back and pinching myself, I still see Him there. Joy of joys! It is true! Before my eyes flash the vision of a cross, of pain and suffering, and bloodstained hands. Somehow my fears and shame fall away as I see my Rescuer standing there, just as He always was, ready to give me a gift I never could deserve. Will I take it, today, tomorrow, and every day?

Tears stream down my face in unspeakable gratitude, joy and love as I run into His arms, witnessing His incredible strength and power... and gentleness. He whispers into my ear those endearments that for so long I took for granted. The one thing I had to do all along was learn to accept something beyond my comprehension; something I least deserved. I saw my shame and witnessed my own filth and rags, but the One I gained in losing myself was worth all the universe.

I went out to meet my beloved today...

Hello.... Is God There?

I have never had a cell phone. Call me old fashioned; I'd rather talk to a human being than a piece of plastic, I am appalled at the service rates, and can't stand to have someone text on their phone while trying to have a conversation with me. However, in the past ten years the average American citizen has gone from carrying no cell phone to owning multiple, and now it is not uncommon to see children as young as ten with them.

However, despite my disgust at our culture's need to constantly be engaged or entertained, necessity has forced me to look for a good service to use. And the hunt has been frustrating. Knowing that I will not spend hours every day on the phone, I was on the lookout for a good prepaid plan. What kind of phone would allow multiple services? What kind of service would cover my area? What prepaid plan could I find that wouldn't charge a day fee?

To make a long (and aggravating) story short, this ignorant girl bought 3 phones and ended up sending them all back. The last straw was when, after several hours on the phone with customer service, I ended up with a Kentucky number on a phone that didn't even work the weekend I most needed it. All I wanted was something not too outrageously pricey that would work. What does it take to make a few emergency phone calls???

In communication it's easy to get frustrated. Our internet connection is slow, our phone is dead, the reception is bad... we're always being charged for it and the perfection is never guaranteed. Sometimes all it takes is a lazy squirrel playing on the lines to cut us off! However, it tends to be in those times that we feel most cut off and isolated that the most important communication happens; prayer with an omnipresent God.

With the Lord there is no call waiting, no delays, no fees, no foreign customer service, and no static. It's the one form of communication guaranteed immediate delivery, reception, and response.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:12-13

There is no if or maybe for the elect; the Lord hears our prayers! Having to deal with waiting and delays so often in life, why do we refrain from speaking with our Creator in the simplest, and yet most blessed way possible? Why do we not daily, hourly indulge in this privilege... indeed, this honor and precious gift? We are commanded to pray;

Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice. - Psalms 55:17

And

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. - 1 Thess 5:16-18

We need to pray always, everywhere (1 Tim. 2:8), and in all circumstances. So don't delay; take advantage of this flawless offer, paid for in full by your heavenly Father.

The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous. - Prov 15:29

About Patriot Undeserving

American girl...

When I started my original blog “Jennifer's Musings” in 2004, my intentions were to strengthen my writing skills and share some silly ideas with various friends. What took me by surprise was the response I received from complete strangers who read, commented, encouraged, as well as criticized my writings. I was motivated by both the encouragement and opposition, and quickly found myself growing more familiar with the Christian Teen Blogosphere, with much admiration for the cause of the Rebelution. Since then I have continued to grow in controversial blogging with a vision to be a part of the rebellion against feminism, secularism and more sins growing rampant in our culture.

Currently I am a stay-at-home daughter residing in the red state of Nebraska with my family of 9. Home schooled all my life, I graduated in 2008 and have not pursued college as many would expect. This is yet another controversial subject which I am not afraid to touch on as I instead pursue various dreams and ministries; including teaching dance, working with a Political Action Committee, taking part in Church ministries and continuing to study at home.

Saved by Grace...

If I were to write on this blog, and publish posts under my name with no mention of Jesus Christ, I would be claiming praise and recognition stolen from the one who created it. I live and breath each day solely because my Lord is a gracious God, and all I do is because of His amazing mercy, even down to each post on this blog. My writings, I pray, reflect a biblical outlook on culture as I seek to bring to light the reason for living and searching for reform.

I am completely undeserving of God's special grace towards me for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). I am fallen and helpless, and so it is only through His power that my errant writings may be of any worth. It is my prayer that the verses below would come to light in my readers' lives;

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

-Ephes. 2:4-10

As I seek to seek to pursue excellence in my writing I pray that you, my reader, would be enlightened and edified not by my works but by the power of the gospel transforming my feeble words.

Undeserving of Freedom...

Many conservatives today are becoming increasingly pessimistic and bitter about the secular turn our nation has taken since the days of our founding fathers. There is no doubt that the liberals have wreaked havoc upon our constitution and biblical foundations, but this is in no way a call to abandon our nation. If our government and society can be called away by the devil in a mere 200 years, how much quicker can it be claimed by the Almighty God?

I have much hope for America not only for the many freedoms we have the spiritual weapons to reclaim, but also for the many blessings we continue to enjoy. Having been spoiled by our liberty and wealth, we forget nations bloodstained by mass killings of Christians who must run from their lives and struggle to care for their families in poverty. We forget the horrendous economic situations, the ongoing civil wars, the poverty and complete government control in nations such as China, India, the Middle East and much of Africa.

We as fallen sinners are completely undeserving of our liberty, privileges and prosperity in a nation such as America. What a sin it is to bewail our easy situations, and even more so of a failure and sin against God to give up this country we have inherited. While I endeavor to be a culture-changer and bring reform to our nation, I am without hesitation thankful to be an American girl living in the United States.

Why a Patriot? I love this country that the Lord has placed me in and have not given up on it. As Noah Webster described it, so I want to be

“A person who loves her country, and zealously supports and defends it and its interests.”

A young patriot from rural Nebraska can do nothing to save a nation. A perfect God willing use his many imperfect children can do it all.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

-Romans 8:18-21

I quote...

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

-Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book, 1774-1776

Movie night...

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Find out more about "The Widow's Might" movie