Photos: From the birthday party with friends
We had Jacen and Emmy's friends over for some cake and ice cream. Check out more pictures from his 7th birthday party. And, yes, I am amazed that he's 7 already. It seems like it was just yesterday...
Inductive Bible Study
There are a number of good books on Inductive Bible Study (IBS) techniques. I read and studied a number of them last fall, and as a result I've begun creating a tutorial in PowerPoint on how to study the Bible. I've posted the first of 4 installments in my point papers section. Help yourself.
Photos of Jacen's 7th birthday
Ok, I'm trying something new. Instead of only posting 1 photo of an event, I'm going to try and post many. But I'm not going to post them directly here. I've created an account with Flickr, a website that allows you to share photos. This will allow me to post many photos. So here's my first try: Jacen's 7th birthday party. Let me know what you think, plz.
Christmas Pics
I'm behind in my blogging. Here are two more pictures from Christmas day of the kids playing with their toys. Jacen still loves Legos and Emmy has discovered Polly Pockets, a small doll figure.
Christmas
We celebrated Christmas day at our condo here in Winston-Salem. It was a nice day of opening presents, attending church (no, ours didn't wimp out like many churches; in fact, it was packed), hanging out with family, and playing with presents. It's wonderful to be able to spend a holiday with family. Jacen's favorite gifts were the two remote control cars he got. Emmy's was her Polly Pockets mini-dolls. I'll tell you about our (Ann and I) gift later.
Marble Run Again
Dad stopped by the week before Christmas and spent a couple hours building marble runs with the kids. They got a second run for a Christmas and more marbles. If you're wondering, 200 marbles going down a 5 foot marble run is really, really noisy.
The Nations
Did you know God has a plan for all the nations of the world? I've added a short point paper which traces God's plan through the Bible, from the Garden of Eden and the nation of Israel through the church and the end times. Take a look in the Point Paper section.
Candles
As you may or may not know, Ann has been making and selling homemade candles for several years. I've just put up a link to the candles she can make. Look on the menu in the "family" area.
Star Wars Cartoon
Our previous DVD player died last spring. Ann had bought me the cartoon version of Star Wars: Clone Wars for my birthday in June, but I had not been able to watch it. We finally replaced our DVD player this week, so Jacen and I watched it. Well done! I like the cartoon version as much as the real one.
Marble Run
We picked up a neat toy for our kids - a marble run set. It's a bunch of connectable pieces that build into a track for marbles to follow down. There are wheels to spin, bells to ring, and whirlpools to descend. I think the best games require kids to be creative, and this fits the bill. They keep coming back again and again to build new tracts. So far our tallest tract was nearly 5 feet tall.
Thanksgiving
We didn't do much of anything for Thanksgiving this year. After taking the entire family back and forth to Wake Forest for 2 days every week of the semester, we were really ready to go nowhere and do nothing, so that's what we did. And it was a great time! I got to spend more time with the kids, and Ann got to focus on her cooking and her scrapbooking. We even broke out a couple puzzles and fixed them together as we talked. It was a nice break in a busy semester.
More on Baptism
Why did Jacen get baptized? First, let me try and answer a different question: what is NOT the reason why he got baptized? He didn't get baptized as a means to God's grace. That is, baptism has nothing to do with establishing a right relationship with God. You might recall that last February Jacen accepted Jesus as his Savior and Lord. That step of accepting God's grace only through faith is the ONLY thing Jacen needed to have a right relationship with God. So if baptism does not confer God's grace, why bother? Jacen gave two reasons in his testimony video, which was shown to the church. He said first he wanted to follow Jesus' example. Recall that John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the river Jordan. Why did Jesus get baptized? Did He need grace from God? No! He is God. He did it out of obedience to His Father and to set an example for those who follow Him. So Jacen was simply following Jesus' example. Jacen said second he wanted to be baptized because God said to. Jacen was referring to a portion of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I commanded you." Those who are disciples of Jesus should be baptized and should be taught. Jesus Himself commanded that His followers be baptized, so Jacen was simply being obedient to His Lord. These are great reasons for being baptized, and I'm very proud of my son.
Baptism
Today, Jacen got baptized. As you might recall, he asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior last February, and today he followed His example. Pastor Gilbert, the senior pastor at Calvary baptized him, and as you can see from the picture below, he graciously allowed me to assist. It was a great time.
The heat is on
In the living room of our condo we have a gas fireplace, something we've never had before. When the temperature dropped into the 30's one night this week, I decided to fire it up (no pun intended) the next morning. Wow! Within 15 minutes it jumped 8 degrees in the living room/kitchen area. I suspect Ann, who is still a Texas girl at heart, will really appreciate the heat when winter arrives.
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