Grisly Films and Anti-Heros

I found a couple of news articles on Yahoo! which I found quite concerning. The first one was about a new movie directed by Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame. He was hoping to produce a PG13 rated film, because that it believed to attract the greatest number of viewers. However, early screening audiences complained that there was not enough violence! They were disappointed that the death of one character was not more grisly and visual, so Jackson went back and tried to “improve” it. Although it’s sad that Jackson bowed to such pressure, he is the creator of LOTR, so it’s not as if you could expect a very clean movie.

What was really disturbing though was that people wanted more violence- more gore. It reminded me of ancient Rome- not just their Coliseums and gladiators, but even the theatres, which had real, live crucifixions! It’s disturbing that the modern world seems to becoming fascinated with gore and violence as well.

The second articlarticlee was about a van heist anti-hero in France. This security van driver had over a million euros in his van, and he stole the money and then disappeared. On the Internet, he was being hailed as a hero! There were Facebook fans, even a “Tony Musulin for President” page and another called “The World Is Yours: Tony Musulin Best Driver 2009”. People were praising his robbery as “the heist of the century” and congratulated him on his “no guns, no violence” approach. Now he has turned himself in to the police. But what I want to know is why do people see him as a hero? He’s a robber! He stole other people’s money. What’s admirable in that?

Is it that he was like a modern-day Robin Hood, stealing from the rich, and now people are happy to see the rich people get what’s coming to them? Or do people just value cleverness over goodness? Do people congratulate somebody on putting on a “good show” even if such shows destroy the social fabric of society? Are we so bored and corrupted? If robbery and violence becomes acceptable, then society quickly runs down hill. I would like to try and understand why he became such an anti-hero, if anyone has any ideas, please tell me.

I’m attempting to write a 50,000 word story in one month- to be finished by the end of November. I am currently sitting at the 10,000 word mark, which means that I have a LOT of typing to do. I’m still going to cross the 50K mark by the 30^th, don’t worry, but it’s going to take some work. But I will get there!

11:12 AM - Nov. 17, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Ways I'm Trying Not To Waste My Life

The things I get myself into. Only a few days ago, Beth and Squid convinced me to have a crack at writing a 50,000-word story in one month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo (National November Writing Month, or something like that). Pretty big project. Therefore I need to be averaging about 1660 words a day. That is going to keep me very busy all month. I estimate that will mean 1 ½ hours of writing a day, as I can type two pages of story [a page being about 500 words] in one hour.  Of course, having an edited, polished end product isn’t the goal, the goal is to write, write, write!

The benefit of a project like this is that it’s a productive way to spend my time. Practising writing and stretching my creativity is a much better way to spend my time than playing games all afternoon.

I am also intending to pick up Lord Of The Rings again, I was reading it and jotting down some thoughts about it, and then for some reason, I gave it a rest. So I’ll be doing that this week as well.  

Another ambitious plan I have in mind to keep myself from wasting my life is doing a bit of cleaning up (gulp!). I normally have a basket of ironing at the end of my bed, but over the last couple of days I’ve narrowed it down to a few shirts, which I hope to iron in a couple of days. I’m also slowly removing the mountain known as “Joshua’s School Tray” and filing all the stuff away. The trick is to do a little bit every day, instead of spending all afternoon at it; that way I’m not discouraged by always working, working, working. After my desk and my ironing are cleaned up, I’ve set my eyes on my cupboard of hobby materials, board games etc. It’s pretty full, and pretty messy. If I can give that a bit of attention every day, I can make the mess manageable.

Good grief, I’ll be sounding like my organized sister in a minute!

I’ve also become re-interested in Chess. Some time ago, I brought a book about 50 great chess games played by masters of the game. In between the actual moves the author has written down his analysis of the decisions, and explores the consequences of other moves. The idea is that you can study these chess masters, analysis their good moves and their mistakes, in the aim of improving your own game. I’m intending to do that, as well as play more chess against my handheld chess computer. This handheld chess computer has 73 levels (the difference between levels is how long it thinks for before selecting a move). On the 73^rd level it has no time limit on how long it can think for. I am currently on level… 6. I’m flogged every time. Obviously I need some improvement. J

With all these projects, I have to eliminate a few time-wasters of mine. Primarily this means my computer time and my wargames [historical battle games played off the  computer]. Mum gives me ½ hour a day for computer games, and 1 hour on week-ends. With all these more constructive projects, computer time is going to become a lot less common for me. My wargames (think playing with toy soldiers, but with rules based on real history) are another thing I spend a lot of my time on, to the detriment of other activities. 

 When you are trying to establish new habits, I don’t think it’s a good idea to eradicate all of the bad habits, especially if they’re only bad when in excess. If I’m not desperately trying to catch up with my writing on Saturdays, I’ll play my wargames then. My computer games will probably become a “crash-time” activity, something I do when I just want to crash and relax.

9:45 AM - Nov. 2, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

I'll Be Dead In 70 Years- Can I Afford To Waste Time?

Imagine if you, one Saturday, woke up at 6:00 AM. Your mother says that you will be having a family dinner at 6:000 PM, so if you want to finish any projects today, you have twelve hours. Instead of starting your day with a bang, you watch TV until 9:00. How would the rest of your day go? How much would you get done?

Not only would you have wasted three hours of your day, but you would have very little motivation to get stuck into all the worthwhile projects you wanted to do over the rest of the day.

If you do the maths, you’ll see that is exactly what the stereotypical teenager is doing! After some research on the internet, I estimated that I could probably expect to live to be about 85. In other words, in 70 years, I have a good chance of being dead. That doesn’t leave much time for dilly-dallying.  

Society expects teenagers to party through the teen years, not really accomplishing anything worthwhile, just having fun. I’m often tempted to waste my life like that myself. But I don’t think we realize how much of our lives we waste this way.

If we waste away our childhood and our teen years, doing nothing of much importance, we’re whittling away the first 25% of our lives, just as you whittled away the first 25% of your day watching TV. There’s no reason to imagine you will be able to pull yourself out of the habit of wasting your life once you hit adulthood, than you would be able to reconstruct your day after watching TV until 9:00. We can’t afford to waste our lives.

My family had a discussion about this (in which we built that 9:00 AM analogy together) after reading Psalm 39.

“LORD, make me to know my end; and what is the measure of my days; That I may know how frail I am. Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths; and my age is as nothing before You; Certainly every man at his best state is but vapour.”

Psalm 39:4-5 [NKJV]

10:18 AM - Oct. 30, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

My life- school and politics

I suppose it’s time for a personal update.

What’s up? Not a lot.

School started last week, so I’m back to my rigorous school schedule of 6 hours of school work a day. My plan is that if I can wake up at 5 o’clock, I can eat, have devotions, give the dog a walk and do my jobs by 6:30, and start school. That means that if I go to bed early, if I don’t read over breakfast and if I stay focussed during school, I can finish everything by 1:00, giving 30 minutes for family devotions and family meeting.

That’s the theory. In reality, I’m not there yet. In particular, I keep falling to the temptation to read over breakfast, which means I get carried away with my book and spend 90 minutes instead of 10 over food! As you can imagine, that just wrecks my schedule. However, I will get there! What’s the normal schedule for you guys?

The other exciting news is that Parliament has started sitting again this week after having a couple of weeks off. Ever since I came back from Canberra, I’ve been paying more notice to politics, and so, this afternoon, I’m going to watch Question Time on TV. Provided I’m not lagging in my schoolwork, I’m intending to watch it as often as the family schedule permits.

In Canberra I also discovered that parliament is broadcast on FM radio. Hopefully we get reception for it. So I’m intending to keep up to speed with politics via the TV and the radio- as well as the news of course. That’s about all that’s happening over here. What are you guys up to? 

1:11 PM - Oct. 19, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

How Should I Spend My Money and My Time?

I have two hobbies. Both are constructive, productive, quality hobbies. If I took my hobbies as far as I wanted to (without being obsessive), I could spend $10,000 on my hobbies over my entire lifetime. Should I be doing that? That much money could provide enough drinking water for thousands of people in Sudan, thanks to programs like Dollar for a Drink. Is it right for me to spend it on myself?

This leads to the question, how much time should we spend on playing, and on working? By “working” I mean, being productive so that the results of our labour have long-lasting affects on ourselves and on the people around us. My hobbies don’t really fill that definition. “Work” might not be the right word; I’m only using it in relation to how I often have the choice to spend my time either on my hobbies or on my life passions and probable career (history/politics/philosophy).  Just because they are my passions doesn’t mean that it’s not easier to spend my time on my hobbies- my passions are still “work” in a sense, work I enjoy, but still work.

So should my play simply be a means to an end, so that I’m rested enough to go back to work and study efficiently? Or is it all right to give some of my life to play?

The relaxation side of the argument in my head says that humans need relaxation. If we worked 24/7, we’d crash and never get anything done. Spending time with other people, just relaxing, is very important- we can’t spend life in the fast lane. Hobbies are my relaxation. We shouldn’t always be working, after all, God created the 7^th day for resting.

I know there is validity in all those arguments. But the “work” side of the argument says that only the 7^th day was for resting! Considering that the average lifespan is about 80 years, I have approximately 64 years left to live out my life’s passions, and its terrible stewardship to waste them. The question is, are my hobbies good stewardship of my 64 years?

The ancient Spartans dedicated their whole life to the military, and refused themselves any creature comforts that could reduce their ability to withstand the rigours of war. We can admire their discipline, toughness and dedication, but when it comes to actually wanting to replicate that…

4:27 PM - Oct. 14, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Flogging A Dead Horse Thief

This email was too good not to share. I’m not sure if it’s true though. It’s entitled

“Flogging a Dead Horse Thief”

Political Spin at its best

It just all depends on how you look at some things...

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California , was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Congressman Harry Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.

The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory:

On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this

inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'

So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle. Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following

biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

"Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."

P.S. The email had this disclaimer at the bottom- it’s like those “authorized by” notices you find at the end of a government ad- read aloud very quickly in a low tone!

“Consider the environment before printing.”

10:45 AM - Oct. 1, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Socialization- The Homeschooler's S word

I think I need to do a little bit of explaining. I haven’t completely left Homeschoolblogger. I’m still intending to post on here, and comment on here, but my main blog is now joshualetchford.wordpress.com. And yeah, I can’t believe I forgot to put down my new address when I declared I was moving! How embarrassing…

In my last post, I shared a bit about what happened when I spent a week in Canberra. I’ll share some photos sometime… but I didn’t take very many photos, and I think the other delegates are intending to facebook their photos- which probably means I’ll have to get my head around facebook… (major rant about technology etc. etc. etc.)

I was the only homeschooled student among those 30 other 16-17 year olds, and I found it very interesting to see how 30 of my peers interacted for a whole week. Of course, Homeschoolers are always being asked “what about socialization” but in the end, I realised that I was indeed socialized.

On the first day, we had a picnic to get to know each other. Most of the delegates formed this huge oval so that everybody could talk to everybody- although there were often two or three conversations going on. As we got to know each other a bit better, everybody split off into groups of 4-6 delegates. I found that a little tricky, because I am used to either going to a friends’ place, playing with all the kids, or mingling in church and other adult functions. In church or other functions, you talk to an adult for 5-10 minutes, he goes off to get a coffee, and you wander around to the next interesting conversation. Here, people largely stayed in the same groups over the week, and since I didn’t do that, I wasn’t in the hive of social activity. I wasn’t shunned or ignored in any way and I was fully included- I just had a different model of socializing than they had.

All in all, I realized that homeschooling had given me the ability to socialize very well with many people, and with people of different ages. It was encouraging to realize that. 

Does anybody else have observations from times there were large numbers of kids socializing together?

10:15 AM - Sep. 23, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Canberra

Well, I am back.

In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been away for a week. Miss me?

Thought not. :)

I have just spent a fantastic week in Canberra, the Australian National Capital, as I was part of the 2009 Rotary Adventure In Citizenship programme. Rotary funds year 11 students from all over Australia to travel to Canberra for a week and learn about being an active citizen of Australia. You could describe it as a leadership course, which particularly focused on Parliament House and the cultural icons of Australia. It was fantastic!

A quick summary of the whole week- we did many role-plays of our political system (including Question Time and a mock Federal Election), toured the War Memorial, Australian Institute of Sport, the embassy area, the US Embassy, Duntroon (the royal military college), Old Parliament House and Questacon (a kids’ science centre). We met Members of Parliament, Senators, scientists, a navy veteran of 17 years and some renowned journalists. We saw Question Time, and parliamentary proceedings. Four of the delegates (including my roommate) met the Prime Minister. As you can imagine, it was a very hectic week.

What did I learn? I realized just how transparent the Australian political system is- we are privileged to live in Australia. I gained a new respect for politicians. They work very family-hostile hours, it’s very lonely if things don’t go your way, and in reality, 90% they do vote the same, instead of the constant bickering and negativism that you see on the news.

I also made very interesting social observations as I mingled with 30 teenagers from all over Australia with me being the only homeschooler. I’ll be sure to share my observations with you all!

P.S. For my homeschool blogger friends, for some reason the link on homeschoolblogger isn’t working, so just copy it into the URL and it will take you to my new blog! 

3:00 PM - Sep. 14, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Farewell

Hi all,

I have an announcement to make. I have been blogging on homeschoolblogger for 1,115 days (with only 82 post to show for it, but an incredible 200+ comments, thanks guys!) and sadly, I have decided to leave for a wider horizon. I have established a new blog at wordpress, and posted my first post at www.joshualetchford.wordpress.com

 I have made so many friends on HSB, and I will always remember you guys!

Well, see you later!

Josh

11:42 AM - Sep. 4, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Lord of the Rings fans- I want your help (if you're interested)

I know this might sound really weird, but hang in there with me…

I am wanting to make a Lord of the Rings wargame. A wargame is usually a historical set of rules which allow the player to re-fight historical battles. The player uses little model soldiers to represent his army, a ruler to measure how far the soldiers can move in one turn, and dice to determine how well the soldiers fight or how brave they are. The rules give historical boundaries which ensure that the army fights in a historically-reasonable way, but since the player uses dice, you don’t always get the same result as in history.

In real battles there wasn’t always the same result- some soldiers fought really well, others ran away, generals made different battle plans and there were different battlefields that gave different advantages. In a wargame, all these factors are represented. Although dice determines how well your soldiers fight, because your game army is based on a real army, good soldiers are likely to fight well, and bad soldiers are likely to fight badly. It’s all factored in.

Anyway, to explain my title, I am wanting to make one such wargame for Lord of the Rings. For the rules dictating how to move and when to shoot etc. the mechanics of the game, I am simply editing a wargame called Ironbow which I downloaded FOR FREE off this website- The Perfect Captain . If you like historical battle games and board games, check the place out!

The reason for my title is that while the basic rules are already made, I need to write down the characteristics of the different soldiers (Riders of Rohan, Knights of Dol Amroth, Woodelves, Dwarves, orcs, Mumakils etc.).

q       How likely they were to run away?

q       How happy they were to fight hand-to-hand or did they try to stay away from enemy swords?

q       How likely they were to chase fleeing enemies (instead of obeying orders)?

q       What would they do if somebody started shooting at them?

q       Were they better at fighting horsemen or at fighting foot-soldiers?

     How did they fight?

I will be scouring Tolkien’s books for this type of information, but if you guys think of anything, please let me know! Quotes from the books that talk about the fighting abilities of soldiers would be really handy. There is a good chance this project will take years (lazy me) if I ever finish it at all, but I will post an example of what information about LOTR soldiers I am looking for soon.

Josh

11:07 AM - Aug. 25, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

A Really Great Day

Today has been a really great day!

First of all, I went down to our tree plantation (we live on a farm) and did a hour of work down there. After that, I came back home and spent some time looking at my university options. Mum and I have decided that I should do university via the internet, since it’s easier for homeschool students to enter university in that way, rather than through all the tests and year 12 exams etc. I looked at what units I would need to study as an introduction to online study, my necessary study-schedule, costs and so forth.

At church we met a young man who’s just come into town and has the same interests as me- history, politics, worldview/philosophy and cricket. So we invited him to come over one day so he and I could talk. He came over this morning and after showing him the house and our tree plantation we had a great conversation about Christianity and philosophy.

We discussed a Christian’s perspective on warfare, some philosophies we had read about, blocking, accepting or transforming secular culture and some of the reasons we have human conflict. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed discussing these deep issues with him, and I think he did too.

So now I’ll do a bit more schoolwork, and go to work to finish off some lawn mowing I couldn’t do yesterday (lawn was wet).

Do you guys have anybody you know you can have meaningful discussions with? Other than this man, there’s a few people in my church (including an older man from Bible Study) and most of all, my parents who I occasionally have meaningful conversations with, and I really value them for it. What about you guys?

2:21 PM - Aug. 20, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

The New and the Old Covenant

 Last night, Dad, Mum, Jess and I had a long discussion about why Christians are no longer bound to obey the Mosaic Law. I wanted to know why we no longer followed the Law, when Jesus said that not one pen stroke would be removed from it. God also says that “I the LORD do not change.” Yet Paul and the writer of Hebrews spend a lot of time talking about why the New Covenant has replaced the old one. There seems to be a contradiction.

We came to the conclusion that the Law was given to prove that we could not save ourselves by our own actions. What’s more, the Law was given with the promise of a new covenant to come. The Law says-

“The time is coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the LORD. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel, after that time, declares the LORD. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, I will be their God and they will be my people.” Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NIV)

I think that about sums it up. The Israelites could not keep God’s old covenant, and so God is going to make a new covenant, one that is written on our hearts, instead of being a legalistic list of rules like the Pharisees had in Jesus’ day. God has not changed, because the old law was also about loving God and loving your neighbour (see Micah 6:8), but He has fulfilled the Old Covenant through Jesus.

1:13 PM - Aug. 10, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

The Lord Of The Rings- some thoughts

12:05 PM - Jun. 22, 2009 - comments {16} - post comment

Re-Reading The Lord Of The Rings

I am re-reading The Lord of the Rings at the moment. I was reading a short review of LOTR in “Honey for a Teen’s Heart” by Gladys Hunt and Barbara Hampton, which is a book full of recommended good books for teens to read. It asserted that “you should become better yourself for having journeyed with Frodo through Middle Earth.”

Well, I had read the books before, and picked them up several times since then, always with the intention to read them from cover to cover, only to always skip to my favourite parts.  I had immensely enjoyed the story, but I hadn’t really got much out of it. It didn’t have much effect on my life. “Do Hard Things” by Brett and Alex Harris had been motivating, “That Hideous Strength” by C.S. Lewis was thought-provoking, and I had thought about the good and evil aspects in everyone’s character when I read “20,000 Leagues under the Sea”, but when I first read LOTR, I didn’t find much thought material.

The reason why was because I had just zipped through them, read a chapter then moved on too quickly onto the next. Mum has got us into the habit of “Reading Journaling”, which means that as we read a book, we write down our thoughts, our notes, our feelings about what’s happening. We can write down thoughts as we go about what the author is saying, or the issues that he is exploring. It’s a great habit, because it makes you slow down and think about what you’ve just read, instead of just turning the page to the next gem.

So I’ve decided to do that as I read “The Lord of the Rings” once again. I read the first two chapters of “The Fellowship of the Ring”. These are some of my thoughts ( I even had more to think about as I wrote this down!).

I have heard that someone once compared the One Ring to a drug addiction. That’s not a bad comparison. Gollum is like someone who is addicted to the drug, and is now struggling to stay “clean”. But that can be brought closer to home. I would say that the Ring reminds me more of any addiction - computer games, TV shows, foods, games, books etc. Addictions pull on you, calling you to try it again, until it dominates your mind and it’s all that you can think about. Gandalf warns Bilbo to let go of the ring, it had too strong a hold on him. But Bilbo had to let go of the addiction by his own accord, if it was forced off him then that would do more harm than good. I wonder, is that why God doesn’t force us to be righteous (having given us free will)?

When Gandalf explains the terrible history of the Ring and it’s dangers to Frodo, Frodo exclaims that he wishes that these dark days hadn’t come in his time. Gandalf tells him that it’s not our job to pick what times we are born into, but what we do with it. “And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black.” (Book I, chapter 2). That made me wonder- can you tell if your days are better or worse than any others? We don’t know all the details of the good and evil of former days, so when we compare our limited experiences of today with our very limited knowledge about yesterday we are making a very unequal and limited comparison. Were the Middle Ages worse than today? It’s an interesting thought.

So those were my thoughts after reading the first two chapters of The Lord of the Rings. I intend to share some more as I read through it, but if you haven’t read the book, I will be sharing spoilers, so skip my post and visit me another day! J.

11:33 AM - Jun. 10, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

Two Little Boys

Two Little Boys

After a hardy rainstorm filled all the potholes in the streets and alleys,
A young mother watched her two little boys playing in the puddle through her kitchen window.
The older of the two, a five year old lad, grabbed his sibling by the back of his head and shoved his face into the water hole.

As the boy recovered and stood laughing and dripping, the mother runs to the yard in a panic.
"Why on earth did you do that to your little brother?!" she asks as she shook the older boy in anger.

"We were just playing 'church' mummy, " he said.
"And I was just baptizing him.....in the name of the Father, the Son and in...the hole-he-goes!

3:24 PM - May. 28, 2009 - comments {4} - post comment

The Homeschooling Question: What About Socialization?

Nomi went to the doctor for a routine medical check up recently, and after the examination the doctor starting asking questions about her lifestyle etc. which is normal, to get an idea of the whole wellbeing of the patient. It went something like this…

DOCTOR: “Ah. Year 7. Highschool next year. Which highschool will you be going to?

NOMI: “Oh, we homeschool.”

DOCTOR: “How do you socialize?”

NOMI: [Doesn’t know what he means]

DOCTOR: “Well, what do you do at night time?”

NOMI: Umm, Read lots, eat lots.

DOCTOR: Well, when do you see your friends?

NOMI: Ahh, Tuesday… Thursday… Saturday…

MUM: “And Sunday.”

DOCTOR: Wow, that’s quite a busy schedule!”

2:54 PM - May. 18, 2009 - comments {5} - post comment

It makes you think

I read this story in a devotional, and thought it was very thought-provoking.

The story is told of an old minister visiting a church. The pastor invites him to speak. So the old man shares this story: “A father, his son and his son’s friend were sailing off the Pacific coast when a storm overturned their boat, sweeping all of them into the ocean. Grabbing a rescue line, in a split second the father had to make the most excruciating decision of his life- which boy to throw the other end to and which one to sacrifice. He knew his son had accepted Christ and his friend hadn’t. Anguished, the father yelled, “I love you son", and threw the rope to his son’s friend. By the time he’d pulled the boy back to the capsized boat his son had disappeared beneath the waves. His body was never recovered. The father knew his son would step into eternity with Jesus and couldn’t bear the thought of his friend facing eternity without Christ.

At the end of the service a teenage boy approached the old man and said, “That’s a nice story, but what father in his right mind would sacrifice his son’s life in hopes that the other boy would become a Christian?”

“You’ve got a point,” The old preacher  replied, it’s not realistic. But I’m standing here today to tell you that story gives me a glimpse into what it must have been like for God to sacrifice His only Son for us. You see… I was that father, and your pastor was my son’s friend.”

The Pharisees who watched Christ die said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save…” (Mathew 27:42). And they were right; He couldn’t do both, so He chose to save you.

Slightly adapted from “The Word For Today Devotional, Saturday 30^th May, 2009 by Bob and Debby Gass

9:28 AM - Apr. 29, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Treehouses and Palm fronds

At the moment, Grandma and Granddad are visiting- they live a long way off, and so we don’t get to see them much. But they’ve come up for a visit to the hot Kimberley climate, and they’re keeping us kids very busy.

We have a lot of palm trees in our garden, and lots of palm trees means lots of palm fronds, which all need clearing out and moving onto a bonfire. That’s been one of our big tasks for the last week, helping the grandparents move out all the palm branches onto the trailer, and then onto the bonfire heap (which is now very large). In fact, the hardest part is moving the branches out of the trailer and onto the large bonfire heap because the pile is so heavy, and we want a quicker way than lifting them piecemeal.  

Our second project has been to build a treehouse in one of our trees for Nomi and Daniel. The basic construction is a flat platform on a wooden frame wedged between several vertical branches of a large tree. That may sound simple, but when you intend to place a heavy wooden frame that covers 8 square feet up 24 feet into the air, cut a hole in a branch for one of the frames to go into with a blunt chainsaw, lodge this frame into the tree by rope-and-tree-branch pulleys, and then finally nail some planks for a floor, it loses some of it’s simplicity. Another brain-twister has been how to devise a ladder that is both safe to climb up, durable and easy to remove, because we don’t want little kids climbing up and falling off. The ladder and a railing is all that is left to do, and then this treehouse is done!

So, in one week, we’ve placed a large wooden platform 24 feet into the air, lodged in a tree, and moved about 4 large trailer loads of palm fronds and branches out of our garden and onto the bonfire. Yes sir, the grandparents are keeping us busy!

If the photos on HSB are working alright then I’ll try and get some photos of the kids playing in the treehouse- 24 feet off the ground! Gulp! Grandma, Jess, Mum and I all think it’s a little high off the ground, but Dad insists that’s how high he built his treehouses when he was a kid. Yeah, but they didn’t have The Health and Safety Commission back then…

10:14 AM - Apr. 16, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

Refuting Evolution

I just recently finished reading “Refuting Evolution” by Jonathan Sarfati. The book is very short and easy to read, but has a incredible amount of information showing the scientific validity of creation science.

The book is written as a rebuttal of a teacher’s manual on how to teach Evolution in the classroom, called “Teaching About Evolution And the Nature of Science”, which was published by The National Academy of Sciences in 1998. Concluding with a useful summary in chapter ten, the first nine chapters look at the proofs for Evolution which Teaching About Evolution presents and shows how the evidence actually fits the Bible better. Refuting Evolution discusses Whale, Bird and Human Evolution, astronomy and the Big Bang, the intelligent design argument, Galileo and the Church our complex DNA, and many other issues.

I found this book to be an excellent resource on the conflict between Creation and Evolution, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to study this important topic. I do recommend that you only read one chapter a day, and then spend time writing about the facts and arguments that you just read about. I read three chapters in a day once, and I struggled to remember the information produced in the first chapter I read.

As I said, I highly recommend Refuting Evolution as a concise and easy to read book which clearly shows the many fallacies in the theory of Evolution. Highly recommended!

11:34 AM - Apr. 8, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

Dad Travels To Zimbabwe

A few weeks ago,st week, Dad came back from a two-week trip to Zimbabwe. He found it very interesting and was challenged by some amazing examples of selflessness shown by locals there. Originally, he decided to go over to see first hand how things were going, to support the Christians in Zim, and to attend a “Growing Farms God’s Way” conference held in Harare (the capital of Zimbabwe).

One of biggest lessons Dad got out of his trip was that Africa was going to be reached by Africans. It’s their continent, their people and their culture, and it’s going to be Africans who are going to make the biggest impact for God in Africa (although foreigners have important parts to play as supporters).

Zimbabwe is in a really big mess right now- Mugabe’s financial management has meant that the Zimbabwean dollar is not even used anymore it’s so worthless. Dad came home with the second biggest note in the Zimbabwean currency in his pocket- a 50 Trillion dollar note! The highest is the 100 Trillion dollar note, but even that is worthless. Instead people are using the US dollar, but there isn’t enough of hard currency in the country to do business.

Cholera is epidemic, the hospital system is up the creek and nearly all the Zimbabweans are poverty-stricken. Only twenty years ago, Zimbabwe was the prosperous food-bowl of Africa. Now it is very dependent on foreign aid.

Which brings up something else Dad learnt about- Africa’s dependency on aid. Literally trillions of dollars have been poured into Africa as foreign aid and there have been absolutely no results. In order to break the dependency cycle Africans need to be taught how to provide for themselves. That was what the farming conference he attended was addressing- showing farmers how to actually be self-sufficient and make a profit, so that they can look after their families and help put the country back on track again.

Three of the major points of the farming conference was to work on time, to be resourceful with the materials they had on hand and to be diligent. The three main produce in Zimbabwean farms are tobacco (very lucrative), maize (kinda like corn) and soybeans. In Zimbabwe the best time to plant is 25^th of November, but nearly everybody just waits until Christmas to plant. This leads to a lot of lost yields. Normally the farmers just let the weeds grow, and they burn off the stubble before it’s time to plant. Instead, this conference recommends letting the stubble stay there and act as a mulch to persevere all the water in the soil.

They also instruct farmers to use fertilizer, but if they can’t afford proper fertilizer then they should use compost, and then if there isn’t any compost use manure or anthill, which has fertiliser properties. Another thing they taught was to be very specific about the amount of seeds they planted, and to be exact about where they dug the holes. There needs to be a balance between each plant having enough space and not wasting any farmland. Thus there are the Biblical principles of Punctuality, Resourcefulness and Diligence.

Dad came away with a lot of souvenirs from that trip, including shirts, toys and an African, hand-made metal-pieces chessboard for me. He also came away with a lot of photos, a few of which I wanted to share on here, but HSB doesn’t seem to want to allow photos, so I’ll put them up when I can. (This is the reason this post is so delayed, I wanted to post the photos, but couldn’t.)

I think Dad came away with a lot more from this trip than just souvenirs. He came away challenged by the selfless, self-sacrificing Christ-like living of the Christians there, who are risking their comfort, their money and even their health to help others in need, stirred on by their faith in Christ. It’s a challenge for all of us today.

9:45 AM - Apr. 6, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

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