In right - Out right for 2010

Last week in the Neighborhood Bible Study, we talked about what it means for something to be in God's "right hand" or someone to "sit at His right hand" as we discussed Rev. 5:1 & 7. We also mentioned that group dynamics research proves that the person seated to the right of the "leader" is the one in the power position as far as influence is concerned. I shared an incident from my days in the Army Nurse Corps. As a new LTC (Lieutenant Colonel) & as the Asst. Chief Nurse for the military hospital at Fort Leavenworth, I occassionally would fill in for the Chief Nurse. One of her jobs was to brief the Medical Commander of the hospital each morning on the patients & other things that had occurred in the hospital in the past 24 hours. One of the first times I filled in for the Chief Nurse, I walked into the Commander's Office & took the chair that was open & closest to the Commander. Thinking that since I would be doing the briefing, I would want to be close to the Commander, I didn't think about it being the first chair on his right. About as soon as I sat down, the Chief of Preventive Medicine walked in the door & straight over to my chair. "That is my chair," he demanded. I replied, "I did not see a sign on this chair & besides, I am a woman." Everyone else in the room was a man & most of them had smirks on their faces as the Commander told the Chief of Preventive Medicine to find another seat so we could get started. Only after the morning briefing did the Adjutant pull me aside to tell me how I had "cracked up" everyone! It was known by the others that the chair closest to the Commander's right hand was the "power position" in the room. The Chief of Preventive Medicine always grabbed that chair if possible. He even bullied the others for it. Since he was almost late that day, I unknowingly outwitted him. My comment about being a woman just added to the hilarity of the whole scene as far as they were concerned. (Thankfully I had previously developed a personal relationship with the Commander & his wife through my assignment as the hospital representative to the Red Cross, so the Commander supported me in my blunder.) Anyway, I guess my mind was still ruminating on this "right hand" meaning as I read Psalm 16 in my devotions this morning.

Psalm 16:8 jumped off the page at me. "I have set the LORD continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken." I would paraphrase that to myself as, " My eyes must remain focused on the LORD & I must let Him be my chief influencer in 2010." A friend of mine has an e-mail address of inrightoutright@----.com. I am sort of borrowing the "in right - out right" idea as the spiritual theme of 2010 for myself. Like computers, what we put into our minds & bodies will be displayed for the world to see given time. The food I eat will show on my body. What I choose to input to my mind will overflow into my attitudes, words & actions. (Matt. 12:33-37) I so need the Holy Spirit to guard my eye, ear & mouth gates today & every day of the year, so my output will be pleasing to Him. Psalm 16:8 gives me one of the keys to achieving my goal. No matter what 2010 brings my way, my soul/spirit will be calm & at peace in the LORD as long as my focus & position in relationship to Him remain right.

This was tested immediately in early January, when my daughter moved in with her boyfriend. She says they got a marriage certificate first, but we have not verified that. They plan to have a church wedding at a later date...whatever that may mean. She is all set to start college nursing courses toward an LPN on Jan. 25th. So far, I have responded by placing this firmly in the LORD's hands & have prayed continually for Esther & Robert. Esther usually chooses to do everything the "hard way". Two large transitions so close together without much family support is a difficult way for her to start 2010.

Have a great week in the LORD with Him at your right hand. May He be the chief influencer in your life & the Commander, too!

Happy 2010!

May your new year be as quiet & peaceful in the Lord as this Thomas Kinkade print.

Happy Hanukkah/Chanukah!

This was the best Hanukkiah picture we received so far this year. It comes from one of the Jewish web sites from Israel that we monitor daily. That site & others are warning that Israel is about ready to make some military moves soon - very soon. I am so glad the Word tells us "the rest of the story" ahead of time.

Our local university Griz. football team slipped & slid their way to a win in the semi-final playoff game in the snow yesterday. They will be playing in the finals in Chattanooga, Tennessee this coming Friday! All week we had experienced sub-zero temperatures, but it warmed up to around 20 degrees by Saturday's game. We celebrated the start of Hanukkah at Beth Tephila with about twenty folks: frying potatoe latkes, doughnuts & turkey; singing Hanukkah songs & rededicating our lives - God's current temple on earth. As we finished our service & party, the snow started falling. It fell during the second half of the Griz. game & just kept falling until this morning. We had 6-8 inches on the ground when we left for the Sunday School Christmas Program. Our first major snowstorm of this season.

Family at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a wonderful family affair. Great grandchildren posed with Mom & Dad House & ate at the table that my sister & I got for Christmas over 55 years ago. We ate at that table when we were their age too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I liked this google Thanksgiving motif, so decided to share it. Hope you are able to share this day with loved ones. We have overcome all the flu symptoms of the past week or two & are grateful for our good health along with everything else the Lord has given us. Enjoy His blessings!!

125th Anniversary Celebration of the Dry Creek Bible Church

This past week-end my sister & her husband, my parents & I drove into mid-January scenery & temperatures to attend a 125th Anniversary celebration. We met my brother & his wife in Bozeman, who had driven from Billings. Sunday morning, it was only 8 degrees outside as we left the Comfort Inn in Bozeman to drive the 30 minutes to the Dry Creek Bible Church.

My father pastored here for 14 years - while I was in Junior High, High School & college. This church was started in November 1884. That was 5 years before Montana became a state... only 20 years after the Civil War...& 8 years after the Custer massacre.

Mom & Dad were younger than me when they pastored at this community church in the middle of a rural farming area. We saw folks we hadn't seen for over 25 years & were able to catch up a little on their lives. What a blessing!

The older part of the church is now the fellowship hall, in which are several historic photos. This one is of the church building being moved a number of miles via bobsleds & 24 horses in 1905. The only damage suffered from the move was a crack in the brick chimney.

My family of origin had the week-end to reminisce without the distraction of children or grandchildren for the first time in many years. Here we are in front of the desert cake for the celebration -a replica of the older portion of the church. This is all there was to the church back in the 1960's & 70's when we drove out to serve each Sunday. Oh, yes, there was the outhouse in the yard that we used back then too.

Sampling of October-November 2009 photos

This was our October sukkah setting - snapped just before our Beth Tephila members started coming to our home for the first day of Sukkot celebration. Lacking palm branches & other items like the etrogs (citron like a lemon), we substituted what was locally available...pine branches & cattails & lemons. Last week I reduced those lemons to hot lemonade with honey to treat the sore throat I developed from a sinus post-nasal drip. It worked so well!

These other photos are a sampling taken the last month or so. Above is a look towards Missoula during a hike Becky & I took on logging roads in Pattee Canyon.

Shadik is now 18 months old & usually sitting somewhere near my workspace. Outside, she is a huntress, but inside is slowly becoming a snuggler like our other cat, Rachel. They still do not get along, so we keep them separated in the house.

Our new puppy is growing but is not completely house-trained...so much of the time he is in his puppy playpen in the dining-room area. He answers to "Puppy" or "Ari II".

Here is Becky on our Pattee Canyon hike. Since it is now hunting season, we were wearing orange. I continue to drop seed into her life & pray for an eventual harvest.

Last year in the AWANAS nursery, we usually had 4 to 7 children. This year it is usually only 2 girls. Elizabeth, the red head, is around 20 months old. Her grandma is my co-worker during AWANAS. Her brother, Andrew, became a Sparky this year.

Katie is almost a year old. Her brother, Luke, also became a Sparky this year.

Fun & Work with a new golden puppy

We have a wonderful bouncy, fluffy, golden retriever puppy at our home these days. He is show quality. Our friend Florence gave him to us for free! He sleeps alot & I am threatening to name him "Peewee" because of the other thing he does so much.

Part 7 - Starvation Creek Falls

Instead of stopping at Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge on our return trip, we opted to see something new. Starvation Creek Falls was a great potty stop & quite beautiful.

Part 6 - Oregon Coast - Day 2

The ocean beach looked so inviting Saturday morning. We gazed at it through the condo. windows as we ate a leisurely breakfast & shared a devotion & prayer time.

When we actually started walking on the beach, the 60 degree temp. felt even cooler in the nippy breeze. We rolled up our pantlegs, but kept our windbreakers on. I had to keep drying off my glasses that would coat with salt-water droplets every so often.

About three miles down the beach is an area used for kites. Louis & I have bought spin-socks from "Catch the Wind" in Lincoln City just like the one in this photo. We fly them over our garden. They scare the birds away from our strawberries & show us which way the wind is blowing so we know how to set our sprinklers. Later in the day, I bought a 9 foot one to take back to Louis.

Have you heard of Kite-boarding or Kite-surfing? We hadn't, but we watched a couple of young men who appeared to have perfected the art of this sport.

"Roads End", this rocky promontory, was the destination of our 10 mile beach walk into the cool wind. As we neared the outcropping, we could see two different families posing for pictures.

When we arrived at "Road's End", we spoke to the Mom of one of the families. She is in the middle of the above photo. Her husband & four sons were all wearing blue shirts, while her daughter & she wore white. The other children in the photo were from the other family. She & her husband had adopted two Ethiopian brothers only two weeks before this photo session. They had driven from Yakima, Washington to meet the other family from San Jose, California for a vacation on the beach. This Mom was obviously a believer by everything she said. She spoke of hopefully leading her two new sons to the Lord. She homeschools her children. More power to her!

You can see how white my lower legs are compared to my friends' tanned ones. Well, after our 5+ hour beach walk, they had changed to a bright red sunburn. I should have used more common sense, but relished the feel of the sand between my toes & the wetness as the waves rolled in. I had put my sandals & socks back on just before this picture was snapped.

We drove down to Newport to see all the male sea lions taking their siestas near the fishing boats on the wharf. These 1000 pounders had such beatific expressions. Their barks could be heard blocks away.

Ending our Newport experience with the Marionberry cobbler at "Mo's" was so satisfying. I couldn't think of a better birthday outing.

Part 5 - Hallelujah Hiker Oregon Trip - Part of my 60th Birthday celebration

My birthday always closes off the summer by being September 21st. This year it also closed my contract with the Army Nurse Corps. At the age of 60, the Army releases retired doctors & nurses from their "hip-pocket orders" that automatically can call you back to active duty in time of war. Although I enjoyed my almost 23 years as an Army Nurse, it was a relief to turn 60. I no longer have this sword held over my head. Part of Louis's BD gift to me was letting me take a four day road trip to Lincoln City, Oregon with three of my hiker buddies. They stood for the above photo after our 13 hour drive to the Pacific Coast. We arrived at Diane's condo. on the beach right at sunset.

This pic was taken from the front room in the condo. as we dropped off our luggage. We headed to the beach for the first photo & then hiked south along the beach a mile or two to "Mo's Restaurant". It's a well-known place for delicious clam chowder & other local foods.

In the dusk, this large piece of driftwood looked like a sea lion or walrus from the distance. We didn't see the actual sea lions until the next day in Newport. We drove there to eat marionberry cobbler at the original "Mo's" & see those male sea lions. The females stay in California year-around.

As we neared "Mo's", we watched three pelicans circling, landing on the water & then taking off again.

Our waitress brought me a free sundae for dessert because of my BD that week. We hikers split it, since we were so full from our salads & the scrumptious clam chowder. Besides prayer-hiking, we hikers have something else in common. We all love ice cream!! It is not uncommon for us to stop at an ice cream place on the way home from a hike & quickly consume the same or more calories than we just used to hike 6-10 miles.

Here we are posing for the 69 year-old waitress, Judy.

Part 4 - Apple Cider days

On two different days, between hikes, Bible Studies, Beth Tephila activities, etc. Ron Smith & I used our apple press to make homemade apple juice/cider. This was our 4th year to do this together. We work well as a team. Ron does the hard manual work while I wash the apples, cut out the bad spots, load the hopper on the press, help change the buckets collecting the juice & then pour the juice into our milk cartons after it's filtered through our linen dish towels. I also feed the left-over apple mash to our horses & sheep.

The apples are cut into little chunks when put through the hopper. When the chunked apples fill the wooden barrels, we put a couple of wooden tops over the barrel & start pressing the juice out of the apples. In the photo above, we had just finished the pressing, so the large screw was raised so we could remove the wooden tops & then the apple mash.

This was the finished product on the first day... 11 gallons & 16 half-gallons of juice. We have to leave quite a bit of head space in the milk cartons as the juice expands as it freezes. We didn't leave enough space once & I had a sticky mess all over my chest freezer to have to clean. We had nearly this much on our second day as well. Family & friends of Ron's & ours end up getting most of this juice/cider for gifts. It's a labor of love, organic & a wonderful purgative if you drink more than one glass at a time.

Part 3 - Skookum Butte Look-out

The Kootenai Creek Fire that had stayed back in the wilderness area & fairly contained through August & early September, blew up & headed toward ranches bordering the Canyon on September 19th, Rosh HaShanah. I have blogged about a couple of our hikes along Kootenai Creek in past years. Louis & I had been busy with the morning Rosh HaShanah service & Beth Tephila Congregation Tasch-Lik service after our oneg (potluck lunch). Our Tasch Lik, along the Clark Fork River, was extra special since one of our members was baptized during the service this year. The day was clear & warm - around 80 degrees. A great day for a baptism. As we drove home on Highway 93, we noticed the wind was starting to gust. After driving through Lolo, we noticed a large plume of dark smoke rising above Kootenai Canyon. In the smoke, you could just barely see flames of fire along the ridgeline between Kootenai & Bass Creek Canyons. We have good friends who own a ranch in the Bass Creek area, so we wondered how this would affect them. No sooner than we arrived home & we received an emergency call from Janie saying that the fire was heading their way & they had been put on possible evacuation status. We offerred our horse trailer to help move their horses & cattle if need be. Thankfully, the fire never reached their ranch & they never had to evacuate, but it was touch & go for a couple of weeks. Well, several days after this blow-up, the hiking group decided to get out of the smoke filling our valley. In this photo taken from the lookout, we could look down at the smoke-filled Bitterroot Valley from above & to the West of it.

My friend, Becky, whom you met in the post on the Hiawatha Trail, joined the Hallelujah Hikers for the first time. She took us to one of her favorite hikes - Skookum Butte Lookout on the Montana-Idaho border. This hike is not in all the Bitterroot or other hiking trail guides...so it's a well-kept secret by those who know about it & the pikas that inhabit the talus around the lookout. We heard those pikas, (small mammals allied to rabbits that inhabit alpine regions), whistling but never saw them. We were just too chatty as we hiked along.

The hike was supposedly only a mile or so long, but it felt like much longer, since it was quite steep. It offerred great views of mountain ranges in both Montana & Idaho.

As we climbed above the treeline, we could see Skookum Butte with the Lookout
sitting on top of all the talus.

The photo below was taken as we were just leaving the trees. We were reminded of the house the wise man built upon the rock versus the sand. It would remain when the storms came. (Matthew 7: 24-25) We hope to be such wise women - who hear our Lord's words & also obey them. Our foundation is the LORD - THE ROCK. (Isaiah 26: 3-4)

Some of the slope was covered with Huckleberry plants loaded with berries & russet leaves. We snacked on Huckleberries & a few wild Raspberries along the trail on our way down to the trailhead.

Part-way down, we detoured to check-out the trail to Granite Lake that we hope to hike another time. The lake in the distance is Lily Lake, not Granite Lake. Maybe we'll hike to Lily Lake sometime too.