So after a CRAZY busy month of December with more food than I can possibly stand (my jeans are fitting pretty tightly), I am finally able to get to Blog again.
W3 is incredibly excited to tell you about two Bible Studies set to begin in January. First, MOTHERWISE, Wisdom for Mothers will be offered again beginning Wednesday, January 9th, and will be in the Carosel Room of the CFC in Adrian — 6:30-8:30pm for 9 weeks. Because you never stop being a mom, this is perfect study for any mother of any age. Check out the upcoming opportunities page at the right for more information.
And if that is not for you, feel free to wait a couple more weeks to begin A Woman’s Heart: God’s Dwelling Place by Beth Moore. An 11 week, in depth Bible Study for Women who want to have better intimacy with God as your new year’s resolution (if it is not, choose to make it your new year resolution, now). Consider signing up if you wish to see how the God of the old testament who lived in the tabernacle, now lives within our hearts. There will be two times offered. Wednesdays, starting January 30, 2008 from 6:30pm–8:30pm (arrive early as table time is a valued necessity) in the Founders Hall of the CFC. And Thursdays, starting January 31, 2008 from 9:30am–11:30am at Vicky P.’s home in Onsted.
Just so you know, there is a Night of Praise for Crossroads January 23, 2008 at 6:30pm in the CFC auditorium. If you have never come to this event, you must come…. It is a way to have more mature worship time with our Father and praise Him the way only true believers can. I usually come off so excited to be with God and then leave feeling refreshed and renewed and loved. We do it for Him, but since He lives in us, we benefit.
Hope to see you attend some of these events. Make a commitment to God to get to know Him better this year. You won’t be sorry you did it….
This seems to always be a busy time of the year, my girls have has a lot of activities at school. I have missed sharing with all of you and I am back on track now .
For all of you last minute shoppers here are some great gift ideas:
1) Mini trapoline: I have one and I love it and the best part is so do my kids. It has a lot of health benefits. Improves circulation, lymph, & more!!
2) Consider Books: Don Colbert’s The Seven Pillars of health, What would Jesus eat. Janet Maccaro’s Natural Health Remedies, 90-day immune system makeover. Jordan Rubin’s The Great Physican’s RX, The Great Physicans RX for women, or the newest one for children. He also has great short reads about diabetes, cancer, ect…
3) Massage (who wouldn’t love this): Improves blood circulation. promotes relaxzation, naturally detexifies the body (drink lots of water), and much more.
Healthy tips:
Since it is known that sugar breaks down the immune system and creates a lot of other problems CONSIDER decreasing the amount of sugar. I have a lot of friends who tell me no way can they eleminate sugar so I suggest decreasing it. Example If your cookies call for 2 cups of sugar use 1 1/2 cups or even 1 cup. Most people don’t even know the difference.
When you buy applesauce buy the natural (unsweetened) if you think about it who puts sugar on their apples when they eat them, so it’s not necessary for applesauce.
If you like maple syrup try use pure maple syrup the only difference is its better for you. Meijer sells pure maple syrup by Maple Grove.
Web Sites to check out:
www.Mercola.com My personal favorite, he is a Christian M.D. who takes a natural approach. He has so much info. it’s unbelievable. You can so a search on anything, for example type in sugar and you can find all the research on it.
WWW.BiblicalHealthInstitute.com This is also a favorite of mine. This is one of Jordan Rubin’s sites. He has recipes, a ton of info. and free biblically based introductory health courses. He also has Biblically health coach training courses (there is a fee for these) I am taking these courses and I really enjoy them.
www.mikehuckabee.comHe is a Presidential canidate and don’t worry I am not telling you who to vote for just to look at his site. He is a former baptist minister who believes in marriage, and is pro- life. I included this in my wed site because (I love this) his idea for health care is Prevention. He lost a 100 lbs. and seen how his quality of life improve and he believes prevention is key and so do I. We don’t need more drugs we see the horriable effects it has on everyone. We need to be good stewarts of the body God has given us.
Remember this Christmas share the greatest gift of all Jesus!!! Merry Christmas, Christie
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
If you did not attend Project Share’s distribution yesterday, YOU MISSED OUT!
Crossroads Community Church took on a God-sized project this Christmas season when we decided to raise money for the homeless and needy families in our community. We recognize that with a hungry belly also comes a greater hunger for Christ. So, in God’s great love, this church decided to partner with Feed The Children and some local agencies to reach 800+ people in our community and deliver 1 box of food, 1 box of supplies and 1 bag of extras as available to feed a family of four for 1 week. It was the people of the Church’s job to decide what they would sacrifice for this project to cover the cost of the two semitrucks from FTC (retail $85,000, but for our bargain price of $20,000) Last week we took the offering…. Amazingly, God put it in the hearts of His children to generously donate over $53,000!!!!!!!! The excess amount will go to a social agency who will distribute it to people this winter who need to keep their heat on and cannot afford that!
God is so good! And when that number exasperates you, we move forward to Saturday, December 15 when the trucks arrived. 450 Crossroads volunteers were scheduled to arrive to help unload the semis, place Crossroads labels and Christmas experience invitations in the boxes, bag miscellaneous items, load them to the docking areas, place them into delivery cars and deliver them to each family individually. We were scheduled to arrive at 9:15am because the semis weren’t supposed to be there until 10am, but when we arrived, the semis were already there and needed to be unloaded as quickly as possible, so they could deliver their next supply before the huge snowstorm. The craziness that was supposed to be controlled well by human volunteers quickly became controlled by God in His glory.
A human chain was formed from the back of the semi to inside the elementary school doors and down the hall. We passed boxes back and forth and down the line and stacked them high. Another team of people stuffed them with the invitations, labeled them and carried them back outside the doors. The next team carried the finished boxes from outside the doors to the loading docks and another team stuffed them into cars for delivery. Another station was the bagging of miscellany. FTC threw in a few more unpacked pallets of food and supplies and we had to bag them up and place them out for delivery as well. A station was set up to give directions to the delivery drivers (anyone who volunteered as long as there was an adult. Even the cars who deliver were labeled with a magnet that designated them as from Crossroads. All this happened in a light fluffy snow and it was COLD!!! There was a room for 0-3 year old kids to have a place to go while their parents volunteered. There was cookies and cocoa or coffee for every volunteer.
I cannot tell you how overwhelming the amount of boxes were. You heard 1600 boxes, but you do not know until you see them all!! Amazing. God can do all that. I was overwhelmed and so excited! I wanted to be part of what God was doing. He knew that this snowstorm was coming and he set it up that 865 families would have meals for a week. 865 families of at least 4 people = approximately 3460 people who were shown God’s love through Project Share. 3460 people who will be invited to hear God’s message to them at Christmas this year at Crossroads. Countless people who will have their heat paid for this winter without fear of chill or shut off.
This is beyond belief. It was chaotic and crazy and fun and when my leaders told me just to wait, my excitement filled me so that I just couldn’t wait. Just because I was assigned to an area that I was told to wait, I said, “ok, I will come back and check on you later, right now I will find somewhere that needs my hands to serve the LORD.” And that is what I did. I was assigned to bagging, but I believe the only areas I did not help in yesterday was child care and delivery. I ran around carrying boxes and bags inside and out, human chain line and otherwise and in heels. I am such a GIRL! And I believe 100% that God was made famous that day. His glory is amazing and it is great to see it in the spirit that is Crossroads. Well done, good and faithful servants of Christ!
So, share your Project Share story. Did you notice something someone might not have? Did you deliver a package? Can you describe the human chain? Merry Christmas!
So, many of you know that I lost my one and only son almost two years ago in January. He was 5 days old when he died due to complications from labor and delivery. Well, tonight, I had our monthly group meeting at Tiny Purpose (www.TinyPurpose.com) and we had our Christmas party.
The party was fun and we had a great time ’stealing’ gifts from our bereaved moms, but then just before we were getting ready to go our leaders decided to “get serious”. Almost every month at group we share our stories and for many of us it includes our birth story of our special children. Well Kristin decided to share someone else’s birth story — Jesus Christ’s! She read from Luke about how Mary was on a long trip to Bethlehem as she was laboring and about to give birth to her son and the one and only son of God! It was amazing to hear that story again with fresh ears to hear how precious and loved and wanted that child was and Mary could not even comprehend how miraculous her son was to be….
For those of us who have lost a child, we can only compare how devastating it must have been for Mary to stand by and watch as her son whom she was told was to be the “Messiah” be hung on a cross and pierced to bleed and suffocate to death. To see the one who was the Savior upon the cross and be the mom who wanted to ’save’ him more than anything. I am just reminded how amazing God’s love for us is. He loves us with an unfailing love and we just have no ability to understand that apart from our faith. We simply must BELIEVE it!
At the end of the story from the Bible of Christ’s birth, 16 moms whose babies had died shared a candlelight memorial in honor of our babies who will spend this year’s Christmas in Heaven. We braved the icy roads and threat of more ice and snow in order to celebrate our motherhood and be in the comfort of those who have been there.
Remember the Reason for the Season. Christmas means nothing without Christ!
Love to read? There are so many great Christian books available! You are invited to join the W3 Book Club! Read a good book every month….connect with other Crossroads Women….and join in the discussion. W3 Book Club will meet the Second Saturday of every month, beginning January 12, at Karen Pender’s home in Adrian from 10am-noon. Please RSVP to Shirley Bordine by email: sbordine@bf.umich.eduWhen you RSVP, ask for directions to Karen’s if you need them. The first book we are reading is: The Yada Yada Prayer Group (Book #1 in the series). You can find this book at many local book stores, or online at Christian Book Distributors (.com) or Amazon (.com). Ask for the book for Christmas…and read it before the club on Jan 12! It’s a very fun read, and will give you alot to think about! Hope to see you then! -Martha, Shirley, and Karen
What an incredible night of sharing and worshiping our Lord Wednesday, November 28 at Celebration Wednesday. It was the culmination for our Breaking Free study and it went out with a BANG!
We first describe our “plunder” from being released of our strongholds (comparing us to the Israelites who were set free from Egypt and God let them take their “plunder” from the Egyptians). And we took a look at our previous evaluations of our relationship with Christ and compared it with our current relationship 12 weeks later. Then we wrote what we broke free from on an old wristband and wore it throughout the night. After we watched the video, we had some amazing worship music and a demonstration in which we walked up to the cross and cut off the chains of bondage (the old wristband) and replaced it with a new pink rubber bracelet which said “Gal. 5:1 It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set me free!” We tore down the lies and replaced it with God’s truth!!!
After some incredible worshiping and teary eyes, several ladies shared their testimonies. We heard stories of people replacing fear, unforgiveness, pride, and others. We saw people who did not have the courage to speak in a microphone, but who were praising God with their nods to leading questions like “Have you been betrayed and learned to forgive throughout this study?” and “Who drew closer to God throughout the last 12 weeks?”
What was especially moving is that when it was time to wrap it up, many ladies stayed and many were crying and hugging each other. I could overhear people telling each other their stories that they were too nervous to tell in front of a big group. This study was amazing and moved through many people. Girls, this is another opportunity for you to tell your story. If you already did at the Celebration, that’s ok, add it here again. If you didn’t have the guts, take a deep breath and write it here. This is all about letting God know you love Him and that He is amazing! Let us know that too! Just click the comment button and begin writing.
Can’t wait to see our Lord glorified by your responses!!
Mother Wise is a lifeline for mothers of all ages and stages providing the Biblical instruction moms need to thrive in today’s chaotic, changing society. Come join us on Wednesday’s for this 9 week study Beginning January 9th, 2008 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Christian Family Center. Cost for the book is $15.00
