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Thought this was an intersting article by matthew Parris in The Times.

This was his rather insightful conclusion:

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I’m afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete.

Thanks to Against Heresies for the link.

Mark Driscoll writes up a quick history and origins of Saint Nicholas and his connection to Christmas. Check it out at The Resurgence.

Update
We are first time homebuyers!! We are also in the process of remodeling the house, so in the meantime we moved in with my wife’s aunt/uncle’s place. The past weeks we have been packing stuff away, cleaning, and actually throwing a lot of stuff out (hence the need for such things as freecycle and craigslist). Continue reading

When Eliana was still in the womb, our old pastor introduced us to Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp. It’s a parenting book that talks about raising children, discipline, roles of the parents, etc.

We’re at that stage in life where a lot of our friends are married and starting to have children, so we meet two kinds of expectant parents… The first one is the clueless type (which I think is the category we fall into) and the other is the nonchalant, “we’ll be fine type”. We are the clueless type (and still are), so we read a whole lot. Some of the books we read concerning children rearing includes: Baby Wise, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the above mentioned Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Home Grown Kids…. and a bunch of others.

Anyways, there’s so much out there, differing philosophies, differing attitudes towards parenting, preparing for children, etc… that maybe the nonchalant types are right. Each child is so unique you can’t prepare for them all… but then again, maybe there are some basic truths that can be applied to parenting, stuff that can help you when the time comes….

Anyways, Shepherding is the latter. It presents parenting from a biblical perspective. One of the main points in the book is not to correct behavior through behavior modification, but to appeal to the heart of a child. It looks at the heart of a child as both something made by God yet has been corrupted by sin. What that means is that one needs to be aware of both the dignity and depravity in children (and even ourselves) that must be dealt with. In that sense, the heart of a child needs to be shepherded towards wisdom or else will end up in folly…

We read it (and liked it) and it helps us to see parenting from a biblical perspective. It’s not for everyone (so be warned), but the main thesis of the book involves acceptance in a few presuppositions about the reality in which we live. Even if these aren’t your basic assumptions in life, you might still find this book to be helpful.

And if you are not into reading, you can listen to some of Tripp’s lectures he did recently at a conference entitled Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

And also check out the sequel: Instructing a Child’s Heart

Just unloaded a bunch of items through freecycle.org. Very easy. It makes it a whole lot easier to throw away stuff. People actually come over to pick them up. I feel less guilty for not filling up landfills and people get stuff for free. If you are interested in joining your local freecycle, go to Freecycle.org.

Just be prepared to read a lot of emails… because that’s how they work… they send you a million emails every day. SO my suggestion is that you use a different email than what you normally would use (i.e. your SPAM email). And click on the option to receive emails in digest form.

Okay, that’s it for the service announcements.

Was on Hulu today and found this… He-man, Master of the Universe.

One of a number of cartoons I watched as a kid back in the 80s. With a moral lesson at the end.

Episode 1 had a really good storyline that laid out the characters and possible plotlines. I don’t really remember much about the show except for the invocation of the “By the power of Grayskull” and the lesson at the end. Todays lesson: the right way is the best way…

If you’re up for some cheesy animation and even cheesier dialog, check out He-man :)

This video reminded me of the time a bunch of the youth from church went to welcome back a brother coming back from China. We had signs and stuffs… but because he had to go through customs, we waited over an hour at Dulles airport. In the mean time we greeted people coming from around the world… I think London, Paris, Tokyo, and Beijing.

Anyways as always, enjoy.

Thanks to Enjanerd for posting these pics from the holiday weekend.

We had a pre-thanksgiving day on wed at my uncle’s, followed by t-day at the inlaw’s, followed by post t-day at my parents, followed by a church t-day, followed by our annual post-day skating… more pics to come…

Hope you enjoyed the week and settling back to the daily grind. I miss work… I can finally rest from all the festivities.