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Christ's walk (needs shockwave) |
Subj: Youth Homeschooler's Date: 7/28/99 9:28:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: Epistle folks 1 To: Epistle folks 2 July 1999 The Eighth Edition of
What if "The Light" was a metaphysical bug zapper?
You guys are probably wondering you didn't recieve a Youth Homeschooler's Epistle before now. You see, Joy and I have decided to revamp the Epistle. The Epistle will only come out once a month, but the issues will be bigger; we will have articles written by one of our staff members. (If you are interested in writing an article please e-mail me at Sabriel42@aol.com.) And we will have trivia games on the first Friday of the month. These will be held in our Epistle chat room. We will have a gamemaster who will give out the questions and then whoever shows up will compete against each other. We will start a section where we can review movies. What we thought about them on a Christian viewpoint and just rate them on how well you liked them we will try and keep a poll of the top movie of our choice. So if you would like to send in a movie review of a movie that has recently been released please send it to me: Sabriel42@aol.com. Another new thing: please join our Epistle onelist. This is a support group for Homeschooled teens though it is different then the Newsletter. This can come either directly to your e-mail or stay on the onelist board and we can talk back and forth through e-mail. To find out more go to www.onelist.com, sign in, and join the Epistle onelist!
Okay now on with the show.....
Profile:
What a typical school day at your house is like:
Name:
E-mail address:
Age:
How long you've been homeschooled:
Siblings:
What you like most about being homeschooled:
What you dislike most about being homeschooled:
Hobbies:
What you want to be when you grow up:
Thanks Hollie!
Scripture of the Week:
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. --Romans 8:28
Please join either Savannah or Joy Friday night, September 3rd, at 9 p.m. for the first monthly trivia game! The more the merrier!
Responses to last month's question:
Savannah wrote: If I could change one thing in this world, I would make sure that people had a little more joy in their life, a little more happiness. With God we as Christian's are generally filled with joy because we have such a wonderful reason to be happy. I believe that if everyone was happier it would take away alot of the problems we face. People wouldn't need to take drugs to get a fake high, their wouldn't be any wars or murders. The world would be a joyful place to live. And I know that we live in a world of sin and those things will never go away. But we can make someone's life happier by smiling at them or caring about them. Think about it! Joy wrote: Elimination of all mosquitoes, deer-flies, and flying ants ... or ... maybe, world peace! Nope, nope nope. I have a better idea. Travel with me back in time to the Garden of Eden. We arrive just as the original First Lady is having a conversation with this well-known snake. We interrupt the conversation to give the lady a news flash on what the consequences of her decision here are. She thinks this over, and being human, decided not to disobey God--this time. But now I can't help but wonder, "Ok, so we just changed the course of history. But how much? What about next time?" These guys, Adam and Eve, are human. At this point in time, that doesn't mean exactly what it means today. But they are human, right, they have choices, and they're gonna make decisions now and later that we'll all have to live with. Let's say Eve makes the right decision now...but what about later? Will future generations read about Adam's disobedience somehow, later on, instead of Eve? Or will Eve do something else? (Or will they both keep a perfect record, and none of us ever be here?) Every time I think about "I wish I'd been there, in the right place at the right time, and done ______, and a lot of things may have been avoided," I end up wondering, would the same thing have happened later, with another person or people? In this super-sized course of human events (human history), is it necessary that certain things have happened in a certain way to bring the universe to where it is now? I dunno. So this is real life, not a "if only" world. You can't change history or even the present or the future by just wishing you could. You might not even want to...not knowing everything. There's this country song (it might be by Garth Brooks for all I remember) that says, "I've had choices, since the day that I was born. There were voices, that told me right from wrong. If I had listened, I wouldn't be here today, living and dying with the choices I've made." You can't mess with the past, BUT you can change the present -- and the future -- one right at a time. In whatever you're up to. Little tiny insignificant stuff that you do, I mean anything, can mean a lot to somebody, and if you improve someone's life one tiny bit, well that's a Something. You get a life of Somethings and you may find that you've actually changed the world. Or somebody's world. And if not, hey, it was time well spent. Ok, I'm done preaching. If I could change one thing in the world, what would it be? Ok, here 'tis: Every single person on the face of this earth would be a blood-bought, spirit-filled, on-fire saint of God who talks the talk and walks the walk, and I mean everybody from the President of the United States to the Secretary General of the United Nations to Mr. Milosovich to whoever it was who was on the front page of today's Rome News Tribune to the neighbor who deals drugs, including everybody in between. That's it.
A burglar broke into a house one night. He shined his flashlight
around, looking for valuables and when he picked up a CD player
to place in his sack, a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the
dark saying, "Jesus is watching you."
He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight out and
froze. When he heard nothing more after a bit, he shook his head,
promised himself a vacation after the next big score, then clicked
the flashlight back on and began searching for more valuables.
Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires,
clear as a bell he heard, "Jesus is watching you." Freaked out,
he shined his light around frantically, looking for the source of
the voice.
Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam came to
rest on a parrot. "Did you say that ?" he hissed at the parrot.
"Yep," the parrot confessed, then squawked, "I'm just trying to
warn you."
The burglar relaxed. "Warn me, huh ? Who the heck are you?"
"Moses," replied the bird.
"Moses ?" the burglar laughed. "What kind of stupid people would
name a parrot Moses ?
The bird promptly answered: "The same people who would name a
200-pound Rotweiller Jesus..."
A while back, my dad gave me a book. He said somebody'd given it to him and he'd read it when he was my age. What the book said had really grabbed his attention, and changed his life. Now this is a very interesting thing to hear your dad say. So I read the book. And it was pretty interesting. You've probably read it. I'm positive you've heard of this: W.W.J.D. The book's called In His Steps. It's written by Charles Sheldon.
In this book, a minister of a large church is preparing his sermon one Saturday morning. The sermon is on following Christ. A man interrupts his work, knocking on his door to ask if the minister knows of an available job, as the man is out of work and in desperate need. No, the minister says, I don't know of one, I'm really busy, bye, but uh good luck anyhow.
So this guy goes away, the minister finishes his sermon, and Sunday morning goes on as usual. However, immediately after the sermon is concluded, before the congregation departs, the same young man who asked about a job earlier comes up front and starts talking. This was not so usual. He's asking this group of Bible-believing, church-going Christians (and he seriously wants to know), "What does it really mean to follow Christ? What do you mean when you talk or sing about following Jesus, going with Him, walking in His steps? And, what did Jesus mean when He said, 'Follow Me'? And since you say you're living like He wants you to, why aren't you acting like it??"
This highly unusual set of events got the minister thinking. So what did it mean to follow Jesus? It's a phrase that's used so often, but what does it mean practically? The next Sunday, he announced that he was going to ask something that was not strange or abnormal, although many of his listeners would think it a bit wierd. He asked for volunteers who would pledge, for one year, not to do anything, I mean anything -- make a decision, do somethign, say something -- without first asking the question, "What would Jesus do?" and then doing exactly what they know Jesus would do.
A number of people responded to this challenge. A number of people didn't. Here's what the Boss says about it: Ephesians 5:1 -- Be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example] as well-beloved children [imitate their father]. Matthew 16:24 says "If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests] and take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying, also]. I Peter 2:21 -- For even to this were you called [it is inseparable from your vocation]. For Christ also suffered for you, leaving you [His personal] example, so that you should follow in His footsteps."
In His Steps. Words to live by. I'm glad my dad got me to read this book. Like his experience, it got my attention. If you haven't read it already, you might want to...it's pretty good.
This next poem makes me really thank God that i'm homeschooled:
WRITTEN BY A 12 YEAR-OLD-GIRL in Boston
Now I sit me down in school
Praying aloud in a public hall
(sorry, guys)
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD HAVE:
One old love she can imagine going back to and one who reminds her how far she has come.
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW:
The Social Thing
How do you deal with "The Social Thing "? You know what I'm talking about. The look of total disgust that you get when you first tell someone you are homeschooled. " But don't you miss seeing other people besides your family? " they say, or if you've been to public school before, " But don't you miss your friends?". The answer is, well no, I don't. I don't miss being in a classroom for eight hours while I dream of the day's end. I don't miss trying to concentrate while 29 other kids are making fun of an assignment or talking or generally not paying attention. You see I don't need to be around 100 other kids my age to "socialize ". I am around 100s of people that are all ages, sizes, races, and colors. For instance, I volunteer at the library, there I deal with dozens of people, I am able to socialize that way. I am involved with soccer. I play on a girl's traveling team and here I get my daily dose of "teenage girl stuff" ( which sometimes I feel I could live without! ) and last spring I coached a group of Under-8 girls, hey, I was socializing there with 7 and 8 year-olds, as well as their parents! I am involved with the Rome Little Theater where I have been in several plays, I have made a few wonderful lifelong friends there. Here in Rome we have a homeschooling group called GRACE which has a lot of programs and activities for homeschooling families. We have a speach group I am involved with and last spring a few teens from GRACE with the help of a local judge, entered a Mock Trial competition and almost went on to State (see our Mock Trial webpage: gracemt) And there are dozens of other things I could explain where I socialize. So the next time you tell someone you're homeschooled and that get that look of disgust, explain to them you get a whole lot more socializing than they think!
Links of the Month: www.hollywoodjesus.com
VolunteerMatch
www.imagineradio.com
www.jeopardy.com
The Answering Machine
www.inspitarionalstories.com
www.amazon.com
And that's it for the 8th Edition of the
Thanks to Joy and Hollie! _______________________________ |