Saturday, November 22, 2008

Chapel at St. Anthony's

Martha writes: "I thought you might enjoy seeing these photos I took inside the Chapel at St. Anthony Retreat Center. I thought the mural was magnificent, especially with all of its symbolism."
"Two weeks have passed already since we were all together at the Springs Retreat! The retreat was all I had hoped for, and more! I would like to express my appreciation to each one of you for the countless hours you spent in planning, preparing and praying for, and then facilitating, the retreat. I learned so much from every one of you. I'm grateful for this time, set apart, that I got to share with you and the other women on the retreat. I was blessed by the experience of being on the retreat and want to thank you all." -- Martha Deal
>

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Wild Turkeys came too!

Twenty-two women gathered at St. Anthony's, 30 miles east of Visalia last week, for a wonderful retreat. The weather was beautiful. ..in the 70s, cold nights and warm days. The Sierras were snow-covered and gorgeous. The grounds spectacular as the fall colors were just beginning to appear.

Thursday morning a flock of wild turkeys joined us! That was pretty fun. Our community quilt was such a rich resource of stories about the faithfulness of God -- story after story was shared of how God taught us to pray from "Now I lay me down to sleep" prayers to the prayers that sustained us through difficult times.

"The faithfulness of God," Elaine shared, "was so evident as I reflected on what the Lord has done in my life in the area of prayer. It all begins and ends with His faithfulness."






This photo is high resolution - so it can be downloaded and printed.



Women came from Pasadena, Bakersfield, Fresno, Oakdale, San Jose to spend time being with the Lord. Scotty joined us from Kentucky! Josie lives in Kiev and was able to join as well. What a great time! I'm looking forward to April 29-May 1, 2009 already!




>

NET Bible

I've been looking for a new Bible for almost a year and I just found one that I really like. It's the New English Translation (NET) available free online if you want to download and print the text yourself -- or you can buy the Reader's Edition for about $50 in genuine leather, with great satellite maps, a very readable font, and companion CD with all kinds of information. There are a few notes at the bottom of each page but not a lot -- I like that for devotional reading. I can go online and get all of the notes (70,000) if I want more information. I also like their mission -- to get the 2 billion people who speak English around the world a free Bible they can download.

On their website http://www.bible.org/ they have a huge array of bible study resources and the free, downloadable NET Bible. Scholars are saying that it is the best phrase for phrase translation available today. I'm really enjoying it.

From Bible Study magazine, Nov&Dec 2008:
"the NET Bible was published in 2005...At times it is more accurate than the NASB, more readable than the NIV, and more elegant than either. It is clear and eloquent, while maintaining the meaning of the original. In addition, the notes are a genuine gold mine of information, unlike those found in any other translation. The NET aims to be gender-neutral. The NET Bible is the Bible behind the bibles. It's the one that many modern translators use to help them work through the original language and express their meaning in literate English. I would highly recommend that each English-speaking Christian put this Bible on their shopping list." Dan Wallace, professor of New Testament Studies and Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary and founder of the Center for Study of New Testament Manuscripts which offers free images of New Testament manuscripts online at http://www.csntm.org/.
>

How do you keep hanging on?

Betsy writes (as she finishes chemo and looks forward to a month of radiation treatment): I can see a large hill between me and the end of 2008. My great hope is a promise God made me that " I will finish well." I am hoping that what He meant by this is that we will discover in January that the cancer is licked and that the path to healing and restoration will be unhindered. Is my hope mis-guided? I hope not. One thing I know for certain: He is faithful and keeps all His promises, even when we don't understand it all, and even when we don't get it all right. He does! He is good all the time and His unfailing love lasts forever! This truth about the nature of God has become a cornerstone for my faith. Even when everything around us is unsteady, God does not change. If He is completely good and loves us with unfailing love, then that means that He is willing and able to meet us in the smallest and the biggest needs we have. So the journey of faith continues... and I have to say, I'm glad it does!

How do we hang on through tremendously difficult circumstances? We put our trust in the truth found in Scripture about the character and the nature of God.
>