In Him

Its Monday morning, the 5th Jan and I’m happy to say that I’ve stuck to my plan so far of reducing coffee and sweet treats and adding exercise.  Being the first Monday of the year it was also my first weigh in day.  I have weighed myself on my own bathroom scales every Monday for about 9 months.  I’ve had upward and downward trends and I’m happy to report that I’m lighter than I was all of last year!  I’ve lost half a kilo since Christmas and 3.5kg total.  These numbers may sound small, but that’s the idea, half a kilo here and there, as long as it’s always going down!

Today is a busy one, shopping, washing and from the snacks Olivia has chosen for this week…quite a bit of baking too!

As I was reading through my blogroll this morning I noticed the title of a blog on the side of one - Shrinking the Camel.  Immediately my mind sprang to the verse

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Luke 18:24-26

This blog is about “Connecting Spiritual Life with Business Life” but what got me was the great banner picture.  Please go and take a look.

Today I set up a new blog on Blogger.  This will not replace In Him.  My new blog is exclusively for our homeschooling journey.  Feel free to take a look!

Homeschooling Day-by-day

Today we are heading for a sweltering 44.c as I type this it’s creeping to 42.c  We set the rabbit up inside in a pet carrier, used gaffer tape to put his bottle on the side and he’s sitting pretty in line with an air-con duct.  The cats are flat in the kitchen on the floor or on the chair depending.  The dog is on the lino in the office here.  I just hope the chooks make it through.

I’m starting to want to plan the new school year, but with this heat, I’m more inclined today to join the animals on the floor!

Hope it’s cooler where you are. (Highly likely as we are the hottest forecast in the country!)

I think if you are asked this question most people would say, quiet a lot!  Most of the time imaginations are to be cast down, but just for now, have a huge imagine.  Dream anything that you may want.  Now, you can ask it of your Heavenly Father,  if you truly think it’s for the best and in His will.

Now for the scripture that has prompted this post.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

Notice the underlined part?  God can do Immeasurably.  Not just from real, but from the point of your furthest imaginations. Immeasurably MORE than ALL that we Ask or Imagine.

That really blows my mind.

That the God of the universe, who breathed out stars, loves us more than we can ask or imagine.  He gives us more than we can ask or imagine. He is at work in our lives more than we can ask or imagine. He forgives us more than we can ask or imagine.

He has 2009 in His very capable hands.  He IS Goodness and He has nothing but that for you this year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

For me today I am usually thinking, “Right, the year is done, can we just get on with it!”

2008 was a good year for us as a family.  Nice and quiet, low-key, nothing majorly out of the ordinary happened, no major incidences to deal with.  Life was good.  We embarked on a year of home education for the girls (our 5th) and for Dave.

It seems we’ve had less of those years than the other kind, so in a way, it was time for one.  I hope and pray that 2009 will be more of the same.  Peaceful and quiet, doing God’s will, living and loving life.

These scriptures are in front of me at my desk, things I meditate on often:

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.  Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.  James 3:17-18

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient,
2 Timothy 2:24

Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives.  Titus 3:14

So our lives are spent in right living by being obedient to God.  We try to the best of our abilities to what is right in the eyes of God.  As I read on a blog post comments section today - “I’m performing for an audience of One”.  This is essentially what we do as a family, we go about our days quietly and unassuming to do our Father’s will.

God Bless you and yours as you end this year and start a new one.  Remember every day can be and should be a fresh start with God, He chooses to forget our sins so that we can be new creations.

I don’t usually do New Years Resolutions, but I do set goals.  One of my goals is to give up coffee and too many sweet treats.  I sat down at the beginning of December and decided a few things, these two being major things to contriubte to a healthier me.

Today I was reading about where coffee and chocolate come from.  It is a sad and interesting read that made me want to give up all the more.

Slave to coffee & chocolate	Last modified: Wednesday 14th June, 2006

In brief

Many people joke that they couldn’t survive without coffee or chocolate, but for many farmers in poor countries, these products really are essential to their survival.

If people knew some of the stories behind the morning cuppa or chocolate fix, it might not taste so good.

The bitter side of coffee and chocolate

The global price of both coffee and cocoa beans has fallen. Too many farmers, seeing these crops as a good way of earning money, have entered the market, resulting in an oversupply. This dramatic drop in price has a serious impact on farmers, and particularly children.

But prices haven’t dropped at the retail end. A cup of coffee continues to escalate in price. It is payments to the farmers that have dropped, while those they sell to, the middlemen, are making big profits.

Coffee
Out of a $3 cappuccino that you might buy at a café, only 3 cents goes to the farmer who grew the beans. (1)

Large coffee estate owners usually sell at market prices set by the New York Coffee Exchange. However, most small farmers sell directly to middlemen exporters who may pay below market price for their harvests.

These small farmers may not even get enough to cover production costs, let alone school fees or books for their children.

Often their children, even those as young as eight or nine, can be forced to go to work on the plantations to help their families produce a larger crop to make more money.

The situation is predicted to affect 125 million people, who may already be living below the poverty level, through unemployment, hunger and migration.

Chocolate
In West Africa’s cocoa region, which produces 70 percent of the world’s cocoa, over 284,000 children work in hazardous conditions. (2)

The fall in price of raw cocoa has forced small farmers in the cocoa region to cut labour costs, in order to make enough from their crops.

This has been linked to the re-emergence of slave labour. Over 15,000 children are suspected to have been sold into forced labour on northern Ivory Coast plantations in recent years.

These children – mostly under 14 – are involved in dangerous work, including spraying pesticides, using machetes and carrying heavy loads. They have no access to education or health care. Physical abuse is also common.

“The beatings were a part of my life,” said a former bonded labourer, Aly Diabate. If he fell while carrying the heavy bags of cocoa, no-one would help. “Instead, they beat you and beat you until you picked it up again.” (3)

The situation is so serious that in 2002, an International Cocoa Initiative was launched to bring the international chocolate industry, aid agencies and corporate stakeholders together over the issue.

Making coffee and chocolate sweeter

Thankfully, it is possible to do something without giving up coffee and chocolate.

Fair trade
Purchasing fair trade products is one option. Products can only carry the ‘fair trade’ label if they have been produced without unfair labour practices, such as low wages and child labour. Fair trade aims to ensure growers or producers are paid a decent wage.

Coffee drinkers can join organisations like People for Fair Trade and order fair trade coffee from places like Tradewinds. They can also campaign for fair trade coffee to be sold in supermarkets, local coffee shops and big coffee chains.

Fair trade chocolate blocks and drinking chocolate are sold under brand names such as Green & Black’s at Coles supermarkets, and from an increasing number of other major supermarkets.

Ethically produced chocolate is also sold at some health food and organic outlets and online through Oxfam Community Aid Abroad.

Global trading reform
However, in addition to buying fair trade products, global trading reform is vital to improve practices across the coffee and cocoa industries.

Tariffs – taxes on imported goods – on the more profitable processed cocoa makes it difficult for poor countries to compete on the global market.

The European Union has tariffs of 0.5 percent on raw cocoa imports. But for the more profitable processed cocoa products, they impose a 30.6 percent tariff.

The United States and Japan have no tariffs on raw cocoa imports but have high tariffs on the final product. (4)

These high import costs, limit poor farmers to exporting only the cheaper raw cocoa, rather than more profitable processed products like chocolate.

The global trading system in coffee and cocoa must change to make trade fair for all countries – rich and poor.

Click to find out more on ethical coffee, chocolate and consumption.

Endnote(s):
(1) National Catholic Reporter (6 September 2004) Depressed coffee prices yield suffering in poor countries [Online] Available at: http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/
archives/020703/020703a.htm
(2) Anti-slavery (16 September 2004)  Take action on cocoa: background [Online] Available at: http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/
campaign/cocoabackground.htm
(3) Raghavan, Sudarsan, & Chatterjee, Sudarsan (2001) “How your chocolate may be tainted”, Knight Ridder Newspapers, 24 June 2001, [Online] Available: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/
news/special_packages/2060179.htm
(4) International Labour Organization (6 September 2004) ILO welcomes new foundation to eliminate abusive child and forced labour practices in cocoa farming [Online] Available at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr
/2002/34.htm
(5) McCorriston, Steve; Sexton, Richard J; Sheldon, Ian M; (2004) Vertical Market Structure, Commodity Exports and Trade Reform, Paper to be presented at 7th Annual Conference on Global Economic Analysis, World Bank, Washington, USA, 17-19 June 2004, p. 12. [Online] Available at: http://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/resources/
download/1882.pdf

Story from World Vision Connect, a World Vision Australia initiative
http://www.worldvision.com.au/wvconnect/content.asp?topicID=97

Getting to know me ~ Christmas Edition! (thank you Melissa for tagging anyone!)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper and gift tags so you know who they are for.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial, considered none this year and only using a Jesse Tree, but couldn’t not have one!

3. When do you put up the tree? 1^st December as is tradition in our family

4. When do you take the tree down? I usually don’t get much past Boxing Day…it’s over!

5. Do you like egg nog? Used to, but don’t drink milk anymore (and never actually had it on Christmas, it’s more a filling drink for colder times of the year.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I don’t remember.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, it’s a small one that seems to change positions each day! (the kids do that!)

8. Hardest person to buy for? Everyone but the girls…we all have too much and don’t need anything else.

9. Easiest person to buy for? The kids, they often tell me through the year what they want!

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Usually email, (more environmentally friendly) but I found a pack of cards I must have bought sometime and sent a few paper cards this year for the first time in a few years.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don’t remember.

12. Favorite Christmas movie(s) “Jesus” by Campus Crusade for Christ (please come back and click on this link after you’ve read the rest of my answers)

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I usually start through the year, pick things up when I’m down in Perth and stash them away.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Is this saying re-gifting? If so, no, I think it’s really rude. If it means given it away to a charity like Good Sammy’s yes, I declutter often and you can’t keep everything forever.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Christmas day I enjoy the pudding with custard and before Christmas I like to have a candy cane or three. Other than that the ham is probably the only staple that makes it Christmas.

16. Clear or colored Christmas lights? I don’t use lights but enjoy everyone elses when I see them.

17. Favorite Christmas song(s)? Away in a Manger I have loved all my life, but as I’ve gotten older, I like O Holy Night.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? This year everyone is coming to us. Each year we take turns to “do” Christmas. We never traipse about as everyone gets along, there are no big egos competing saying it “has” to be done the same every year and all suffer!

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? No.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? A star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The commercialization and materialism. That it is about Christ seems to never be highlighted…except on the bloggersphere! Well done guys!

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Last year I was heavy on the blue and gold decorations (on the tree) this year, I’m leaning toward read. My alltime fav is green, red and gold, those colours say Christmas to me.

24. Favorite dinner for Christmas? Dinner is always leftovers, usually if anyone is hungry. This year lunch will be cold meats and salad because of the weather, so we may be more hungry, possibly!

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Peace and happiness.

26. Do you bake lots of goodies during the holidays? No usually, too hot. My family used to make shortbread traditionally, but it hasn’t seemed to survived. It is one thing I envy the Northern Hemisphere for, it must be nice to be rugged up, eating yummy baked goodies and sipping a hot cuppa.

27. Do you decorate different rooms of your home? The lounge usually has the tree and I put tinsel and pretty bows around the kitchen and entry, the door has a little something, that’s about it.

28. What decorations do you put outside? None. Less to pull down afterwards.

29. How do you spend Christmas Eve? We usually watch the Carols on telly.

30. Is Christmas your favorite holiday? No, I much prefer Easter, Christmas is the run up to that.

I tag whoever wants to participate! You can leave me a comment to let me know that you have answered the questions on your blog then I can read yours and get to know you!

Merry Christmas

Today I was reading my blogroll and came across a sad true story of a security guard who lost his life, doing his job.  It was the day after Thanksgiving in America in a Walmart shop where people had been queueing all night to buy heavily discounted items.  The guard was trampled to death by people rushing to buy things.  These things may have been necessary for some people’s existance, like new white goods or warm clothes.  In reality most of the items being bought are probably Christmas gifts for family and friends who really don’t need them or just more things for themselves.

What have we come to that a life can be taken while people are stampeding to buy more?
Its an addiction to stuff that needs to be fed.

Christmas is a time for giving and sharing, but empty meaningless gifts are not what it is about.  We should be celebrating and sharing the true gift of Jesus’ birth into this world so that He could save us from greed, envy and every other sin that we have all committed.  Believe on the name of Jesus and be saved.

This year we tried something different to the usual 4 terms of 10 weeks with 2 week holidays in between, from the first week of Feb until a week before Christmas.  We usually start in January because the girls are over Christmas and are getting bored to distraction and work until the end of November with the term holidays throughout plus extras here and there.  I found that after about 5 or 6 weeks of school the girls get tired and real learning tapered away and was labourious.  Also 2 weeks of holidays was just too long.   It is crazy to do it just because everyone else does it that way.  Homeschooling is about finding what works for your family. I decided to try something different (because I could!) and cut the times in half.  Five weeks of work with a week off.  It worked very well for the first half of the year, but for the second half, clashed with other things that came up… life!  We had a surprise visit from Grandma and Grandpa (and Mack the dog) a few months ago, so an impromptu holiday resulted.  Dave was studying in two Semester blocks, so he had time off when we didn’t and vice versa.  We also had a visit from Nanna and had to go down to Perth for a few reasons too.

I’m planning to try to follow the terms next year.  Dave is studying again, so we should line up better with his holidays.  I don’ t know if we’ll make it all the way through the year, but we’ll see how it goes and change it if it isn’t working, just like everything else in life!

The girls finished all their work early this year because I wrote out the remaining work in a list and said work through it at your own pace and when you’re finished it’s holidays.  Now I wrote out about 12 days worth of work and they did it in 2 days!  So holidays started a couple of weeks earlier than I expected!  This year I wrote out their work in a diary a week at a time at the beginning and extended it to the 5 week term at a time toward the end of the year.  This year we also worked from a diary type book where I’d written out the whole years worth of work and when we had a break (like I mentioned above) we stopped and picked up where we left off.  There was no “behind” or “catch up” to a certain date.  Each page of the book is numbered, not dated.  It took a lot of pressure off of the kids and me.  We’ll be sticking to this from now on, after all, life is not a competition, it’s a journey.

One of our most beloved Christmas carols was written in 1865 by William Dix, an Englishman who managed a maritime insurance company and loved to write hymns. Sung to the English melody “Greensleeves,” some versions use the latter half of the first verse as a chorus for the other verses:

This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard
and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring Him laud—
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

But in other versions, each stanza is unique. The second verse, rarely sung today, looks beyond the manger to the cross:

Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear, for sinners here,
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Simeon said to Mary, “This Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).

The Child of Christmas came to be our Savior. “Joy, joy for Christ is born, the Babe, the Son of Mary.”  — David C. McCasland

The birth of Christ brought God to man; the cross of Christ brings man to God.