Priceless

Family Christmas Activities
350 rounds of ammunition – $70
18 targets (6 apiece) – $9
Range lane rental for 3 for 2 hours (gold membership rate) – $6
Early dinner at Arby’s – $20
2 free passes and 1 ticket to Narnia – $5
Popcorn, sodas, candy – $20
Total – $130

Playing hooky with my family on a Thursday afternoon – PRICELESS

While your kids are on Christmas vacation, make sure to spend some time together at whatever your family thinks is fun!

Open Trackback Tuesday!

I’ve been really off kilter with all these ER visits for me and my daughter and taking what seems like every medical test under the sun but that’s no reason to skip another trackback party! Do me a favor, keep me busy and out of trouble by trackbacking your best post of the week so I can catch up on what’s been going on. :-)

Post your trackbacks here and link back to me. If your blog can’t send trackbacks use Wizbang’s trackback tool.

Trackback link: http://www.pursuingholiness.com/wp-trackback.php?p=138
Link to this post: http://www.pursuingholiness.com/?p=138

Three ladies in prison (an appeal)

From The Infidel Army:

Three ladies in prison (an appeal)
Monday, December 05, 2005
I implore anyone who can read this to give it wider coverage by reproducing it on their blog.

This is the tale of three ladies you will never hear of in the west. They are not powerful, not rich, not influential and certainly not famous. They sit in jail today. Their crime? Caring about their communities.

Rebeka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun were sentenced to three years of prison each.

In 2003, the local school allowed those of minority religions to instruct their children in the way of their respective religions. These three women, without funding, without much in the way of resources started a Christian program named Happy Sunday. Several Muslim children started to attend.

Islamic leaders became alarmed that their own children were attending Happy Sunday. One particular Muslim leader became alarmed when he realised that his own children were singing songs they had learnt at Happy Sunday. Somehow the Muslim songs had little traction with the kids. Clearly their children would not listen to them, so they went to the courts.

The local Jihad groups literally went to town and filled the court house with head banded supporters carrying banners spewing all kinds of threats. They laid six coffins outside the court, three for the women and the other three for the judges, should they return unfavourable verdicts.

The three women now are in prison. Please remember them in your prayers. Please also remember their own children who miss their mothers greatly, mothers who have done nothing more than to care about the upbringing of their children and who opened their hearts to the children of their neighbours.

God has his own plans but meanwhile we can continue to encourage these three women via the letter writing campaign.

Letters can be sent to the Singapore Open Doors office:

C/O Open Doors Singapore
8 Sin Ming Road
#02-06 Sin Ming Centre
Singapore 575628

A per the standard rule of writing to prisoners of conscience:

* Do not mention any organisations you are affiliated to.

* Do not say anything negative about the government of Indonesia or Islam, they already know that they are evil so you don’t need to tell them.

* Be encouraging, if you have a verse from the bible write it in. Often prisoners are not allowed bibles or reading materials. Your verse may be the only reading material they get. This is not Guantanamo, it’s real prison in a real Muslim country.

* Postcards and greeting cards are best. Good idea: Buy a stack of postcards and get the children in your pre-school, sunday school etc to fill them out. Artwork would be great too. You can ask them to pray along too.

* Tell them what country you are writing from but do not include your address
* Please do not send money or gifts. What they need most is your encouragement. Besides, the country is corrupt.

If you need the address of a nearer open doors office you can find it at

http://sb.od.org/index.php?supp_page=contact&supp_lang=en.

This only costs you a few cents for a stamp and five minutes with a pen.

It says in the book of Matthew (much amplified):

Then the King will say to those at His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, receive as your own the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you brought Me together with yourselves and welcomed and entertained and lodged Me, I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me with help and ministering care, I was in prison and you came to see Me.

Then the just and upright will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger and welcomed and entertained You, or naked and clothed You? And when did we see You sick or in prison and came to visit You?

And the King will reply to them, Truly I tell you, in so far as you did it for one of the least of these My brethren, you did it for Me.

Signs of the Times?

I know very little about bible prophecy concerning the end times, but here are a few things I’ve been pondering lately. Contender Ministries has an excellent listing of prophetic signs that we are in the end times. And especially now that the President of Iran a)has called for the removal of Israel from the map and says the Holocaust never happened, b)is quite close to obtaining nuclear weapons and c)”believes that the end is not only near but nearer than the next American presidential election,” I think it behooves us to consider these things and assess our daily lives accordingly.

Matthew 24:3-42
And as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the world? (4) And Jesus answered and said to them, Take heed that no man deceive you. (5) For many will come in My name, saying, I am Christ, and will deceive many.
(Sun Myung Moon claims to be the Messiah.)
(6) And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet.
(Everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe)
(7) For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places.
(Famines, pestilences: AIDS, bird flu, earthquakes.)
(8) All these are the beginning of sorrows. (9) Then they will deliver you up to be afflicted and will kill you. And you will be hated of all nations for My name’s sake.
(Persecution)
(10) And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another. (11) And many false prophets will rise and deceive many.
(Benny Hinn and a host of others. But a more complete listing is a post for another day.)
(12) And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will become cold.
(Church divorce rates are just one indicator of how the church more closely resembles the world than ever before.)
(13) But he who endures to the end, the same shall be kept safe. (14) And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all nations. And then the end shall come.
(The number of unreached people groups is diminishing, and air travel, TV, radio, and the internet make evangelism easier than ever before.)
(15) Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand).
(If this refers to the desecration of the temple, that’s been going on for some time. And now even the Wailing Wall is in dispute.)
(16) Then let those in Judea flee into the mountains. (17) Let him on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house; (18) nor let him in the field turn back to take his clothes. (19) And woe to those who are with child, and to those who give suck in those days! (20) But pray that your flight is not in the winter, nor on the sabbath day; (21) for then shall be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be. (22) And unless those days should be shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect’s sake, those days shall be shortened.

(36) But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not the angels of Heaven, but only My Father. (37) But as the days of Noah were, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. (38) For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered into the ark. (39) And they did not know until the flood came and took them all away. So also will be the coming of the Son of Man. (40) Then two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (41) Two shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. (42) Therefore watch; for you do not know what hour your Lord comes.