Monday, October 17, 2016

Outside my window...

It's 75 degrees. Yay! This weekend, when we go camping for Sukkot, it's going to be down into the 55 degree range. Perfect camping weather.

I am thinking...

I have not blogged in a couple of weeks. Because I hesitated initially with starting my college distance classes at the beginning of the semester, I have never had the sense of being "caught up." Life just seems to keep getting in the way.

This week life challenged me again. My homeschool mentor and friend has passed from this earth. When we moved from Germany to Okinawa, I felt that I had laid a successful foundation in teaching my children preschool. When we arrived in Okinawa, Dancing Angel was just about to turn 4 and The Grand Duchess had just turned 3. I needed to know how to take my homeschooling to the next level. We moved into our off-base house somewhere around the same time they did. Another African American family living in an Okinawan neighborhood, we began to wave at each other every time we passed by. Who on earth would have predicted that that simple gesture would develop into a 20+ year friendship. I will cal my friend Rosebud in this blog.

Rosebud was the key speaker at the first homeschool conference I went to in Okinawa. African American homeschoolers were few and far between in those days, but on military installations they numbered more than the average in civilian communities. To finally have a role model, not only who looked like me, but had a standard of excellence about her homeschooling was so relieving. Rosebud was the keynote speaker the first time I went to the Okinawa Christian Home Educators curriculum fair. I was trying so hard to write down every single thing she said. She not only helped me navigate elementary school homeschooling, but Yah saw fit to move them to Texas so she could help me take my children all the way through graduation into college. She didn't just preach with her mouth, she preached with her actions. They are also a family of great hospitality. When they would have feasts in their home, I unashamedly tried to monopolize her time so I could glean from her wisdom. Whatever I got on that day, I probably began to implement first thing the following Monday morning. Her fruit remains.

The most significant time of our relationship was that when Dancing Angel was diagnosed with a brain tumor, they "loaned" us their then 15yo daughter to come to our house and take care of The Grand Duchess, Sanban, and Princess Butterfly. When they told us that Dancing Angel was gone, they were there within minutes because they had already started out on the hour journey from their house to the hospital. They stood in the room with us while we said our goodbyes. They packed up all of her belongings from the hospital room. They came to the house and helped manage the influx of visitors. Months after the funeral when our local support system had collapsed, Rosebud's husband would just show up to see how we were doing.

So we are, in every way we can, trying to repay their kindness to us however we can. We are making the 1-1/2 hour drive first to see them, then to help them plan the funeral. We will be back later this week for the funeral, and after Sukkot, we will be back just to check on their grieving process. I am thankful that my cousins lives up the street from them to check on them, and another sister that has been my partner in grief for nearly 20 years as well. I don't know if I have ever given her a blog name, but I will call her Lily (as in Lily of the Valley because we have traversed the Valley of the Shadow of Death together so many times). One day we're going to have to sit down and write a handbook for the grieving. She, Friend Hubby, and I were able to tell them about the pitfalls of grief that will come as they learn to live with Rosebud's absence.

I was having lunch with Ms. Sophia the other day. When she prayed over our "Women's Conference," she thank Abba for Rosebud. To my knowledge, they may have only met one time, but because she knows how much of an influence Rosebud has been on me, anything she shared with me, I would have shared with Ms. Sophia. This is Rosebud's legacy, the seeds that were sown in the lives of all she touched, myself, her daughters, her daughter's friends, my daughters, my friends, my blog readers. We are all made richer because she so openly shared her life with us.

There is so much more I could share, but I am going to keep it short today. I am also in prayer for another long-time friend who lost her mother earlier this week as well.

I am thankful...

Chag Sukkot Samaeach! to all my sisters keeping the Feast this week. Sukkot is our season of joy! I pray that those of you who follow Torah will be given the words to explain it to inquiring Christians. This was a conversation I had online a few months ago to a meme that said, "I don't follow Christianity or Judaism. I don't follow docrines and theologians. I don't follow churches, sects, and movements. I DO follow the example of my Messiah and He obeyed His Father and followed Torah."

CHRISTIAN: Yes he followed Torah the when he dies the Law of Moses was nailed to the cross with him and when we believed the Ten Commandments were written on our hearts and minds. Shabbat Shalom.

ME: "having blotted out the certificate of debt against us – by the dogmas – which stood against us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the stake."

Colossians 2:14 ISR98

The charge against us was nailed to the cross and the DEBT was canceled. The Scriptures are a better modern translation. Better yet, if you cwn get an Aramaic New Testament, it explains a lot about the inaccuracies in our modern English translations. We also recommend Jeff A. Brenner's YouTube videos about how our English Bibles differ from the original Hebrew. Shalom!

CHRISTIAN: Oh yes I see the debt.... but keep reading.... 16 Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a festival, a New Moon, or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body that casts it belongs to Messiah.

ME: I used to read that with an American mindset as well. When you learn to read the Scriptures from a Hebraic point of view, taking into account the culture and context, you will see that he's telling them as was decided by the Jerusalem Council:

“Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the gentiles who are turning to Elohim, but that we write to them to abstain from the defilements of idols, and from whoring, and from what is strangled, and from blood. “For from ancient generations Mosheh has, in every city, those proclaiming him – being read in the congregations every Sabbath.”

Acts 15:19-21 ISR98

The new believers were to demonstrate their faith by becoming clean in the matters of diet, worship, and sex. They were to learn this in the synagogue. The spring feasts, Passover, First Fruit, and Pentecost are celebrated as a memorial of what the Messiah has fulfilled. The fall feasts, Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets -- think of the Scripture that says the trumpet will sound and the dead in Messiah will rise first, Yom Kippur-- from Revelation, these are they which come out of grear tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. This is when the Bride presents herself spotless, and finally the Feast of Tabernacles. This is the wedding supper of the Lamb. We celebrate the spring feasts as a memorial and the falls feasts as a rehearsal for what is to come. All of the feasts are the substance of of the Messiah.

Therefore, if you read this verse in context you will see he's not telling to be concerned about being judged for NOT keeping them, he's telling them not to be concerned about being judged FOR keeping them.

In a couple of weeks, I will be giving a 10-minute speech to my Humanities Class on the Hebrew Bible. Please pray for me, as Shaul (Apostle Paul in English Bibles): Ephesians 6:19 (ISR98) - "also for me, that a word might be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to be bold in making known the secret of the Good News."

If you are celebrating at home, be sure to decorate your house. Undoubtedly, if you live in a neighborhood, you are looking up and down the street right now at houses decorated with wickedness. Be sure to stand out like a sore thumb with your Sukkot decorations. Be salt! Be light! Be holy! Be different!

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