Chidren's Bible Class, Family Matters

A Worthy Woman

Joy
As most of you know (since many of us have the same blog friends), Kristen Jenkins has spearheaded a wonderful online Bible study opportunity for women.  For starters, we will be studying Prov. 31:10-31, one verse per week.  Check out Far Above Rubies if you’d like to participate in this Bible study. I’ll be using my blog to post my comments about each week’s verse.  So, here we go. 🙂

Introductory Thoughts About Proverbs 31:10-31
Sometimes we lose some of the beauty of the Hebrew language, once it has been translated.  
It is fascinating to learn that Proverbs 31:10 is the beginning of an alphabetical poem.  
Each verse begins with a consecutive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

King Lemuel’s mother imparted these words of wisdom to her son, knowing that such a wife would be a life-long blessing.  Even though these writings are ancient, all women can make application to their own lives, regardless of when or where she lives.

Every Christian woman ought to make it her goal to be like this woman.  
“But I’m not married” a single girl might say.
To that I say “Then you have a head start!”

The earlier you start applying these attributes, 
the easier it will be for you to make them a lifelong habit.  
As we will see in subsequent studies, 
there are ways to practice these principles even before you are married.

Mothers today would do well in teaching these truths to their sons, so that they will choose a woman who is striving to emulate these characteristics in her life.

Mothers of daughters should instill these attributes in their daughters, 
so that they will be a worthy woman.
 
 It’s interesting to compare different translations.
ASV – “A worthy woman who can find?  For her price is far above rubies.”

ESV – “An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.”

KJV – “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.”

All of these descriptions give us the idea that this woman we are going to learn about is a rare jewel.  This kind of woman is hard to find, but when she is found, she is a treasure!

Becoming a Proverbs 31 woman is a lifelong task. 
As long as we are living, 

we have work to do on ourselves.
But here comes the hard part – 
we’ve got to DO it; not just talk about it.
Are you ready to get to work?

Chidren's Bible Class

Lay Not Up for Yourselves Treasures Upon the Earth

Joy
This morning our family worshiped with the brethren at the Njiro congregation.  We always enjoy worshiping here.  Though they be few in number, there are some good people here.  During one of the prayers offered this morning, my heart was struck at some words which were uttered.  
But first, you must understand context.  
The home of the one who led the prayer is kind of like “The Projects” of Tanzania –
rows of apartment-like dwellings for factory workers.  
Their space consists of two very small rooms.
There is a small cubby hole where some food preparation is done.
There is a tiny closet-sized toilet room, with just a hole in the ground.
No sink.  No shower.
No running water.  No electricity.

Now, with that in mind, think about this.  
Our brother prayed that we should not lay up our treasures on earth, because there are thieves and these earthly things will decay, but we should lay up our treasures in heaven.  
Isn’t that humbling to you?  It is to me.
We may look at conditions in which our Tanzanian brethren live and think they are very poor.  
By U.S. standards they are.  
But U.S. standards don’t matter in the least.  They are not “the” standard. 
George once asked his class of preacher students how many consider themselves to be poor.  
None of them thought so. 
Just maybe some of our brethren in third-world countries have a better handle on what it means 
to lay up our treasures in heaven.  
They don’t have a lot of “things” in which to put their trust, 
but hope for a better place is very real to them.

What things do you treasure most?  
Can they be stolen? 
Can they rust?  Will they decay?  
Maybe it’s time to reevaluate where we are storing our treasures.
Matthew 6:19-20


Uncategorized

To Market, To Market to Buy a ??

Joy

This afternoon I took Julia, Lindsey and Lydia to the clothes market. Occasionally a visit to the market will uncover a great find, like a name brand, almost new skirt.  We’ve definitely found an item here or there that we’ve put to great use.  The skirt I wore today was one I found the last time I went to the market.

That being said, the market wears me out.  Today, for instance, we drove onto the “road” where we usually park.  It was really a mud swamp.  I found a place that was sort of okay, so that we wouldn’t be stepping out of the vehicle in a mud pond.  Puddle just doesn’t do the situation justice.

We went into the market area, which is a concrete floor, covered with a tin roof and is open on the sides.  Friday is a very busy market day and there were people everywhere.  There are rows and rows of pallets, upon which are huge piles of clothes.  These clothes have had a long journey to get here.  Most of them are second-hand store rejects, so you can imagine that they’ve definitely seen better days.  And the smell – did I mention that?  The clothes stink.  They’ve been packed tightly in bales for who knows how long.  In addition to the clothes, as we squeeze our way through the throng of people, stench of body odor greets us on every side.

We scrounged through pile after pile, and a couple of us found a clothing item or two.  I found three shirts, for which I paid 2000 shillings each.  This turns out to be $1.47 per shirt.  That’s a fair price.  After a while we made our way down to another section, where clothes are actually hung on hangers in more permanent stalls.  One has to laugh at the way they hang clothes.  The hangers are made out of sections of bent wire, and they bend it in such a way so that when the garment is hung, there are huge hips stretching out the garment about as tight as it will stretch.  Apparently that is supposed to be attractive when worn.  Besides the fact that when women sport their clothing in this manner it is immodest, it is NOT flattering in the least.  I really wish I had a picture to show you how ridiculous the hanging clothes look.

The prices for clothes in this section are more expensive, and we expect to pay a bit more.  However, almost without fail, the merchants in this area do their best to take every advantage of us.  For example, today I found a long shirt – faded as it was, and when we inquired about the price, they quoted over 20,000 shillings!  That would have been $14.70 for a stinky, faded shirt.  No thanks.  After looking around for just a little while longer, we decided we had enough market for one day.  Back to the car we went and by the time we got there, Lydia’s flip flops were covered in mud and who knows what else.  I had to go further down the road, through a deep puddle that covered the entire road, in order to turn around.  I was just hoping that we would not get stuck.  I managed to turn around, forged through the water again, and we made it without incident.  This was our afternoon on the town.  Home again, home again…

Family Matters

A Stitch in Time

Joy

Over the last week or so my time has been filled with cutting, sewing, more cutting and more sewing.  I am on a quest to finish four bridesmaids dresses for Julia’s wedding, and I’m half way there!  I am so thankful for my husband, who purchased an awesome sewing machine for me while we were in the States last time.  It has really helped this sewing adventure go a lot more smoothly.  Here is a picture of the first dress I completed.  Isn’t the color beautiful?  The girls are going to look so pretty!