Sun, Nov 27th - 11:50PM

Thanks be to God Who Provides!

Moses and the people were in the desert, but what was he going to do with them?

They had to be fed, and feeding 2 or 3 million people requires a lot of
food.  According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is
reported that Moses would have to have had 1500 tons of food each day.

Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each at least a mile long would be required?

Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, so they would have to have firewood to use in cooking the food. This would take 4000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for one day.  And just think, they were forty years in transit.  And Oh  yes, they would have to have water.  If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take 11,000,000 gallons each day and a freight train with tank cars, 1800 miles long, just to bring water.

And then another thing they had to get across the Red Sea at night.
Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800
miles long and would require 35 days and nights to get through. So
there had to be a space in the Red Sea 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5000 abreast to get over in one night.  But then, there is another problem; each time they camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles long... Think of the amount of space for camping.

Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt? I think
not.  You see, Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him.

Now, do you think God has any problem taking care of all your needs?

(From the internet, author unknown)

Tue, Nov 22nd - 2:41AM

Distubing statitistics on reading in the U.S.

 I had planned on raving about the book we are working through in our adult Sunday school class, but I thought you all would be as disturbed by this as I am.

I found the following article on another forum. link to the complet article is at the end.

Easier, faster Bibles still a blur to pre- and post-literates

According to The Jenkins Group, 58 percent of the U.S. adult population never reads another book after high school. Even 42 percent of college graduates never read another book. And educated or not, 80 percent of US families did not buy or read a book last year. Some 70 percent of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

on a more worldwide scale

Dr. David Sills, an associate professor of Christian Missions and Cultural Anthropology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has worked on the orality issue for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. He spoke at the Global Missions Health Conference at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 10-12. He pointed out that only 20 percent of the global population is literate and the rest of the world is acculturated orally.

In fact, Sills said, "A lot of people in our own country now prefer to receive information through oral means, talking to people, etc."

This is a major shift in terms of Bible translation. See www.talkingbibles.org, or www.audioscriptures.org.

Sills recounted statistics indicating that of the 6,913 known languages in the world, 411 have a complete Bible, 1,068 have only a New Testament, and many have only portions. (Other statistics indicate up to 2,355 languages have the Bible.)

The more important statistic he said was that 70 percent of unreached ethnic groups are pre-literates and that 75 percent of evangelical churches are located in the 20 percent of the world that is highly literate.


FULL ARTICLE HERE;
http://www.churchcentral.com/nw/s/template/Article.html/id/23863

Fri, Nov 18th - 3:11AM

Vacation notes

Hi all!

 I could say it was great to be back, but I would be lying!

My wife and I had a great time during our week in Sedona, and Smokey got to stay

At the doggy hotel.

We began each day with breakfast on the patio with the hummingbirds,

and the beautiful backdrop of the red rock cliffs behind us.

Just about every day we went hiking, even on our last day, on route down to Phoenix,

we stopped at a petroglyph site on a former V bar V horse ranch. The site had been kept secret by the owners till the 1994 when it was purchased by the Coconino National Forest. It’s the best petroglyph site I have ever seen, and you can get up close (6 feet) and get a good look too!

Here’s the site; http://www.redrockcountry.org/recreation/cultural/v-bar-v.shtml

These are some of the things we did during the week...

 We stated off with a scenic drive up Schnebly road, a very rough dirt road which covered our rental ford SUV in dust, but the view from the top is worth it!

We hiked the 4 mile long Bell Rock – Courthouse Rock loop, had ice cream in town, and shopped the touristy places in Sedona. We liked the spot color of the trees along the West branch of Oak Creek, and especially in Secret Canyon, on our longest hike (5 hours!)

Our shortest hike was to “Devil’s Bridge” .8 miles, but was listed as “moderate”, with a climb of 400 feet. The view from the top was great, but the view of the arch from below was good too.

Check out some of the hikes at the Coconino National Forest site here;

http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino/recreation/red_rock/rec_redrock.shtml

For a change of pace we went on the nearby Verde Valley Railroad. We were able to see 2 bald eagles from the train along the way as well as some nice scenery.

Here’s the railroad site; http://www.verdecanyonrr.com/index2.html