Donation Pile Fun.

When one encounters a donation pile-- and very large clothes inside-- some fun is to be had. Especially when Lisa and Liz try to share a very large shirt.

Oh the fun that will be had in Costa Rica!

Stay silly my friends.

Kaspar the Robot.

There are a couple things in this world that I love unconditionally. Dinosaurs, the color purple, and robots. So, the idea of a robot that helps Autistic children develop, sounds pretty rad to me. Especially a robot named Kaspar with a Bristish accent. Because Austistic children have such a difficult time relating and expressing themselves, University of Hertfordshire has develpoed a robot playmate to teach Autistic children how to express themselves. I personally think that's fantastic and super interesting. Check it out and read the article below!


Kaspar the Robot.


Discussion Questions: What do you think about this type of therapy? How do you see it being beneficial? Why do you think the children have such an easy time relating to a robot? What do you think about a child spending so much time with a robot? Why do you think two children at the special preschool refuse to play with Kaspar? What do you think about these children being placed in a special school for Autistic children? Do you think when they leave they will be able to relate well to people without Autism? Would a normal preschool be more apporopriate? What do you think is best for the child in this unique situation? Where do you see this technology going in the future? How do you feel about implementing this theraputic tool in the home? How long do you believe it would take for this therapy to be effected? What other methods can you think of using when working with Autistic children?

Eden and Kaspar playing.

Ouch.

"I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us, Oh how He loves us."
Isn't that a great line from a great song (How He Loves Us - John Mark Mcmillan.) This week was Inner Healing with Christy Scott. Inner Healing is good. I think sometimes we all feel hopelessly broken and sometimes we don't even know why. This week Christy helped us get to the bottom of that. She said all lies and hurts are ingrained in us from ages 0-6. Now you may say to yourself, "Oh but I remember that so and so did such and such at age 15. That's when I got hurt. That's what ruined my life." For example, say your parents got divorced at age 14. You blamed yourself. You got down on yourself and became deppressed. And now you say THAT is when you were first hurt and that is the pain that you still feel inside today. However, why at 14 did you believe that your parent's divorce was YOUR fault? At what point did you begin to believe the lie that you were to blame? Probably between ages 0-6. Perhaps sometime when you were very young you were introduced to the idea that you were at fault, and you were not good enough, and you were to blame. And at sometime during your young years that lie was ingrained into your brain to stick with you whether you knew it or not. To haunt you until age 14 when your parents got divorced. To surface again to tell you that you were to blame. This is just a hypothetical example. Something to chew on. This principle helped me and maybe it will help you to. You just have to apply it to your own life and try to dig up the lies that you believed from 0-6 and replace it with truth. Christy also talked about soul ties. When I graduated, I walked off stage with my good friend Sarah Libby. Have you ever seen when people do that goofy thing when they pretend to go fishing and reel someone in? That's how we walked off our graduation stage. I pretended to cast a line and reel her in and she pretended to be hooked and pulled in just like a fish. This is kind of like soul ties. We get hooked to people. There's a tie that connects our soul to the influencial people around us. This is not always a bad thing. But often times it is. Because we let that fishing wire in our hearts act like a cable. We let things flow through these hooks in our souls. Most of the time the negative gets through and we become hurt and bitter. You know what I'm talking about? We have soul ties to that first girl in middle school who told us that we are ugly. That person who told us we were good for nothing. To that first person who broke our heart. Now you know what  I mean. We feel loss and hurt. And as long as we have those soul ties we will continue to feel that rejection. What about the feeling of loss? A break up, moving away, or death? Can we still really learn from any situation, like my speaker Philipa said in week four? Even a painful one? Christy said that we may lose a person or a place-- but what we felt from that experience is not lost-- because those good times and feelings are things that came from God. That joy that you once experienced is a principle of God. So with this in mind can we learn from these painful experience and grow? Can we forgive? Often times I find myself forgiving others. I forgive them but I continue to feel pain and hurt. Why is that? Soul ties. We did an Inner Healing week during DTS. I forgave but my hurt did not subside. I did not cut my soul ties. So how do we go about that? First forgive. Duh. You cannot find healing without forgiving. Secondly you need to get to the root. The lie. The lie that you believed during ages 0-6. That lie that let you get hurt. The lie that told you that you were to blame (see example above.) Ask Jesus to show you when you were first believed that lie and to show you how it changed your life. I would recommend writing down the name of the person or event that you have sould tie to. Ask Jesus to show you the lie that they represent. Ask Him to reveal to you the truth about that situation. And be freed. For example, Hurt: my parents divorce at age 14, Represents: I am to blame, It's my fault, Truth: I am not the cause of this, Jesus finds me sufficient and I am not at fault. Does this make sense? It will when you apply it to your life. Remembering that you are not cutting off the person. You are not cutting them out of your life or condemning them. You are merely cutting lies out of your life and choosing to believe truth instead, I would recommend doing it. Brings peace. And healing. Yay. We talked about so much more. It was a really good week. God is awesome. So is YWAM. I am blessed.


Quote of the week: But You say let it go, You say let it go You say life is waiting for the one's who lose control You say you will be, everything I need You said if I lose my life it's then I'll find my soul You say let it go. - Let it go by Tenth Avenue North

*You can listen to the whole song*

P.S. Note on outreach. 

I put my newsletters in the mail yesterday! Keep your eye on your mailbox! If you have any questions feel free to email me at lizm_10@hotmail.com

Quaketation.

I have a friend who is lovely and sweet. She is shy but funny. Her name is Ayumi. She is from Japan. And this is what is happening in her country right now.


earrthquake and tsunami in Japan.


Discussion Questions: Yikes.When did you become aware of this earthquake? What was your initial reaction? What did you find most shocking or appalling? Who do you know who might be affected by this earthquake? How do you think your reactions differentiate from their emotions and concerns? How do you think the Japenese are coping with this disaster? How to you think their lives are altered? How do you think the rest of the world will be changed? Who do you think will come to Japan's aid? How do you think this disaster will affect you personally? Will you let yourself by affected by it and let your heart break for the people of Japan or will you continue to go about your day without praying? How do you personally help this situation? What can your church do to get involved  and how can you encourage them to lend a helping hand? Do you think this earthquake will get as much coverage as the quake in Haití?


*Ayumi's family is safe. Please keep her in your prayers!*

When life is short.

HIV/AIDS. What do you know about it? Um... it's bad. Do you know much else about it? This week's topic was, yup you guessed it, HIV/AIDS. Our speakers were Larry and Joyce Sandberg, former missionaries to Swaziland. They have been involved in missions since 1960. How great is that? That's a lot of years spent serving the Lord. They still go to Swaziland every year. And they're in the seventies. How many people their age do you know who are that crazy dedicated to helping others? Talk about inspiration. So back to AIDS. What is HIV/AIDS? HIV stands for Human Immune Deficiency Virus and AIDS is short for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Larry is a physician and he spent most of the week talking about biology and all the technical and complicated aspects of the disease. Basically the majority of it went right over my head. Just being honest. Science was never my favorite. And this week was no different. But do you know what? I was inspired. First and foremost I was inspired by this awesome elderly couple who just wouldn't give a boring retirement plan the time of day. I was inspired because no matter their age, they are still dedicated to helping AIDS orphans and fulfilling the Great Commission. That's the kind of life I want to lead. The second way in which I was inspired was to go out and do my own research. I think that's the best thing any teacher can do: inspire their students to want to learn for themselves. So let's get a run down of HIV/AIDS.  "[HIV] is the virus that causes AIDS. A member of a group of viruses called retroviruses, HIV infects human cells and uses the energy and nutrients provided by those cells to grow and reproduce... [AIDS] is a disease in which the body’s immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off infections, known as "opportunistic infections," and other illnesses that take advantage of a weakened immune system.When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body and lives and multiplies primarily in the white blood cells. These are immune cells that normally protect us from disease. The hallmark of HIV infection is the progressive loss of a specific type of immune cell called T-helper, or CD4, cells. As the virus grows, it damages or kills these and other cells, weakening the immune system and leaving the person vulnerable to various opportunistic infections and other illnesses ranging from pneumonia to cancer. A person can receive a clinical diagnosis of AIDS, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if he or she has tested positive for HIV and meets one or both of these conditions: The presence of one or more AIDS-related infections or illnesses; A CD4 count that has reached or fallen below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood. Also called the T-cell count, the CD4 count ranges from 450 to 1200 in healthy individuals (Source.)" HIV/AIDS is spread via sex, tainted blood (needle sharing, blood transfusions), to infants during pregnancy or birth, or breastfeeding (Source.) So how bad exactly is this whole AIDS things? 

"Statistics: Worldwide

LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 2010

• More than 33 million people now live with HIV/AIDS.
• 2.5 million of them are under the age of 15.
• In 2009, an estimated 2.6 million people were newly infected with HIV.
• 370,000 were under the age of 15.
• Every day more than 7,000 people contract HIV—more than 300 every hour.
• In 2009, 1.8 million people died from AIDS.
• 260,000 of them were under the age of 15.
• Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 60 million people have contracted HIV and more than 25 million have died of AIDS-related causes. (Source.)"

Pretty bad isn't it? Every Thursday night my class gets together and watches a movie about injustice in the world. This week we watched a movie starring Tom Hanks called Philadelphia. It's a heart breaking story about a man suffering from the horrors of AIDS and the prejudice that accompanied his illness. I should mention that Hank's character is gay. Although this may be a seemingly controversial movie, I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it. It shows that AIDS is not only in Africa and that people with AIDS are still people. Even if they are gay. Remembering what I learned in week four of this school, our speaker Philipa Laird emphasized the fact that we can learn from any situation. Even a secular movie that is pro-homosexual. I would recommend the movie if you're interested in learning more about AIDS in the USA. And this movie was inspired by a true story. So I would encourage you to read up and learn more on AIDS. I will be. May you be inspired as I have been inspired. Throughout the world there are over 15 million children are orphans due to AIDS (Source.) I hope to help some of them one day. Maybe even in Swaziland just like Larry and Joyce Sandberg. I hope so. Sometime very soon. Probably sooner than you think ;)

Quote of the week: “Nothing brings me more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny. Whoever is in distress can call on me. I will come running wherever they are.”

Perversion.

A mother's love. Pure and unconditional. Right? One of the few good things left in the world. Unfortunately it seems that ignorance and lies can even corrupt how a mother interacts with her child. A man in Detroit apparently manipulated and deceived seven single mothers into molesting their own children. The following article gives more details on how he conned these women into distorting their interactions with their very own children. 


Man cons mothers into sexually abusing their children.


Discussion Questions: What was your first reaction when reading this article? Did you feel angry? At whom were you angry? Why? What made you sicker, his manipulation or the actions of the mothers? Why? Do you think Demink would have been able to deceive a married couple in the same manner? Why or why not? How do you think that the internet played a role? Why do you think these women were so trusting of a complete stranger? What do you think of the mothers? Do you think they were mentally sound? How do you think the relationship between the single mothers and their parents contributed to this disaster? Do you think that the women had been searching for advice on how to raise their children from legitimate sources? What do you think would have happened if they had received help and guidance? Who could have helped them during this time of confusion? What do you think of Steven Demink? How does God think of him? Does God still love him? Does God love Demink as much as He loves the children that were exploited? Why do you think Steven Demink did this? How did he become so perverted? Do you think he might have been sexually abused as well? What do you think will happen to the children? What do you think would be best for them?

I mustache you a question.

 

Don't you agree? 

by Marc Johns of marcjohns.com