The joys of discovering new things. I love the country and all the things that there are to explore. Sam discovered an exciting insect to show the little ones. They were very intrigued.



And so... here is the cool bug....

Ri cracked me up. He is constantly stopping in his tracks, making up some pose, and asking me to take his picture. This is one in a long series of funny faces.
Mark helped Ri up on this rock. He thought he was something!
Elizabeth was not about to be showed up. She had to stand on the rock as well.










God has laid a few very special people on my heart lately. I have found myself going before my Lord more often, asking for the souls of these precious people to be saved. This excerpt meant a lot to me this morning:

What Is Saving Faith, by John Piper (From Desiring God)
That is what we need to hear this morning about faith. Faith sees the promised future that God offers - some now, mostly later - and “desires” it. Dwell on this for a moment. There are many people who water down what saving faith is by making it a mere decision with no change of what one “desires” and “seeks.” But the point of this text is that living and dying by faith means having new desires and seeking new satisfactions. Verse 14: they were seeking a different kind of country than this world offered. Verse 16: they were desiring something better than what earthly existence, as we know it, could offer. They had been so gripped by God that nothing short of heaven - or what heaven could make out of earth by God’s presence on it - would satisfy.

What is faith? It is seeing the promises of God from afar and experiencing a change of values so that you desire the promises above what the world has to offer. It is a glad greeting of those promises from a distance and a heart- seeking to know them and cherish them and be satisfied by them so that a new kind of life emerges that is out of sync with the world - like we said last week: a life that builds an ark in the desert and leaves the securities of home and builds a crib when you are ninety.

Here's the Scripture he's using, Hebrews 11:14-16

14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.