A video word from Lance Wallnau

       I just watched this video of Lance Wallnau posted on Elijah List TV entitled

"Prophetic News and Views | The Eclipse, Donald Trump, Israel and More..."    

       Lance is emphatic that the church must get in the battle.  The bottom line is that it is imperative we pray for President Trump who is being surrounded by dark forces and cut off from those who have brought light to situations.  Watch it and see what you think.  And then please make prayer for our President a priority--at least for the next 40 days.

Brian Simmons, I Hear His Whisper

I so appreciate Brian Simmons' words sent bi-weekly.  If you don't already know, he is the translator of The Passion Translation Bible.  This word was an especially good reminder.  God is pleased when we give Him thanks.

I HEAR HIS WHISPER... "I will free you when you give Me thanks" The power of gratitude has been undervalued by My people. As you give Me thanks, I refine your soul and remove regret from your life. I will free you when you give Me thanks. The more you are satisfied, the more freedom and release from pain I will bring into your life. The power of praise has yet to be fully activated. Greater than any force known to man is the power I release when you praise Me. To receive My blessings and never give Me thanks is the mark of an unbeliever. To receive My blessings and be consumed with gratitude is the mark of a true worshipper. I call you to a life of gratitude. Many are like those who grumbled to Moses in the wilderness. They could not give Me praise. For even as they grumbled, My glory cloud was over their heads. They looked at man and not at Me! Ingratitude is a disease that is easily spread among My people. But praises will break the curse, lift the veil, open the heavens, and provide miracles even in a wilderness. I call you to joy and thanksgiving! Let every day be the day of magnificent praises! Lift up your eyes and see the blessings I have provided for you, and let the world know that you are Mine. The redeemed must say so by their thanks and by their extravagant praise. Today, set your heart before Me, Your Father, and learn the sweet lessons of gratitude. I will free you when you give Me thanks! Psalm 136:1-5 The Passion Translation Let everyone thank God, for he is good, and he is easy to please! His tender love for us continues on forever! Give thanks to God, our King over all gods! His tender love for us continues on forever! Give thanks to the Lord over all lords! His tender love for us continues on forever! Give thanks to the only miracle working God! His tender love for us continues on forever! Give thanks to the Creator who filled the heavens with revelation! His tender love for us continues on forever!

Whew! It is finished!

       I'm sure most who read this don't particularly care, but I ordered photo books of the Austria trip yesterday! Such a relief!  Since making the book has consumed much of my time over several days, I am so glad to have it finished!  I actually basically finished it the day before we left on our trip to the National Parks but needed to proof it before ordering.
       The book ended up being 123 pages in length.  That sounds like so many pages, but we saw so many things and took so many photos.  When I added our son's & daughter-in-law's photos to mine I had over 2000 to sort through, and I'm sure I used around 700 in making the book.  Even though that makes the book quite expensive, it is worth it, I believe, to have a lasting memory that helps us recall the fun we had and the places we visited.  After all, when you spend thousands of dollars on the trip, it seems spending $100 on a book of memories is not so much.  (Fortunately, Mixbook was having a 50% off sale that ended yesterday.  I had planned to prepare the book and wait for a sale to order anyway, so yesterday coincided well with my plans.)  I would guess, though, if I added in my time in creating the book at minimum wage, it would cost over $1000.  Good thing I work cheap! 😊 As you can probably figure out, I enjoy doing it.  Why else would I spend so much time looking up travel quotes, facts about the places we visited, clipart, etc. to make it more interesting and informative?
       When I have recuperated a few days, I will begin the book of our Parks trip.  Amazingly, I took over 1000 photos there, too.  Hopefully, many are duplicates so this book won't be nearly as large.
       Country Guy jokingly said we are going to have to cut down on travel, or my life is going to consist solely of traveling and making photo books!  I think if that becomes a reality the solution is to stop making books--not stop traveling, don't you?

Phoenix's Musical Instrument Museum

    We just returned from a fun vacation at Grand Canyon, Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park with friends.  Each place was so amazing!  I had no idea there were so many different shapes, colors and sizes of rocks!  God is so creative!
    Before we joined the tour group we had a free day in Phoenix.  I looked at TripAdvisor and other sights to find the best things to do there.  The Musical Instrument Museum seemed to be one of the highest rated, so we decided to go there even though we weren't musicians.  The name seemed to make us think only musicians would find it exciting.  The forecast temp was to be over 100 degrees that day, though, so an air-conditioned museum did sound nice.
     We also read we should allow at least 4 hours to explore the Museum.  We were all doubtful we would be there nearly that long, but we were wrong.  Four hours later we emerged from a highly entertaining and educational experience!  It was extremely interesting!  There were more than 6000 musical instruments displayed from over 200 countries.  Each country's display had a screen playing a short video of the instruments of that country being used.  The displays also often included costumes.  When we paid for our admission we were each given a headset.  As we walked in front of each display, the headset would automatically pick up the sound of what was being played on the video of the display.  Fantastic!  No buttons to push or numbers to key in!  There was also a room where people could play some of the instruments represented in the Museum.  One was a Chinese gong.  I have always wanted to hit one of those!  Now I have something else to take off my bucket list.  😀

    Below are a few photos, so you can get an idea of what I am trying to describe.  I highly recommend this Museum!  It was actually one of the highlights of our trip, even though we loved the parks!

A Very Inspirational Weekend

    Several of us are praying for a new church plant in our small town.  In conjunction with that I attended a Women's Group on Friday night which is studying an excellent book, One Way Love by Tullian Tchividjian.  The first meeting was interesting and encouraging.
    Then Saturday night, David Davis, horse trainer, trick rider, preacher, singer, songwriter performed at Linn Park.   He presented a wonderful show of horse tricks before one of our larger crowds and then moved to the stage of the Linn Park Amphitheater to play his violin, guitar and sing, with a little preaching/sharing thrown in.  An absolutely beautiful experience!






Then today David was invited to minister at the Cowboy Church in Toledo, so we went, too.  It was a wonderful experience--outside in beautiful weather, chickens walking around, horses saddled for the trail ride they had planned after the service, kids playing on the swing, good music and a great word by David!  He also ministered prophetic words after the service.  I was grateful to be one of the recipients and felt he really heard from the Lord for me.

And tonight we went to a Small Group Leadership Training for the new church plant.  A very inspirational weekend!

Making Progress

     I am making progress on the photo book--page 27 and ready for day 5.  At this rate I may be able to keep it to under 100 pages!
     If you are interested in eventually seeing the finished project, email me (countrygirl@shalominthewilderness.com), and I will add you to the people who can view the book online.  It may be awhile before it is finished, though, because we are taking another trip in the near future so I may have to stop working on this one and prepare to travel again.😊  And then, will I need to make another book?🙄  I guess that depends on how I'm feeling after I finish this one.

Photo Book Creation

      Have you ever made a photo book?  I am grateful for the companies that make it possible to upload my photos and then help me create a beautiful book using them.  If I don't do this after our trips to Europe I never look at the photos again.  I am now in the process of making another book.

       I had previously used Snapfish, which I liked, but decided to try Mixbook for the last book I made and was very happy with it because of the tools for improving the photos as you add them to the book.  I'm therefore using Mixbook this time, too.

      So far it has been very frustrating!  I edited each photo I wanted to use and added it to a separate folder in the order I wanted to use them combining my photos and those from our son and daughter-in-law.  One problem I encountered immediately was that for some reason our cameras were not set on the same time, therefore photographs of the same place appeared in different spots.  I moved them all to the right places and then began the upload.  Another problem!  The upload began in a random area--I have no idea why but it was 3 days into the trip.  Oh well, that's OK, I thought, but then saw the note stating that because of the size of the upload (1328 photos) it would take 2 days to complete.  It appeared I could still use other programs on my computer while the photos were uploading so I also thought "no problem" until I awoke the next morning to see the upload had somehow shut down with only about half of the photos loaded!  Since it had started in the middle of the trip I didn't know which ones had been completed.  By then, I was about ready to give up!  Of course, I couldn't because I've made a photo book for the other grandchildren of their trips with us so I have to complete this one, too.

      I deleted that project and started over.  I placed 100-200  photos in separate folders to be uploaded.  Then I saw the note that said photos larger than 15 mb couldn't be uploaded.  I went through each folder, finding the 'too large' photos and reduced them then uploaded each folder.  I finally completed the upload Wednesday.  What a relief!

      Last night I began the process of assembling the book.  Hopefully, there will be no more problems!  Here is a screen shot of the first page, so you can see the possibilities:

      I am a perfectionist, it seems, so it takes quite a while to complete each book.  I consider this a labor of love that will last a lifetime.  When we are gone, our grandchildren will still have the books as a reminder of that love and the fun we had together.  So in my eyes, each one is worth the effort expended, and once it is completed I am relieved, and grateful I could do this for them. 

      But I can't help being a little frustrated in the process!!

Peter Horrobin - Sexual Immorality, Deliverance - Pt 1

         Please don't discount these excellent videos because of the titles, which have only a small part in the overall message.   Country Guy & I watched them last night and thought Peter Horrobin explained the Christian life better than anyone we have ever heard.  He is a wonderful teacher!

Peter Horrobin - Sexual Immorality, Deliverance - Pt 2

Amazing Symmetry

      Have you seen this?  I think I posted it before but didn't want to take the time to look it up.  I love numbers and find this absolutely fascinating, so I'm adding it again.  I don't know who figured this out, but I think it is fabulous!  God is always giving us little glimpses of Himself and His perfect universe!

The Redneck Pool Party at Linn Park was a Success Again This Year!

      We had such fun at the Redneck Pool Party yesterday!  This was our 3rd annual event and the kids loved it, as much this year as the previous two.  An added bonus was the addition of a performance of Battle Creek, one of our favorite bands.  In fact, we thought they were such a good fit that we have invited them back for the Pool Party again next year.
 

Power washing the tarp.

     This year one of our committee members removed a small grain bin from their property so he suggested we use a ring of it to support the straw bales.  What a great improvement!  See posts here and here for previous year's problems with pool failure.

Pulling the tarp over the frame



The Firemen were gracious to fill the large pool for us.

       The pools are such a great way to use the tarp leftover when the pile of corn is uncovered at the grain elevator.  Even though the photo below looks like an acre of tarp, it is only a small section of the original.Here are a few photos to let you see how much fun we had preparing and how much the kids enjoyed the different activities.

We also made a one-bale high kiddie pool.  Here the guys are unloading the straw to make the frame.






As always the 80 foot Slip n Slide is a great hit!

As is the Water Balloon Shooter.





Even the littlest ones got in on the fun!

Fun in the Redneck Hot Tub (made in the bed of a pickup truck).

Bubble-making was also a great hit!

And so was the Pinaqua (I think we used about 80 trash bags!)

As you can see, activities were spread all over Linn Park


Battle Creek's great music and sense of humor made this year's event even more fun!

Plan ahead, so you won't have to miss next year's event.  We had someone Facebook us to ask how far it was from Houston.  When they discovered they didn't have time to get here, they said they would seriously consider coming next year.  The date is August 4, if you are interested.

Peter Horrobin's Healing Through Deliverance

     I am finding that Peter Horrobin's Healing Through Deliverance, The Foundation and Practice of Deliverance Ministry, is an excellent resource!   (It was first published as 2 volumes which you can buy separately at a discount as used books on abebooks.com.)  The book has been recommended through both Doris Wagner's and Randy Clark's ministries so that is how I heard about it. 

       If you have ever doubted that deliverance is to be part of the Christian life today, or that Christians can be influenced by demons, I suggest you read this book. 

       I highly recommend it!  It sheds much light on why healing doesn't happen in many instances today.

August 1 Reading in Jesus Calling

Today's reading in Sarah Young's Jesus Calling is such a great reminder!

        "Nothing can separate you from My Love.  Let this divine assurance trickle through your mind and into your heart and soul.  Whenever you start to feel fearful or anxious, repeat this unconditional promise: "Nothing can separate me from Your Love, Jesus!"
       Most of mankind's misery stems from feeling unloved.  In the midst of adverse circumstances, people tend to feel that love has been withdrawn and they have been forsaken.  This feeling of abandonment is often worse than the adversity itself.  Be assured that I never abandon any of My children, not even temporarily.  I will never leave you or forsake you!  My Presence watches over you continually.  I have engraved you on the palms of My Hands."

Romans 8:38-39; Joshua 1:5; Isaiah 49:15-16