Less Talk, More Cuteness (aka for Aunty Charity)

Sacramento Real Estate

This graph (click on the image to see a larger version) may be of help to those of you who, like us, are attempting to make sense of the turbulent Sacramento real estate market with the hopes of someday buying a house. In addition, we've found the following two blogs to be of assistance:

• Sacramento Landing
  
• Sacramento Real Estate Statistics

Capitol Ministries Update

UPDATE (10/09): We are no longer endorsing Capitol Ministries. Please see this post for details.

I've been rather negligent in keeping you all posted on my new job. Here are a few quick updates:

• We've released our 2008 annual report [pdf]. Check it out if you haven't already.
  


• You can listen to audio recordings of the 2008 California Capitol Bible studies.
  


• The Capitol Ministries blog is now seven months old. If you haven't already stumbled upon it, you may want to consider subscribing by RSS or e-mail so you will know more specifically how you can be praying for us.
  


• Last, but not least, we're pleased that Zach Stoever is now working with us. It seems that he is pleased, too, if his announcement is any indication.

da babies...

Selah will be 6 months old tomorrow... My, how time does fly...

For comparison, this was Eliana at 6 months... Not much difference, except for maybe about 4 lbs and the color of their eyes.

And just in case you forget how cute the older ones are...=)

Hope's Journey Update

Shortly after I made the last post about Charity's dream to start a recuperation center for children who have been burn injured or disabled, she changed the name from Hope Springs to Hope's Journey Int'l. (Hope Springs is just too commonly used!) She also has a blog set up -- check it out at hopesjourneyintl.org and please keep her in your prayers!

"1 Comments"

Have you ever noticed that on Blogger, when there is only one comment on a blog, the bottom of each post reads "1 comments." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this isn't proper English.

Since it was bugging me I finally took the time to figure out how to fix it. A quick Google search, one small edit to our blog template and Diapers4three is now grammatically correct.

If you'd like to make this fix to your blog, you'll need to go to the "layout" tab, select "edit html" option, expand the widgets, and replace "data:top.commentLabel/" (and the surrounding <> brackets) with the word "comment."

See here for detailed instructions.

Hope Springs

Some you know that my two older sisters, Charity and Roseanna were in a horrible car accident when we were teenagers. I thank God that they are alive. In the process, they were seriously burned and went through many stages in the process of recovery -- a long story for another day.

Through all of this, Charity has had a dream of starting a therapeutic ranch where burned, traumatized, and disabled children and young adults may reside year-round as they continue with their therapy and recovery. It is to be a place of physical and emotional healing before they journey into their everyday lives.

Charity has grown in dependence on Christ as she has walked through this life-changing ordeal and has seen His loving care and grace in bringing her through the healing process. She wants to share that love with others who are going through similar circumstances, and I can't tell you how excited I am to see what God does with this ministry.

Charity has worked with Solid Rock Foundation Ministries for the last several years and they are partnering with her to start Hope Springs. In fact, in the last week, they have gone into contract on property for a ranch in beautiful Ouray, Colorado (the lovely little town where that David boy finally proposed to me! =)

Charity is working on a mailer -- if you would like to get her newsletter, please email Solid Rock at srfm[insert at sign here]solidrockfoundationministries.com with your contact information and ask to be added to the Hope Springs contact list. Or, if we have your contact information, leave a comment and we'll forward your contact information to her.

Thank you for your prayers!

Learning Our Letters...Yankee Style

This one should make Grandma and Uncle Tony proud.

Public Notice:

Okay, okay... so it probably is nothing, but I can't help thinking that there is someone out there horribly offended that I didn't call them back...

Yesterday when I got home from Bible Study, there were two messages on my answering machine. The first was a message from my dad that was happily incorrect, and the second, ???. I went to hit delete at the end of my dad's message and the answering machine assumed that I wanted to delete the message that I had not yet listened to instead of the one that had just played. And no, we don't have caller id.

It was probably some automated phone call reminding me to go vote, but if not, and you called me yesterday and I haven't yet called you back... it's because I didn't get your message! Sorry!

Congrats Mr. Benoit!

From the Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert:

Senate District 37:
Winner: JOHN BENOIT
Loser: Russ Bogh and David Peters

Benoit 56.4 percent
Bogh 32.4 percent
Peters 11.2 percent

Current member: Sen. Jim Battin, R-Palm Desert
District: Riverside County

In a campaign in which little separated the two Republicans, this race turned on character and personal attacks. Capitol Alert documented some of those barbs in April, and the mud never let up.

The race also drew large amounts of independent expenditure spending, particularly for a Republican primary. Eleven outside groups spent money in the race for a total of roughly $1 million. Benoit, who is currently in the Assembly, bested Bogh, who termed out in 2006, by a wide margin.

Good Liberal Web Sites

At times it seems that the knee-jerk liberal reaction to any real or imagined problem is to propose a new mandate, regulation, subsidy or tax. Accordingly, it's refreshing to find folks who appear to be liberals building web sites that take a free-market approach to solving such problems.

Two such sites I've learned of this year are:

Catalog Choice - Save a tree without hugging it: Sick of receiving unwanted catalogs in the mail? Simply plug in your name and address, select the catalogs you don't want anymore, and in some mysterious way this web site will notify the companies sending them to cease and desist from doing so. So far it seems to have worked for the ones I plugged in. (h/t Lynne)

Free Rice - Learn stuff while feeding the hungry: This site tests your vocabulary. For every word you get right, the sponsors will donate 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program. In other words, you get to feel good about playing games. I doubt the free rice approach will do anything to drive down high rice prices, but hopefully some of it will get to the folks most in need. Even if it doesn't, at least we can all learn some new big words. (h/t NPR)

Do you know of any other "good liberal sites" you'd recommend? If so, leave a comment.

Together for the Gospel

Smokey and I are enjoying listening to the free audio recordings of the Together for the Gospel conference during our commute to work. I commend them to you.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Together for the Gospel, our pastor, who attended this year's conference, provides a good description on his blog. Here's an excerpt:

The word “gospel” literally means “good news.” This good news of God’s salvation through faith in Jesus Christ is revealed in Scripture. Sadly however, Satan is constantly working to distort, diminish, and decentralize the power, hope, and riches of the gospel. This is tragically evidenced in many churches where the clear, precise, bold, authoritative, and gracious proclamation of the gospel no longer holds central place in the life of the church. As one saint from the past has said, “the main thing about the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” Well, THE main thing is the gospel, and the church in every age must labor diligently to keep the main thing the main thing!!

To that end, one of the marvelous works God is doing in our day to help us keep the main thing the main thing surrounds a conference known as “Together for the Gospel” (”T4G” for short). This is a bi-annual conference that was first held in April of 2006 in Louisville, Kentucky, and then again this past April 15-17. The purpose and heartbeat of the conference grew out of the deep friendship of four men who share a common passion for the gospel: Dr. Albert Mohler, Dr. Mark Dever, Dr. J. Ligon Duncan, and C.J. Mahaney. Their vision has been to champion the centrality of the gospel, and to encourage friendships among believers, pastors in particular, who share a common passion for the gospel (even though there may be differences in secondary areas of doctrine and understanding). Each of these men spoke at the conference, along with messages from Dr. John Piper, Dr. John MacArthur, Dr. R.C. Sproul, and Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile.

I had the privilege of attending this year’s conference with my son Zach. Additionally from our church, Chuck Meadows, and with his son Ryan and son-in-law Dan attended. We joined about 5500 other people, mostly pastors, who attended the conference. Suffice it to say that the conference was profoundly refreshing and impacting. But rather than trying to describe it all for you, I would encourage you to go to the T4G website at http://www.t4g.org/. There you can learn more about the men who spoke at the conference, see pictures, read the T4G statement of affirmations and denials concerning the gospel, and also listen to and/or download the messages. I was encouraged, convicted, and helped by all of the messages.